Mick

Ginola was a great signing, we don't know how Cabaye is going to do. If he'd (Ginola) flopped then he would have been a poor signing and wouldn't have improved the squad.

I never said that nobody was after Ireland, I guess that we'll see over the coming weeks.

I thought one of the German clubs were interested in Ben Arfa just before we signed him on loan.

What's his best position and would he play in his best position here?

He'll not do that again.

The point is that he wasn't fit to play and had breached club rules according to Pardew. As for Carroll, who turned a blind eye?

Was he not threatened with being disciplined for breaching club rules when he was photographed in Tup Tup the night before we played away to Stoke while he was supposed to be injured?

Brummie's analysis wasn't based purely oh how he'd played for Villa, it was also based on what was going on when he wasn't playing.

I rated Ireland while he was at Man City but that was 3 seasons ago now and he's done very little since 2008/09. I hoped that we would sign him when they were in for Given. Since then he's done nothing and we've even got a Villa fan on this forum who hopes that we take him off Villa's hands.

His injuries and temperament are only a part of what we should look at, his good form is from 3 seasons ago, Ben Arfa wasn't in the middle of a dip in form.

The form you talk about was 3 seasons ago, the form hasn't disappeared for nothing. Of course we could sign him and he could find his form again, the chances are that he'll not. With Ireland it’s not just the injuries, he's also got a question mark hanging over his mental stability.

The £2 million gamble would cost something like £12 million over a 4 year contract.

Barton was crap and injured, we didn't buy him on that form though.

Signing Ireland wouldn't make any sense at all. People seem to be looking at him when he was at his best and forgetting how long ago it was and that it was only for a couple of seasons two clubs ago.

I'm at the other end of the ground and I'm sure I'll spot him in the crowd.

It was a half arsed attempt at clearing the ball which was travelling inches away from his leg and he still couldn’t connect with it. The ball didn’t hit him, he hit the ball so I don’t see how he’s blameless.

His defending for that goal was laughable and it wouldn't have gone in if he'd either connected with the ball properly or not even bothered to move.

It was shit defending.

Pity Duff didn't make more of an effort when he put the ball in his own net against Villa.

I disagree, I think N'Zogbia and Sturridge should both be players that we're going all out for and would both enhance our starting 11. Our movement on and off the ball would be potentially frightening.

Agreed, people seem to think these new players are going to be firing on all cylinders from the off. We can't afford to just chuck all of the new signings in together and hope that they can play together from day 1. We'll need as much experience as we can get at the start of the season and I'm concerned that we're trying to do too much by bringing in a lot of foreigners who have no or little experience of this league. I would think at this time we're probably looking at starting with 5 new players, I include Ban Arfa as a new player as he's played so few games. I’m not sure how we’d handle a few poor results early in the season if we have too many new players to the league.

I can think of Beye, who else was better?

He showed here the season before Duff arrived that he could go on to become a very good player.