PB

:shock: :shock: Think of it as an approval rating At the moment he seems to have quite a high approval rating, higher than I thought it would be when I saw the poll I think it is an interesting thing to monitor over the course of a manager's career Needs a closing date though I think for each poll - I would suggest a Friday night, then immediately start the new one? personally speaking I would also ask a different question Are you satisfied with Martin O'Neill's management of the football club? or something similar??

I spent some years in the US in the early 1990s and I found the people on the whole to be the kindest, friendliest most generous people I have ever come across. As a place America is stunningly beautiful, such natural wonders, such "big country". Love it. However, as a political entity? I think its fair to say I dont approve

So anyone who was sat at home and/or actively online couldnt be bothered to go the game? No other possible reasons you can think of? I'm sure you can if you really try

How do you know they cant be bothered? Do you have any concept of the history of this club, indeed all West Mids clubs, and August attendances? Clearly not.

I saw a match in two phases the first phase saw us, without really ever hitting the heights we are capable of, putting ourselves ahead in the tie, and a second phase whihc saw us throw it away For me the match turned on the Rapid manager switching to 4-4-2 and our manager leaving a clearly blown Petrov on. He got away with it at Anfield, as Sidwell and NRC were both able to pick up the slack more or less, but last night Delph was, understandably not going to be able to compensate for his senior partner fading so badly. I dont know why O'Neill refuses to make changes of this type to see out games, but it has cost us so many times now that it is making me very angry whenever it happens, and last night was yet another game that we just needed to quietly put to bed having done the hard part, but didnt. had the bench been full of kids, maybe you could understand, but sat on the bench, I had naievly thought for this very scenario, was the perfect solution in the shape of Reo-Coker. But hey, what do I know, I'm just a spotty faced kid who stays up all night playing championship manager. The Rapid goal was coming, and had been coming for quite some time. I could see it, and yet Martin couldnt? All that Championship manager again? And so we have gone out, and I think over the balance of the 180 minutes deservedly so. Had we grabbed a late winner then I'm sure Rapid would have pointed at a number of missed chances, incredible open goal misses really, and perhaps more pertinently at a second penalty award which was very, very soft as Ashley did his very best Eduardo impression to earn it. We need to improve, I think we can all agree on that. Perhaps worryingly, the area that needs most improvement, from my perspective, is in regard to our ability to make tactical changes to win games that are drifting away from us. The manager may well have got us into Europe, but last night lets be perfectly clear, the manager cost us our place in the group stages by repeating an error he seems incapable of correcting. This is not the first time, and it wont be the last. Maybe Martin should go play Championship Manager. I'm told Jimmy McHagen is a great buy.

Substitute: To put or use (a person or thing) in place of another That is all, that is my reaction to that last night Oh, one more word Angry

Same central midfield as played against Wigan nice lets hope it works just a smidgen better tonight

huge game this one Going out of this competition isnt worth contemplating Considering as how the reserves played the other night with Albrighton, Salifou, Osbourne, Banna, Lichaj, Clark all featuring prominently, I cant see any of them playing, which means a full strength team I guess - the only "fringe" players I can even remotely see starting would be Delph (perhaps for Petrov) and Delfouneso who wasnt even in the stiffs squad on Tuesday. I think we'll see Davies and Shorey play for the last time in a wee while my pick; Guzan, Beye, Davies, Cuellar, Shorey, Reo-Coker, Sidwell, Delph, Milner, Young, Carew subs: Friedel, Clark, Lichaj, Petrov, Salifou, Agbonlahor, Heskey Stick at 4-3-3 to begin with, and if necessary take off Delph for Gabby or Heskey as needed Come on boys, lets do this!

November 2000 wasnt exactly the end of the Ellis era. Indeed, Doug called the PR that I wrote complete tosh. "Of course we can still compete with Manchester United and Co" he proclaimed in reply to my claim that these clubs were moving away from us forever. Mark Ansell called me to tell me that I was mad, that we had just finished sixth and got to a Cup Final, what did I want? I told him that it was perfectly clear to me and many others that the club was going backwards, that those heady days wouldnt be repeated under Ellis and that we were a declining force in the game thanks to the way Doug ran the club. Now i will say to you the same thing. It is perfectly clear to me and many others that the club is going backwards, that those heady days of us challenging the top four wont be repeated under O'Neill and that we are a declining force in the game thanks to the way O'Neill runs the club. I have no beef with Randy. No beef with general K, but something at this football club has to change, and soon. Either the manager needs to rediscover the plot, which I would vastly prefer, or he needs to accept that this job is too big for him and walk off to find another Leicester/Celtic equivalent club so he can look good again, because right now he looks way out of his depth.

Seriously, do you really care what other fans think of us? Do you know what? Exactly the same things were said when we were trying to get Ellis out. Oh look at those moaning Villa fans, at least they;ve got a stable debt free club ... now its, Oh look at those moaning Villa fans, they just came sixth .... On the day of the first £ sign protest Villa beat Spurs 2-0 to move to fourth in the League. What on earth were we protesting about? I recall some Newcastle fans giving me dogs abuse as I handed out £ signs outside the North Stand in the second protest. "You're mad, always moaning Villa fans, get behind yer team like we do" The period from then until randy took over should tell you what it was all about. SO personally, i dont give a flying banana what other fans, especially those from other teams think. I'm not going to be bullied out of saying what I see.

I am sorry, but this sort of post is really getting to me at the moment It is not the fans fault that we are playing rubbish It is not the fans fault that our squad is weaker now than it was 12 months ago it is not the fans fault that it has been six months of going backwards I think people need to get their heads out of the sand and understand that the fans are hacked off and angry for a reason, a bloody good reason, their football team is rubbish, and what is worse, completely predictably rubbish. Something has gone seriously and (imo) terminally wrong behind the scenes, it is the only reason for such a total and dramatic collapse of form and confidence. the players are no longer playing for the manager or even for themselves, they simply Dont believe any more, you can see it in their listless, lifeless, dead performances - and a growing section of fans are joining them in their lack of belief. Martin O'Neill is angry with the boo boys apparently. Tough bloody luck Martin, The Boo boys, you know thsoe people who pay £25-30 +++ to get in to watch the shower you put on the pitch, arent exactly in love with you either. Stop the stupid sound bites, stop the pathetic whining to your media mates, get your bloody head down and start delivering some results before you make yourself look like a total muppet and see your career vanish into the sunset. The managers performance currently is completely unacceptable, he needs to get an immediate grip and stop pointing fingers at the fans who were here before him and will be after he has gone.

I hope he turns it around, but to be honest I cant ever remember a manager at this club turning something like this around once the momentum and mood is the way it is I dont think he'll be sacked though

On the positive side: We more or less competed. They couldnt just walk through the midfield like Wigan did. We should really be out on the balance of this match, but still have a chance albeit a small one) of getting through. Need to keep a clean sheet at VP On the negative side: We never looked like we had a goal in us. 4-5-1 didnt work. Putting NRC and Sidwell didnt provide the platform it should have. Confidence is very, very low Guzan: 6. No chance with the goal, nice couple of saves second half Beye : 3. Seems to be a bit of a pub player. Good with the ball at his feet, good when he is the right position, but he needs to learn he isnt a central defender, he's a right back. He continually gets sucked into the middle and everything Vienna did that was dangerous, including the goal, was caused by exactly this. Drazan baasically had him for breakfast. Wigans second goal came largely the same way BTW Shorey: 5. An improvement from Saturday, would still like to see him not give the ball away quite so much Davies 4. Beyond a joke now isnt it? Apparently his shoulder injury is worse now, not surprised. When I told my 13 year old son that Curtis was playing last night before the game he said "O'Neill is going to get him seriously injured and he'll miss ages". Spot on. Cuellar: 6. Better Milner: 5. Weak NRC: 6. Added some strength to the middle Sidwell. 6. See NRC Gardner: 5. invisible. Young. 5. Another weak performance Heskey: 6. tried his best but had no support or service subs Agbonlahor: 6. Added some thing, but not much Lowry Very worried now

So the OS site is wrong? Yes it is, KO 1915 CET, 1815 BST

i think what is shocking about it is that the labels are using to spotify to do their dirty work, apparently.

Clicky

Oh yeah, please. btw. I don't understand why English football fans (and you guys specifically) appear to care so little about the European Cup. For us, it's pretty much the highlight of the season to be able to compete against foreign teams and support our club in stadiums we've never played in. (especially since there are only 10 clubs in our league, so we are playing against the same teams over and over again. ) Some of us love European football I'm hoping our manager shares that love, but last season he didnt

until February I was one of the optimists, arguably one of those who argued loudest on his behalf. He seemed up until that fateful afternoon against Stoke (in fact for 89 minutes of that game too it looked as if the great Moscow gamble was going to pay off) to be in complete control. it seemed as if everything he tried came off. Even during the bad runs, (and there were a few, especially in the first season) you always felt they were temporary blips, you felt like everyone was still pulling in the same direction - players, fans, owner and manager. Ultimately, you only had to show his critics (and there have always been a few) the results on the pitch to shut them up, because on the pitch is all that matters. it doesnt matter who he signs, it doesnt really matter what players he picks or what formation he uses - as long as he is winning. This is always true of managers. For me, loud alarm bells started to ring after the match at Eastlands, and I wrote at that time that this was no minor blip in form, that something was horribly wrong. There was something scarily empty about that performance, and we saw the same again this past Saturday against Wigan. Here we are nearly six months later and just about every single thing that has happened since that night in Manchester has confirmed my fears, and this has been reflected by results on the pitch which for a run of seventeen games now have been abysmal and totally unacceptable Sometimes managers lose the plot. Even the good ones. it happened to David O'Leary who suffered a similar dramatic slide after signing his new contract, it happened to Brian Little when personal problems overtook his life. Sometimes its just the right thing for a football club and its manager to part company. I hope I'm wrong, because I really thought that Martin was the man to lead us to the promised land. But as I said back in the Spring, this is no minor blip in form, something is horribly wrong. Here's hoping Martin manages to sort out whatever it is, as we dont want to have to go back to square one unless its really 100% necessary. We arent at that point just yet, but this is the test that will determine whether O'Neill is really a top class manager or just another also ran. heres hoping he can fix it and get us back to winning ways over to you Mr O'Neill, time to start getting it right again

Villa have announced their squad for the game: Everyone Nah only kidding Friedel, Guzan, Marshall, Davies, Shorey, Beye, Cuellar, Lichaj, Clark, Lowry, Sidwell, A Young, Milner, Albrighton, Delph, Petrov, Reo-Coker, Gardner, Carew, Agbonlahor, Delfouneso, Heskey So I was actually right first time ....

nice write up Bri Will be pleased with a scoring draw from this one

Dont get me wrong, they arent as good as say Hamburg or CSKA, not at the moment anyway But they are certainly a very similar team, imo, to Slavia Prague who gave us quite a game last year I'm expecting the same sort of game - us conceding alot of possession and territory and hoping to hit them on the break, so lets hope our keeper plays a blinder in Vienna like he did in Prague last Autumn.

Personally I feel you may be underestimating Rapid Vienna somewhat. They arent significantly worse than Wigan. This isnt some bunch of Icelandic or Eastern European no hopers, this is actually just about as hard a draw as we could have had. They have recent Champions League group stage experience and while they arent as good as they were ten years or so ago when they got to the Cup Winners Cup Final (one of two European finals in their history) they are still a really decent team. They arent brilliant for sure, but they will certainly give us a good game, and if we dont improve significantly from the weekend we'll get turned over. it will take two good performances to go through imho I also dont agree that this si a competition we can afford to go out of. not at all. We really, really need to do well in this cup,

Another way would be for Ash, when he gets the ball, to stop, look up, and see what is on. If the answer is "nothing" he should go backwards until something is on. His responsibility is to find the space To just drop your shoulder and have a go at three defenders without even bothering to look up is rubbish. To then fall over EVERY SINGLE TIME whether fouled or not is even more rubbish. If there are three people marking him, then there are huge holes elsewhere, thats just a fact. Not good enough, he needs someone to tell him that he's not world class, that even if he was he cant beat three defenders. On the bench we have a winger who was in his time genuinely world class. He needs to tell Ashley a thing or two about how to play the game.

My team selection was pretty much what i viewed as being our strongest available team .....

Assuming all of these can play I'd go with Guzan, Beye, Cuellar, Lowry/Clark, Shorey Albrighton, Sidwell, Reo-Coker, Milner Young Carew