15 Feb 2017 00:14:46
I have read the many many posts on here over the past few weeks and I don't think I have the right to say that anyone's opinion is wrong - because if we agree on one thing, it's that we're not happy. So here is my view for what it's worth. It may be a little long but I hope you stay with me and that it makes sense.

I love my club, I will never turn my back and stop believing, however I do feel that our club is just bad to the core at the moment and has been for a while. I think there is an attitude around the club that is very "care less".

Everyone says they care but do they really. First of all, our academy. Some would say it's one of the best out there, but is it? How many players have made it? How many have fulfilled the potential that we were promised? To memory I know of one and that is Gary Cahill. The list is long.

Bannan, Stefan and Luke Moore, delfonsou, Gardner brothers, Isiah Osbourne, Peter whittingham, herd, lichaj, now Jack Grealish and many more. Our kids won the next Gen series. That's the champions league for youth teams.

Teams like Ajax, Barcelona and others failed and we won - but where are those kids now? Nowhere. Because there is this cockiness about our kids that makes them think they've made it. They're already stars.

They're on £1k/ £2k a week and they just stroll around like they own the city. They have no role models, other than the first team players like Gabby who simply just don't care. Our senior players walk around driving flash cars wearing clothes pretending they're gangstas and the lifestyle they lead just flows through the club. And before inget shot down for that comment I've seen them.

I've seen them out in town. I've seen praised like gods when fans ask for photos and call players like Jack Grealish "Legend". There is a horrible atmosphere around the club that is quite toxic and you can disagree but just look at the players that leave. All the good ones, all the talented ones ask to leave and go on to at least perform at better clubs.

Players like Milner, Barry, benteke, delph, albrighton, young, have all left and tried to get on and we've had a go at each one of them for their desire to leave and try and win things. Has Gabby ever wanted to leave?

No because he is on to a good thing here. £50k a week for one of the worst footballers we've had. And if that's not proof, then look at the players that have joined - because for some reason we can turn a great player into an awful player overnight. McCormack scores goals for fun in the championship yet at our club he can't do it.

I don't blame him for staying at home. If I hd been bought in as the No1 striker only to then be starved of any sort of service by our rubbish football, and then to make things worse you lose your place to Gabby even when two strikers leave for the African cup of nations.

I'd give in. He plays 15 mins for Forrest = 1 goal. Lowton, having a great time at Burnley but not good enough for villa. We can blame Steve Bruce if you like but really? Can all of the last 6 managers be rubbish? Bruce, di matteo, Sherwood, Garde, lambert? Are all of the coaches like Steve Clarke rubbish? They can't all be bad so if it's not the staff then what is it?

It's the club and what runs through it. The attitude that if you play for villa you've made it. On the money we pay for average players is just wrong. There's nothing to fight for. Here's your lifestyle, there is no consequence. There are players that need to leave our club but also the air of arrogance that comes with them

Needs to be stamped out too. We were flying earlier this season but then slowly gabby comes into the team, then Bacuna, and added to players like Hutton and Amavi who just don't care for our club and what happens? We start to fail again.

When Deadly Doug ran our club I felt like we needed him to leave so we could move forward - however this wouldn't have happened if he was still there. He ran the club right through and he didn't stand for any player power.

I'm Really sorry to have gone on and on but I love my club and I'm as passionate as all of you that have read this. We need our ethos back. We need a John Gregory around our club. Someone to kick some backsides.

No one is bigger than our club. All we want is a group of players that turn up and fight for us. Play for us. Just the basics. It's the least we deserve.

1.) 15 Feb 2017
15 Feb 2017 09:12:22
Well written post and spot on!

2.) 15 Feb 2017
15 Feb 2017 09:21:42
Top post, on the button, i'd rather we were run like the baggies, no-one on mega money, no dramas, well said Villafanmike, well worth the read.

3.) 15 Feb 2017
15 Feb 2017 10:01:23
Agree with some of what you say but majority is just odd; the next gen team we're all sold by Lambert and now are first team regulars through out the country, players leave every club - look at Southampton, McCormack had a bad attitude and didn't turn up for training and was over weight - Really hard done by isn't he, players driving flashy cars? You mean like every club in the country?

4.) 15 Feb 2017
15 Feb 2017 12:14:00
Villafanmike. I wish you could hand deliver your post to villa park and in large print stick it up in the dressing room. A few home truths might just be the answer to some of our woes.

5.) 15 Feb 2017
15 Feb 2017 19:49:09
Thanks guys. At the end of the day we all want the same thing and that is for us to be competitive so we can turn up or turn the tv on and at least know that we will get 100% from the players.

ChrisAVFC: I respect the fact that we're all entitled to our opinions however "odd" they may seem. I too thinknits odd that McCormack has scored goals everywhere until he got to villa. I don't condone his actions. He should man up but how many of us work with someone that is absolutely rubbish at their job, lazy and there work is just nowhere near the standard that you provide for your company.

Then imagine that same employee getting a bonus over you, or being picked for promotion over you or picked for good things while you're left out in the cold. Surely you'd be annoyed. Surely you'd have a problem with that? And that was my point really, that I can understand why he wasn't happy. If i got paid £40k a week I'd do as I was told but I say that because I don't get paid the riches he does.

If that was my lifestyle and money wasn't an object and I knew another company would take me in an instant or that I'd just get paid anyway then I guess I could just throw my dummy out. I don't agree with it but I understand it.

As for the players that leave, again I think you miss my point. Yes of course Southampton lose their good young players but they lose them to Arsenal or Liverpool or bigger clubs. Those youngsters are turned into great young players by the southamptons and then sold on for massive money to be made into great players.

I am missing where that has happened tomour youngsters? My point was that we're told how these youngsters are going to be the next best thing but they never are! The next gen kids were apparently sold by lambert? All of them? You sure? Aren't some of them still at the club? And the ones sold, have they gone in to bigger and better things or do they no play for the prestons of this world and clubs like that? My point is that we never take our kids to the next level! They never grow into the walcotts or bale or lallana or oxlaid chamberlain.

They become football league pedestrians apart from the odd few like albrighton who left us to win the premier league and although lowton wasn't from our youth set up we didn't grow him - we got rid and now we'd give anything to have him as our right back. or I would anyway. I respect your comments and the great thing about football is the difference of opinion but I disagree my comments were odd. But thank you for reading. It meant the 20 mins I spent writing it wasn't wasted. Thanks guys.

6.) 15 Feb 2017
15 Feb 2017 21:16:59
Fair play mate now you've explained I do understand you a bit more, I don't get your point tho? Probably just me but are you saying that we are where we are because our youth system isn't good enough?

The players we produce go on and don't do great as you said, so how could we take them to the next level? If their not good enough in the first place? I agree Lowton would be a great option now but it seems under recent managers we had a problem with any fullback who could defend, the problem being the managers sold them all like morons.

But back to your original post, all around the country players are driving in in expensive cars every week, why is it only a problem at our club? I do agree with you but it seems things go on at all clubs round the corner as well as ours but it only effects the villa.

We sign hungry, hard working, honest players, winners, i. e. Hourihane, Lansbury, Hogan, Bjarnson and then they get to villa and their ineffective? Something stinks at the villa at the minute, I know it's early days but something is really rotten.

7.) 16 Feb 2017
16 Feb 2017 01:37:11
Your last paragraph was sort of my point, about youth andabout players in general. We sign hungry players like you say and for whatever reason they just turn out poor for us and it's the same with our kids. They come through the ranks and we're told how great they're going to be - only to find they never make it.

None of them. Yet they move on and some prosper and some don't. But they NEVER do here. Callum Robinson was one of ours. So was Daniel Johnson (think that's his name) both at Preston nowand theyreshowing our players up. You're right that every clubs players own the flash cars and that's just today's footballers but for some reason atvilla it's toxic. It's horrible. We have no guts. No fight. Just a weak couldn't care less attitude from a lot of players. A stat that just shows us where we are right now as a club.

Of the 92 football league clubs in England in 2017, we're 91 of 92 on form. Only Leicester are worse. And what are the similarities between us and Leicester? We both have a group of players who think they're way better than they actually are. only at least Leicester have win something to have that belief. Your last paragraph is true and was my point. There's something in the body andbuild of our club that's wrong. Because all of the last few managers, coaches, scouts and players can't be bad. Not all of them. Its not possible. But there's something.