skarroki

or not. I don't think i've ever seen villa this bad. ever. especially considering the opposition. It really needs to change quick but i can't see it happening. the only guy who looks capable of unlocking defenses is bennett, who is in defence and doesn't want to pass when he is getting somewhere

A corner! yes! we will thrash this in

we've lost this

Yes lads get stuck in! they haven't given up yet! LETS GET THAT **** GOAL

they should have had a **** penalty like 10 seconds before too. this is an absolute joke

holy shit

Aston Villa boss Paul Lambert wants to instil a German mentality into his young side as they look to avoid relegation. Lambert, who won the Champions League with Borussia Dortmund in 1996/97, says: "The great thing about being in German football was the mentality they had. I think that was the secret. It was a big learning curve for me, seeing how they dealt with defeats as a footballer and as a manager. You could see how they lifted things and how they put things to bed. They knew how to handle it."

not happy if it is 5 at the back, have to wait and see who is playing where. i HOPE we are lining up as: Guzan Lichaj Lowton Clark Bennett Holman Herd Bannan Ireland Benteke Weimann

just had a thought, isn't Warnock back from his loan? is there the slightest chance of him making an appearance? how well has he been doing at Bolton?

Guzan Lowton Williams Clark Bennett Westwood Bannan Albrighton Ireland Holman Benteke SUBS: Given, El Ahmadi, Bowery, Stevens, Lichaj, Herd, Carruthers Very nervous about this and not really expecting to win but really wanting us to. it will help everyone calm down and re-assess the table coming into the new year. Here is hoping for a win. Everyone on that team has enough ability to play well against wigan, they just need to find that ability and hopefully drag us through to a win.

You completely ignored the very good point that the Norwich fan made. In case you didn't realise, they were talking about teams and how many they conceded last season. Norwich conceded a lot at the back and were poor defensively. This season under the same manager we are conceding a lot and are at times poor defensively. He didn't claim Lambert was a bad manager, he wasn't bad-mouthing the guy. Why when people are talking about defensive records do you talk about Norwich's 3 previous seasons?

we have the longest injury list in the league according to physioroom.com, and looking at it the majority out are players who have at some point in their career had great seasons (N'Zog, Gabby, Ireland, Bent, Vlaar, Dunne, Petrov). Looking at that list they are probably the highest earners at the club, the most experienced players at the club and at the moment they can't have any influence on the team because they are out, which means that we have to settle with youth and players from foreign leagues. I think we just need some old heads in the team to calm down and encourage the better of the young players we have. The rest of the young players can become back-up, as realistically that is all they should be.

i don't think playing with 1 striker will work for us so i am glad to have 2 up front, but i dont think 5 at the back is a good option. with so many defenders playing our poor midfield gets completely overrun even more and then we have to sit too far back and hope that we get in a block or good save whilst the opposition pepper our goal for a good 70 minutes. it can work against some teams and on a good day, but i don't think it is something that should be played too often.

i don't think we should tell them how good they, i think one of the reasons we've lost heavily twice is because the players started believing the hype and believing that it was going to be easier from now on

when do the players get an update on the ratings? i know there is an update on march 1st normally for all the transfers made, but i remember it being updated sometime before that too, or am i imagining that?

hi all I've been on a teaching internship in China for several months now, i was placed in Jinan, Shandong province. I've thoroughly enjoyed my time here and have seen everything in the Shandong province that i want to check out, but now i have 3 weeks to travel to some of the main sites in China and i was wondering if people could recommend some of the best places to go? obviously i'm not going to get to see everything in only 3 weeks but i'm hoping to travel around a fair amount of the country. After that, when my visa is close to running out i am off to HongKong for a few days, over the Chinese new year period, i am imagining it will be chaotic but exciting, i am going to book m hostel for the few days now so as not to risk not having anywhere to stay. What is best to see in HongKong at this time of year? Thanks for any help, i'm gonna set off on the 18th Jan at the latest so still have a few weeks to plan out some stops

i get that we need to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and start again. However, this result cannot be forgotten as it's now the 3rd pasting we've had, one of which came against a newly promoted side that hadn't yet won a match. This sort of result, no matter what people keep saying, should not ever be expected unless you are a couple of divisions lower. We absolutely have to get 3 points against Wigan now, it's vital IMO. I've already written off the Tottenham match as if we play anywhere near like that, we have less than no chance of getting a point against them

dowd could go off, we could win this now! good bit of luck _______________ oh well ignore that, i'm off to bed, have little to no hope now.

gonna go with a 1-0 win to villa, i fancy someone other than the usual suspects of strikers + holman to score, maybe Bannan? i fell confident about this now. If we move up to 13th, 21 points, and then manage to beat Wigan, picking up whatever we can at Tottenham, we are going to start to look really strong and competitive, and other teams will finally start to take notice. Even Savage is "eating humble pie" over us definitely getting relegated. All the fans are happy and optimistic, all the players are all together now, Lambert seems to finally be feeling comfortable with the team i think, and this huge buzz going on can hopefully carry us through the next 6-8 weeks, and then we can re-assess where we are So yeh, 1-0 win haha

Baker, Herd, Lichaj, Bowery and Westwood have played league 2 football in recent seasons, Delph and Lowton played league 1, even Agbonlahor had a taste of it a fair few years back. These guys have all been down where the Bradford team is but have progressed to earn Premiership squad status. They should know how to play this sort of team, it will be completely different from the Arsenal game. Even Lambert has managed in the lower leagues so will know how to tackle it. I don't expect any sort of slip up what-so-ever, but that does not mean we are through yet!

after looking at our run of results i don't know why i haven't been optimistic for longer. We have only lost 4 of our last 13 games, and 3 of those 4 losses came against 3 of the current top 4 (Spurs, Utd, City). I have to say i am not so optimistic about this one, and to be completely honest, although obviously i would love to see us win it wouldn't bother me too much if we were to lose this as long as we don't cave in. I didn't expect anything more than a point from these 3 games so we're already 2 up on what i was hoping for. If Terry is back i hope he gets completely shredded apart by Tekkers, if this happens then he will immediately shoot up to one of my all-time favourites lost 4 in 15 sorry, going back to the 4-2 win at Man City

very frustrated as i am coming back to england less than a week before the league cup final, and as i have been out the country the entire season so far i was hoping to buy a half-season ticket at a reduced price just before i came back but i guess that isn't going to be an option then?

i think he's one of the best complete forwards to wear the shirt, but is he really the best player for a long time? We've had our fair share of good players in the last few years, they just haven't all stuck around/been in their prime to play in the same team at the same time together. Would rate Friedel, Mellberg, Young, Milner, etc. from the last few years. I would agree he's one of the best complete forwards we've had for a long time, however

i think he could play wing-back or CAM for us, if we put him in the gap between midfield and attack then he would have the option to roam to either flank or straight through the middle. As long as his performances continue to improve then i reckon we should keep hold of him. We know there is a good player in there and it would be annoying to take a big loss on him after 18 months, only for another team to pick him up and get him playing good again.

think if we go for a decent, quick wing-forward who is willing to track back, aka a better Agbonlahor, we will be looking a lot more decent. I think N'Zogbia could do us a shift in the CAM position now he's back, and we can wait till the summer, hope that Southampton get relegated and then buy Lallana. Very hypothetical transfer there though