Can we ever win the league again?

I am sorry, but you are wrong. I wish you were right, but you are incredibly wrong. In the Premier League the only way you can win the title (or even break into the top 4) is by buying it. Sad as it is, it is the truth. All the goodwill and determination in the world will not win Villa the league unless we too, are signing players of the quality of Aguero, Young, Nasri, Tevez etc. Using Porto as an example is pointless. Comparing the Portuguese league to the Premier League is like comparing a Robin Reliant to a Ferrari. It is a much tighter and easier league to win, where spending big isn't necessarily imperative.

Think you are a bit nostalgic for the 70's and 80's.

Until the Champions League goes back to being for Champions only (never will) and Sky stop pumping millions into the top clubs (not likely either) or a oil well owning Villa fan turns up, the field will never be level again.

Best you can hope for is a FA Cup/League Cup/Europa cup win.

A manager can't bridge the gap- after all love him or hate him Fergie is the best out there. He should be your target manager!

EIRES is back! Mate, we have disagreed about life, the universe and everything, but I'm happy to hear your voice.

On topic, no, I don't think we can win the league. A team has to have strength in depth; I'm talking about having the nice headache of choosing between two first teams, ala Utd and Citeh. To go a whole season, in our rubbish climate, great players need replacing due to injuries. This would mean, in an ideal world, that we'd have to produce six gems from the academy and buy another 12 gems at rock bottom prices, and somehow mould them into supermen to take on the richest clubs in the world. Is this possible, yes, Probably, very very very unlikely. If the professor can't do it, acknowledged as one of the game's finest, then who can? And even if such a mgr existed, he'd be snapped up by the rich. We aren't rich.

What I would like to see, is you writing the article that explains why RL has given up on what he promised, a tilt at the top four.

I do hope that Bongo is listening. Come back son, we need your voice!

Eires, yes we can win the league! Given all the things you listed it's perfectly possible. However, what we can't do is win the league year after year, at least on our resources.

You need strength in depth to win the league, but not as much as people think, unless you're competing in Europe as well. And you have to be single minded in the crunch year in going for the league and using the cups for bringing on younger players.

You also need things to favour you. Of the top 5, not all are going to do well, and in a year like last year when there wasn't a really weak team in the league, all of the top five are going to have difficult moments. I'd add an extra box to your list; be tactically astute with regard to the teams you play against. You need a core system which the players understand, but it needs the flexibility to reflect the team you're playing against (like we had at the end of last season, versus Arsenal and Liverpool).

But yes, your boxes are the critical ones, and with the right manager, the league is possible. And even if we didn't, we could certainly be seen to be challenging for it.

Hate to say this but a big NO!!!!. Unfortunately it is no longer a level playing field as things stand. However if a Jack Walker, Roman Abramovich type figure ever fancied pitching up at VP Then yeah who knows, but as for the forseeable future a cup will be as good as gets.

In simple answer No!

Unless you get a bigger back prepared to spend big, you can't win the league any more. Maybe if you come down to the championship you can win this league but not the premeirship.

This year only two teams can win the league and that is the two Manchester sides.

As for a manager being able to win a league on his own, I don't think that is possible, as much as I hate it, money now runs football.

A mgr can improve talent, you need to buy the talent first, or be lucky enough to have it come through an academy, and then hold on to it, which doesn't happen either. We don't have enough talent to make a tilt at the title and we can't afford to buy any. So it's impossible. I think even winning a cup is impossible for us now, unless we enjoy blouse levels of luck, we've slipped behind half the league in terms of quality.

This is the way you do it. You have a top class academy, and a top class manager who can get the players playing real football. And you have a top class international scouting system which will identify foreign talent (because they're cheaper). This doesn't have to cost a lot of money. But you need a manager dedicated enough to stay for a reasonable length of time.

OK, you're going to get the biggest clubs casting an eye over your talent and trying to entice them away. Eventually they will succeed, most of the time. Some will go quickly (Downing) but some will stay 3-4 years while on top of their game (Young). It doesn't matter, and anyway I think turnover of players can be good for the club, if done in the right way. It doesn't matter because you're using a single good system which players are familiar with and are developing a lot of players. One star heads off, bring on the next one.

You won't dominate the PL. But you'll be near the top, and every so often it'll be your year.

Crazy? Why not try?

I was thinking it will be hard to win league but not impossible who knows what will happen in the future let's keep the faith.