Rod Le Shearer

For some matches, against teams who park the buss in their own box at SMS, playing with two strikers could be the better option. We completely dominated against both Sunderland and West Ham, and only drew because of poor finishing and bad luck. But playing away, rotating Rickie and Osvaldo as lone strikers seems the better option. And please, lets not forget how amazing Rickie has been in the lone striker/target man role during the years! I dont think Osvaldo can match Rickie as a target man/lone striker. And this sort of questions the signing of Osvaldo; He is too good to be an understudy for Rickie, but not good enough to displace him as a lone striker...IMO. Rickie suits our style of play immensly better than Osvaldo.

If your question was directed at me, then yes; I was at the game. Miserable Norwegian Saints-fan over here..

You must have, because Forren was awful. Rash, poorly timed challenges troughout, looked fat, slow and unfit, clearly lacked match practice, and didnt pose any danger at all when in attacking positions. Based on that showing, we have (for the time being) 3 other CB`s who are head and shoulders in front of him in the pecking order.

What else to expect when Jos and Fox are playing. Slow, immobile & poor, poor defenders!

PLENTY of other fans say this. The first reaction of two of my mates (Villa and Newcastle fan), was to drivel over the unlikely prospect of having NA at their club. He`s held in great esteem throughout the football community- from fans, players, punters and colleagues alike!

Thank you very much, Nigel. You have made me feel well for 2.5 years, thats something money cant buy! Top man.

Ridicoulous decision, and totally wrong timing! To maximise our chance of staying up, NA should have stayed until the end of the season, regardless of percieved "long term benefits". Our long term benefit is depending on us staying up FFS, and this decision, at this time, could cost us our PL-status!! **** Off Nicole C, you *****.

Whatever team we play against, Rickie is be ten times more usefull than Jay. Yes, Rickies work rate isnt as good. He isnt particularly fast. But the outlet he provides for the rest of the team means that 4-5 other players have to work less! the net positive effect is huge, and frankly I`m baffled if Adkins dont see that! I assume he (Nigel) is forfeiting this game, and saving Rickie for saturday. From our last match against chelsea it was obvious we missed what Lambert offers, thats for sure.

Right now he`s about the same as Fonte. And thus a good replacement all the time Jose is injured. IMO Forren has much bigger potential, though. He can become a very good signing, if given time to accomodate to the EPL.

You`re right, he`s not that quick (when it comes to turning, reaction and moving sideways). Maybe the tempo would be challenging for him in that regard. But in a straight line he actually is pretty fast.

I`m norwegian. Have seen him play many times last year, both for club and country. He`s a modern centre back, from the same mould as Sergio Ramos and David Luiz. He has good passing, reads the game well and is pretty fast. He`s efficient in moving the ball out of defence. Although he is not the biggest CB, he very often look dangerous on attacking set pieces as well. Out of our current CB`s, I would rate Forren and Fonte about the same. Both good defenders, but a little weak for my liking.

Interesting. Those stats echoes my perception; the team plays a lot better with Gaston on the pitch. By the way, havent we lost a lot of points after he has been substituted aswell?

Absolutely. And Rickie seemed to enjoy the responsibility, playing like a deity. What a player!

We scored 4 goals, out which Ricky scored two, and was second or third last on three (!!). My vote goes to him. Although Gaston was very good, he shone the most when Villa had given up.

Stupid move by Adkins, everything went flat after that. And the three subs were invisible - both in defence and attack.