shambles

I am trying to decide which I dread most. The loss or the overreaction to it.

The overreaction to a 2-2 draw against QPR at home was pretty embarrasing on here. You would have thought wed won a cup final by some posts.

I think people were more impressed by the performance than the result. We absolutely battered them 2nd half & deserved to win that game.

No way was that negative football and hopefully it will carry on.

Tottenham are showing that if teams genuinely enjoy playing football on the pitch look what can be achieved. Fans need to forget about all the backbiting we need to get behind the team.

Yeah, it's nothing to do with the decent manager investing in good players and then coaching and motivating them properly.

i should point out that i don't think mcleish is the right man, but houllier was awful and i wish people would shut the **** up about him

What's the difference then? Same number of games, same number of points as last season? Why the Houllier hate?

We're not going down, we're not going anywhere - so let's see if we can try to put a plan in place for the future - I'd like to see us take more chances in our starting line ups, experiment a bit - even take a hammering somewhere along the line in trying to win a game.

I'll accept that if we actually do experiment, Play Clark in CH, drop warnock, hutton, collins, dunne, etc play the youth and risk some bumps along the way. If we ever do change the starting line up, its often only due to injury.

I'd agree with that. I'm not sure persisting with the same players who are costing us games is building anything other than bad feeling. How is bringing Heskey (proven to add nothing to the team) on instead of a youngster anything like a step forward? You're telling me Andy Weimann would score less goals or add less to the team than a 35 year old who seems to be some sort of anti-magnet for the ball, has the balance of a drunk and the goals to games ratio of a fullback.

The team I'd like to see would be:

----------------Guzan

Herd----Cuellar-------Clark----Lichaj

Albrighton---Ireland---Gardner---Bannan

----------Bent---------Agbonlahor

Given is a good shot stopper, but Guzan commands his area better, and deserved to keep his place in the side. I don't give a **** who we have as fullbacks, but Herd and Lichaj have looked decent whenever they've played. K-Mac trusted them anyway. Albrighton and Bannan should play wide with Ireland and Gardner in the middle. Petrov doesn't have the legs to carry through a game anymore, his time is up. Bent is a goal machine, but it's no good playing him without giving him someone to do the running.

Gardner and Bannan look like they're the only 2 players we have other than Ireland who can play football.

I feel genuinely sorry for McLeish. He has inherited such a pile of shit of O'Neill's making

MON finished 6th in his last season and left 18 months ago. :?

Pardew -> McLeish

Pardew >>>> Alladyce >>>>>>>>>>Aids >>>>>>>>>>>>McLeish

Didn't come out of the trap second half, did our usual inviting the opposition on to us and paid the price, again.

Given - 6

Warnock - 4 Not good enough. Should be shipped out.

Dunne - 6 That game was Richard Dunne in a nutshell. He'll score a fantastic goal and make some world-class tackles, then give away a penalty or score an own goal.

Cuellar - 7 Steady. Best defender we have at the club. Wont be surprised to see him sold.

Hutton - I'm not giving him a rating. He doesn't deserve one. He can't pass, tackle, dribble, has no awareness, and is a liability.

Clark - 5 At least looks like he cares

Petrov - 5 As above

Ireland - 7 On a different level to the rest of the team. Needs to play with Bannan and / or N'Zogbia.

Keane - 6 Game mostly passed him by. Didn't look very interested once things got tough.

Gabby - 6 Clearly not fit.

Bent - 6 Good goal, but why the **** was he making challenges like that in his own penalty area? Why is our lone striker anywhere near his own penalty area anyway? It's asking for trouble.

Do you know what, it's difficult to knock most of the lads. Most of them didn't do much wrong. Players like Ireland, Keane and Bent are just not suited to the way we play. There are 3 major problems with that team that I can see.

1) Alan Hutton and Steven Warnock. Hutton is the worst Villa player I can remember for some years. Steven Warnock, is like Hutton, though maybe not as bad. Both give the ball away too cheaply and too frequently and make too many rash tackles. This invites pressure onto us.

2) Tactics. Sitting back when you get your nose in front doesn't work. We are too defensive and too negative and too quick to try and shut up shop. Our lone striker should not be making last ditch tackles in the penalty area.

3) Defensive organisation. We are piss poor at defending set pieces and also get pulled out of position too easily during open play . Although we did not concede from a set piece today, we were bloody lucky. A team with more aerial presence would have buried one of those early corners Arsenal had. When you are playing as defensively as we are, not being very good at defending is a massive problem.

Nice to see the younger players given a chance. Weimann on now.

YESSSSSSSSS

McLeish sat there thinking "yeesss. a point in the bag..."

HA HA Red card you dirty bastard.

Right McTwat, get after them. ATTACK.

we appear to be sitting back again

We are. And what's not helping is the fact that our full backs are giving the ball away pretty much every time they get it.

Look like we're backing off again now.

How the **** was that not 2-3!

To be fair to Eck, we look better after the break.

2-2

Hutton is **** dire. Everything he does is piss poor. Passing, tackling, whatever.

Karl Henry is a dirty bastard. Gardner hasn't wanted to get near the ball since Henrys first 'tackle' on him just after we scored.

This needs to stop now. Its **** dire. We had 10 minutes of looking good, then just backed off and tried to park the bus. **** wank.

Get an early goal

Sit back for 80 minutes

???????

Profit?

2-1 now

But you can't say that. He's never, ever, been given a decent run in the team to show what he can do. All he ever gets is 15-20 minute cameos, normally when we're already losing.

Wow, I've never heard VP so quiet.

Far too much time is spent on people becoming outraged at what this or that person said or conveyed.

The outrage industry is going from strength to strength, staffed mainly by people who spend their lives perceiving offence on behalf of others. See mjmooney's previous sig:

So you’re offended. So f'king what?

The question seems flippant at first glance. Even rude. But it is a serious and profound question. You’re feelings are hurt. You’ve chosen to take offence at somebody else’s words. So f'king what?

It’s an offensive world we live in. Deal with it like an adult. You have not been physically harmed. Why should your offence be more important than someone else’s freedom to express themselves?

So. F'king. What?

Before you picket a theatre, write to your local paper, fire your AK-47 in the air, or call for someone’s head on a plate, ask yourself this question. Can you give an honest and coherent answer, explaining why your personal hurt feelings take precedence over someone else’s freedom?

Because you need to have an answer to this question. And it has to be a good one. Otherwise you will just be dismissed as an irrational, immature cry-baby with an inflated sense of the importance of your own sensibilities.

So. F'king. What?

Well said, that.

I think he's half right. What he doesn't refer to is that the right to freedom of speech comes with the responsibility of thinking whether what you want to say is a good idea. I don't want to live in a world where everyone says whatever the hell they want without stopping to consider the consequences of their actions and other peoples feelings.

Diane Abbott? Yeah, I probably would. She'd have to stop talking bollocks though, to be fair, or it'd be a right turn off. Especially if she commented on how my small white penis was smaller than the average black mans, the bitch.

Heskey out for 4 or 5 weeks Collins injured too

Smiling about any Villa player being injured is disgusting! If we had more players like Heskey willing to put a shift in we wouldn't be as bad as we are.

I agree with Vamos. Now all the need is McGimp and Peter Grant to go on a scouting mission to South America and come back with a rare tropical disease which, while being non life threatening or harmful in any way, means they can't manage the first team.