All the Richard Dunne haters. Missed him badly today but carry on making him a scapegoat even though he single handly masks the cracks of a poor defence.

No more Garrido please Mr Hughes the left sided Jihai Sun shouldn't be allowed near the first team. We never had a threat upfront and that's not Evans' fault he's only young but we need a right winger in and fast.

West Ham next week will be interesting, would like a new signing or 2 in before then. What does everyone think about us being linked with Silvestre?!

So in the last two Premier League games we have an aggregate of 12-3!

What on earth is going on? Yet gaian we have players who don't seem to be bothered.

Scolari today said that you can have teams that are equally balanced but what you need is a winning mentality, people who love to win an hate to lose. We seem to have players who aren't bothered either way!

Boginov out for 6 months, dont think their is any money for new players,lads it is going to be a long painful season for us true blues.Could SANTA and a few others please come before December this year.

Ridiculous comment Chris.
We were second best all afternoon. We're desperately short of good players in every dept. Midfield is too inexperienced for this level.
Even with Dunne in the team we are struggling. Let's hope we can get some strikers fit and firing soon or we'll be in for long season. Just one last word on the manager..We keep getting told that we would be one of the fittest teams in the country but i've not seen any evidence of it yet.

Dire result. Problems ahead. We only really started playing when they scored their 4th!

Hughes cost £5.5m - we paid that because we wanted to see him bring his managerial philosophy that did him so well at Blackburn - why does he then resort to going with the same system of our previous boss that saw us lose 8-1???!!!!

The fact we scored 2 goals without a striker can't be all that bad if taking any positives out of the game.

Etuhu had a good go but lost possesion outside of the box causing Villa to break. We NEED a right winger ffs, how can we spash out on another right footed defender (TBH) and not on a midfielder?

Left back is also an issue.

2 decent players, that all we need!!!!

Feel gutted about Bojinov :( Our strikers are cursed! Hurry up Brazil, we want Jo back!!!

This season a bad start, but hopefully we will
improve. We need 3 top players, defence,midfield and attack. Keep the faith!!!
CTID

SuperBlue22
17/08/2008 at 17:18

We may have missed dunnies hieght and overall defence qualities,but we didn't miss his distribution and him as the Captain, from what the radio said Richards was more than a good captain and MOM.

I blame Ronaldinho!

The circus continues without him......

Englands supposed number one needs to look at the first two goals! Also our young superstars need to have a long hard look, was it a case of we were not match fit again? Young proffesionals should be fit and up for the fight and have the will to win.

GET A GRIP DOOM AND GLOOMERS!!- we were not 2nd best all game-some excellent stuff from the boys with over half a team of kids-IT'S ONLY THE 1st GAME OF THE SEASON FFS- i think we look v.promising as a unit and will only get better...

5 for Garrido?

Did nothing wrong compared to the man with the uncanny ability to find players in every colour shirt in the league other than his own.
Fernandes is abysmal. Waranted no more than 2 !

Goal 1- assist to Fernandes
Goal 2 - Fernandes too weak in challenge to Ag'lor.
Goal 3 - Dire header from TBH when he could have left it 4 Hart.
Goal 4 - All round crap defence.

3 goals from left wing crosses suggests problem not with Garrido?

I think SPARKY should give the Richards/Haim partnership a run of games and see how they develop,bring in Onohu at right back and try and sign a decent left back and more importantly an holding midfielder plus SANTA CRUZ before SAF steals him.

Matt Lewis, we weren't second best? We lost 4-2 pal.

The last league game I saw we lost 8-1 and we gave up since January.

Am I not right to hacked off

givem most of the goals were from villas left then cant see how garrido gets so poor a press. he certainly aint the worst on show. tell fernandes to find an orange shirt, tell johnson to stop tackling like julian clary and tell etuhu to run AT his man rather than away from him and we may get somewhere. also, with villa so big why didnt we whip low crosses in and do short corners ? why do we not learn from mistakes ? though it wasnt all doom and gloom as we played some decent stuff...and villas route one footy would upset most teams..they werent that much better than us...just a tad more professional and solid.

''The fact we scored 2 goals without a striker can't be all that bad''

Yes, lets hope we get more penalties. Are you for real pal?

Watching on the net we played the better football, we just need a tough tackling midfielder all the problems come from there same last season no one to protect the better players, no one to break up opposition attacks, If we have very little money it must be spent there. Terrible shame for Bojinov.

This time next week, we'll have beaten West Ham with a great performance and eveyone will be saying what a great side we really are.

5! for etuhu, having a laugh what about corluka! hiam! elano, et al dont have a go at a young lad filling in for mercs who wont step up, where was bianchi on his 60k a week get a gip!!!!!!!!!!!
MH has his work cut out no doubt but do not make out that that performance was anything but a let down by the senior players!

MH needs every one of those 6 targets but I hope 4 of them are midfielders if he really is going to balance the squad. Ebay listing Job lot of useless players Gelson Fernandes, Rolando Bianchi, Felippe Caicedo, Vedran Corluka & One good player but may be broken. 99p start price no reserve. No shipping insurance needed due to the low value of the goods. Goods purchased in error last year some hardly used must be of some use to somebody!

I agree with any comments about Dunney, everyone must notice from todays abysmal display how he marshalls the defence. No-one took ownership for this and hence evertone who went into our box wasn't marked.

My next comment is about Fernandes, the guy is rubbish ( and would not get in any other prem team regularly inc. Hull, WBA, Stoke). Is he a holding role midfielder? If so why does he not have any of the attributes to be successful in that role. He is LIGHTWEIGHT, HEADLESS, NEGATIVE with his passing and what impact he has on a game I don't know, temp. fix Hamann definitely.

My last concern is that we need a left full back( Warnock), a defensive midfielder(Diarra), a right winger (SWP)and a striker (SANTA CRUZ). Will any come, probably not because it is too late. Also, there is no kind of clarification on the financial situation.

Hence we will hit Sept. without any new buys. Also, would be better without Corluka, Johnson, show some pride lads or get out!!!!!!!!

garrido problem in the air?! what!? as someone else noted 3 goals from left wing. fernandes a 6? this is totally wrong, gelson just cant pass the ball! not ready but do have the engine to run not much else. a 3 for me. our best players has to be ireland and sturridge! really impressed with young sturridge.

We have to back Hughes cos he is gonna turn it around. Don`t forget these are the same players who were abysmal during the second half of the season and yet we backed SGE. Hughes will get the players in and turn it it around. He is just what we need. Please get behind him and the boys. He knows which players we need and which department needs attention.

There should be an overall rating for drive,energy,enthusiam and commitment -- this side would be lucky to score 5 out of 10.
Hate to have to say it but Hughes has to find players that will give this for our club because without it we are going downhill.
Today only Richards,Petrov and Ched Evans ( for his first half display ) showed this with the rest totally unconvincing.There are far too many players strolling through the game showing no attacking instincts or the hunger to win - had they shown far more of this we would have beaten Villa.
Once again the fans were brilliant at Villa but the team overall let us down.
Clear them out Hughes and bring in players that will die for this club and that make us fans proud to support them.