Fans Worried Over Villa Future

[ChicagoLion]

I can only think of Richards, and probably Gabby and Cissokho who you would class as deadwood that were here when Tony took over and are still here. 2 of them were moderately useful last season and they are both out of contract at the end of this season anyway.

Maybe our interpretation of deadwood is different, read players we should get out of the place.
My view has always been we needed the mother of all clear outs, then not make the same mistakes again.
So on top of Richards Gabby Add Bacuna Gardener then we have added Fatmack Bjarnason Elphik Hogan.
It's a pretty impressive list of players that we could do without.

[dave shelley]

I think you're wrong re Hogan.  If we are not utilising his capabilities then the problem lies with the manager and his coaching staff, not the player.  Since his arrival, when have we seen anything that resembles playing to his strengths? Never.  That's the managers fault.  IMO now is the time to bin Bruce because it isn't going to improve.

[ChicagoLion]

I think you're wrong re Hogan.  If we are not utilising his capabilities then the problem lies with the manager and his coaching staff, not the player.  Since his arrival, when have we seen anything that resembles playing to his strengths? Never.  That's the managers fault.  IMO now is the time to bin Bruce because it isn't going to improve.

Happy to be wrong regarding Hogan and agree with you regarding Bruce.
In fact the Hogan signing is the same as his comment about maybe we play 3 the back.

[Matt Collins]

The midfield remains the big problem for me

Last season Newcastle had Richie, Shelvey, Diame.

We're well short of that quality. And we're still not confident that we can even play a four man midfield in the second division. That's pretty worrying

[peter w]

It appears that we have the same type of player - game but limited.

[john e]

The midfield remains the big problem for me

Last season Newcastle had Richie, Shelvey, Diame.

We're well short of that quality. And we're still not confident that we can even play a four man midfield in the second division. That's pretty worrying

get the right manager and everything else will fall into place

get the wrong one and no matter what players you have or what formation you play it will never seem to come together

[jwarry]

I think you're wrong re Hogan.  If we are not utilising his capabilities then the problem lies with the manager and his coaching staff, not the player.  Since his arrival, when have we seen anything that resembles playing to his strengths? Never.  That's the managers fault.  IMO now is the time to bin Bruce because it isn't going to improve.

So what are his strengths?!? I haven't seen anything yet that suggests there is a £15m player in there

[dave shelley]

Getting the ball into him in the box would be a good place to start don't you think?

[Matt Collins]

I think we all agree we're not playing to hogan's strengths

But I agree that it's hard to see how those strengths equate to a £15m player. If you look at his goals highlights it's hard to see him bagging many of them in the prem. whereas with Kodjia I really could see it (though he'd be very frustrating)

[Ad@m]

The midfield remains the big problem for me

Last season Newcastle had Richie, Shelvey, Diame.

We're well short of that quality. And we're still not confident that we can even play a four man midfield in the second division. That's pretty worrying

I don't think it is.

In Lansbury and Hourihane we have two of the best and most creative midfielders in the division over the last two yards. And Jedinak was a regular in the Prem before we signed him.

The issue is that they're being either played out of position and / or told not to push forward leaving Hogan horribly starved of service and leaving the team reliant on a piece of magic from Kodjia.

Whilst I was by no means excited by Bruce's appointment I thought he'd do a good job but for me he's got until Christmas to prove it. If we're not up there at that stage he should be gone to give someone else the January window.

[Matt Collins]

Our midfield - and to an extent our squad - has plenty of big fishes in small ponds. Maybe Lansbury and hourihane are two of the. Eat creative midfielders in the league. But they've never played for even top 6 championship teams never mind premier league teams. Jedinak was out of the palace team which is why he left I thought?

Shelvey and Ritchie both cost over £10m in recent past. Who's going to pay anywhere near that for any of our midfielders?

[ROBBO]

I'm worried we will start the season with ten outfielders all vying for the right back position.

[peter w]

well we do have lots of midfielders. i do think a system id slowly developing but its a tired 3 in midfield and one wide midfield cum winger type player. the two up top can be 1 dropping off but i think bruce likes the idea of Thor being on the left side of midfield but not necessarily as a left midfielder. To be fair he and hiss scouts have seen a lot more of him than we have so he must be able to do a job out tehre and I think he will improve. Whelan maybe in the middle with Lansbury and Thor pushing on. Maybe even Jack the left outlet and then we could  play with just one up top.

Too many midfielders though. I'd crop:

Jedinak (if Whelan is coming in)
Bacuna
Gardner
Tishbola
Lyden (or Toner - forget which one is the midfielder)
possibly even Adomah

[Mister E]

The midfield remains the big problem for me

Last season Newcastle had Richie, Shelvey, Diame.

We're well short of that quality. And we're still not confident that we can even play a four man midfield in the second division. That's pretty worrying

I don't think it is.

In Lansbury and Hourihane we have two of the best and most creative midfielders in the division over the last two yards. And Jedinak was a regular in the Prem before we signed him.

The issue is that they're being either played out of position and / or told not to push forward leaving Hogan horribly starved of service and leaving the team reliant on a piece of magic from Kodjia.

Whilst I was by no means excited by Bruce's appointment I thought he'd do a good job but for me he's got until Christmas to prove it. If we're not up there at that stage he should be gone to give someone else the January window.

We saw glimpses of what our midfielders can do - the Brighton game is one example where they appeared to have shrugged off the shackles and got forward.
The shackles are applied by SB adn the coaching staff, and the game-instructions being applied.
I do think we have the players to exit this division through the front door - we need a manager with nous, strategy, tactical awareness and balls.

[passitsideways]

Our midfield - and to an extent our squad - has plenty of big fishes in small ponds. Maybe Lansbury and hourihane are two of the. Eat creative midfielders in the league. But they've never played for even top 6 championship teams never mind premier league teams. Jedinak was out of the palace team which is why he left I thought?

Shelvey and Ritchie both cost over £10m in recent past. Who's going to pay anywhere near that for any of our midfielders?

A whole bunch of other factors apart from actual ability goes into those price tags though, a lot of them questionable. For instance, I don't really see how Veretout isn't capable of being as good as Shelvey is - he came to us as a very well-regarded prospect in a country that produces talent far more prolifically than England, then last season was first-team starter at a French team that probably would've been able to survive the Premier League.

Likewise, with Hourihane, we got him cheap because he had six months left on his contract - if he had a few years still on, I suspect he would've gotten very close to the 10 million mark.