The Villa Clearout

[Five Villa Tattoos]

Personal opinion but Ings, Watkins,Luiz, Konsa and Mings can all go for starters.
All five have been given ample game time and are not of the quality needed if we want to kick on.
Bailey, Troare and Sanson I suspect are all duds but without decent game time it's difficult to confirm.
Either way we need to start getting our wage bill down and improve the quality or I fear next season we'll really struggle.

[Ads]

The spine is mediocre at best. Mings, Luiz and Watkins are never top half players in a 100 years.

[Sexual Ealing]

The spine is mediocre at best. Mings, Luiz and Watkins are never top half players in a 100 years.

I like Mings (although it could be just that I like Mings), but Watkins, Luiz and McGinn ought to be nowhere near our first team.

Also, Traore hasn't had a chance under Gerrard. He's worth looking at IMAO.

[Beard82]

To be honest they can all go bar Ramsey, Emi1 and Little Phil

By all go I mean if we get good offers for any of them I would take it

Think most of them are fine and can do a job and think it’s about moving on some players and getting the best amount of cash we can to reinvest

[Meanwood Villa]

Clearouts just don't happen though. Someone has to want to buy the players for a start

[Villan82]

Build the team around Martinez, Cash, Ramsey, McGinn (further forward) and Coutinho (if we can convince him). Keep Digne, Buendia and Bailey. The rest very 'meh' for me at the moment.

My biggest criticism of SG is that he had imposed his formation on our squad whereas our squad is built for wing play. Part of a manager's job is to manage his resources and I feel he should have found a system to utilise the players we had (Traore, Buendia, Bailey etc) until such time as he had a window to bring in players for his system. But that's by the by.

[pauliewalnuts]

There's no chance we're keeping Coutinho.

It's going to be the ultimate humiliation watching him fuck off to somewhere like Spurs or Arsenal. And who can blame him, not fancying taking part in shit shows like today?

[olaftab]

If we finish below 10th with very little sign of progress we are losing Martinez and Coutinho will go in any case to wherever his profile will make him a permanent fixture in the Brazil WC lineup. So we need to plan for that.

[olaftab]

There is lot of culpability resting with Purslow. Having spend the £100 million or so on players like Traore, Bailey, Ings and Buendia he panicked and sacked Smith and replaced him with a "label" who is averse to playing wide attacking forwards. True madness.

[Sexual Ealing]

If we finish below 10th with very little sign of progress we are losing Martinez and Coutinho will go in any case to wherever his profile will make him a permanent fixture in the Brazil WC lineup. So we need to plan for that.

I don't think we'll lose Martinez for anything other than a huge fee. And he hasn't been great this season anyway (not that I'd want to lose him).

[SoccerHQ]

The spine is mediocre at best. Mings, Luiz and Watkins are never top half players in a 100 years.

Luiz will be a top half player in a euro league somewhere. He hasn't had a great season by any means but talk Arsenal rate him so with one year left he'll be tempting for someone at 25m given his age and international experience.

Likes of Mings and McGinn are about right for us tbh. Both been good servants, more than played their parts in moving us from bottom half championship to upper bottom half prem and can still have excellent games but we know by now neither will ever be regulars if we're in serious contention to finish 6th in 2-3 years time.

It's harder to rotate CBs so think McGinn is the barometer. We get a new DM in and he'll surely revert from playing every single minute of every game to more of a rotation option e.g. starts 3 out of 5 games.

[SoccerHQ]

If we finish below 10th with very little sign of progress we are losing Martinez and Coutinho will go in any case to wherever his profile will make him a permanent fixture in the Brazil WC lineup. So we need to plan for that.

Martinez signed a new 5 year deal a few months ago. We could easily demand 60m for him given his achievements with Argentina and most of the CL sides are sorted with keepers.

We'll see on Coutinho. I still think regardless of results he's enjoying playing week in week out again and has a good rapport with Gerrard so I'm more convinced than most he'll sign full time. What last month has shown is we need a proper structure around him to really get the best of him against top half teams but thought he was fantastic first half so that shows the potential when he has a functioning midfield behind him.

[SoccerHQ]

Neil Moxley leaking we'll consider bids in summer for Sanson (no shock) and Bailey (big what IF imo).

Also some talk of a Ings-Bissouma swop deal being planned which would actually suit both parties so could have some potential.

[Scott Nielsen]

If we finish below 10th with very little sign of progress we are losing Martinez and Coutinho will go in any case to wherever his profile will make him a permanent fixture in the Brazil WC lineup. So we need to plan for that.

I don't think we'll lose Martinez for anything other than a huge fee. And he hasn't been great this season anyway (not that I'd want to lose him).

An uncomfortable truth but there it is. I, too, want to keep him but not a stellar season by any means. The only other player I care about staying is Ramsey.

[ChicagoLion]

I think Martinez is over rated on here.