Whats the point ?

[DB]

Sorry, I meant the PL championship...not the other one, that one may be a lot closer.

[gervilla]

For me AVFC is an addiction.

[Billy Walker]

It's been a bad day, but it's not the end. We have to rebuild and move on. Arsenal and Southampton are both examples  of clubs who in recent years have lost many top players but they have replaced them really well. We need to do that same and the players who have come in are all good players. We need more of them off course.

Now is not the time to give up!

We rebuild and the same cycle kicks in in two years' time.   

The only way things will change is if we get a huge takeover or the Premier League and UEFA finally see sense and introduce rules that level the playing field so that every club has a greater chance of competing for some glory.  The present set up is destroying the game.   I really do wish Villa would make a stand - we created the league, symbolically we could lead the other clubs into pressing for changes and even strikes. 

[myf]

For me AVFC is an addiction.

feels like smack last few years

[Toronto Villa]

It's been a bad day, but it's not the end. We have to rebuild and move on. Arsenal and Southampton are both examples  of clubs who in recent years have lost many top players but they have replaced them really well. We need to do that same and the players who have come in are all good players. We need more of them off course.

Now is not the time to give up!

We rebuild and the same cycle kicks in in two years' time.   

The only way things will change is if we get a huge takeover or the Premier League and UEFA finally see sense and introduce rules that level the playing field so that every club has a greater chance of competing for some glory.  The present set up is destroying the game.   I really do wish Villa would make a stand - we created the league, symbolically we could lead the other clubs into pressing for changes and even strikes. 

That's not going to happen though is it? What can happen is that we buy players that will improve us and if they are sold then we have a pipeline of good players to replace them. What we haven't done well is replace our good players and that's why we are where we are.

[Jimbo]

If we're expecting a team that competes, or that wins things, then there is no point. I've thought this for a while now, but the only way we, the fans, can find a point to it all is by making the match day experience a laugh. Forget the football, it will only disappoint. Just accept we're shit, and will probably always be shit now, and have a fucking good time at matches (as much as is possible in the sterile Premier League) regardless of the crap on the pitch. The sticking point is the outrageous ticket price, but what choice do we have?

[Dave Pountney]

Another Villa shambles, laced with the usual mix of incompetence and lies. I agree with all the sentiments expressed about the state of the English game, and its money obsessed lack of morality, but ask yourselves this question; why does this sort of thing keep happening to the Villa? The club is dying through serial mis-management. We've got a hopeless and semi-detached owner who can't even sell the club in a semi-competent way. Every transfer we try and undertake is nearly always botched or takes five weeks to complete. We can't seem to negotiate contracts with our better players without them and their agents inserting release and escape clauses. We can't get rid of the dross, players bought for ludicrous transfer fees and put on ridiculous long term and lucrative contracts, and we can't attract quality players. Every close season is a fiasco with all the talk concentrated on who's leaving. We never get on the front foot, it's always negative and defensive fire-fighting. Utterly hopeless, and before we round on Delph and Benteke, the real culprit, the almost impossibly useless Randy Lerner, sits in his faraway mansion fiddling while his club burns.

I leave you with this thought. What decision or action has Lerner taken these last five disastrous years that has proved to be a good and insightful one and that has benefited our club? This is the man who gave us McLeish and Lambert ,remember, and has presided over the most calamitous run of results in the history of the club. Not one bad year, five dreadful ones on the trot. Nothing remotely good will happen at the Villa until the worst owner and Chairman we've ever had lets the club out of his death grip.

The Delph fiasco is typical of the club that Lerner has tragically allowed the Villa to become.

[Hopadop]

One day the sun will consume the solar system and none of it will matter.

Three nanoseconds before we win the FA cup.

[mattjpa]

Its days like today that make you realise how futile it is. We cant leave, we cant break the cycle. You hope the men that make the decisions would influence change but why would they? They are running the richest clubs and the richest league in the world. I would love nothing more than to see a salary cap level the field but its not going to happen. Money has and always will talk louder than the fans.

This week is a dark one for AVFC but we will bounce back. Roll on next season and the quest to be the best of the teams that don't matter!

[Chico Hamilton III]

If we're expecting a team that competes, or that wins things, then there is no point. I've thought this for a while now, but the only way we, the fans, can find a point to it all is by making the match day experience a laugh. Forget the football, it will only disappoint. Just accept we're shit, and will probably always be shit now, and have a fucking good time at matches (as much as is possible in the sterile Premier League) regardless of the crap on the pitch. The sticking point is the outrageous ticket price, but what choice do we have?

I've felt exactly like that for years now. Away games are as much an excuse to drink all day as to watch Villa lose.

[Rudy65]

Another Villa shambles, laced with the usual mix of incompetence and lies. I agree with all the sentiments expressed about the state of the English game, and its money obsessed lack of morality, but ask yourselves this question; why does this sort of thing keep happening to the Villa? The club is dying through serial mis-management. We've got a hopeless and semi-detached owner who can't even sell the club in a semi-competent way. Every transfer we try and undertake is nearly always botched or takes five weeks to complete. We can't seem to negotiate contracts with our better players without them and their agents inserting release and escape clauses. We can't get rid of the dross, players bought for ludicrous transfer fees and put on ridiculous long term and lucrative contracts, and we can't attract quality players. Every close season is a fiasco with all the talk concentrated on who's leaving. We never get on the front foot, it's always negative and defensive fire-fighting. Utterly hopeless, and before we round on Delph and Benteke, the real culprit, the almost impossibly useless Randy Lerner, sits in his faraway mansion fiddling while his club burns.

I leave you with this thought. What decision or action has Lerner taken these last five disastrous years that has proved to be a good and insightful one and that has benefited our club? This is the man who gave us McLeish and Lambert ,remember, and has presided over the most calamitous run of results in the history of the club. Not one bad year, five dreadful ones on the trot. Nothing remotely good will happen at the Villa until the worst owner and Chairman we've ever had lets the club out of his death grip.

The Delph fiasco is typical of the club that Lerner has tragically allowed the Villa to become.

Youre talking crap mate

Agree re Mcleish but we all wanted Lambert at the time. Randy was fleeced by Pube head  and rightly has reigned in the spending. We would have been bust otherwise.

The Delph issue is down to the player himself. The club are blameless

[Percy McCarthy]

For all the doom and gloom, the league is getting more competitive. More and more Premier League TV money (especially overseas rights, which are split evenly) make things like Champions League money, sponsorship, match day income, even rich owners, less significant.

Top teams don't rest players for league games now, that's why English clubs have gone shit in Europe. Small, well-managed clubs like Swansea can do well from their little grounds compared to big, badly- managed clubs like us and Newcastle.

Today of all days it's hard to see but I believe it's happening. Good management in all aspects of the club is the key.

[ciggiesnbeer]

I dont blame the club for either of the players leaving. Sherwood has a helluva job getting me enthusiastic again though. Football and Aston Villa in particular has felt tired and out of ideas for years. Its ground me down. Its a pretty joyless existence supporting a non moneyed team.

[Hopadop]

If we're expecting a team that competes, or that wins things, then there is no point. I've thought this for a while now, but the only way we, the fans, can find a point to it all is by making the match day experience a laugh. Forget the football, it will only disappoint. Just accept we're shit, and will probably always be shit now, and have a fucking good time at matches (as much as is possible in the sterile Premier League) regardless of the crap on the pitch. The sticking point is the outrageous ticket price, but what choice do we have?

I've felt exactly like that for years now. Away games are as much an excuse to drink all day as to watch Villa lose.

My brother in law supports Sheffield United. I'd say he enjoys it every bit as much as I do Villa. And in turn I reckon Man City supporters are as happy or as miserable as we are.

[Richard E]

One day the sun will consume the solar system and none of it will matter.

Three nanoseconds before we win the FA cup.

No chance. The sun thing is due in about 7.5 billion years' time which is way too early to expect us to be on the cusp of winning the FA Cup.