Nathan Baker - Sold

[KRS]

Yep. If we can sell him for £3-5m next summer it will be a very good bit of business.

[Meanwood Villa]

I like Nathan and I'd still like to see  him come good here. Hopefully this will help with that.

[ciggiesnbeer]

I like him and think he has put in some solid performances for us. That said I can't disagree with Sherwood's decision, he does need something more. Hopefully this will make him better.

[old man villa fan]

This has got to be the best for the player and the club.  Unless he is playing regularly he will not improve.  I hope he takes it as a challenge, rather than as failure and Sherwood has explained this to him.

[silhillvilla]

Hope he comes back better and stays at villa. He's better than Clark IMHO .

[Dave Cooper please]

Hope he comes back better and stays at villa. He's better than Clark IMHO .

Yes, so do I.

And no he isn't. Clark will become one of our best defenders ever. He's almost there, give him another year and a decent centre half he can learn off (Lescott) and Clark wil be up there with the likes of Teale and Evans. But not McGrath, nobody will ever be that good.

[paul_e]

Hope he comes back better and stays at villa. He's better than Clark IMHO .

Yes, so do I.

And no he isn't. Clark will become one of our best defenders ever. He's almost there, give him another year and a decent centre half he can learn off (Lescott) and Clark wil be up there with the likes of Teale and Evans. But not McGrath, nobody will ever be that good.

I'm with you on this, Clark has made a few mistakes in the last 2 weeks so opinions on him are likely to be little bit down right now but the truth is that those mistakes are picked up because they're at odds with the rest of his performance. Take Sunderland, a rash challenge to get booked and then got caught a yard short of his man and over-committed to get back but other than that he dominated in the air, he cut out pretty much every through ball that went near him and he generally looked every bit a premier league defender.  I find him incredibly frustrating right now because he's close to being a genuinely brilliant centre-half, if he can work with Lescott and tidy up the errors and he can get out of the McLeish and Lambert created habit of punting the ball long when there's other options available  he can definitely make that step up and as I've said before 24-27 are the years where experience starts to combine with ability and you see central defenders start to really deliver on their potential so he's still smack in the middle of that.

[Matt C]

Smart business as with Bennett and I'm guessing Gardner too. They go out and get game time and either come back and improve the squad or we'll sell them on and ensure we get a decent fee by making sure they're under contract.

[silhillvilla]

Sorry but no , Clark makes basic errors that you won't coach out of him. You cannot teach an old dog new tricks .

[OCD]

Often you don't see a central defender reach their potential until they're about 27. I do wish Clark could reduce the number of yellow cards he gets. He seems to get one every game but last season, when he was on 9 and at risk of missing the semi final, he put quite a run of games together without a card so he can do it.

[Dave Cooper please]

Sorry but no , Clark makes basic errors that you won't coach out of him. You cannot teach an old dog new tricks .

So coaching doesn't work then? Wonder why we bother having coaches if they can't actually teach the players anything.

[silhillvilla]

Of course it can work but only so far. For me Clark seems to have eradicated some errors in his game (dilly dallying on the ball in a danger zone) and replaced them with others - allowing players to cut in on him towards goal and needless hoofing of the ball .
He's a good player but I don't think he's a top end PL player .

[Colhint]

but we do have a really good coach now, I don't he has had one since Kev Mac

[OCD]

Sorry but no , Clark makes basic errors that you won't coach out of him. You cannot teach an old dog new tricks .

So coaching doesn't work then? Wonder why we bother having coaches if they can't actually teach the players anything.

We didn't last season.

[olaftab]

Sorry but no , Clark makes basic errors that you won't coach out of him. You cannot teach an old dog new tricks .

As usual funny as fuck!