romavillan

yeah ireland injured. good first half from us, apart from the penalty. we can get something out of this game if we can keep pressing how we did in the first 45.

shame for ireland, he had some good touches and was gettingin goalscoring positions. hopefully wee barry can do some more of the same second half.

we look a LOT better than against liverpool, we should stick to this shape for a few games. let's hope heskey stays injured

yeah the culture is well ingrained in all their playing staff, however, our line up could get something out of this game, it's got pace and width and if ireland has a good game a bit of guile too.

UTV!

I hope it's a cricket score to Arsenal. I've accepted that we need to go backwards in order to go forwards and to be honest, I hate what Aston Villa is becoming. We've got players who I don't like, a manager who I resent, a CEO who is a prick and a Chairman who doesn't appear to give a ****.

just do not get your logic at all. hoping we get stuffed is bonkers.

I really dont want to go tonight, its cold wet and its so shit to watch. Before this season I didn't even leave a game before the end, now im hoping we are at least 3-0 down at somepoint so I can go early.

Alex McLeish has ruined this club and entertainment it provided in my life.

Plus, we are going to get **** smashed.

Utterly ridiculous post. Don't go then.

Why is it?

Ill support the team but our manager is so shit im not expecting anything at all. I bought a ST before he was appointed and im not wasting money. Iv sat through 90 minutes before and watched us get smashed 4/5-0, as long as I think we tried, played okay and gave it go I have no problem, but to watch this is unbearable. If we go 2-0 we aint coming back from it, no point sticking around.

I'm actually hoping this ends up about 5 or 6 nil so we can really get on McLeishs' back so he pisses off

no matter what i think of mcleish, i always want us to win.

The Guardian - which has a pretty good track record of getting these things right - is saying this morning

Guzan

Hutton Dunne Collins Warnock

Petrov Clark Delph

Albrighton Agbonlahor N'Zogbia

So those who are wanting Clark to start may get their wish but maybe not in the position they expected.

Collins is doubtful, though, so maybe Clark will have to go back 4 and someone else -Bannan or Ireland? - might go midfield.

Well the guardian is totally worng. There is no way he will line up with a 4-3-3 against Arsenal. You need to pull Nzogbia and Allbrighton back so they are almost secondary full backs so its basically a 4-5-1 which will inevitably become a 6-3-1 after about 10 mins

Guzan

Hutton Dunne Collins Warnock

Allbrighton Petrov Clark Delph Nzogbia

Agbonlahor

well 4-5-1 when you don't have the ball, 6-3-1 when the ball is near your box and 4-3-3 when you have the ball

tonight is a good night to have a go at arsenal, they will line up with 4 centre.backs again. so two make-shift full backs, one of whom is 19 years old. if we have a fluid front 3 with gabby sometimes wide and the others adapting to where he is and have a real go from wide we might be able to get something out of this tonight.

course, we'll have to GET the ball in the first place...

Well we can argue until the cows come home about whether his performance was good or bad on Sunday. Truth is, he's nowhere near Premiership standard. Even the Moore's had offered more at his age and look where they careers have ended up. One playing non league the other sitting on the bench.

i think we might rue letting him go IF we let him go this season. as has been said above him, albrighton and zog were the best players for us for 30 mins in the first half. i don't think you can say he gets a place ahead of bent and gabby, but he could be used as a sub with 30 mins to go if either of them aren't firing and create something or score.

Delph was bad but Bannan was hardly much better.Both giving the ball away easily.

All the players came out at half time looking like they had no idea what was just said to them, talking to each other and looking confused!

i reckon both of these things are related to be honest, i saw the conversation between dunne, collins and warnock too. dunne looked to be both pissed off and confused, to say the least. if the players are not REALLY clear in what they have to do then the way they work together is compromised. there was no good movement for the player on the ball as a result of this, so limited options going forward, so we give it away a lot.

this is something MON was very good at, making sure that every player understood exactly what they should be doing. give them simple instructions and don't confuse them, the results are his direct and attacking football. the down side as we all saw was the one-dimensional and predictable stuff when we weren't in a situation that suited playing on the break.

today we were woefull apart from some stuff fonz and alby and nzogbia did. it was only little flashes though and as a group we looked clueless and gutless, second half most of them looked like they didn't want to be there at all. i've been trying to reserve judgement on AM. it's hard to see what, if anything positive he is doing with this group of players though. you can't even say we're hard to beat or tight at the back.

piss poor. bannan giving the ball away. no ideas, all look shit scared.

only positives were fonz (apart from the miss), some flashes of what the zog can do and albrighton. the rest need to **** get a grip.

The body language says it all

yeah, the group as a whole has problems i reckon, not much team spirit going around. fonz and alby are running themselves into the ground but there's more than a few which look like they couldn't give a monkeys

if we get anything otu of this it'll be daylight robbery. poor.

oh shit, 2 mins, 2 good chances

dunne had done the hard bit, jesus, we need to **** wake up sharpish

some positive signs in the last few minutes, if we can get one back before half time (and they don't get any corners) we might be able to save this yet.

big day for the fonz. delph returns to midfield, anyone know how we'll line up yet?

i don't think he has a prob with attitude, ashley young used to baffle me facial expression wise. he looked permanently mardy arsed.

bent missed a few sitters this weekend, given the opportunities consistently over the course of a season he will get 20+. he's done it time and time again. if he gets 3 good chances next week and the week after he'll get at least a couple over the two games.

really don't understand why he's getting so much flak. afaik he hasn't mentioned anything about wanting out, people started speculating about it as his supp,ly line seems to have vanished, but it's pure speculation and commetns suggesting he can go if he misses a sitter or two, or because he's lazy, implying he wants out... well, that's insane. we've waited years for a striker like bent, i hope he's with us for a long while!

it's a big worry, i've been out of the country for years. here in italy only the biggest clubs get full stadia playing in the league or champions league against the other big clubs. even big clubs playing in the semis of the cup play in front of less than 20k crowds. so far the premier league seems immune to this, but it can't go on for ever if the prices keep rising.

if we offer a poor spectacle we're going to suffer in terms of crowd numbers unless we get success (george graham's arsenal had success so highbury was generally pretty full even with the dire stuff he had them playing). as i see it success is unlikely as well. i'm all for giving him some time, but unless he does something really spectacular in the second half of the season then this summer is a big one for RL.

i think having a core of the team coming through the academy will help with the pride and knowledge of the club. in the shorter term though this has to be done by AM, at the very least he's someone who has won things under SAF so *should* know something about getting players to put in the graft in order to earn a shirt. today's footballers are a funny bunch though!

as for RL only time will tell i suppose, next summer will be a big indication of his intentions.

ahah. funny what internet anonymity can do.

on the article, very good read and pretty much on the mark i would say. it's a difficult time for the club now, and one we have to get through as fast as possible. the premier league is a very different place to what it was prior to the man city money. look at the table now and their is a two tier league. with the right investment, and it doesn't have to be tons of money, in playing staff in the middle of the park we would be in the bottom end of that top tier. looking forward, we have to continue to invest in youth, we have produced some good players but only gabby has really made a name for himself here so far. i think continued investment in youth will see another 3 or 4 first team regulars in the next 5 or 6 years. a situation where we have brought up half our first team through the academy and spent wisely to compliment that talent is the ideal way to stay in that top tier and push for some silverware.

that would appear to be the only way we are going to "wake up" the fanbase and get bigger regular crowds and more money to build from there. the question remains though whether the current board and the current manager are the people to take us there. RL has invested heavily in bodymoor heath, and that kind of thinking will surely see the necessary funds put into youth. AM however is going to have to do something spectacular with this squad to be anything other than a dead man walking.

so even short term (next 1 or seasons) you'd think we'll have yet another new manager. hopefully RL will have better advice on who that should be!

i'm hoping he plays a lot of them, gets his confidence back and comes back to us a better player...

the marker for where we are is the league table, and it doesn't look too bad. mcleish's first priority was to make us hard to beat.

we are unbeaten.

now comes the task of getting bent/agbonlahor enough chances in a game to net a couple. the second half against qpr showed signs of the front half clicking, the game against wigan was better.

as far as citeh goes, i don't think it is a marker for where we are, it will give us an idea of how we will fare against united and chelsea. but there are far more teams in this league nowhere near that level than near it.

Alot of people on this thread refuse to see positives when they are clear as day to the open minded and rational.

ex nose in charge is the problem there for a lot of them

i reckon he's doign a good job so far under the circumstances, the result at city is not gonna change my mind on that, whatever it may be. i reckon we will still be top 8 at least come christmas. hopefully by then a few people will have digested some humble pie.

glad to see conversation in this thread is about whether we can nick a point away at city and not about whther we can afford to get rid of mcleish!

was a ridiculous thread title anyway! we'll do well to take a point off city away, it's not beyond us but if we do it won't be pretty to watch!

even if we do lose our unbeaten record there, we are improving and i can see us getting another 11 points on the board in our next 7 or 8 games and being well on track to finishing higher up the table than last year without any relegation panic.

that would mean progress from mcleish, and next summer some big contracts run out and we can invest and go again aiming for europe.

UTV.

plus i reckon it would get the best out of bannan and ireland, we'd have better movement and link up to bent... doubt eck will play it though

I'd play

------jenas---petrov-----

zog-----bannan----gabby

----------bent-------------

Think Gabby has looked most likely to provide a goal threat myself.

yeah i reckon even...

------delph---petrov-----

bannan---ireland---gabby

----------bent-------------

isn't bad either, deffo think we would benefit from 4-2-3-1, we've got the personnel to play it a few diff ways. we have a good screen for the back 4, and if one fo the 2 in front of the back 4 comes forward we attack with numbers too...

deffo think bannan should start, i'd go with...

------jenas---petrov-----

zog-----ireland----bannan

----------bent-------------

with zog and ireland and bannan swapping all the time, maybe even gabby as one of the 3 seeing how zog has been playing...

i think ireland and bannan woudl benefit from the freedom of being in a fluid 3 and bent would deffo get more service.

tanner 'ba, would be a cheap football