LeamingtonAV

Strong rumours up in Glasgow that we are to go for a cheeky attempt for Neil Lennon.

Where did you hear that? I had a text earlier suggesting something similar from a friend who has a source close to the Club, but I thought I was seeing things!

It was back page of the Glasgow Evening paper tonight mate. Maybe worth an outside bet.

Oh right! God knows then! I've got a sneaky feeling the Board might go for someone such as Lennon who hasn't been mentioned much up untill now.

Hmmmm, you would think there might be something to it. Im only telling you what I have heard Brumerican!

Strong rumours up in Glasgow that we are to go for a cheeky attempt for Neil Lennon.

Where did you hear that? I had a text earlier suggesting something similar from a friend who has a source close to the Club, but I thought I was seeing things!

It was back page of the Glasgow Evening paper tonight mate. Maybe worth an outside bet.

It was back page of the Glasgow Evening paper tonight mate. Maybe worth an outside bet.

Strong rumours up in Glasgow that we are to go for a cheeky attempt for Neil Lennon.

I prefer not to drink is the designated away pubs such as the Fernhurst. Usually shit overpriced beer in plastic pint cartons, full of chavs. You can usually find another further up the road, still with plenty of Villa and a sing song, and you can actually breath!

Some of our fans are an absolute disgrace to this football club, and I'm NOT talking about the one's being mentioned a bit up from this post.

Villa's support today was, well, phenomenal. The only way to describe it. The best away atmosphere I can recall in years. We didn't stop singing - and when I mean singing I mean the whole end - for pretty much the entire game. An absolute credit to this football club.

And yet - in eight **** pages of this thread - only ONE poster has made reference to them? And we now have plenty of fans quick to condemn a few who might have made gestures at the end of the game having been humiliated on our travels once again this season. Get a **** grip eh! Those fans there today are the heart of this football club and if the 11 players on the field showed half as much desire then we'd have smashed Albion to pieces today, as they are a very mediocre side.

As for the game, we completely dominated large parts and our midfield of Petrov and NRC controlled the game from the middle. Downing and Walker also destroyed Shorey at left-back and, but for the final ball, we would have created many more chances. In the first half in particular, but also for periods of the second, we showed real fight and commitment despite what some of you on here would have you believe.

But today's result quite simply must lie at the door of the management staff. It was a really high-tempo derby game - which Petrov and NRC had dominated but Petrov in particular was clearly tiring in the sun. So what do we do? Bring Pires on. The crowds reaction of boo's told its own story. A completely non-sensical substitution in a high tempo, local affair which quite obviously handed some incentive back to a 10-man Albion side. The poster trying to claim he was one of our best players is as deluded as Gary Mac, quite simply. Delph, Bannan or Makoun would have clearly been the logical choices.

Ashley Young really can **** off now. Man United want him? Why? Do they need a new cheerleader? I've never been his biggest fan and today he yet again showed why O'Neill labelling him world-class was nothing short of laughable. For all the good things he does for Villa, he does ten really awful things in between. He's the worst taker of a set-piece I have ever seen and ever likely to see.

FAR too many times this season has our away support in particular been served up an absolute shower of shite. We've had long-standing records against Wolves and Albion destroyed and Blues beat us to go on and win a trophy - the same trophy we failed to win last year. Has this been the worst Villa season in living memory? Certainly in my 22 years as a Villa fan I'd say, yes.

We were practically parked on the Albion box for much of the second half and at times played some great stuff, which had me turning to my brother saying "how are we in a relegation battle?" - but then the decisions from the management staff, individual errors and a complete lack of bottle in the last quarter of the game has cost us YET again.

I really hope Houllier makes a full recovery - but then he or the club should do the right thing and part company. I do not want to suffer the same anguish again next season that we've had to put up with this season. I really should be immune to last minute winners from the opposition by now but each one still hurts just as much.

And - as already mentioned - the people running this club have once again taken the shine away from our magnificent support today. Proud to be Villa in that regard.

I find myself in 100% agreement with you again, sir. Top post.

General,

I have been asked by other Villa fans to post this letter to you. It is from a friend who wrote in to the Evening Mail, and it sums up how Villa fans feel right now. Even if you choose to not reply, please have a read.

Regards

Where has the pride and respect gone from Villa Park?

The place is an absolute shambles at the moment and the current custodians, not just of the club, but also the famous claret and blue shirts – which Tommy Docherty (who knew the significance) once said 20 thousand people would turn out to watch drying on a washing line - simply don’t seem to care.

I get the impression that these days the club is considered successful as long as it is in the top division, supporting itself and the fans are acting as unthinking drones still buying the tickets and merchandise, regardless of what is on offer on the pitch. Someone had the temerity to complain about the manager yesterday.

Being a lifelong supporter who cares and buying season tickets and merchandise come rain or shine obviously doesn’t give people the right to an opinion anymore as the stewards were sent in and threatened the dissenter with arrest unless the banner was removed. This isn’t Libya, surely we are still allowed an opinion? It was a petty response and only served to alienate the fans further from the club. Instead of threatening him they should’ve congratulated him, for reminding everyone what passion for the club used to be about.

From the owners down, there seems to be a general couldn’t-care-less attitude. When Lerner arrived, he was always on a winner, simply for the fact he wasn’t Doug Ellis. He took on a club, thanks to Mr Ellis, in the black and with a popular manager. Although Mr Ellis left the club financially stable, he interfered far too much, but now we have gone from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Now I understand he shuns the limelight and I respect his right to privacy, but there are limits and if that is the case, why did Mr Lerner buy a high profile football club in the Premiership, a league which in itself has a worldwide high profile?

Following Martin O’Neill’s departure, instead of having a ‘good luck to him, the club is bigger than anyone’ attitude, we have just floundered, directionless. We have seen no leadership from any quarter, just silence and ineffective appointments. The fans weren’t even considered good enough to receive a proper explanation as to why O’Neill left.

To be fair to Mr Lerner, he is prepared to throw money at things, but that isn’t what is needed, we need people in charge who understand the club and its fan-base.

With the improvements to the ‘fan experience’ – part of the overall sterilisation of English football – and the detachment of the fans from most modern players, some of the soul of this great club has been lost. That can be regained but we need strong leadership and character to achieve that, not faceless executives (Paul Who?), clichés and the condescending tone that we, as fans – people who live and breathe the club – don’t understand the ins and outs of professional football. They’re probably right, we probably don’t, but what the people of the West Midlands do understand however, is hard work, application and endeavour, something which is seemingly lacking from all levels at Aston Villa at the moment.

The fans are people who work hard, in many cases for little reward, they are people who are struggling financially, like the West Midlands region is as a whole at the moment, people who even in the face of losing their jobs will have saved dutifully to buy their season ticket at ‘their’ football club.

They have also been watching football all their lives, they know when something is wrong at the club they love, they know when someone is hiding and not putting in a full shift. If they turned up at work and showed the sort of application the players showed against Wolves on Saturday, they’d be looking for another job.

I totally understand why Kevin McDonald was appointed as caretaker after O’Neill left, but I believe that he wasn’t given enough time and the owners panicked following the Newcastle result.

The Houllier appointment was a mistake on a par with the appointment of Graham Turner and like Turner he is being given too much time. I am sorry, but I believe that Mr Houllier lacks the personality or presence needed to manage a club such as Aston Villa. He doesn’t understand the fans. After the Liverpool game, he showed not only a lack of regret that his current club had just been stuffed in an inept and incompetent performance, he stated he was pleased that Liverpool had been the victors. He acknowledged the Kop, but ignored the visiting Villa fans.

It wasn’t so much contempt for the fans, it was total disregard. As was the total surrender at Manchester City – where he bizarrely said that Villa were unable to compete with a team we had beat weeks earlier and also managed to alienate a talented young player who actually wants to give his all for the club in the process.

Houllier has shown me nothing to make me expect anything other than a prolonged flirtation with relegation. He got it wrong from the start again yesterday, as his early substitution showed. The players obviously don’t respect or more importantly fear him or his assistant, Gary ‘Yes Boss’ McAllister – a Scotsman who showed passion as a player but who now in management shows the inspirational qualities of a comatose Phil Neal.

The Leicester bonding brainwave summed the pair of them up, clueless. Take a bunch of over-paid, over pampered players away and when two of them behave in a way, which not only brings the club into disrepute, it also shows utter contempt for the fans, fine them two weeks wages and make them promise not to do it again. Imagine that under Ron Saunders, in the old days when Villa used to win things (there’s a clue there), their feet wouldn’t have touched the ground.

Enough is enough, if we still had any real respect for this once great club, neither Collins nor Dunne would pull on the shirt again. How dare Houllier criticise the fans for caring and showing an honest opinion at what they were offered on Saturday. Again he shows how out of touch he actually is.

Some of the other players need to have a long hard look at themselves. I say some, because there are still players at the club, who although treated poorly by the current management still show the qualities this club should be all about, decency, desire and commitment.

Money isn’t, or shouldn’t be the be all and end all, it won’t buy you everything, things like respect don’t have a price tag, they are earned.

Let’s be honest, another major problem is Ashley Young, who is holding the club to ransom at the moment. He won’t sign a new contract, regardless of what the weak management team do to placate him. He was made captain, a ridiculous move, as Young shows no leadership qualities - but this sums the whole desperate attitude around the club at the moment. He demands to play in a ‘glory role’ which not only doesn’t suit him, but one which makes the team less effective. He demands to take the penalties, he also demands to take the free-kicks and corners. He dives like a petulant child at every opportunity (not something which I was brought up to believe that Aston Villa players do) and is getting a reputation for it. It’s always the same script, after falling to the ground as if he’s been shot, Young gets up slowly, holding his back, hands on hips we have the little hobble sequence and he is off again looking for another opportunity to prostrate himself. He would be lost in a decent team, he wouldn’t get on the Man United bench, Young is anonymous when he appears for England and hasn’t had a truly telling game for Villa for ages. His prima donna attitude is making the team less effective, so, especially after Saturday, how is placating Ashley Young in the interests of AVFC?

We have had bigger and better players than Young leave the club, Gidman, Gray, Platt and Yorke to name but a few, have all left for pastures new, but Aston Villa has still remained and will long after the memory of here-today-gone-tomorrow footballers with no affinity for the club has faded.

On paper we were a much better team than Wolves but they defeated us on Saturday with a simple philosophy of tactics, hard work and teamwork. Those are the only things which will get Villa out of the current situation, but unless things change, I honestly can’t see where the inspiration for the fight against relegation will come from.

Lerner needs to act now, sack Houllier and McAllister, install people in the club who understand it and what it represents. We need people who care about Aston Villa or who have professional pride enough to robustly relay the significance of representing such a great club to the players, and more importantly to suggest they actually start earning their vast salaries.