parrotandglue

Richards is sooooo bad... We are stuck with him until his contract expires.

If ever a line up said, "Lets wimper out of this competition 2-0, please don't give me the job full time", this is it... Depressing.

I've just caught myself laughing at us. We are soo bad.

Promising opportunity to break, Clarke just hoofs it out of play... WTF?

Hutton has to start, Bacuna is not a good right back. Too often out of position, and too often messing around with it rather than getting rid under extreme pressure. He was targeted by Palace, and again yesterday, teams know he is a weak link.

He was anonymous yesterday, every time he got involved play broke down. He is busy but ineffective, I hope Veretout is his replacement. Offers nothing going forward, and very little in defense, and as for those stupid corners...

Delph off, and OUT! Championship player at best. Thanks MON, another wasted 7million.

Better. But why do we have to sit through 45 mins of atrocious football to get it? Don't they realise when the game starts?

Do we have the same number of players on the pitch? They seem to have more.

Wow. We are utterly dogshit. Delph is terrible, I have ever seen anyone trip over the ball so much, let alone his Scholesesque tackling ability. Our midfield is possibly the worst in the whole league. Possibly worse than half of the midfields in the league below too. We are tactically inept, Swansea seem to be able to pass it around at will, as soon as we get it... HOOOOF. Really depressing as it won't end anytime soon. Mcleish is going nowhere and has already laid the foundation of no signings in Jan. I fear relegation.

Great effort from our Fans, but other than that a complete waste of time! We are toothless up front, predictable and **** boring. Scraping a 2-2 draw against a Palace team in Administration having already sold their "jewel in the crown", to Wigan for 2 million... DISGRACEFUL! Boring Boring Villa!!! Oh, and Lee should have been sent off for his elbow on Warnock and the linesman and ref were incompetent in the extreme...

Should have gone 4-5-1 after about 70 mins, take off the totally ineffective but would be worth 80 million euros if waving your arms around shouting a lot and passing sideways won football matches petrov and heskey, bringing on the what have i done to upset MON twins sidders and NRC... Poor Management.... Again... MON is Blind.... and Stubborn.... GIVE UP!!! 4-4-2 with Stan DOESN'T WORK!!!!!!!!!! F*ck sake.

I disagree... PLEASE STOP PLAYING PETROV!!!

Just woken up, and the 1st thing I thought was... How must NRC and Sidwell feel having been benched for an unfit Petrov and a 19 year old with no prem experience?!?! Now I think about it WTF is O'Neill on? I believe there is something about Delph, but in yesterdays team selection, he has more than likely pissed of 2 established team players and affected the confidence of another. I keep thinking back to yesterdays game, I haven't been that disappointed in years. There was so much wrong with it. 1st time I haven't kept my tickets as souvenirs, they went in the bin, 1st time i've left my programme under my seat, 1st time in a long time i've left before the whistle too... So disappointed because like everyone else on here i dont think MON will/can get it right, hes had 3 years to get the bones of the squad together, 3 months to buy a sodding CM and CB and has done neither... Were doomed...

This is MON's fault, his players, (or lack of them), his tactics, (or lack of them). Trouble is I can't think of a decent replacement... Our overly English team ARE NOT good enough technically. Totally inept at holding onto the ball... Shocking...

Good Evening General, Rather than add to the match reactions on here, much of which I share the opinion of unfortunately. I thought I should point out another disturbing factor at odds with all the effort being put in around Villa Park... The crowd was only 35,000. Now I was at Villa Park on the 1st day of the season for the last 2 seasons and from memory both previous seasons were practically a full house. Not today! Loads of seats around me! I put it down to a combination of 3 things: 1. Economic climate 2. Its 'only' Wigan/Barcelona as we made them look today... 3. Why bother? Its not number 1. because in general you can find £30 if you really want to watch your team play... Its not 2. because you will come to watch 'just' Wigan if you think you might spank them 5-0... Its 3... The reality is that I believe most fans are staying away as they feel we have stagnated/gone backwards... I think this, because I almost didn't go today for the same reason... As a guy not too far from me in L7 said at the 35,000 announcement today, 'it'll be less next time'. He's right, I for one can't see myself trekking 300 miles round trip at a cost of over £100.00 in the one in 3 or 4 Saturdays I get off for that dogs dinner... Poor, very poor

Just got home and had the chance to digest... Not going to Panic yet, but its close... I've never directly blamed Shorey before, but today he was dogsh*t. REALLY BAD!!! Everytime he got the ball I felt nervous. Petrov seems to have reverted to his 1st season form, maybe he isn't fit, but he was static, as good as useless. The problem was MON couldn't really take him off and leave Delph on. Gabby looks overweight, and apart from being in a straight footrace looked poor. Cuellar and Davies looked to be trying to pass the responsibility of being last man, they were as shaky as each other. We were outnumbered in the middle all the time, both Delph and Petrov were too deep. Absolutely no creativity apart from Young who was triple marked at times with no support at all. We appeared to be clueless, outfought, outplayed... It was extremely poor! The players were arguing among themselves in the 1st half! Only positives, Sidwell injected some forward momentum and Albrighton was looking for the ball when all else looked like they didn't want it. We desperately need a creative midfielder and a bloody good defender, period! Without we are scr*wed. These players will be mid table at best, maybe worse.

Soooooo chuffed!!! Was bouncing around the lounge last night!!! Well done all the players, especially the youngsters who had the nuts to go and take a penalty against one of the best keepers in the world!!! Brilliant... Now lets bolster the squad and have a great season!!!

Worryingly, I actually believe if you put a couple of their players in our side for say Sidwell and/or Reo Coker we would do better! We have too many boring, defensive, safe, english, talentless, visionless, overpaid, underachieving players and no-one to create save Young. As long as we only have Young, he will be double marked as teams know we have no other option. Forget, Jurado, Van De Vaart, Sneijder, Moutinho, etc... Just sign any 20 year old spanish/portuguese 2nd division player, they will probably have more talent than our current bunch... Its not just us, look how Man U got f*cked by Barca or re-watch the last 2 England vs Spain games, they just have so much more skill with the ball. Our essentially English midfield may win us praise with the press, but it will win us sweet FA at football...

What we should also remember is that a majority of our players are getting paid above the average annual salary every week to be professional footballers in the best league in the world, I didn't see anything tonight to suggest that a majority of them should be playing above league 1...

Agree, its mainly meaningless, however... In defence we know we're wank, just look at our goals against last season since Laursen got injured... MAJOR WORK TO DO! Not bothered about Knight leaving, he wasn't good enough, so long as we have a replacement lined up... Something else we all know, in midfield we lack creativity, ENORMOUSLY!!! Every time we had possession it was a hopeful pass or a stab at the ball, no one can get hold of it retain possession and pick a pass or go round the opposition. Without a creative midfielder or 2, (ridiculously optimistic i know)... we are ****. I only managed to watch the 2nd half tonight, but it looked like an 11 vs 11 defence vs attack for major periods. If we don't get some players in we are relegation fodder. Forget a 20 goal striker, we could sign Eto or Torres at the moment, they will be the most overpaid runners in our team, we've got nobody to supply them, its hit and hope stuff. I don't wan't to over react, it is pre-season, its only a friendly etc... but I am starting to worry a little about who we will, and more likely wont get and therefore, who we will end up settling for on the 31st August with our threadbare squad... On a positive, the youngsters looked handy, and the players did well to hold their temper against a fairly physical team I thought...

Villaajax, if you were in a wheelchair you would get in our defence at the moment... Jesus wept.