Dr T has pulled the trigger

[brian green]

Late October November and still losing will to all intents and purposes write off this season.  What do we do then?  Give  new manager half a season to "bed in", "gel", "move out the underperformers", "put some steel into the spine"?   Sorry, I have seen this movie five times already.  My garden beckons.

[Risso]

The system could work if he had midfielders who, for sake of argument, weren't Westwood or Gardner. But the midfielders are Westwood and Gardner.

And I don't think the central midfielders we've bought are that great to be honest.

[themossman]

Even if you accept that RDM didn't choose the signings and therefore can't be blamed for the unbalanced squad, the big things for me are that he is not even using the players he has effectively (lots of big strikers and no width is pointless and we had the players to solve that). Also he fails to learn game on game as the same patterns recur.

[Monty]

Jedinak is fine, Tish looks promising for the future, but there's nobody at the club you look at and think 'now that's the man'.

[nick harper]

There aren't enough options in midfield and none are good enough to play in a two. It did feel that Adomah was a nice to have on deadline day and strengthening midfield was a bigger priority.

We must have three across the middle. Too many sides are playing round us, the only difference to last season is that championship sides lack quality in the final third.

[aj2k77]

Jedinak is fine, Tish looks promising for the future, but there's nobody at the club you look at and think 'now that's the man'.

Exactly, its the engine room of the side, where the tempo is set and games dominated. We bought an untried kid off of an injury and a 30+ on the way down. We look like we need a confident dynamic player in there. The ball is so slow when we have it in the middle, its walking pace.

[Ads]

Tshbiola looks dynamic to me, its just he's always bloody injured. Can't say we weren't warned.

[Monty]

Maybe we should play Grealish as a third central midfielder? He might not be the strongest but he doesn't lose the ball much these days, he does work hard, and he might do fine if shielded by another two.

[themossman]

Injuries are a big consideration in how useful a player is in real world terms. Look at Vlaar, great player but not great for us because of his injury record. What we need now is a settled team and formation. Not saying we shouldn't have bought Tish but it's a very key area of the pitch in which to be tinkering every game, with poor cover, and that doesn't help us.

[brian green]

Before I get stuck into my garden, I will say this.  Where we are now has been entirely predictable to anybody with eyes to see.  Last season the board and presumably the owner chose not to support any attempt by Remi Garde to fight to stay in the Premiership.  At some point last January, possibly to appease Lerner, the Villa dice were rolled yet again in the foolish belief that the Championship was rubbish and a piece of piss to get out of.  Exit Remi Garde, enter Eric Black.  Any concept of hitting the ground running in the Championship was squandered by him allowing rigor mortis to set in.  So, the club gets sold, a new manager, new coaches and a new board are put in place, huge amounts of money are spent on players believed to have qualities we have been lacking.  Not only do we not hit the ground running, we stumble out of the starting gate, repeating all the old management errors that saw the horrors of the last five years and not having made an inch of progress since last January.  The only difference is that ours is now the agony of the second tier not the first.

[cdbearsfan]

Anyway, on the basis that the international break is a good time to change a manager... I'd stick with Di Matteo for now. If the next four games are a disaster (ie fewer than three points) I'd consider getting rid during the October international break.

If he survives that, I'd also consider booting him if we haven't got at least a dozen points from our next nine (which takes us up to the November international break).

At the end of the season, if he survives that long, we should be top six or his position would deservedly be under threat.

[themossman]

For the first time in this whole sorry saga I'm actually starting to think we're quite likely to do a Forest/Wednesday and become a perennial non-top flight spent force of a club.

[Ads]

Anyway, on the basis that the international break is a good time to change a manager... I'd stick with Di Matteo for now. If the next four games are a disaster (ie fewer than three points) I'd consider getting rid during the October international break.

If he survives that, I'd also consider booting him if we haven't got at least a dozen points from our next nine (which takes us up to the November international break).

At the end of the season, if he survives that long, we should be top six or his position would deservedly be under threat.

For the money spent, anything less than 8 points from four is a disaster. The aim is win promotion. To do that you need to average 2 points a game. If we fail to take less than 8 from Ipswich, Newcastle, Barnsley and Preston, then that is a disaster, let alone 3.

The fact that 3 are away and that our manager is such a clueless, Sherwood esq, buffoon  should see us walk away with a quarter of that if we're lucky. Draw or a loss at Ipswich, draw at Preston and defeats to Newcastle and the might of fucking Barnsley.

[mr underhill]

for the first time ever I am genuinely  starting to want to not care

[Ads]

Can we have a poll? We haven't had a poll in ages.