Micah Richards - Released

[Hookeysmith]

And don't be surprised to see Ireland turning out cor Stoke as he was still on thier books last season and I doubt anyone has bought him.

[mr underhill]

i must admit I'd expunged Ireland's memory completely when talking about Richards. Mr I ison reflection right up there with the very worst. A total tool. And that fucking pink Range Rover!

[nigel]

If he could actually been bothered he'd probably have been perfect in this 3 5 2 that Bruce seems to like

[SoccerHQ]

And don't be surprised to see Ireland turning out cor Stoke as he was still on thier books last season and I doubt anyone has bought him.

They finally released him last season. Been training at Bolton so not sure if they've offered him a contract.

I agree Ireland never really wanted to play for us and didn't want to leave City. I do think first few months we did play him out of position. IIRC he play CM alongside Petrov for some reason when anyone could see he was similar to Grealish but guess we had Young for that role.

I would say in terms of value McCormack has been our worst in recent times. I imagine we can still sell Hogan for 3-4m.

[dave shelley]

I'm probably one of the few that would be inclined to hang on to Hogan, mainly in the hope that within the next six months we may have a manager that can, and will know how to use him to the utmost of his ability.  Something we are not seeing now due to the present manager.

[JD]

I'm with you Dave. I believe there is a decent goal scorer in Hogan, we just need a decent game plan to utilise him.

[Chris Smith]

I'm with you Dave. I believe there is a decent goal scorer in Hogan, we just need a decent game plan to utilise him.

Is he that good that we base our whole game around his perceived strengths though?

To my mind, good players adapt to the team they are playing in. With Grealish and Hourihane we have good passers of the ball and we have wide men who put in crosses, Grabban benefitted from that and Hogan should be able to do the same.

[brian green]

Players of Hogan's size and physique can make excellent goal poachers but all the best ones have pace especially over ten or twenty strides.  Balls pumped in the air to him are obviously a waste of possession but even on the fewer occasions that Hogan gets the ball delivered to him on the ground he lacks the burst of speed to turn the pass into a shot on goal.  Ron Wylie was the same.  Excellent football brain, a thinking, creative inside forward who never accumulated the goals he could have due to the lack of a burst of speed.

[Jon Crofts]

Ireland seemed to at first, well a few games at least. I remember his first home game and he was making forward passes that we had no one smart enough to be anticipating. And since then he's pretty much spent over 7 years pretending to be a professional footballer. The signs were there of what was important to him when he wanted the club he cared so much about to give him a couple of million to leave. He really is a massive massive twat.

He had 20 minutes in his Villa career where he shone, Chelsea away, ran the show and scored one. Next day he was all over the papers pictured smoking a shisha pipe.

[mr underhill]

Ireland as, is, and always will be, a total cock.

[JD]

I'm with you Dave. I believe there is a decent goal scorer in Hogan, we just need a decent game plan to utilise him.

Is he that good that we base our whole game around his perceived strengths though?

To my mind, good players adapt to the team they are playing in. With Grealish and Hourihane we have good passers of the ball and we have wide men who put in crosses, Grabban benefitted from that and Hogan should be able to do the same.

I didn't say that Chris. I just think there is a decent player there somewhere. He looked good in patches but when Grabban signed Hogan became a bit player anyway and only played sporadically. I think given a run in the team and a few goals he will regain his confidence.

Or I could be totally wrong, but he's still at Villa, so deserves a chance.

[mr underhill]

trouble is we've been saying something similar since he joined 20 months ago

[Fasth56]

I can't believe that anyone who signed a guy that had claimed to have had three grannies die, would have thought that it was going to end well.

[Toronto Villa]

I'd like to open this thread one day to find someone has posted that Richards has been turned into dog food.

[Fasth56]

I'd like to open this thread one day to find someone has posted that Richards has been turned into dog food.

and glue, just so none of him is wasted.