flashingqwerty

Sell 2 from benteke, weiman, gabby and buy a striker that can at least hit the target from inside the 6 uard box. Then we might actually score a few. The chances we waste are shocking. Id fancy myself to have scored one of bentekes chances!

 

We lost this game yesterday.

 

Some teams benefit from the release of pressure, the chance to relax and play a bit, express themselves. Ours isn't one of those teams, without that bit of pressure, or that bit of a challenge that someone like Chelsea brings, we revert to our default lazy, weak, uninspired dross - today's was all of that and less.

 

We started badly - I know we scored after five minutes, but we were rubbish for four of those - warning signs which we were happy to ignore once we went one up and decided we were good.

 

We didn't lose on the basis of ability, we lost because of our mentality - we didn't care. Without something to play for, without the big bad wolf of relegation or the carrot of a major scalp, these players don't have a week in week out winning mentality, they're timid, they hide.

 

Unfortunately Stoke didn't feel like playing out the last 85 minutes at walking pace and promptly took advantage of a couple of our errors and forced us into a couple more. Ably assisted by the quite dreadful Mr Clattenburg, they battered us without playing well - Christmas come early in the Potteries.

 

The injuries didn't help us and Sylla is as much a Premier League midfielder as I am, but the double change didn't seem to bring about any change in attitude anyway - no one cared enough to try to lift the others enough to carry him through it.

 

We could have had two penalties although I'm told that the Benteke one doesn't look it in replays and the handball has gone largely unmentioned - if it was Chelsea we'd have three weeks of Mourinho talking about that decision - here, no one cared enough to make a fuss.

 

And if the players don't care, and the media don't care, then there's ample excuse for a crowd that was too small and too quiet, much like the team - 30,000 for a club like ours is a disgrace - how do we happily point the finger at those that run the club when we live in a city that doesn't care - Newcastle has a catchment area of around 300,000 people, one in six of them go to games. If we were the same our average attendance would be a quarter of a million people a week - as it stands, of the 1.5 million people that live near enough to Villa Park to attend, only 30,000 could be arsed to go today.

 

Players don't care, owners don't care, fans don't care.

 

On days like today, you have to conclude that Mr Holloway was right.

 

Maybe next week we'll be arsed again.

 

 

very good post

 

.....but rarely does any form of entertainment,critique, blame the crowd for not caring( that has come from months and months of gross inconsistency of alarming proportions)....fans go to see a vibrant team, not a bunch of half soaked cretins who you aptly describe as not caring....as the chant goes " you've only come to see united"....The halcyon days ( for our club) of lemmings going to watch 11 shirts on the line as Tommy Docherty descibed it, have gone.

If the players can't be arsed why should we.....you can only take the horse to the water.......

 

i'd like to point out that newcastle were still selling out their ground when they were relegated and playing the the championship so your opinion on people not turning up when teams play badly seems a bit misguided to me.

The people of Birmingham are fickle and will only go if they think they gonna win (the majority i mean not the minority that went) and with fans like that Villa arent going anywhere.

Any fan that pays their money can walk out at any time especially after watching that rubbish.Also Lamberts tactics weather right or wrong cant be blamed for Baker doing a disappearing act,instead of marking a player.

He can be blamed for playing him and/or not signing someone to replace him and/or blooding one of our much talked about and seldom used successful youth players though

Terrible. I think that is the worst performance under Lambert, no effort or desire at all from the players. It is how we respond to this defeat that is the biggest challenge now.

we'll probably respond by getting stuffed 6 or 7 nil against United - as is our way...

1-4 at home to Stoke, it happens.

to who other than us?????  

No one, that's who! Cos no one else is that inept tactically that they are unable or unwilling to change something that isn't working.  

Yeah he made subs but the setup of the side was wrong and that did not change.

Norwich and Stoke are must win games.

Anything less than 6 points from these two and we WILL be going down.

Unfortunately i cant see us getting more than 2 at a stretch - going down to join blues - what a sorry time this is for Aston Villa Football Club :-(

 

 

 

The job of a football manager is just to try to win each match he plays, motivating and utilising the abilities of his squad to maximum effect.

I agree, it also applies to every manager in this league. Unfortunately Aston Villa do not have the divine right to win every match in a highly competitively league.

All this guff about "job not finished" is just an excuse for the fact that Lambert isn't doing his job very well in the here and now.

It is not at excuse at all, it is a harsh reality. Where do you expect us to be in the league? I can understand people being upset about our decline over the last four years but there needs to be some more patience shown by the fans and backing by the board.

Lambert has improved us since taking over and can take us even further.

Three points.

You are correct in stating that we do not have a divine right to win games but two wins in thirteen and a God awful home record would suggest relegation form which is totally unacceptable for a second season in a row under Lambert.

Secondly yet another attack on the fans who have not only shown patience with Lambert under extreme circumstances but since the last time we won a trophy.

Thirdly Lambert's results have parity with the worst manager this club has seen and currently there is no sign whatsoever that Lambert can take us further than constant relegation battles after spending 40m plus.

Why can't people understand that he had to buy a whole new team for 40m and Vlarr, Okore, Benteke And Kozak cost the majority of that money.

 

But he didn't have to buy a whole new team did he?

Steer in Goal is worse than given though on less money

Bennet, Luna at LB are no better there than Baker who was already at the club

Lowton at RB is no better IMO than Hutton though has potential to be

Vlaar yeah hes a big step up from what we had but there was no need to isolate and push out other experienced players that have since moved on

Westwood, El Ahmadi, Tonev, Sylla in CM are all terrible terrible footballers and should never have been brought here.  I'd rather he'd have tried to use one of our very successful youth team above any of them.  Complete waste.

Bowery, Helenius, Kozak, Benteke up front.  Other than Benteke none have made an impact whether that's due to their quality or not i cant say because we dont see enough of them to make a decision but thats the managers fault as well.  Again we have youth players equally adept as the guys he brought in that could have been blooded rather than spending more money if he wasnt going to play them anyway.

The point being that the spine of ourteam was here before Lambert.  Benteke and Vlaar aside Lambert has added nothing but cheaper deadwood to an already crap squad whilst pushing out experienced professionals who in my opinion could have still done a job for us until we could bring in other experienced professionals rather than throwing a bunch of kids into the pan and hoping for it to work.

NEWSFLASH it didn't work and we're likely to get relegated as a result.

Without getting carried away with the likes of Cantona who we could never have signed, I reckon Robbie Keane first time round. He would have been a legend and made a massive difference at the time. John Gregory not signing him was a massive **** up!

it wasnt Gregory's fault, Deadly Doug wouldnt stump up the extra 250k to sign him

Shock horror: A player starts his first game all season and is off the boil.

But he started lots of games last season and was off the boil too, whats the reasoning behind that?

Besides, it's not as though he has come straight off the treatment table and started playing in the first team.  He has played games in the reserves before he played in this game so as far as match fitness and sharpness he should have been 90% of the way there.  If that's Joe bennett at 90% then i dont think he should pursue a career as a professional footballer cos he looked more like a cat in the headlights of a F1 car on a very long straight...

 

Shock horror: A player starts his first game all season and is off the boil.

 

I don't think he was off the boil.

 

He was crap before the injury, and crap after it. He's just crap.

 

Bennett is firmly in the reject bin along with the other raggy dolls Tonev, Bowery, Luna and Sylla.

 

Personally i'd add westwood to that list too cos i am still not sure of what he actually does when he's on the pitch other than pass to a CB or lose possession

 

 

 

 

 

One thing I don't understand, apparently we were unlucky last night, yet when people suggest were were lucky against Southampton/Man City they are told it is nothing to do with luck.

How does that work?

And you could say the exact opposite about the opposite opinion.

It's like looking in a mirror!

It's true though.

You'll have people saying we weren't lucky against Southampton/Citeh but were unlucky last night.

Equally you'll have people saying we were lucky against Southampton/Citeh but last night luck had nothing to do with it.

Both opinions are as shit as each other.

True, I hate suggesting we were lucky. Last night was due to a lack of skill, maybe a lack of effort. Marshall and Turner were good, but our players were hesitent and gave chances away. Guzan has saved our neck plenty of times, Marshall did the same last night for Cardiff. We weren't unlucky, we just weren't good enough.

 

Doesn't matter.

Luck is bullshit. If you believe in luck then we WERE unlucky last night and we WERE lucky against Man City and Southampton.

 

If you don't believe in luck then we weren't good enough last night and we were good enough against Southampton and man city. 

 

You can't call luck in one scenario and not in the other, imo, regardless of if your glass is half empty or half full.

 

i dont believe in luck and because of that i would say last night we were wasteful of the chances we had

against city, arse, saints we were simply more clinical that they were - we were not the better team in those games by a long shot.  We made the most of the chances that came our way whilst our opponents did not.  That doesnt make us the better team nor does it make us lucky.

it seems clear to everyone except our illustrious manager that Joe Bennett is simply not ready or not good enough to be playing at this level.

When we have one of the finest, (ok maybe most successful?), youth setups in the country, why the hell are we not trying to use one of the many talented wide players we have already at the club rather than persisting with players that we have already seen are not going to make it and playing them out of position?

Just more evidence to highlight the stubbornness a lack of ability in our illustrious manager

Villa are working now as they will need to work when the fair play rules come in which they think will put them in a better place when it happens.

The problem is other clubs are pumping vast sums of money into the squad now before these rules take effect so that their squads will be better when the rules come in.

Whilst villa's approach gives us more practice at finding decent cheap players, it does mean that as we aren't bringing in expensive better quality players now that when the rules do come in we're going to be quite far behind the majority of other clubs in our position because we haven't gambled more.  This is more a failing on Lerner's part than Lambert's, but we still have signed a huge number of really crap players who have no place in the Premier League, the only exceptions being Vlaar, Benteke and maybe Okore.  I honestly dont think any of the other signings Lambert has made are even close to being good enough to play regular football at this level and the majority never will.

An awful group of players, a tactically inept manager who also seems bereft of any man management ability.  In short, this is the season Villa go down thanks to one man.  That man is Randy Lerner and the consistent string of bad decisions, bad appointments and lack of strong, responsible, financial investment that is needed to get this team into a position where it can start to heal.

In all honestly i have lost so much faith in the entire setup at Villa that i now think that relegation is the only thing that can save us.  Might force Lerner to sell, should mean the end of Lambert and will mean a complete gutting of the club as at the moment it is rotten to the core and needs gutting.  Top-down and bottom-up they ALL need to go.

Agbonlahor did NOTHING the entire game.

Delph has actually cost us a few times losing the ball in shocking positions.

Albrighton the so called championship player by loads of people on here what obviously our best player...

By god Lambert... Today... No width until Albrighton came on... Seriously... Just shocking tactics... Not good enough. We really need a different team for home games. Some players just don't turn up.

Big Sam nailed Lambert today, better tactics.

Not really. Lambert saw a problem at attempted to correct it with Albrighton and it almost paid off. West Ham just sat back as we wasted chances.

Problem is we all saw the problem 30 mins before lambert did. And by the time he made changes it was too late.

Lamberts problem is pride and ego. It was clear in the first 20mins hed got it wrong but he waited until we were 2 down to change it. Should have changed it first half but nope...

Defeat to west ham at villa park!

Relegation beckons. Lambert really is clueless.

To all those who told me we didnt need another cb in jan please look at todays cbs and tell me youre happy? Neither are competent at cb and without vlaar our defence is useless.

How are villa doing look like scoring?

Clearly better than El Ahmadi and Sylla.

 

Lambert is underestimating his ability.

 

He hasn't given him a chance.

 

Letting him go would be a mistake.

 

Clearly better than El Ahmadi and Sylla.

Completely different type of player though.

 

not only clearly better than them but clearly better than westwood too, as i am still unsure what westwood actually does for us, cant tackle, cant take set pieces and his passing is not very good.

I'd have a fit GG starting ahead of anyone midfielder we have except Delph

without vlaar we will lose - precisely why i have been saying for weeks that we needed another CB in January cos our defence is clueless without him.

Cant see us getting anything more than a draw, and more likely will lose if Carroll plays.

Must win game and i just cant see us winning it...

Im predicting everton to get back on track. 3-0 defeat for villa :-(

Without any reinforcememts my prediction for our finishing position has dropped from 10th to 16th. 1 or 2 defensive injuries and we are screwed.

things are serious when we arent even being linked to players on transfer deadline day

Only my opinion of course but Baker isnt good enough, i'm not convinced by Clark and believe he should be our number 3 CB for now which leaves us with... ermmm...

We can play Lowton at CB but then that leaves us short there.

We need another solid CB as we look very very short when Vlaar isnt in there.

I fully expect that we wont sign anyone today and i think thats a travesty and highlights Lamberts shortcomings in the transfer market, when there are players moving in this window i think would have improved us for fees and wages i suspect we could afford.

all quiet at villa - bit worrying that...

i'd say we need at least 1 cb, 2 cm, 1 winger to give us a balanced starting 11 never mind a balanced squad.

Im betting there will be no transfers tomorrow.

But im not convinced lambert is capable of bringing in the type or quality of player required to push us on.

My god we are shit...

Come on now...