flashingqwerty

Paul McGrath proved you dont need to have pace in order to prevent a fast player running past you both baye and young would have been in a better position to stop him and woud have marshalled him far better than carlos ever could have because they are fullbacks and he is not

yeah petrov is having one of his many 'stand around and point at things' games have to say that when we have the ball he looks completely disinterested and just points away from himself so noone passes the ball to im average player and an awful captain IMO

friedel - 7 - had no chance with either goal and made a few nice saves warnock - 7 - solid and i dont remember him making a mistake cueller - 4 - offered nothing going forward and distribution was poor Dunne - 5 - at fault for the goal despite getting back well but overall under par compared to usual Collins - 6 - ok, nothing to write home about Young - 6 - some good crosses but his diving spoils all his best work, why does he dive when he's beaten the defender? Downing - 6 - crossing was poor, passing was poor, and gave away possession far too cheaply many times. not his best game by far Milner - 9 - class above any midfielder on the pitch, first half was sharp and dangerous, second half noone seemed to want to pass to him - too busy passing the ball back to united players Petrov - 8 - best i have seen him play in a long time, as he's usually just poining and telling people to pass elsewhere but made himself available today. Faded and needed to be subbed after anout 60 mins but thats not his fault Gabby - 8 - our only real goal threat but once they equallised we suddenly were unable to pass to our own players so he didnt get anymore service. he's becoming a quality player, if only we were better at passing to make use of him Heskey - 4 - useless, dont remember him doing anything positive to enhance our chances of winning the game, constantly beaten in the air, easily pushed off the ball and his frst touch was abysmal should never have started Carew - 5 - poor, but when vidic and evans were already winning every aerial ball i have to question why MON threw on another tall striker when our best threat came from playing passes into gabby and having him run at the defenders? should have been delfounso for me MON - 4 - got the tactics right from kick off and until half time i felt we were always in with a shout but petrov faded and was visibly tired and was left on the feild, he brought Carew on and pushed the CB's forward and got the team hoofing the ball forward even though a blind man could see we were winning nothing in the air and our main threat was running at the defence. My biggest criticism of MON has always been that he doesnt use his subs well enough and doesnt seem able or willing to change his tactics when things arent working, and is poor at spotting a teams weaknesses as the game progresses. Also i need to say that defencivly we did very little closing down and i dont think anyone was doing any marking or tracking troughout the game. We allowed a great attacking team time and space on the ball and allowed them to run into our penalty area pretty much unopposed. Going forward, when the defenders werent too busy lumping the ball forward for noone to get near, we looked dangerous. We need to start playing the ball through midfield and passing more as we are a much better team when the defence get the ball to the CM's as they are both very good players. Lots of room for improvement but signs that we can actually challenge united.

Hi General, Sorry to be here to complain, but the issue i'm raising is beginning to really frustrate me. In August 09 i was in Birmingham and bought the new kit, a rain jacket and a few other bits and peices from the shop which was great! As i live in Ireland 99% of shops stock little to no villa merchandise so this was my only real chance to buy villa products except for using the website - which is where my frustration comes in... Shortly after i returned home i torn a hole in my Villa jacket and couldnt get it repaired. Since then i have been on the villa direct website 3/4 times a week looking to reorder it - thats 5 months of searching and waiting! On many occasions the jacket wasnt even listed on the site and even when it was there were never any sizes available. I have emailed the shop at least once a week asking for stock updates - again thats 43 emails! and the only replies that i get state: "Thank you for your email, I have looked into this for you and unfortunately we do not have any expected dates as to when this item shall be back in stock. Please do keep checking on our website as this is regularly updated with new stock. If you have any further queries please do not hesitate to contact us. Yours Sincerely" Is there anything you can do to help improve this as its not really worth the flight to go to the club shop every few months... Thanks General! UTV!!!

Our midfield couldn't exactly do much about Spurs gameplan of 'Dawson to Crouch at every opportunity' to be honest. Dunne is immense, far better than any defender Citeh have at the moment. Poor game from us overall, Carew did himself no favours as he gave the ball away everytime he touched it. How **** slow is he on the ball? He just gets caught in posession all the time. how about taking part when our defenders have possession??????? like you have conveiniently left out of the quote above petrov just stands around pointing when our defenders have possession which helps no one. he should be making space for himself to recieve the ball and bring us forward rather than encouraging the defenders to go route one

i'm sorry but we made spurs look like world beaters today. ourmidfield is fast becomeing jokeworthy again does petrov do anything other than stand and point when our defence are on the ball? i'd be more happy with him in the stands tbh let someone who actually wants to participate have a go not that i am disappointed with a draw but we are capable of doing more than we showed tonight. Pretty much only the back 4 and goalie have anything to be proud of - the rest were pretty much awful throughout

by the question i assume you mean starting 11? in which case, all players from england being fit, it would be none. if you mean the squad: A Young Milner Gabby Warnock

the last few games have been pretty humiliating for me as we have played utter dross we're wuite simply carrying too much dead weight in the first 11 friedel has lost his form and is making too many mistakes - Guzan needs to get a few games petrov isnt playing well for more than 30 mins a game and looks knackered and needs to be rested sidwell - bless his soul - tries hard but has little impact on the games he plays in Hekey - oh dear - not good enough to displace an utterly useless and devoid bulge up front in Carew so he plays left wing despite Albrighton being a better winger than heskey could even dream of being Carew - him being on the pitch means we're playing with 10 men at the moment - his last goal aside he has done very little lately A Young - has been a mere shadow of his former self and seriously lacking form i seem to remember a certain Martin O'Neill making promises to fans at the start of the season that players that lost form and werent performaing would be dropped as we have plenty of squad depth and young players coming though to be able to cope well from what i can see half the starting 11 are playing without any form at all and they are still first on the team sheet - either MON is watching a different Aston Villa, or he's a liar, or he's lost it. i cant see another other answers. It doesnt matter if these players are fantastic in training every week - if they cant do it on match day then they should not be getting a place simple as that. Seems MON either hasnt the balls or the will to start making changes to a system and a lineup that just doesnt work

that was unepected - IN A GOOD WAY!!! COME ON VILLA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

shocked that milner made way - should have been either petrov or sidwell to come off as he is better than both of them defencively and offecively

its the same old story... a tired midfield cost us the game you could see it, i could see it, MON could see it - yet MON did nothing about it AS USUAL!!!! Had he taken off petrov and stuck on NRC or Sidwell most likley we'd be c elebrating now Or even changed to a 451 - we'd def be celebrating now but he just isnt capable of changing things in the same way other managers easily can and this is his biggest downfall that said i'm not fussed about being out of europe as we all saw last season MON will throw the competition away if it suits him to do so but this failing he has of not responding to tactical changes by the opposition has to stop it has cost us SOOOO many times its beginning to become laughable

Hi General, I appreciate your input and your pride and the responses of other fans - and i respect your opinion of course. BUT, its all just words and means very little in the real world to be brutally honest with you. Since Martin O'Neill first took over three years ago, every time we have had a bad result, or played poorly, he has reverted to excuses about how small the squad is and how tired the players are and how we need more quality in and how he will add x,y,z if and when he can. For 1 year, even 2 years i can appreciate it takes time to build a team. BUT 3 years is ample time to have addressed the squad size and to have brought in enough quality to the squad that we are not left in a situation where we are having at the moment. There is NO EXCUSE for only having 1 fit CB in the squad when we have known since January that Laursen needed to be replaced and Davies was having to play through injury - on top of that we SOLD our ONLY other backup in this position. I am sorry if this seems disrespectful but this is the equivalent of sending a bunch of 15 year olds into afganistan with a few ballons on the end of sticks and expecting them to defeat the taliban - its NEVER going o work! Enough of the excuses and asking for faith as Martin O'Neill has had AMPLE time with which to address the SEVERE shortage of numbers and quality within this squad. Yes we have made progress but at what cost? Do you throw away the chance to win a trophy on the off chance you MIGHT get 4th in he league? i think not - especially when you are already faced with a depleted and exhausted squad - it was always on the cards (clearly apparently even in december) that we were unable to last the full season without additions in january and we did NOTHING. To confound this we lost our best two players and started selling off the squad without bringing in anyone to replace them. We currently have fewer players of siginificantly less quality than what we had 12 months ago despite the efforts of Martin as hs team - this cries out to me that they are incapable of taking the team further. In order for us to have a team even equal to the one from 12 months ago we'd need to sign 3/4 top quality players, and i just cant see where they are going to come from. I am completely disheartened and diappointmented in the lack of ambition and progress shown by the management team - should we go into the season without SEVERAL additions i fully expect a relegation battle this term. I hope i am proven wrng but i cant see things being any differnt than they are right now under Martin O'Neill and fully expect him to be sacked by January - I am an IT manager and if i left my company without enough computers to operate efficently or to achieve my targets then i would fully expect to lose my job and in a much smaller time frame than Martin has had. Something NEEDS to change for Aston Villa to continue to progress and Martin O'Neill id not the person to invoke such changes as 3 years of excuses highlight as does the fact that our current league form of 2 wins in 19 games - this type of form is one of the worst in the clubs history and is the making of a relegation candidate. I'm not panicking over the first 2 games of the season - i'm panicking over nearly 9 months of completely inadequate and inept management of the team which leaves us as the worst team on form in the prem since january.

Hi General, i would ask two favours of you if i may? 1) please pass on the enourmous disappointment and frustration that villa fans are experiencin with his performance as manager at this time. 2) please pass on to Randyour frustration and dissappointment in the performance of our manager and his handling of the team, tactics and transfers over the past 3 years. Just so that you are aware this isnt just a reaction to todays result - today was the latest in a long long long line of not simply substandard, but quite frankly embarrassing performaces by Martin O'Neills side. Over the last three years Martin has been attempting to mould his own team with his own players - and i think we can all agree that the current team and squad is of his making. The biggest flaw in this is that whenever something goes wrong Martin makes excuses like "oh the players havent had a full pre-season","the squad is tired because it too small" and "the squad is small and lacks depth...". I honestly feel that after 3 years Martin has had more than ample time to prepare a squad that is not wafer thin and is not of a quality capable of lasting a full seasnon - he's had enough time for the above to not be acceptable excuses but he persists in making them. Each of these things are his responisbility and fully within the remit of his job description. I know the transfer window isnt closed yet but the deep seated issues within the squad have been there for several tranbsfer windows and have not been addressed. The end of season position was acceptable but the result does not always justify the means, especially in football - i personally would raher we finished 16th but were playing great fottball rather than play like amateurs and finish 6th. If my job performance was in line with Martins, and i was continually making excuses for failure in the manner that he does - reasons that are completely within his power to correct - then i would fully expect to be sacked. I trust that the powers at Aston Villa will bear all aspects of Martin's job performance in mind this season and not just the position in the table when considering his position at the club as i believe his position should be very insecure at this time. Many Thanks Flash:

i think our rivals have strengthened a lot more than we have so far - of cource this could change before 31st but as of now we have slipped behind 1 or 2 in terms of quality and depth so i think 8-10th this season

superbly well put general - its nice to see that your illness has not dulledyour mind. Thanks for the reassuring words!

Hi General, Great to have you back and hope all is going well. I'd like to get your thoughts as a fan (not as part of the villa staff) on seeing 2 of our best players leave and another sold without anyone coming in when we already had a paperthin squad? Does it give you the jitters the same way it does the rest of us? UTV!!!

no i dont think i would be he's a decent player but he doesnt fit into the way we play our football - he needs to play in a midfield 3 with 1 defensive and one attacking player i think we could easily sell him for 15-20 million and replace him with a better foreign player for half that

depends... due to our farsicle exit from the Uefa and both domestic cups losing a huge lead over arsenal and a very strong 4th position finish both of the above down to MON's actute tactical shortcomings and huge ego/pride if we now lose out on 5th to Everton he shouldnt just walk he should be forcibly removed. dont get me wrong he's done great so far but i cant help but feel like he's plateau'd i dont think he has the ability tactically, or the astuteness in the transfer market, to take us beyond where we are. its up to him to prove me wrong

remember what happened last time we played them as they had just changed manager? we mashed them up!!!! still think we might struggle though 1-1

thanks for this general - extremely well put and really makes me feel better about the whole think - star man!!

Hi General, i appreciate what you say about sky rearranging the interview, but MON has been quoted as saying that we couldnt compete in the transfer market - not that we wouldn't - but that we couldn't. Knowing MON as we do then we know this isnt an irresponsible mistake but a well thought out comment so that leads me to believe he's telling the truth. it doesnt bother me as we are still al ong way off competeing with a great many top clubs, but it does disturb me a little that on one hand we have yourself and the club saying that the money is there and MON has full backing etc and on the other MON quoted as saying that we couldnt compete to sign players due to high prices - the two things dont match up. but hey signings or none we're in a great position and long may it continue!!

HERO!!! was a shining light in what was in my opinion the worst squad we've had in my lifetime (born 1980) for the quality of the players we had he scored alot of goals and provided alot too were it not for the way he had been treated by the club when he first arrived, the misfortunes he had, and then the serious knee injury he could easily have been a superstar put him into the villa team now as he was at his prime and he'd easily score 20 a season

surprised no votes for bouma as util his injury i thought he was having a great year no surprises that its between ash and laursen tho just of note BOF was meant to put petrov into the poll not quite sure why he left him out

Now that we have completed 2008 matches i thought it would be nice to see who you all think was out 'stand out' player of the year.

heskey owen and nzogbia in harewood and routledge out