Stewart Downing amnesty.

[KevinGage]

Always had the technical ability and skill, that was never in question.

But he's starting to have a sustained impact for longer periods in games now, rather than just the odd decent cross or good ball.

He won't do it every game, because those kind of players rarely do.

But well worth a place in the side at the moment, whereas earlier in the campaign he looked like the obvious choice to make way for Ireland.

Vast improvement on last year.

Since he's been with us he's got into a few England squads and you'd genuinely wonder how he did it. If he makes the next one it will be on merit.

[Dave]

i think some of the comments are a bit over the top, played well today but awful against blose and did nothing against fulham , better than last season but 1 decent game in 3?

Or, 10 decent games in 14.

As others have said, we would be far worse without him.

[Phil from the upper holte]

I thought he had his best game for us today, he's crossing is much better that Young's

[Shrek]

i think some of the comments are a bit over the top, played well today but awful against blose and did nothing against fulham , better than last season but 1 decent game in 3?

He has been superb most games this season and is our current top goalscorer.

[PaulMcGrathsNo5Shirt]

Downings best game and he spends it all on the LEFT, instead keep pissing about on the right.

[Somniloquism]

i think some of the comments are a bit over the top, played well today but awful against blose and did nothing against fulham , better than last season but 1 decent game in 3?

He has been superb most games this season and is our current top goalscorer.

hawkeye and others did not think that Downing would ever play well in a Villa shirt and was quite vehement about it. Unlike those others hawkeye does not like to admit he was wrong.

[hilts_coolerking]

He's done very well this season, after a pretty wretched 09/10.  I'm pleased that he was heavily involved today because one concern I had about him is that he tended to disappear in big games.  To be frank, he tended to disappear in a lot of games but he seems to be putting that right, so well done.

[Rancid custard]

On his day at Boro he was untouchable, sadly that wasnt game in game out, it was more like 1 in 7. But a decent pre season and no injury has done him the world of good. I think the slightly inflated price that MON paid is probably why there were a few axe grinders out there.

[hawkeye]

i think some of the comments are a bit over the top, played well today but awful against blose and did nothing against fulham , better than last season but 1 decent game in 3?

He has been superb most games this season and is our current top goalscorer.

hawkeye and others did not think that Downing would ever play well in a Villa shirt and was quite vehement about it. Unlike those others hawkeye does not like to admit he was wrong.

i never ever said that he wouldnt play well in a  Villa shirt, i said quite a lot of other things, i agree that he is playing a lot better this season, he played his best game for us today but he is our most expensive player and has a tendancy to go missing in games, still bottles chalenges and still wastes the ball to often, he is not as good as Walters Daley Morley for example,

[Shrek]

Really?!? Downing is our one player who rarely gives the ball away, he is playing brilliant this season and is scoring consistently, after the slating we all gave him, he is our best player so far this season.

[john e]

i'm still far from convinced by him to be honest,

 he tends to play reasonably well when the rest of the team do, in other words he gets carried away on a good team performance, he's not a player that imposes himself on a game when we are not on form

when we play poorly, so does he, he's definitley not a stand out player in my view. just does good on the back of others

today we were fantastic, and Downing was quite good,
but no where near brillaint,
he did put some decent balls in, one of which we scored from, but he often needs time and space to do it, whereas Albrighton seems to get the ball over from almost imposible angles even when the defender is breathing down his neck.

i will admit i have never rated him at his other clubs, and still dont, never wanted to sign him, and think we could have got better for the money

for 12 mill, we got a player who now and again does things of quality on the pitch, but no where near enough for me, i think we have some far superior players in the squad to him,
and i dont think he is a player that can be relyed on, especially when things are not going well

[Ads]

What a nonsense argument this "bottles challenges" is. No he doesn't.

Somniloquism is right about the entrenched opinions some have.

[hawkeye]

i'm still far from convinced by him to be honest,

 he tends to play reasonably well when the rest of the team do, in other words he gets carried away on a good team performance, he's not a player that imposes himself on a game when we are not on form

when we play poorly, so does he, he's definitley not a stand out player in my view. just does good on the back of others

today we were fantastic, and Downing was quite good,
but no where near brillaint,
he did put some decent balls in, one of which we scored from, but he often needs time and space to do it, whereas Albrighton seems to get the ball over from almost imposible angles even when the defender is breathing down his neck.

i will admit i have never rated him at his other clubs, and still dont, never wanted to sign him, and think we could have got better for the money

for 12 mill, we got a player who now and again does things of quality on the pitch, but no where near enough for me, i think we have some far superior players in the squad to him,
and i dont think he is a player that can be relyed on, especially when things are not going well

sanity at last

[Ads]

I think he’s talking garbage. He’s making a point about the correlation between the Villa playing well and Downing playing well, compared to Villa playing poorly and Downing playing poorly as some sort of evidence that he’s not very good?

That seems to be the best argument going for how important a player to our side he is and how he’s been our best player this season. Which is reflected in his goals, crosses and general molesting of opposition full backs.

But he “bottles challenges”. I bet you pissed blood when you saw Albrighton not take Vidic on in a 50/50? 

[Dave]

i'm still far from convinced by him to be honest,

 he tends to play reasonably well when the rest of the team do, in other words he gets carried away on a good team performance, he's not a player that imposes himself on a game when we are not on form

when we play poorly, so does he, he's definitley not a stand out player in my view. just does good on the back of others

today we were fantastic, and Downing was quite good,
but no where near brillaint,
he did put some decent balls in, one of which we scored from, but he often needs time and space to do it, whereas Albrighton seems to get the ball over from almost imposible angles even when the defender is breathing down his neck.

i will admit i have never rated him at his other clubs, and still dont, never wanted to sign him, and think we could have got better for the money

for 12 mill, we got a player who now and again does things of quality on the pitch, but no where near enough for me, i think we have some far superior players in the squad to him,
and i dont think he is a player that can be relyed on, especially when things are not going well

sanity at last

Not really.

For £10m (not £12m) we got the most dangerous player on the pitch in a game against Man Utd. A player who is the second highest goalscorer for a winger in the league this season.

To echo earlier posts, there are some people who had made up their mind about him last season. On the form that he is showing this season, they were very wrong.