All fair points. I think if Norwich survive another year in the Prem they will scrap the wage cap.

It's going to be very tough though, our leauge 1 or championship players are now demanding premier league wages.

Looks like Villa got away without having to pay compensation to Norwich after all, as I speculated above.

Also looks lIme Lambert will try to get Grant Holt to follow him. I know nothing about him - is he any good? I saw he was linked with a Euro call-up, but nothing came of it.

The current speculation has Villa linked with some 21 year old Belgian striker who recently broke into the national side. He doesn't sound like someone who is going to make an immediate 20-goal-a-season impact, so I have to agree that this doesn't bode well for the season.

Bent is a proven striker, who can get you goals, but he's not going to create them out of nothing and, based on the first two matches, he just isn't getting any service.

I'm not sure whether it's a blessing that RL has recently sold the Cleveland Browns, his NFL franchise. On the plus side, it frees up his time, attention and (most importantly) money to focus on Villa. On the negative side, there's some speculation that he wants out of pro-sport completely and is just biding his time before selling Villa on too.

Still, that may not be a bad thing if some oil-rich sheikhs come along and do a Man City..... Well, you can't help a bloke for dreaming! There's not much else to be positive about at the moment!

How do you Villains feel about the signings you've made? Lambert continuing his ethos of signing lower league players.

It's going to be a long hard season.
But at least we have a thread

I consoled myself with the thought that we won the first half

Curious as Blues had a 2nd half meltdown aswell - have both teams ever conceded 9 goals like that in 1 day ?

Whether Bent is on form or not is no good to us, he can't score without service and we currently have N'Zogbia being an overpaid pansy hasn't performed once since we signed him.

Where's Agbonlahor? His pace is usually of atleast some use to stretch defences and give space for Bent to get in good positions.

Albrighton can play a good a cross and a good pass but he's not likely to pull many of those at this level yet. Bannan similar to Albrighton.

Benteke looks good as I thought previously, I think he should be starting up front to be honest. I think Steven Ireland is potentially our most productive player, he should be playing in an advanced role behind the striker/s, giving them the ammunition to score.

We seem to have zero link between midfield and attack, our midfield looks weak as it is, full of ordinary players, no leaders or stand out performers.

Basically, I think we'll be lucky to survive. I just hope we can pick up aome decent points leading up to January and fetch in one or two players that will fire the team up, be a leader and get them playing.

After slating Gabby and N'Zogbia last might just before kick-off and saying we lack a midfield and the ability to score goals, we go away to Man City and put 4 past them.

The important thing now is to build on the confidence of that performance and apply it to West Brom on Sunday. We need points on the board as soon as possible to give us breathing space from the drop zone.

No Darren Bent in the starting line-up. Big decision to leave out the most expensive player, but definitely best for the team.

Once again the midfield looks weak; Delph, El Ahmadi, Albrighton and Holman. Although, I suspect Agbonlahor will start on the left to make a 5 man midfield with the big lad up front on his own.