andymac12345

1 hour ago, Delphinho123 said:

Would love this.

Don't think we will ever see Adama again so we need a quality winger signed up. 

Has he played a single minute in pre-season yet?

I have a mate who's a Palace fan and watched us lose 2-1 at their place last season. He was absolutely astounded at how good Grealish looked that day and said to me, the problem with Villa is, 'they have too many Gabby Agbonlahors and not enough Grealishes'. This was a pretty nice write up of him the other week:

http://villatillidie.co.uk/2016/07/14/jack-the-lad-or-jack-the-man/

Quote

He’s certainly got the right words to make us think he has: “I want to be a driving force for the team this season. I want to be one of the lads that the others look up to and get inspiration from.”

Good to see he's reigned it in with the mental holidays too:

http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/revealed-what-aston-villas-jack-11533827

 

Good battling draw, probably just about deserved a draw as Saints didn't do much with their possession except in the first five minutes when Lambert came close.

 

Albrighton easily MOTM, he had Luke Shaw in his back pocket although Luke Shaw also had a decent game, especially going forward. 

 

I said after the win against Chelsea that we'd made progress on last season. With my tail between my legs I take that statement back, we've stayed the same and I think that is solely down to Lambert's poor dealings in the transfer market. Only Leandro Bacuna and Betrand have looked good signings (not including Okore who probably would have been good) and players like Tonev and Helenius have been a complete waste of time.

don't judge players after one season. Nobody thought KEA was a good signing last season but he has done well this year. Vice versa with Lowton

 

Fair point actually he has improved a lot over the last season - I hope they can show the same kind of improvement. Sylla on the other hand has gone from average to flippin' terrible.

Good battling draw, probably just about deserved a point as Saints didn't do much with their possession except in the first five minutes when Lambert came close twice.

Albrighton easily MOTM, he had Luke Shaw in his back pocket although Luke Shaw also had a decent game going forward which made the battle between them two interesting to watch. 

I said after the win against Chelsea that we'd made progress on last season. With my tail between my legs I take that statement back, we've stayed the same and I think that is solely down to Lambert's poor dealings in the transfer market. Only Leandro Bacuna and Betrand have looked good signings (not including Okore who probably would have been good) whilst the rest such as Tonev and Helenius have been a complete waste of time.

Having said that, I still have faith in Lambert and am a believer of continuity. There's no manager out there right now who could do a better job so we should stick with him as I still see potential in this team.  

Sorry Andymac12345 but those ratings are harsh

Nobody below an 8 for me today.

Delph Baker KEA Westwood All 9's

Fair enough, each to their own. It was a good team performance regardless and everyone did well.

Baker only a 7 because he lost his man a few times which could have cost us. Delph defo a 9 as you said. 

Weimann and Gabby 6s as I didnt really see them do anything but 6 is still above average assuming a 5 is average

Guzan - 7/10 - Rarely tested but looked assured when called into action

Bacuna - 8/10 Didnt think he would cut it at RB but he keeps proving me wrong!

Vlaar - 8/10 Solid as ever

Baker - 7/10 - Improved a lot this season, overall fine although caught out of position a couple of times

Bennet - 7/10 - considering all the stick he gets, he played really well tonight. Better than Luna IMO.

Westwood - 7/10 - another good game, really looking like a Prem player now

El Ahmadi - 8/10 - Most improved Villa player this year, looked lost last season but his energy is terrific

Delph - 9/10 MOTM - foot and legs like a traction engine, caused Chelsea no end of problems and a world class goal to boot

Weimann - 6/10 - A bit quiet tonight but did what was asked of him

Benteke - 7/10 - some lovely touches, couple of stellar efforts although perhaps could have passed instead of shooting at the end

Agbonlahor - 6/10 - See Weimann

Albrighton - 7/10 - best crosser of the ball for Villa IMO, came on and caused problems with his good deliveries

To think, people wanted Lambert sacked two months ago. Pathetic.

Great result, definitely progress on last season is evident.

UTV

 

Yep, I think Owen scored after 5 minutes. Petrov and Mellberg had a bad game on the right flank and had a little row and both were subbed after the first half. Carew scored a hat trick and about norwegian Villans were there to watch it. And Bouma scored an unstoppable belter...

Yep and Harewood was absolutely magnificent.

 

aaaah my bad thought it was 3-2, here's the highlights  http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1090939/newcastle_united_1_aston_villa_4_feb_09_2008/

 

Match of the Day ‏@BBCMOTD  1h

This was the first time Villa have come from two goals behind to win a Premier League game since April 2005 (vs Southampton) #AVFC #MOTD

 

Didn't we come from two down against Newcastle in 2007 when Carew scored a hat trick?

Would have gone for a Villa win with Gabby playing but we look very toothless without him, a draw banker IMO.

1-1

 

again possession means nothing

we have played 10 games where we had less than 44% we have won 6, draw 2 and lost 2

 

I wouldn't say it means nothing. But it is a very overrated stat - I would think the amount of time you are in the opponents half more meaningful. I think everyone would agree we aren't a great team at the moment - Lets hope lambert came improve things over the coming months

 

Opta Stat - Aston Villa have won every game where they've had less than 37% possession. Efficient.

Overall a decent performance. We looked dangerous in the second half and the fact we're moaning about squandering chances means we're actually creating chances which is good.

Having Vlaar back was evident although I don't think Clark and Baker have been that bad in recent weeks. Lowton was solid, Luna all over the shop again - he's one player I'm confident isn't good enough for the Prem. 

Bacuna was good, seems to be our only real creative spark. Westy was okay, Delph was poor by his standards. Benteke showed what he could do in flashes - really wish that goal had gone in, would have done his confidence a world of good.

Gabby worked tirelessly and took his goal well. He's actually turned into a half decent footballer now as opposed to being effectively a sprinter who would run onto through balls in the MON days. His hold up play is good and he makes the right runs, think he's been our stand out performer so far this season along with Delphoid and Guzan.

Now a little thought on the possession thing. It seems to me that Lambert is choosing consciously that we only have a small amount of the ball during the game as part of his tactics. It seems efficiency, getting men behind the ball and countering is what he's aiming for and despite a couple of lucky wins, we're 11th in the table...a position we're expected to be at this stage in the season. Kinda makes the whole Lambert out nonsense look stupid eh?

Great 3 points, UTV

Toothless. Gutless. Heartless. Clueless...anything else?

My thoughts...

Bacuna isn't a right back

Westwood isn't good enough

Benteke needs to find his shooting boots soon 

Weimann has really gone off the boil

Delph had an usually poor game

Gabby, Herd, Baker and Clark are the only ones to come out with any credit

Puzzled as to how we let a team like Fulham dominate us in the manner they did - forget referee decisions, we were absolute toilet and didn't deserve anything from that game.

What we need:

A CDM in the Mulumbu mould how can do the dirty work and make things happen - Westwood has got nothing on him so far

A creative midfielder

Not to play Bacuna at right back

Big fan of Lambert and what he's trying to do but to say we won't be in a relegation fight this season is very premature based on that performance - there's a long way to go and if we continue to play like that we'll get sucked into the mire in no time.

Does anyone watch 'sport authority' on oddschecker?

The idiots saying Hull were going to win easily as we don't have Weimann playing.

Don't know where the hell they've got that information from!? Idiots.

On our home form it will continue to be bad until we improve our midfield options. Probably need to sign 2 quality midfielders to play alongside Delph to have enough to break teams down at home. And of course we need to improve at the back...  

I really think one Hatem Ben Arfa type player who can open up defences is all we need. Think we should have signed one of those instead of someone like Helenius (especially as we now have Kozak too)

I just want to see some fight. We always allow teams like Tottenham to walk all over us.

I wish people would stop thinking just because it's Tottenham, that it's a reason to let a result like tonight slide.

Teams like Tottenham? So Arsenal could be included in that list?

But wait we beat them....Spurs are way ahead of where we want to be right now and let's face it both sides fielded their reserves so the real result was AVFC Reserves 0-4 Spurs Reserves 

By the way - I agree with the positive outlook, but we're still allowed to discuss the match, that's why this topic exists.

 

You can't discuss last night's match sensibly without recognising that we weren't very good.

Good point, I saw half 2/3 of the game on a stream and we looked clueless throughout. However I've seen people jump to illogical conclusions such as 'we are awful' 'the new signings are awful', 'we haven't improved'. Yet go back a few weeks when we gave Arsenal a seeing to on their own turf people were in nothing but awe of the squad.

Just a bit of balance is needed. Lambert has already proven to me that he knows exactly what he's doing and his unrelenting belief in his ability squad gives me confidence. Last season for example, he'd knew we'd pull ourselves together and we did...in some style. I have no doubt he got up this morning and knows exactly what he needs to do to get us back on track. 

Also people slating Lambert's signings already? 

Wasn't everyone raving about Bacuna last week? Didn't Kozak come on and make an immediate impact? Hasn't Okore been really steady before his injury? 

Even El Ahmadi who was poor at times last season seems to have come good.

Christ, some of the things people come out with at times is embarrassing. 

STOP BEING SO NEGATIVE!

Holy overreaction Batman!

Did you really think we were going to go the whole season without at least one thrashing?

These things happen and let's face it we were never gonna win that cup anyway. We will bounce back, I'm sure of it.

We've shown enough in our opening five games to prove we won't be whipping boys again this season.

Keep the faith.

UTV

ESPN has him joint top with 2 assists.

 

Pretty sure he has at least three

Another assist from Agbonlahor, he must be top of the assist charts in the premier league now no???!

 

Guzan

Lowton

Okore

Vlaar

Luna

El Ahmadi

Westwood

Delph

Weimann

Benteke

Agbonlahor

 

El Ahmadi has to play. Very strong team.

 

Subs: Steer, Kozak, Clark/Baker, Helenius, Tonev, Bacuna, Sylla

 

I'd like to see this, Benteke as a number 10 with Kozak as the target man would be very interesting to see. I certainly think he's good enough to play there with his technical abillity.

@Bleedclaretandblue - Thanks mate

I agree with what you said there. RE Guzan, I never expected him to turn out this good and it just shows how inept Mcleish was to release him and possibly how good Lambert is to resign him and drop Given. I think with Vlaar and Dunne back and a new LB our defence will be fine and similarly with Benteke, Weimann, Gabby and Bent our attacking options actually look quite tasty, it is indeed midfield where we severely lack quality. Bannan and Westwood are decent holding, ball-playing midfielders but we need a James Milner type player who will grab the game by the scruff of the neck and add a presence in the middle.

Why do the media hate us so much? We are hardly a Liverpool?

Woah, woah, woah...calm down there chaps and think for a second. It's a very naive thing to say the media 'hate us'. The reason we're not as admired as others clubs right now is due to the position we find ourselves in. People forget, that under MON about 4 years ago, people were raving about us. Every week on MOTD Hansen and co would rave about the likes of Ashley Young and the gang and praise our exciting brand of attacking football. Now we're a club falling on hard times in a serious relegation scrap after a season where we were very fortunate to stay up. With the likes of Swansea, WBA among others doing well this season, it's easy to see why they are currently getting all the plaudits.

With regards to getting stick from the media after losing three games. You're forgetting we lost 8-0, 4-0 and 3-0!! And the 3-0 was at HOME, to WIGAN! Ever wonder we've been battered in the media!!

People also forget after beating Liverpool the other week the press loved us...Charlie on Soccer Saturday comparing our play to Barcelona - hardly words of hatred are they?

Who gives a frig what the media make of us? If anything, negative press will only spur on the players further. If we get in some good players in Jan, tighten up at the back and continue moving forward under Lambert's regime, I guarantee we'll get the recognition we deserve. But for now it's pretty easy to see why we haven't exactly captured the hearts and imagination of the country with our footballing displays.

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Regarding the match and general team selection. N'Zog HAS to play. Already proven he is a class act and could be that play maker we're looking for. If he excels in that number 10 role then a midfield bruiser or two and a defender of experience would stand us in good stead.

With the rise of Westwood, Benteke, Guzan, Clark and Weimann and adding the experience of Bent, NZog, Gabby, Vlaar, Dunne and Ireland we have the makings of a team that really should be in the top half right now.

Wow pleasantly surprised to see SSN don't have a vendetta against like MOTD seem to do. We're the game of the day on the highlights and Charlie Nichlas and Jeff Stelling had nothing but good things to say about us today. Nicholas even compared the 2nd goal to Barcelona and said we'd made a massive statement with today's win. Meanwhile, MOTD will no doubt be crying about the so-called penalty shouts Liverpool didn't get.

However amidst the utter anti-villa shit we seem to get, a very level-headed Liverpool fan posted this on RAWK.

"I don't think I've watched a game this season where we shouldn't have smashed the opposition, why we're not miles clear at the top is anyone's guess.

Discredit Villa all you want, they defended better than us, they attacked better than us, scored more than us and conceded less than us. Completely and utterly outwitted us.

Had we done what Villa have just done to us, against City or Man U, we'd be all in here fapping about what a tactical masterstroke it was."

Got it spot on, he must be the cleverest man in Liverpool.

Anyway, time to get drunk and rub the red-noses faces in it. The great thing about beating a team with mindless glory supporters is that there's no shortage of fans to berate!