Decky

Drury is going to try his best to make this a painful two hours isn't he?

I don't think that's the case. Mitchell will certainly get more time, he's only here. Howe has every chance of turning performances around. Once this team clicks again we're going to be firing and I'll be surprised if we're not top 6. If he doesn't then he won't even make it until the end and rightly so probably.

I don't see Howe being our long term answer in that I can't see him here in five years when expectations are super high (hope I'm wrong). But I could see him winning something here and I'm all for that over backing Mitchell who I know nothing about to be fair. That's my answer to the question which I don't really think we need to be asking.

I'm 100% behind him too but I think we're about where we should be in our 3rd full season under the new regime. The goal this season is to qualify for Europe and have an outside chance of top 4/5 (CL), that's probably about right for us at this stage.

If it was acceptable to bench Barnes for a few games then it should be the same for Gordon. If Barnes put in performances like this we probably wouldn't see him start another game until November.

Bruce probably would have done the same as Emery though.

Murphy is a good squad player. Bit harsh to put any of the blame near him.

I never understand why people come on into threads like this on their high horse and slate people for rightly criticising the way we've played recently. All this bed wetting, and welcome to NO stuff is stupid. This is a forum for discussion, we're allowed to criticise Howe, the players, anyone and anything whenever things are bad. Sure we may as well just lock all the threads in the football section until we win again at this rate.

I'm probably being harsh on him but every time we're playing shit and it shows him it just reminds me of when they used to show Ashley or Llambias in the crowd when we were losing years ago.

Everything about Villa seems so positive and points in one direction. They're everything I thought we would be after the takeover, and were up to until about November last year. We seem to be stuttering and negativity is creeping back in while these are just firing. I could never see them having a run of poor performances like we've had this season.

Missed most of the season but he's been training with the team for well over a year so should be ready, if he isn't then that's on Howe's coaching.

Fans singing for Tonali, listen to them Eddie.

Tonali for Joelinton seems about right for the 60th minute sub.

Kelly and Willock.

You'd swear that was ruled out reading this thread.

Murphy on for Kelly?

I dont buy the whole 'heads turned by Liverpool' thing because playing this badly is going to ruin any chance he has of a move, so it doesn't make sense. Honestly there's something just rotten about performances all over the squad this season so far. The fact that we're still unbeaten going into today's game proves the squad can achieve a lot this season if they wake up and get going properly.

The first half decent team we played was always going to do this to us. We've been shite all season and rode our luck, this has been a long time coming. Its ok though we've Man City next in the league.

Fuck me we're a shambles at the back here.

Always thought our grey seats were shite. Having said that I'm not arsed with this Adidas thing because you'll never see it. For the most part there'll be bums on those seats.

Was thinking about the League Cup and this new European competition format. Two rounds of games in January and 2 rounds again if you need a playoff for the last 16. This could be huge for the league cup in terms of the bigger teams. There's certainly a chance of weakened teams being played.

Talk of it going to Cork now. That'd be good, it probably should have been a venue anyway.

The government took their money away from Casement Park too which cost Northern Ireland its place in Euro 2028, if they fund this...

Bet Kane wishes he left Spurs years before he did, he'll never admit it though.

Really hope we can squeeze through whatever tiny gaps are left because when they start making things more strict after Chelsea's fucking about and then this it'll be utterly impossible for any club to close the gap on the top clubs.