This is the season...

[QuintonVilla]

Don't get how/why some people rate Sanchez. He's absolute shite.

[SoccerHQ]

The team is very lightweight. The team can't track runs. And we also lack a penalty box poacher. Our free kicks and corners were actually pretty good today. My main memory is one just before half time running across the 6 yard box and no one gambling or expecting the ball to actually go there.

It's very simplistic but Benteke still playing for us and we win that as you just have to casually watch his goals reel to see how many simple positions he picked up which got him goals and is beyond all our current forwards hence the gulf in class.

We've been awful last 5 seasons but throughout that period we've always had a core of players who would fluctate in form but in the crucial part of the season would pick up....think back to the run in last year, wasn't just Benteke, D**PH, Cleverley and Vlaar all stepped up aswell.

Who in this squad is capable of that? That's the thing aswell, when you have good quality of players in key areas of the team they can also raise the level of the more average starting 11 ones hence why people like Westwood and Bacuna looked good in the run in last year and yet they're hopeless now.

[curiousorange]

I just don't know why two successive managers are persisting with the Richards at centre back idea. It's obvious he can't hold a back line together. Put Okore and Clark in the middle, tell them to stay there, put Richards and Traore on the right to bully an entire side and take it from there.

If it's in his contract he plays in the middle, then Tom Fox is an idiot, and if we breach it, then I'd say it's worth breaking anyway.

[Stirchley Villain]

Surely Richards would rather play in a position he's better in? Especially as he is being found out in the position he favours at the moment?

[Rudy65]

Sinclair had one good season at Swansea. Richards wasn't good enough for Man City. I'm curious... what's Gil done?

That's not nothing at Swansea. Richards wasn't good enough for title and Champions League contenders, but he's been fine for us. Gil has done a fair bit for us considering Sherwood didn't play him as a fruity foreigner.

Actually, let's throw in Adama to the 'not a relegation player' category. He came on today and scared Watford shitless.

Did he. Seemed a bit clueless to me. No awareness of when to release the ball. Looked up for it though

[Phil from the upper holte]

5 years of shambolic management both on and off the pitch has put us in this position our squad was once challenging the Top 4 now we're a joke it's heartbreaking

[mr woo]

Is this the season...?

Yep.

[garyshawsknee]

It's like a bald man having a come over for 5 years, you finally have to admit your bald and shave it all off. We've just left the babers.

Hope Garde stays and rebuilds us.

[Malandro]

It's like a bald man having a come over for 5 years, you finally have to admit your bald and shave it all off. We've just left the babers.

Hope Garde stays and rebuilds us.

things are bad enough, don't make me feel bad about my baldness too

[garyshawsknee]

My apologies pal. I'd give up my head of hair for survival.

[SoccerHQ]

It's like a bald man having a come over for 5 years, you finally have to admit your bald and shave it all off. We've just left the babers.

Hope Garde stays and rebuilds us.

Haha I'm still in denial. Guess I should go for a clean sweep in preparation for the Championship.

[PhilGibson]

At least it is November and we have plenty of time to come to terms with what appears now inevitable. I wonder when gallows humour will kick in.

Is this the season? well yes and we thoroughly deserve it.

I really thought we had reach our lowest ebb over the last 5 years, but we just keep lowering the bar.

[olaftab]

 My fiends it's going to be terrible six months waiting for our eventual demise from this division followed by horrific 3 months waiting for new fixture list in the second division. Some hope may follow when the new season starts next year. I hope garde stays and rebuild a team befitting the Club. There is nothing worse than being effectively relegated before November has passed.

[pauliewalnuts]

If I wasn't a Villa fan, I would be absolutely delighted to see us go down.

We have stunk out this league for five years now, just about getting away with it year after year. Along the way, we've played some of the most dire football in our history.

Yeah, we can tell everyone we won the European Cup and what-not, but these days it counts for jack shit. We have become a by-word for unambitious, do-the-absolute-minimum football all in the name of clinging on for the money. We are embarrassing.

The sooner this chairman manages to sell us on to someone who gives a shit, the better. The meek acceptance of mediocrity starts at the top and trickles down.

If this club over the last five years were a horse, it'd be a mangy old knacker good for the glue factory.

I've accepted we are fucked now. You can't just routinely lose at home to shit like Watford like we have repeatedly for several years and stay up. You can't go season after season notching up 4 or 5 home wins all year and stay up. You can't defend like we do and stay up.

Lerner has been a disaster. He is a well meaning idiot, absolutely clueless.

Of course, the ultimate disaster is yet to come, because we have managed to create a situation where the year we finally do get what we deserve and drop down to mooking about with the shit in the Championship is the very same year that the PL television money goes stratospheric.

Good work, Randy, good work.

[Toronto Villa]

Haha thanks Paulie. I'm out at the store and your post reminded me I need to grab some glue. Something good finally has come out of today.