Aston Villa - Nottingham Forest

[Sniffer Dog (Admin)]

Think thats probably the end of the road for Toff. if he cant play in this game, i cant see a future for him here. Sad really as seems a really good bloke and i thought he was always steady if not spectacular for us. Never let us down at all.

I agree but the blatant truth is that he is not PL standard.

We can't be keeping players because they are nice blokes.

[Username]

Maybe this will sound like me being negative again (and fair enough—I did mention the scars), but if the general consensus is that we shouldn’t overpay by a few million for players we’ve identified as ideal targets—like Marmoush or Wissa—then I guess I’m just a lone voice in the wind.

But if we’re talking about being responsible with spending, let’s not forget the millions we’ve burned on players who were never intended to impact the first team at Forest and were instead shipped to Olympiacos never to play for us . If we hadn’t spent 15m on Carmo and 5m on Stamenic in the summer, that’s 20m right there that could’ve gone toward a striker we desperately needed.

We’ve seen this before: missed chances and short-term thinking costing us at the crucial moment. This isn’t just being negative—it’s wanting to learn from past mistakes so we don’t repeat them.

I'd argue this is the opposite of short term thinking, this is long term rather than prioritising the short term.

Fwiw, I do agree we should've signed a striker and it is probably a mistake overall. 

However, in the game on Saturday, do we really think some kid making his first start would've had any more impact than the attackers we had on? We were unlucky that Elanga (essentially 3rd choice CF) had to go off with cramps too. Also, that all the chances fell to Anderson and Neco rather than CHO, Jota or MGW (to a lesser extent)

I certainly don't see it as some heinous error, obviously if we'd managed to sign Wissa or Marmoush in summer, things are very different but we don't know that wouldn't have upset things. Might've blocked Chris Wood from having his amazing season, or Elanga from his recent massive upturn in form.

Also, I think the run of hits the club have had, they're probably in a fair bit of credit! Recent signings have pretty much all massively returned on our investment, even Jota Silva and Sosa (to a lesser extent) have popped up with crucial performances.

All three of those missed guilt edged chances!!

I only remember an MGW one that he missed badly but I wouldn't call it guilt edged. Don't remember either of the others getting big chances.

CHO missed one first half, one on one with Martinez.

Jota Silva pulled one wide from about six yards with just Martinez to beat.

MGW had a flicked header at the near post that he didn’t get his head on properly and out straight into Martinez’s hands.