Southampton V Aston Villa (League Cup 4th Round) : Wednesday 28th October at 7:45PM

Regardless of the fact that we apparently played better against a comfortable Southampton side, the team selection filled me with dread.

KMac is not daft, he knows players and if he preferred to play our older players who are reaching the cast off stage, then what does it say about the mess we've got ourselves in? We spent 52million pounds plus this summer and yet none of them bar Gestede and maybe Gana are deemed good enough to get selected ahead of some very ordinary has beens.

Doesn't say a lot for Almstadt and Reilly's picks does it? I think part of it was the decision to rotate our pack somewhat and rest a couple of players so not sure how much store we can see it. That said, I saw a report saying Adama was keen to play but didn't even make the bench. Surely he wasn't someone we would have been resting?

All things considered, it will be very interesting to see what the next full time manager makes of things and whether the players signed by the Sporting Director and Head of Recruitment get more of a role. It will determine whether the strategy the club have taken has been the right one.

Hutton was mentioned a lot last night. His attempts to get to the by line and cross the ball led fans to say he played pretty well, but .... we didn't score from any of his efforts to assist, but we did concede two goals. If you watch the highlights you will see Hutton jogging back way out of position as usual and doing nothing to help prevent either goal. I'm not blaming him solely because defending is a joint effort, but his bizarre positioning is a major contributor.

That's my point though .... We do not win any league games that Hutton plays in (can someone find a way of checking how many games we've won that Hutton's appeared in?) because his constant efforts to play on the right wing destroy any chance of us keeping clean sheets.

AH has assisted once against Liverpool this season (and once more in the previous two seasons I believe), but in the ten games so far this season we've conceded 17 goals. Perhaps if we kept our shape as a back four apart from Amavi (who isn't a good defender but has a proven record of assists) we would always have a cohesive line of three defenders confronting breakaways.

What is the point of allowing one man who doesn't have any end product to continually contribute directly to the loss of games?

My usual Hutton rant!

Sandie wrote:Doesn't say a lot for Almstadt and Reilly's picks does it? I think part of it was the decision to rotate our pack somewhat and rest a couple of players so not sure how much store we can see it. That said, I saw a report saying Adama was keen to play but didn't even make the bench. Surely he wasn't someone we would have been resting?

All things considered, it will be very interesting to see what the next full time manager makes of things and whether the players signed by the Sporting Director and Head of Recruitment get more of a role. It will determine whether the strategy the club have taken has been the right one.

I honestly don't think Remi Garde will take the job if he shares Sherwood's/KMac's belief that our older rejects are better than the new signings. This may shine a light on the inadequacy of our current coaching methods, if no one at Villa (BMH) is able or prepared to play such talented prospects.

I think Garde is coming, so I'm guessing he rates our new talent.

I personally think Kmac went with what he knew last night. Let's not forget he has been down in development all season, so not working at all with the first team squad. The french guys will largely be unknown to him. I'd imagine he has personal nightmares of the 6-1 mauling at Newcastle and wanting to pick a side he largely knew. I see it as no reflection on any of the imports.

Ayew was good Saturday and lively when he came on (winning the pen and did more than Gabby did the entire game) Gana we know to be quality. Amavi is class, just needs an arm around him and a good coach and a settled back four/team. Same could be said of the other french imports, not to mention the rest of the squad.

Bottom line for me is we have a decent squad of players that have been vilified in the press the past few weeks in order to protect their mate Tim. "He hasn't done a bad job and needed more time as the players are shit" and now some fans are buying into that.

Give them proper coaching on a daily basis and not an over the hill, disinterested Wilkins and an out of his depth Robins, all overseen by an incompetent narcissist and they will be fine. Confidence and a run of games with the same formation, tactics and same XI will make a huge difference, to go alongside with what they're doing Mon-Fri. The players are not the problem in my experience.

Let's get Garde and his staff in and have some proper training and then judge them all in a few weeks time. I think we will see some changes and surprises from Ayew, Veretout and Amavi etc!!

Heard some tales that the training ground was like a holiday camp, Tim one of the boys, all jokes and fun, no professionalism and work ethos!! Leads change that (if true) and we'll be ok. We're not going down!!!!

That's the feeling I have about how things were. You can say a lot of bad things about Sherwood but I reckon the players enjoyed playing for him. Not necessarily a good thing!

Sandie wrote:That's the feeling I have about how things were. You can say a lot of bad things about Sherwood but I reckon the players enjoyed playing for him.  Not necessarily a good thing!

Yep had it easy, days off, in for a few hours, one big mates act (if you face fitted, ie he wanted you)

GadgetMan wrote:I personally think Kmac went with what he knew last night. Let's not forget he has been down in development all season, so not working at all with the first team squad. The french guys will largely be unknown to him. I'd imagine he has personal nightmares of the 6-1 mauling at Newcastle and wanting to pick a side he largely knew. I see it as no reflection on any of the imports.

Ayew was good Saturday and lively when he came on (winning the pen and did more than Gabby did the entire game) Gana we know to be quality. Amavi is class, just needs an arm around him and a good coach and a settled back four/team. Same could be said of the other french imports, not to mention the rest of the squad.

Bottom line for me is we have a decent squad of players that have been vilified in the press the past few weeks in order to protect their mate Tim. "He hasn't done a bad job and needed more time as the players are shit" and now some fans are buying into that.

Give them proper coaching on a daily basis and not an over the hill, disinterested Wilkins and an out of his depth Robins, all overseen by an incompetent narcissist and they will be fine. Confidence and a run of games with the same formation, tactics and same XI will make a huge difference, to go alongside with what they're doing Mon-Fri. The players are not the problem in my experience.

Let's get Garde and his staff in and have some proper training and then judge them all in a few weeks time. I think we will see some changes and surprises from Ayew, Veretout and Amavi etc!!

Love this optimism and agree entirely. everyone keeps saying our squad is rubbish blah blah blah. I disagree, yes we need some more firepower upfront and maybe a new GK but a generally believe we have the players to be doing A LOT BETTER and will do!!

I tend to agree as well. I think most of us recognise that there were problems under Sherwood so if we introduce a good new manager there will be some immediate uplift.

Do think the jury might be out with a couple of the new players but none of them have been failures. Some haven't really had much of a chance. My feeling is that last night was more rotation than players not being rated.