Downing

[john e]

  Nice pass on him,good vision, good shot....lacks bottle i'm afaraid.

  Should be in the England set up, needs to grow a pair tbh.

good passer. good vision. good at shooting !!!
 its the Downing thread mate not Messi

[richard moore]

A luxury we can no longer afford to play from the start for me. I've always stuck by him thinking he just needs to have one decent game to get his confidence going and to become the player we saw for Boro against us frequently at VP. But that just hasn't materialised and we are not good enough as it is in midfield without carrying a virtual passenger. As options stand, I would much rather see an Ireland/NRC/Petrov central trio, Ash and Albrighton out wide and Gabby up top.

[hawkeye]

I never rated him at Boro, didnt want us to sighn him, i have pointed out since day 1 that he is a very over rated ordinary footballer, i have seen the pre season arguement and never bought into that either- he dosent tackle, dosent get involved, dosent score, cant head the balll, his dead ball play is crap, he dosent beat a player and dosent create chances, every now and then he hits an ok pass or cross £12million bargain

[ROBBO]

The comparison between him and Albrighton is one to consider, Marc is lightweight, does get pushed around and forgets at times his defensive duties. When he has the ball however he attacks the defender and is like an angry ant. Downing by comparison is Timid even with the ball at his feet, he lacks aggression and lets be honest is frightened of getting hurt.

[Dave Clark Five]

Needs to be in the reserves a few games to get his form back- use reocoker and petrov with Ireland as attacking midfielder behind gabby , and ask and marc out wide.

A spell in the sticks might be just the best thing for downing right now.

I don't think he is good enough for the reserves. Completely lacks bottle and means that we start every game down to 10 men.

[john e]

what always amazes me,. is how a manager ie MON/KMac,
 can see Downing perform in is usually anonymous way, and then think 'yep, he deserves his place in the team again next week'

i mean what do they see      i just dont get it

[Brend'Watkins]

I wasn't at the game yesterday nor did I watch as I was in Wales but I listened on radio 5 live and they hammered him, said he was completely useless. Kept calling him the anonymous Stewart Downing

Yes I heard about this, it's par of the course for Greene to berate everything and everyone but when Sir Graham chips in too then you know a player is having a bad game.

I make it one very good game (West Ham) and two stinkers so far with Saturday's being the worst. 

He must be aware himself that his level of recent form can't be continued if he wants to keep his place.

[Simon Ward]

I was there on Sunday and specifically watched Downing play. He is a wuss who can't/ won't tackle although he did a lot of tracking back. Couldn't quite see why he wasn't replaced however as the game went on as he didn't seem to be offering anything to the team. Surely time to play Ash on the left again?

[Phil from the upper holte]

I was there on Sunday and specifically watched Downing play. He is a wuss who can't/ won't tackle although he did a lot of tracking back. Couldn't quite see why he wasn't replaced however as the game went on as he didn't seem to be offering anything to the team. Surely time to play Ash on the left again?

Agree totally, I don't like him in the free role

[BannedUserIAT]

The comparison between him and Albrighton is one to consider, Marc is lightweight, does get pushed around and forgets at times his defensive duties. When he has the ball however he attacks the defender and is like an angry ant. Downing by comparison is Timid even with the ball at his feet, he lacks aggression and lets be honest is frightened of getting hurt.

Angry Ant....well done! Bang on.

Difference is that Downing has had a few years top-flight experience and (too many) international caps.
Once Albrighton gets even a small fraction of the exposure to top level football that Downing has, there'll be no comparison.

[WALTERS WARRIORS]

Every Villa fan would put Albrighton before Downing and that says it all ............

[Gregorys Boy]

And I am the same, and don't rate Downing that highly, but this is the season to judge him, you can't really go on last year, as he only played half a season.

[usav]

I would agree with most of the sentiment here.  For 70 minutes of the Everton game he was anonymous.   However, he really did work hard in those last 20 minutes when our backs were to the wall, can't fault him for that.   He needs to find form in the offensive 3rd, though.

[Guy M]

This isn't about Downing so much as the following shockingly inaccurate piece currently on the BBC website:

Downing, 26, joined Villa from Middlesbrough in July 2009 but featured in only 25 league games in his debut season at the club under then manager Martin O'Neill.

It has been a different story under MacDonald, however, with the England winger playing every minute of Villa's opening three league fixtures this term.

The implication is clearly that Downing wasn't a favourite of O'Neill's and didn't play an awful lot, but is thriving under MacDonald (whose name they have thankfully managed to spell correctly for once). Clearly the 'author' is blissfully unaware or Downing's rehabilitation from his foot injury of MON's continued perseverance with him when many were pleading for him to be rested. OK, dropped.

I reckon that funny foreign website people were quoting last week makes about as much sense as the BBC sometimes.

[supertom]

New manager, new start? See if Houllier can get Downing performance. He won't tolerate a fanny that's for sure. Once GH gets into the role properly, I hope we see Downing perform. He's technically a pretty good player, so I'd guess Houllier will see something in him.