Majkee

villa - ben arfa 1:2

Is it only me who thinks ElAhmadi was kicked into the leg to lose the ball before first goal? It was clear faul imho.

Omg, you are quick as lightning...

i do rate pumping the ball but from wingers position, or from the deep by fullbacks, always in, or outswingers. i hate these blind kicks forward from every position as the knock down is very difficult and effective mostly only with counterattacks, which was not the case tonight. benteke should be knocking the ball down from air flicks only when we are counterattacking, every other time it should be a header on goal. again, not the case tonight, sadly.

the difference between these two formation is just a slightly changed position of one player and if you are playing 4-4-2 with etc. van persie + rooney combo, when they are playing vertically behind themselves, it is the same as 4-4-1-1 or 4-2-3-1 as wingers still have defensive duties. of course, 3-5-2 or 5-3-2 are completely different to 4 backs formations. it is widely adviced if your fullbacks are poor, or playing without confidence, to play wingers with defensive duties to cover them. both andi and gabby have enough energy to cover, so it was correct decision to switch and play with width esp. when we have benteke beast of air in the team. personaly, i would pump the crosses all the time during game from wingers and deep crosses from fullbacks too in every opportunity.

omg they have our support whole season and they did not deliver. do you even know that you are also a customer, not only the fan, and you pay a big price for tickets??? where are deliverables? this is business for randy and it should be the business for fans too. if there is no end product of sufficient quality, the fan should and have to complain about it. players, manager and the whole team need to deliver, if not, there will not be a support. patience is gone, or are you happy to watch loses again and again at home?

they have enough chances to prove that they deserve our support and to prove the doubters wrong. nothing of that happened so please, do not call us f*ckers.

Omg no way Ireland, please. As I have written previously - Bannan, Delph and Ireland are all AMCs and only one should be on the pitch simultaneously. If 4-4-2 or 4-2-3-1 our attack should be: weimann - westwood - clark - gabby nzogbia - benteke or westwood - clark weimann - nzogbia - gabby benteke if nzogbia is back to his poor displays again swap him with delph who showed a little bit of promise. no way bannan, ireland and bent again please

I should be the manager, thank you very much Switching Lambert tommorow morning.

I did not think that one day I would say that that prick Alex McLeish was right a he knew exactly what was he doing playing for draws defending with 10 players behind the ball...very sad times ahead of us, my dear Villa fans.

imho the last hope for villa is back to 4-4-2 formation, clark and herd as DMCs and Dunne with Vlaar as CBs.

not a faul by nzog, clearly had a ball. wrong decision - yellow card.

sissoko vs. bannan is just a bad dream...omg.

haha this is just a bad joke, both bannan and westwood marking shadows from opponents follow ups. bennet and lowton do not know what they have to do in 3-5-2 system. shocking defending again.

can not mark, can not defend, league one contenders. end of statement.

And may be not as he is going for free which could mean no pay off. I mean no transfer fee = no pay off that wetspam will take care of it.

The reason why?

But we can not afford to have a team full of CM midgets in PL. I do not know what is so hard to grasp here on forum why some small players are able to be a success in PL. They must excell in one or two other aspects of the game, at least they must be able to create a space for themselves not to be overpoered and they must have a very very good technique to skip opposition players (i.e. David Silva, Ben Arfa etc.). Bannan has neither. I was convinced he has a very good technique - in some article on OS they wrote about what a tricks he is doing in the training one on one but I can not see it in at least one match. Either he can not use it under pressure or he really does not know it. Little bit out of topic - this is something why is i.e. Vladimir Weiss Jr. so wanted in Serie A - he has a full backpack of tricks and he is trying them in the matches. Sometimes it creates chances or goals, sometimes not, but at least he is trying TO CREATE. I can not see anything similar in Bannan.

May be you would be surprised how much better players than our current crop are playing across Europe demanding under 20k p/w wages.

This season should be saved but he needs to start now. He needs to pick a team which is based on playing players with best current form - there are only few now, but this should be a core of the team. And 3-5-2 is clearly not working with us. My advice to PL - start to play 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1 which is England well known and for them easiest formation. Plus Weimann Benteke combo is working well as one of the few positives of current season.

PL started a dangerous game to be hated here. It is obvious that he does not have enough experience of fighting the relegation and loosing composure under pressure. There are two options now: 1. he apologies for his mistakes and will learn from them or 2. he will be petulant and arrogant prick complicating his managerial career. Everybody is doing mistakes and it is up to morale of the individual to accept them and learn from them. I am expecting the first option but I can be wrong completely.

OBE - perfectly spot on. I agree completely. Needs to be stronger, imho the evolution or mutation of the positives from Clark and Baker into one footballer would create Premier league CB beast. re Clark I need to add that his positioning needs a lot of training and also he needs to be more patient because he sometimes just simply start to press leaving defensive formation and creating a huge gap behind him causing us trouble.

NZog was, is and will be a winger. Same as Ashley Young and every try to convert them into AMC will fail (Nzog played good recently but he should be better used as a winger or free role winger drifting from one side to the other). They are both not Xavi or Iniesta. NZog and Young are very similar, they have good technique and skills to go against opposition defenders (mostly lighter fullbacks) and good crossing but they are not able to thrive under pressure playing as AMC or MC (as they can not defend despite tries from Ashley to be a complete player - that is why he is in ManUre). A lot of games have proven it.

It is simple and everyone can spot it in every Villa PL match. If our midfielders are pressed, they do not have enough skill to avoid being pressed and they simply pass the ball back to defenders who can not pass it back to them because they are even pressed or midfielders are taken by opposition, so defenders hoof the ball forward (second half of WBA match). Every other time it is giveaway or overpowered CM loosing the ball (second half against WBA again). Simple as this, just watch Villa's games. The last time I can see Villa central midfielder doing one-on-one or skimming the pressing opponents was Westwood against WBA in the first half - but opposition was not pressing us in the midfield. Bannan and Delph are specialits for loosing the ball under pressure, they are physically weak, at least El Ahmadi or Westwood have some level of skill to do easy trick of changing the direction to skip or skim pressing opponent. This is not the problem for attackers or AMCs, but as a CM, the lost ball like this is a deadly counter. On the other hand, and this has almost the same weight of failure, when we are pressing the opponent, it is so so easy for them to do a simple trick to skip our player. We are so poor at this discipline. Plus if we are pressing, there are still easy free targets to pass from pressed player who are not pressed by our players, so the Villa pressing is a complete waste in current state of affairs. These are basic fails from elementary school of football. Another failure are our throw-ins. Again, elementary school - we have a throw in, opponents take/mark every our player in 10 yards distance leaving only a long throw as a solution. When the opposition has throw in, we are not marking in 10 yards throw distance and almost in all situations, there is at least one free player who receive the throw in, without pressure and starts their attack - it is easy to spot it in matches, just focus on it. I think that Lambert is not so dumb that he can not see it and I am sure that PLAYERS are NOT ABLE to do it even if Lambert focused on it in video review sessions. There is simply not enough skill to do it in current playing midfielders and defenders too. That is why Benteke is going to receive throw ins on the halfway line (wtf? he should be lurking 16 yard box and finding free space around it) because he is strong enough to shield the ball even if marked (imho 50% success rate). If the receiver is Bannan, Delph or even Bennet, it is a constant loss - they are too small and lightweight. Nobody needs to have A+ training grade to spot our weaknesses which imho are related purely to skills of our players.

I can see Lambert as a long term solution despite playing only on Championship level. Lerner seems not to be a billionaire spending big after trying-to-achieve-CL episode. If it is truth, it will be useful to run Villa as a business, which means to achieve costs vs. incomes at least at zero level if not profitable. This should be the basic thing we as a fans have to accept. re Lambert - he proved that he can build a low cost team at admirable level of competition, he brought Norwich to PL, they played on acceptable level in PL. So the main issue for him still is to get rid of high wages spenders left from previuos regimes and to build a new team on youth and hungry players (who obviously are not yet prepared to play at PL level). Hence the relegation is possible and everything else will be a miracle on pitch this season. But even in Chamionships, with young players, I will be Villa fan trusting Lambert to bring us back to PL at sustainable costs. He bought several players who he trust they can play his style of football but there are still players who are not technically gifted enough to be here (mistakes of previous managers). To be fair, Beneteke, Westwood, Lowton and also El Ahmadi (do not crucify me please) are technicaly good enough for his style of play. Even Bennett seems to be good with technique but on the other hand it seems he can not defend which should be his prime role. But with Vlaar and counting Guzan as a long term number one and Andi Weimann as a lonely Villa player with football brain, we have 8 relatively Lambert's players usable to his wanted style of play. Still needing another three for starting eleven. To be fair, I can not see Lambert wanting Given, Marshall, Hutton, Warnock, Stevens, Lichaj, Ireland, Albrighton, Makoun, Bannan, Bent, Holman and Delfouneso to continue with new contracts (deadwoods). They will be traded or run their contract out. There are still one year for Baker, Clark, NZogbia, Delph and Herd to prove their squad role but imho: Clark only as DMC (no way he will be good as a CB, too weak, too self-conscious), Baker as a strong CB, NZogbia as a winger (is Lambert fan of wingers?), Delph only as an AMC and Herd as a DMC. Our current problem for Lambert is that he is missing big strong DMCs (Clark and Herd should prove themselves), missing AMC or creative midfielders (step up Delph please), missing wingers (step up NZogbia please - fresh breath of his last two games is here) and above-average CB.