nick76

Can't believe we are at home playing bottom of the table team.....this is unbelievable

Yeah but again I think consistency is about quality.  I know when I play at my low standard of football that when I play with people of the same ability or better than me, sometimes I have barnstormer of a match when everything goes right and sometimes I have a stinker but when I play with people that aren't as good as me I play consistently really well all the time.  I had this situation several years back when in the week I played with better guys and on Sunday morning I played with guys who weren't as good.  I was a goal scoring sensation on Sunday's but in the week my form changed quite a bit.  My point is that our players are on the whole average quality and seem to suffer the high and lows against varying quality of team in the premiership.  Although I dont understand why we are so bad against lower teams.

Stadium sponsor?

Can't wait to get back to Birmingham and watch Aston Villa at The Sony Centre!

maybe at least then our tannoy sound in the stadium might be looked at and improved:)

heres a plan....... avfc wont get top 4 so 5th spot is 100% of renew fee..lets say £400 average..if avfc finish 4th from bottom the st is reduced by a lower %,

the idea is the lower down the league will reflect on the price of st. YOU GET WANT YOU PAY FOR, when mon had a team the prices went up,fair enough,now its time the st reflects the team.

why would a supplier do that when the customer continues to pay, it makes no business sense

Were over the hill with the finances, our losses will only fall from here. I think there are a few clubs who are still going up the hill in terms of losses and a small hitch with the TV revenue will hit them well before it hits us.

 

The thing is if the "big clubs" do pull away and make their own league who's going to watch them? I wouldn't and I don't think many neutrals will either, its a big risk for them. What the others clubs should make perfectly clear is that once they have made the move there will not be an easy way back in for them when the "super duper league" goes tits up.

 

 

It's the other way round. 

 

If the big clubs pull away and form their own league no one would watch us anymore. 

 

We would basically be a championship club in a championship league with similar TV revenue and exposure.

I think a bit of both will happen!!!

I rarely watch champions league games these days and it's the same with a lot of people I know, so if they pull away I may even watch less. It'll be like watching Spanish football when Madrid play Barca, if I'm at home or at the pub and it happens to be on tv I'll watch but otherwise won't go out of my way and that's not how I used to be.

Like you say the rest of football will suffer as the neutrals and people on the fence will less likely watch whatever league villa will be in and so will be left to the clubs fans to watch their games....

I think that's why the break away super league will never happen and the format aka the champions league, is likely to stay because the big clubs need us and we need them. If it did happen then football might implode, which maybe a good thing in some ways and we can get back to some normality rather than what it is now...

I do think he deserves the chance to play with a really good side containing at least few players of similar ability. It would be exciting to see how far he could go.

can't we just watch him play for Belgium to see that?

We cannot really deny him a move, he's given 2 years to us which is fair play, you can hardly blame him as he is a class above anything we have at the moment. We all wanted him to stay the extra year and he has, think we should let him go and keep on to the good memories of him, hope there isn't the nasty reaction like last summer if he were to leave

sorry but I completely disagree with that. Why should we let him go just because he is better than the rest. He has a contract which he willingly signed. If somebody bids a suitable price that Aston Villa are happy with then he can more otherwise he should stay put. I'm an Aston Villa fan not a Benteke fan (if you know what I mean), I want what's best for Aston Villa, not any individual player or person. Aston Villa are better with him in the team so he stays and fulfils his contract unless somebody pays a very high price that suits us and we can utilise to hopefully better the team.

Loved reading this thread, sometimes forget how my chosen career is not always straight forward to the non-accountants.

Sad as it sounds I would love Robin's job. Ok to most that doesn't sound appealing but for a realistic job for me I would love it

One thing I don't agree with is that these guys are problematic because they aren't football men and just have financial cv's. I can imagine some football men not being any good either, I just don't think PF and RL are good running our club. I could imagine many financial cv people being really good at running our club. I think this thing about needing footballing men in the board room is rubbish, and brought about by ex footballers thinking the rest of us don't understand football when we have probably played more games ( all be it at a lower level) than them and probably have watched and analysed more games than them. What we need is the right people in the board room, whatever skill set they have..... Unfortunately under RL that isn't going to happen.

I'm disappointed with the window!  I wasn't expecting much just one player to be honest to help with that creativity in midfield, which is so obvious that we need.  With merit payments for league position last season being 755k per place if I can remember correctly (maybe somebody can validate that) then surely a player that is more likely to improve us in a position we are woeful in can help secure a higher position i.e. 10th as we are currently in compared to maybe dropping a few positions.  I'm not saying this person will definitely improve us but they should and there is a higher chance they might because we havent got anybody else and losing 4 positions to 14th would cost $3m plus potentially an extra game on tv because we are more attractive to watch, would boost fans slightly as we all want a player in this position and now some fans are slightly deflated.  Continuing from the WBA game, the feel good factor, we now have somebody to look forward to watching, kick on for the second half of the season after a dull first half and get to summer in high spirits.....as it is we "go on!!!" 

Shit! C'mon now keep going, we've been the better team

Can't believe how well Lambert has done in this transfer window, from what I'm seeing on the pitch he's brought a whole new team

to his credit Clark has really stepped and improved his game. A lot more confident and assured with his game. Baker is a decent back up. Okore will be providing great competition and hes back in a few months. We may need another CB but we REALLY need to sort our midfield. I personally think we need a DM and an AM. Or 1 top quality all round midfielder ie Milner (we aint getting him but a similar player with similar attributes).

Attacking midfield is without key but I think we still need a CB after that as when Vlaar isn't there we really struggle.  I think Vlaar makes Clark look better than he is and would rather Clark be number 3 choice CB.  Against Liverpool we looked far better as a team with our defence more solid with Ryan at left back and I agree that Clark was in that I still prefer another 1st choice CB

.  Alan Wright for me, there was a reason why he was in our side for so long, he was consistent. 7/10 pretty much every game and must have been one of the first names on the teamsheet. Only reflection not sure we ever really replaced him. Rarely spectacular although he did hit a screamer or two which will live long in the memory.

haha I've just put Alan Wright as my most over rated player in the other thread, thought he was a liability but I know so many that loved him like you. I was glad when he wasn't in the team and eventually left.

I think in 95/96, when wing backs were all the rage, Alan Wright was probably one of the best in the country. I think if he hadn't need 5 foot nowt, he'd have a fair few England caps to his name too.

see that's where I disagree, I think some of the affection for Wright was due to his lack of height and overlooked his lack of ability. The whole underdog syndrome feeling!

.  

Alan Wright for me, there was a reason why he was in our side for so long, he was consistent. 7/10 pretty much every game and must have been one of the first names on the teamsheet. Only reflection not sure we ever really replaced him. Rarely spectacular although he did hit a screamer or two which will live long in the memory.

haha I've just put Alan Wright as my most over rated player in the other thread, thought he was a liability but I know so many that loved him like you. I was glad when he wasn't in the team and eventually left.

I think as villa fans we generally think on the negative side so I'm not sure we ever over rate our players as such.

Always wondered why people loved Alan Wright, always thought he was shit, and was happy when he wasn't in the team and then eventually left us. I always felt we were vulnerable down the left side with him.

I was a massive Angel and Savo fan but I know many that thought they were over rated by some villa fans.

 

1. McGrath

2. Southgate

3. Mellberg

4. Laursen

5. Ehiogu

Totally agree

"It's Alan Evans not Allan Evans" - I think it was "Allan" Electric Avenue but I guess we would both agree that he was one L of a player... 

It was definitely Allan

 

Disagree slightly I believe it deserves it's own place

 

1. McGrath

2. Southgate

3. Mellberg

4. Mellberg's beard

5. Laursen

Think he is distinctly average but today in the first half he was really impressive

KEA has played really well, why take him off?

60% possession for villa as well apparently.....wow! Come on keep it up!

Ignoring the usual petty sarcasm I've asked you on four occasions now to produce a simple stat of Lambert's match record during his tenure with us and on every occasion you have refused.

I've asked you to do this because previously you seem very willing to pull a graph out of your back pocket to try and prove that Lambert is doing a good job. One would assume that one of the most telling factors whether Lambert is doing a good job or not is our overall match record under him, yet as I say, you refuse to show this.

 

But indignantly demanding that someone you're disagreeing with post the particular stat that supports your own position isn't petty?   If you've got an argument to make, make it yourself.

 

The basic disagreement between the "Lambert apologists" and the "Negative Nellies" mostly boils down to their interpretation of what rebuilding entails and what's the best approach in the long run.  It's clear Lerner, Lambert and Faulkner all agreed it's best to start from scratch with young (mostly), hungry, passionate players on similar (mostly) wages to bond and get the high-earners out the door.  This approach required spreading the transfer kitty and salary funds among more players, with the obvious sacrifice in quality and greater risk of signing flops.   It also means risking relegation for a season or two until ther funds can go to quality vs. quantity.  But if the plan works, the club is in a good position financially and can start rewarding the players who did well with better contracts and replacing those who didn't with better quality at higher wages without blowing the wages out of the water again.  If you accept this approach, then the club's record since Lambert took over isn't necessarily the most important measure of success at this point in the project, as long as the club stays up.  At the moment, you could argue that Lambert has been successful, if only by a margin, against this measure.  If the rest of the plan plays out (relegation is avoided, money from clearing out dead wood is made available for better players in the summer), next season is the real test of both Lamber and Lerner.   Football style and results need to be significantly better and showing signs of continuous improvement.

 

If you don't agree that a total clearout was necessary, as a number of you don't, then of course it's hard to view Lambert as being successful.   As you've argued, the transfer funds could have gone to fewer players of higher quality and results likely would have been better to date.  The question is whether the club would be better posed for a resurgence after this season under this scenario.  You clearly believe so.   Team togetherness and the ability to build up from a good foundation, both football-wise and financially, would probably not be as good but maybe results would be similar without having had to go through 2 seasons of relagation risk and unattactive football.  We may never know.

 

Lambert was clearly brought on board to do the job in a particular way.  Slate him for choosing to go along with the plan if you want, or slate Lerner for hiring a manager to take this approach.   But given the job he was asked to do, I don't think Lambert's been too bad.

Thanks for the advice but as regular readers of this forum would tell you I have continually put my argument forward and that argument is not exclusive to just the above stat. If however you feel that asking the said poster to be balanced in his argument by producing a stat showing Lambert's overall record with us is petty please avail me of another stat showing Lambert's overall performance which in your opinion, isn't?

Secondly it isn't clear at all that the Chief Executive, Chairman and manager made a collective decision on a policy of youth. What is clear though is that the Chief Executive has already stated that Lambert was given a budget and it was up to him how he spent it. That is further substantiated by who we've been linked to and who we've signed this season. The fact is that with one relegation battle behind us under Lambert and losing six out of the last eight this season Lambert has realised that his youth policy has failed and is now targeting more Premiership experience which he should have done from the start. Several posters on this site including myself stated that under this policy we would struggle and I don't think to date we have been proven wrong.

playing poor football I agree, looking over a short period of games looks bad but struggling we aren't. Half way through the season which is a fair reflection of us because we had played each team once and we were 11th in the league and that's with missing Vlaar and Benteke for major parts of it. That's improvement on last season and 11th isn't struggling.

2nd half performance we need more of and a couple of additions will help with this

Why cant qe play like this for 90 minutes. F***** baffles me

that's what baffles me

Ohhhhhhhhhhh