Hutton & Jenas set to sign.

[monkeyboy]

What a load of shite!!

RL has to have a look at what he's achieving here and ask himself is it time to cash in and move out of PL football.

He came here like a white knight - and then surrounded himself with people who knew nothing about football and a cheerleading former Marine General.

He then went all in with a egomaniac from Northern Ireland and gave him the keys to the safe while proclaiming a 5 year plan of note. 5 years down the track where are we:

- MON long since gone after buying every piece of crap he could find - with a few exceptions (who've now largely been sold on)
- The weakest squad i can remember
- 5 year plan in tatters - Jenas on loan for gods sake
- Heskey/Baye/Guzan/Ireland still on the payroll
- Strategy now seems to be panic buy at Christmas to avoid relegation - think this will be the same this year when there were bagains on offer this summer but we have been mismanaged to the point where we don't have a pot to piss in - i repeat Jenas on loan for gods sake
- No discernable scouting network in place - hence our reliance on cast offs from other clubs - sure they have PL experience but most of this summers new signings have current experience is warming a PL bench somewhere, only Nzog has current PL experience and that was battling relegation with Wigan and Newcastle
- Manager nobody wanted and who is refusing to back - very clear now why even Martinez felt Wigan had more to offer than we do
- Falling attendances

Surely there has to come a time when professional pride says - I came here with the best intentions but things have not gone as planned and to be quite frank i'm out of my depth, sure i've made some improvements to the facilities etc and i probably leave the club in a better state than what i found it - take solace in this and understand it's time to move on (hopefully with a profit if possible)

Villa are in decline - can we honestly say that as we stand today we are more competitive than we were the day RL walked in? Sure we had a tilt a 4th a few years back but the high risk strategy RL adopted by allowing MON to act the way he did, for as long as he did, has backfired and the blame for this is with RL

I sure as hell regret renewing my ST - but i'm stuck with Villa like the rest of us, and wouldn't have it any other way

I do reserve the right however to be underwhelmed by our current board and the predicament we now find ourselves in.

[Mister E]

Sums AM perfectly

Dull & Uninspiring

A very long season ahead

I don't think McGinge was looking to inspire you / us. What he's done is bring in two players that will do a decent job for us. Will we win the P'ship with them? - unlikely! Will we get relegated? - unlikely.
I am not inspired by them but I think that JJ will do an effective job for us. He's 'better' than NRC (although not quite a like-for-like comparison) and gives us more options in Midfield than we had 24 hours' ago. Hutton - whom I've seen very little - should be fine / reliable.

Uninspiring but pragmatic.

[willywombat]

Sums AM perfectly

Dull & Uninspiring

A very long season ahead

With respect to you UsualSuspect, you along with a lot of others seem to have already made your minds up that everything will definately be dull and uninspiring. Admittedly Saturday was just that but with the exception of the top 5 or 6 clubs I dont see much to be overly worried about and once AM finds his best formation then I think we'll be ok. I also think back to Ron Saunders who used to say that you had to 'earn the right to play football', ie to be solid and disciplined first. This is the road I think AM is going down

[TonyD]

I think Jenas will do well.  He has a point to prove.

[richard moore]

The only silver lining to all this is that both players may turn out to be much better than our dire predictions for them at the moment and that we will all be very pleasantly surprised! I'd be lying if I said I am remotely thrilled by either signing and have repeatedly joined in the chorus of 'no thanks' when either has been mentioned previously, but maybe they are not as quite as bad as is being portrayed by many of us...

[Dante Lavelli]

With regard to the Spurs fans that are "putting up the bunting" because we bought Hutton, I'd suggest it would be similar to someone signing Beye from us.  He has hardly played for them after arriving for a big fee (beye big wages) and is seen as a drain on the club's money.

When playing regularly Beye was player of the season at Newcastle and Hutton was being chased by Ferguson and ultimately earned a 9m (NINE!!) transfer fee for a right back, and this was before Liverpool went bonkers and decided full backs cost 17m.

JJ is on loan and will add something, worst case experienced back up, and will help the likes of Delph develop.  At the end of his loan he can go back and we'll sign a long term replacement for Petrov.

Of the players that have moved its only probably Dann and maybe Palacious who have moved to perceived smaller clubs who I think could have done a job for us.

[PaulTheVillan]

After sleeping on it...

Jenas is a decent signing on loan. He'll provide some legs in the middle & he's played over 250 top flight games.
He's a very athletic midfielder who can be the box to box type player in the middle who can hopefully drive play forward.
He'll offer more than NRC going forward, he's a better passer & has a better touch.
For a season loan I can't see it being a bad signing, if he has a good season then he's a free agent next summer so this could be a very good deal for us.

I've always liked Hutton, he'll provide good support coming forward & he's tall, so will give us more height from corners etc.

[Klaus Katt]

OK signings. Both from a team which has managed to combine mobility and possession. I would rather see Jenas than Petrov take a shot.

[Risso]

Neither would have been anywhere near the top of my list but there's a logic to both of them.

I can't see any logic at all in getting rid of Makoun and bringing in Jenas to replace him.

You don't see any logic in bringing in an experienced PL player to replace one who has yet to settle and who only 8 days ago failed to impose himself against Hereford? In an ideal world we'd have kept him and given him another few mo this to find his feet but it's not an ideal world and we've got Bannan, Delph and Ireland to settle in so it's nice to have one who is ready now.

Makoun I'm actually glad to see the back of, as I didn't think he was very good at all.  But ignoring him, is Jenas an upgrade on Reo-Coker?  I would argue not.

[QBVILLA]

Think we've all got to get used to the fact that under O'neill it was as good as it gets for Villa.I think in comparison to the other Premiership clubs we've got the 7th best squad in the division.Stoke and Sunderland are catching us up but i'd still expect to see us finish ahead of them.Everton may have been weakened in the window, but they've still got Moyes working his magic so i'd expect them to be in and around us.
As for Jenas,he's one of those players that neutral fans never seem to rate.Bit like Downing I suppose in that respect.However, he has Premiership experience,won over 20 caps and is only on loan so whilst i'm not going to be breakdancing at the signing I can't really see too much wrong with it.Hutton, i'm happy with.Yes i'd have liked to have seen others brought in but I think we've got to accept that we're no longer trying to sit at the top table,more like we're trying to stay where we are.

[Chris Smith]

Sums AM perfectly

Dull & Uninspiring

A very long season ahead

What is it with people today? Why do signings have to be "inspiring"?

The important thing is will they add something to the squad and both will.

It'll be a long season for you if you approach everything with an air of feeling sorry for yourself. I'm looking forward to see how both do, how Bannan, Delph Clarke, Herd and Albrighton develop, if Gabby can continue to impress, if Bent can keep up his scoring record, how N'Zogbia performs, if the defence can continue to look so solid and to seeing a bloke called Edna in a Villa shirt.

[pauliewalnuts]

It's not so much the players we have bought as the ones we haven't.

I've a feeling we are going to find ourselves panic buying in January as a result.

[UsualSuspect]

Sums AM perfectly

Dull & Uninspiring

A very long season ahead

With respect to you UsualSuspect, you along with a lot of others seem to have already made your minds up that everything will definately be dull and uninspiring. Admittedly Saturday was just that but with the exception of the top 5 or 6 clubs I dont see much to be overly worried about and once AM finds his best formation then I think we'll be ok. I also think back to Ron Saunders who used to say that you had to 'earn the right to play football', ie to be solid and disciplined first. This is the road I think AM is going down

AM has not got a fucking clue tactically

Nzogbia is not a right winger

Barry bannan is not a right winger

Heskey is not a link up player

heskey could not be a centre half


Saturday was turgid for the most part, dull unispiring and  leaderless on the pitch.

I never wanted AM not because of the Blues connection because he took them down twice and plays football (I use the term very loosely) that should have a health warning attached to it

[UsualSuspect]

Sums AM perfectly

Dull & Uninspiring

A very long season ahead

What is it with people today? Why do signings have to be "inspiring"?

The important thing is will they add something to the squad and both will.

It'll be a long season for you if you approach everything with an air of feeling sorry for yourself. I'm looking forward to see how both do, how Bannan, Delph Clarke, Herd and Albrighton develop, if Gabby can continue to impress, if Bent can keep up his scoring record, how N'Zogbia performs, if the defence can continue to look so solid and to seeing a bloke called Edna in a Villa shirt.

You need to wake up and smell the coffee.

IF gabby does this

IF Bannan does that

IF Bent is given one goal scoring opportunity every other game

IF Delph does okay

IF Petrov doesn't breath out of his arse after an hour


Far too many if's there.


I must have dreamt that AM isn't noted for his horrible defensive football

[olaftab]

Does not feel good being on the other end of Spurs dead wood clearance.