Aston Villa vs West Ham pre-match thread

[Demitri_C]

4 points behind Bournmouth now. We really cannot afford to lose tomorrow as we will drift off the top 7.  A great opportunity  to close gap on forest and chelsea

[Mellin]

A draw's a problem too. We need a run of wins to break into and then consolidate in the top five. Not sure we have it in us right now. Maybe if Malen hits the ground running.

[eamonn]

Play Durán from the start. The opposition are in awe of him.

[coreyfeldman]

Play Durán from the start. The opposition are in awe of him.

They're not at all, and he's often a tactical liability. Ollie needs to start, his goal record is frankly ridiculous

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Play Durán from the start. The opposition are in awe of him.

They're not at all, and he's often a tactical liability. Ollie needs to start, his goal record is frankly ridiculous

See The Athletic video on the Duran thread. There's a reason nobody is laughing at us asking for £100m.

[Somniloquism]

Play Durán from the start. The opposition are in awe of him.

They're not at all, and he's often a tactical liability. Ollie needs to start, his goal record is frankly ridiculous

So Duran scoring 7 in 600 minutes is not frankly ridiculous, but Ollie scoring 10 in 1540 minutes is? He has also scored in all the games he has started in this season apart from the Newcastle match, but then we know why for that one.

[Drummond]

A draw's a problem too. We need a run of wins to break into and then consolidate in the top five. Not sure we have it in us right now. Maybe if Malen hits the ground running.

We've the second longest unbeaten home run in the Premier League. Our one home defeat was to Arsenal in August. We beat this lot a couple of weeks ago in the Cup. Our home form is WWWDWW.

Of course we have it in us.

[Rigadon]

When was the last time we won really convincingly?  I’d love to see that today. 

[Nev]

I've never been this late with a prediction and yesterday's games have put a different slant on things. In an up and down season you'd guess that we'd beat them once in two meetings at home but I'm going for twice. They have Bowens Coaches back but then we could have SJM and our home record is good.

I hate games at this time, leaving the house at 2 on a wet cold Sunday afternoon isn't right, and I'm driving so alcohol can't help but it will be worth it. We'll keep plugging away in the league.

4-1

[ChicagoLion]

Must win if we gave any ambition for CL next season.
If not mid table mediocrity beckons.

[PaulWinch again]

I’m hoping the fact we were utterly hopeless on Tuesday stokes a bit of a fire for this one. We have to get at West Ham, because they have some attacking talent but they are defensively very shaky. We need to be winning this.

[brontebilly]

Are we expecting Buendia to be out with a "little injury"?

[Mellin]

A draw's a problem too. We need a run of wins to break into and then consolidate in the top five. Not sure we have it in us right now. Maybe if Malen hits the ground running.

We've the second longest unbeaten home run in the Premier League. Our one home defeat was to Arsenal in August. We beat this lot a couple of weeks ago in the Cup. Our home form is WWWDWW.

Of course we have it in us.

I didn't mean today. I mean the 5/6 consecutive wins that would take, which would include 2/3 away games, in which we've mainly been shit.

We have three games now we need to be winning now if we're serious about qualifying for the Champions League next season. Let's try and get those over the line and then see. Personally I think almost all our games are too tight, for a handful of reasons, to put a run like that together.

[Tony Daleys Shorts]

When was the last time we won really convincingly?  I’d love to see that today.

I thought our home wins against Brentford and Man City were both convincing but conceding when cruising in both games meant they ended up feeling less convincing than they actually were.

Anyway, today’s the day. Villa 3-0 West Ham.

[Chris Smith]

Are we expecting Buendia to be out with a "little injury"?

I thought the same, I guess it depends on whether the talk of a move has any substance.