Aston Villa v Man City Sunday 8th November 2015 1.30pm KO

Trotters wrote:According to the physio room website, they've a few heavy hitters out. 

Zabaleta, Nasri, Silva and that Aguero fella. 

In other good news, Newcastle's injury list is extensive. And Bournemouth have some major issues, too. 

The bad news is that we are pretty good with injuries at the moment and are still galactically shit.

Well they had Aguero, Silva and De Brunye out yesterday and still tore Sevilla a new one. The only hope I can cling on to is that they get so complacent in playing us that we can shock them.

Now, I know I'll get flamed for this but, I'd play Gestede, because if Man C looked to have even a chink in their armour last night, I thought they looked nervy when the ball was crossed in, although TBF it didn't happen often.

Has Remi took his first training sesson today?

1-1 draw

Delph will come on and twang his hamstring as he high-fives the guy he's replacing.

I'm hoping one of our midfielders do a number on delph after treated the club an fans!!!

No Respect for him C**T

Dgrizzle7 wrote:Has Remi took his first training sesson today?

Yes and Lerner actually came out of his 5 star cave to be in attendance according to Pete Colley (he has photo's).

Garde has nothing to lose so he may as well go for it. Hopefully he finds a happy medium of attack and defence? If he drops Richardson, Lescott and Gabby I will be happy for a start. I haven't seen a starting line up this season and thought 'that's the best side we have available' so hopefully Garde will REMIdy (pun alert) this!

DelboyVilla wrote:

Dgrizzle7 wrote:Has Remi took his first training sesson today?

Yes and Lerner actually came out of his 5 star cave to be in attendance according to Pete Colley (he has photo's).

Does The Hermit look in better health than in his last appearance, about a year ago?
Sadden Hussein looked in bettEr nick when they pulled him out of his stinking pit.

Results wise - 2-1 win after going 1 down in first five minutes.
Fighting in the crowd when the Delph well-wishers are set about.

Can't see anything other than a loss here, think it's come way too early for Garde to have enough time to make much of an impact. We may get a little new manager bounce but i don't think even with that we have the players to trouble City atm.

The option i would have chosen from the list above isn't there.... A Villa loss but improved performance

We need some leaders to step up soon. Hope Garde tells them to drive each other forward, as he seemed very clear that this was a team game.

I would like to see Senderos back in and Cissokho... that looks much more solid to me than what we have currently. We could use Sinclair & Amavi for attacking minded/defensive minded situations so if we wanted to protect a lead Amavi could replace Sinclair in left mid with Cissokho focussed on defensive duties which Garde knows he can be very good at...it's when he ventures forwards he has issues. but he's stronger defensively than Amavi.

I know Senderos is injured or out to pasturre but we were solid as a rock when it was him Vlaar Hutton & Cissokho with Clark & Baker on the fringes at the start of last season until he got crocked... Well we could still have a Senderos, Cissokho, Richards, Hutton combo now with Lescott, Clark, Okore & Amavi as well as Llori, and Crespo in the wings!!! Surely that is even stronger!

The Utterer wrote:I would like to see Senderos back in and Cissokho

Neither are in the 25 man squad, can't play for us until January at the earliest

Yes i know Villa Dan, shame as i feel sure that would be a much tighter defence than what we have currently. Maybe it's an option in Jan if we are still conceding too many?

As for midfield it seems we are lacking something there, Maybe Veretout & Gueye will sort it out but it just seems a bad recipe in there at the mo... a bit like having 6 or 7 jigsaw pieces from 2 separate jigsaws which no matter how you try to fit them together they just wont.

As for the strikers well i think we are paying the price for Sherwoods ridiculous pursuit of Adebayor, The guy need a check up from the neck up and Sherwoods biggest mistake was not forgetting him and making sure we got another main striker in. Then Ayew could have had more time to find his feet & Gestede could have been used as an impact sub which was surely what he was mainly bought for... Instead they have both been forced to try to replace Benteke's goals which was frankly ridiculous and for me the reason we are where we are!!

We need desperately a No.1 stiker then Ayew i'm sure will slot in just great as his partner and Gestede will be great as an option from the bench if height is needed.

The Utterer wrote:Yes i know Villa Dan, shame as i feel sure that would be a much tighter defence than what we have currently. Maybe it's an option in Jan if we are still conceding too many?

I thought Cissokho could do a job. But Senderos is too injury prone, we need a settled defence IMO

Am I the only one worried that Garde will keep picking the shite English players we got like Gabby, Richardson and Lescott so people won't think he favourizes (that must be wrong spilling?) French players?

Gone for a Man City win, think we will get a better performance but it won't be enough.

I think Remi will try and play his preferred 4-1-4-1 formation therefore:

...................................Guzan...................................
Hutton..............Richards..............Clark...............Amavi
.................................Sanchez.................................
......Gil...........Veretout...............Gueye............Sinclair...
.................................Ayew...................................


Hopefully Gabby is still injured?

Joppe84 wrote:Am I the only one worried that Garde will keep picking the shite English players we got like Gabby, Richardson and Lescott so people won't think he favourizes (that must be wrong spilling?) French players?

No Joppe I think (hope anyway), that he is stronger and more intelligent than that. Time will tell!

DaveAV1 wrote:

Joppe84 wrote:Am I the only one worried that Garde will keep picking the shite English players we got like Gabby, Richardson and Lescott so people won't think he favourizes (that must be wrong spilling?) French players?

No Joppe I think (hope anyway), that he is stronger and more intelligent than that. Time will tell!

I'll back any team he picks, but if Gabby and Richardson walk out onto the pitch at kick off on Sunday, I'll be seriously disappointed.

We need to get out of this hole that Tim made for us, it might not be the Man city game, a draw would be a good result.
It's also shocking that we still have unfit players, no wonder Garde will have is own man in place.
As a old army man in the old days we could take young kids off the street and have them fit in a month, good circuit training got them up to speed, Gabby needs to watch out ! Mind you his card is marked from the last game I hope.

achilles wrote:I think Remi will try and play his preferred 4-1-4-1 formation therefore:

...................................Guzan...................................
Hutton..............Richards..............Clark...............Amavi
.................................Sanchez.................................
......Gil...........Veretout...............Gueye............Sinclair...
.................................Ayew...................................


Hopefully Gabby is still injured?

I like the look of that, that's probably the best side and formation we could put out right now. I don't think it will get us anything other than a comprehensive beating. Our new season starts with Everton.

The Utterer wrote:We may get a little new manager bounce but i don't think even with that we have the players to trouble City atm.

I do: Gil, Ayew, Grealish and Sinclair for a start. If Delph has a point to prove against his old club then so does Sinclair. The four of them played some good football against Spurs, it beggars belief that Sherwood and MacDonald failed to see the energy and threat Ayew brings. Had he been started instead of Gabby (who hasn't scored since March) I don't know where we'd be now. He properly runs at people too and draws mistakes, and while his goal on Monday came from a deflection, you make your own luck. You know, we started badly, and work needs to be done on our defence, but Sinclair, Ayew and Bacuna all had decent attempts on goal and had Lady Luck been present (along with a competent referee) we could have won. It wouldn't have had anything to do with our tried and tested, relegation standard, strikeforce of Gabby and Gestede though, would it?

Gestede is all good and well and has his place, like hoofball, but we need our best and most creative players starting regularly and knowing what each is going to do. Ayew and Sinclair (and Kozak - blah blah blah!) run into space and don't just mark defenders. If Westwood is going to be playing, he needs to be involved too because he does make some killer passes and I'm convinced most are sideways or backwards simply because there wasn't anyone in space - or more importantly running into or being able to run into space - for him to pass to. We need an anchor in midfield to start attacks and I don't think that's Sanchez (who can come on as fresh-legged 60th minute sub blah blah blah). I'd like to see Veretout and Gueye in partnership but I don't think Westwood has it in him to play any further up the field.

Going back to Gestede, I don't mind him and think he has a place, but bringing him and Gabby on after 70 minutes or so to go and beat up the opposition is what they're both good for, not starting matches. Half of a good catch is in the throw, and if we're relying on Guzan as playmaker when it comes to getting balls up to Gestede, we're already shooting our chances in the foot.

I like(d) Cissokho but Amavi really does look the business. If there's one new player at the Villa with a huge future ahead of him, it's Amavi.

Todays team in training was
Guzan, Hutton, Richards, Lescott, Amavi, Westwood, Gana, Sanchez, Gil, Sinclair, Ayew.
Thoughts anyone ?

Can't believe Lescott would keep his place. Otherwise it's not that bad

NARLA24 wrote:Todays team in training was
Guzan, Hutton, Richards, Lescott, Amavi, Westwood, Gana, Sanchez, Gil, Sinclair, Ayew.
Thoughts anyone ?

Well obviously Lescott is a disappointment but at least with him and Richards that's only 50% of our centre backs in panic mode rather than 100% if Clarke was playing alongside Lescott.

Thought Westy did enough against Spurs until he went off to merit reselection.

Obviously Amavi back in would be the right choice, and as someone said earlier, Ayew's energy is a different thing altogether than the lethargic Gabby.

Grealish dropped on current form and attitude is welcome,and although I slagged Sinclair off on Monday for being a winger who doesn't cross, he did have a go at least.

I would love, LOVE Illori to turn out well so we could drop Hutton, the fucking liability and serial giver-away of possession, Likewise if we're to retain possession, Bacuna needs to be missing.

Yep, if that's the team, I could live with it - would like to see Traore on at some point that gives him time to impact - not at 85 mins.

I suppose the biggest miss for me is Veretout.

Oh, and I agree with someone earlier - missing choice in the poll - I'm going for a Villa loss but a much improved performance