danceoftheshamen

The Visa office is probably manned by Man Ure fans who accidentally keep mislaying his application.

I am really looking forward to seeing if/how he can re-float the great ship AVFC. It is a bit like we were slowly cruising back to where we were hoping to end up but then we hit a huge sand bank and the ship went aground under Dean Smith. Try as he might Stevie Gerrard, as good an ex Pro as he was, had not gotten the skills to refloat us. He tried and got slight movement here & there but pushing the engines to full power was simply burning them out and resulted in setting them on fire with no actual hope of getting us off that huge sandbank.  Danks managed to briefly put the fire out much to our relief but the ship is still firmly stuck.

Incomes Emery, I am hoping he has the knowledge to do the required dredging right the way around & under this great vessel. If he does we can start the journey once more towards our destination. There is a word of warning however, there is a hurricane called "relegation" on the horizon which could destroy the ship if he cannot free us in time. 

Thankfully the rescue mission is about to start in earnest with a man who knows how to captain ships just like ours.

Over to you Unai!

Worst away team in the division in my opinion. That's now no shows at Bournmouth, Fulham, Palace, Newcastle and not much better at Leeds (Against 10 men) & Forest either in all honesty. At home we are not too bad really...... but away?! Diabolical quite frankly. You could see, even in that first half, that the incisive play was not on the same level as against Brentford. The forwards were once again not finding each other ond wasting plenty of decent positions with poor play. The final ball was back to attrocious Villa, the sluggish thinking was back too....What happened to that vibrant, quick play we saw last game?  Bizarre!

As for the second half, well clearly their manager spotted our weaknesses & focussed on them & we did nothing about it until 3-0 down. That's sadly on Danks for me, it was clear to see way before we went 2 down that Buendia was off it & needed hauling and that he needed to change something to counter their half time rethink. None of this happened until the game was over.

Yet another awful day.

Good luck to Unai, My gosh he's gonna need it with this lot.

Embarrased to be a Villa fan today, amateurish performance all round including Danks who should have changed it after 5 mins of the second half. 

Beundia was attrocious, the front players all looked back to their usual standard (League 1). 

Nobody played well in that apart from Martinez when he was on. Absolutely woeful. Made a very average team look much better than they are.

Someone wake me up when there is a bit of promise in this team, especially away from home where they are, for me, the worst away team in the division by a country mile.

Big shout to the officials too for every single big decision going the way of the human rights abusers.

Embarrassingly poor all round, Danks included.

Total garbage from the players, back to the normal away form (as in League 1 level).

Voted Poch as he has previous proven experience of turning a perenial mid table team (Spurs) into a Champions League worthy team. He also has experience of taking a club in our current position into the top half (Saints) and plays a good brand of football too. His South American upbringing would hopefully help with a lot of our players too. Then there is the fact he is used to managing big players (Coutinho, Martinez, Kamara etc)

Of course it is highly likely he won't come but he is my preferred option from the list.

6 hours ago, WallisFrizz said:

Michael Oliver is supposed to be one of the best refs and if this had occurred in a City Liverpool game no way would he have had such a short look at that replay which was from a distance. But he’s faced no real backlash, it’s going largely under the radar which is exactly how they can get away with it.

Yep exactly, this is how they constantly get away with it week in, week out & this is also the reason I will always mention & comment on these disgraceful & corrupt decisions as they are ruining the game for me & I am sure a lot of people, even though a lot of people are still apparently oblivious to it all. The only way it will stop is if there is enough noise about it. Just accepting it & saying the age old lines such as "it all evens out over the season" & "It was a poor decision" is basically facilitating the constant corruption & bias. We always suffer it against the media 6 & London clubs. Remember Palace away? The Grealish "dive" which they disallowed our goal for?  Or lets go to the Digne "Impossible to avoid handball" at the same ground this season. Ditto the one against Fulham on Thursday, added to the non penalty for us and the now proven wrong sending off for Luiz in just one game! Just think about that for a second... Three key game changing decisions in one game all in favour of the London club, Oh & no retrospective action for Mitrovic either I see surprise, surprise. I seem to remember a non sending off for a Fulham player in that play off final we lost 1-0 too... in fact was it not the very same player who scored their goal?

Then there was the non sending off of the Chelsea player the other week when their Left back went in studs up, straight legged & off the ground from behind into Ramsey's ankle to prevent our very dangerous looking counter attack developing. Or shall we discuss the disallowed Coutinho goal against city for "offside" which would have likely won us the game. It's absolutely rife and happens almost every single time we play the media 6 and very regularly at the other London clubs too. I could half accept the lame  "It's Just poor officiating" drivel if those decisions were spread evenly around all clubs but they are nearly always in favour of those aforementioned clubs! That simply does not & cannot make sense. It's not just us either, I am not that shallow! It is all of the other clubs and to see the impact it has just take a look at the current table! It makes a huge difference to points over the course of a season both for those clubs & against the others, us included. 

It was obvious when watching the movement from both players in the replay... How on Earth VAR deemed it worthy of sending it to the ref can only be corruption. As for the ref watching that and coming to the conclusion he did is yet more evidence. It was so obvious. Luiz only reacted to Mitrovic in the tiniest of movements which it would be impossible to create enough force from to down a player. Plus there was obviously no blood or swelling etc. 

Absolute stonewall corruption as both VAR & the ref cannot possibly both be as stupid as that. It happen week in week out too alway in favour of the media 6 & London clubs (Unless they play each other when it tends to balance out of course). 

It's no surprise that the league table reflects this huge bias either as it makes a massive difference to a clubs points tally over a season (And already is after just 10/11 games evidently.

As I stated last night....That was play-acting of the most disgusting kind by Mitrovic. It was obvious just by watching the same images that the ref "saw".

As for the FA & their now double skinned layer of "officiating" which imposes their will to keep the media 6 & the London clubs in situ? Well it seriously needs investigating, like Fifa was investigated...As in by a neutral body such as the CIA who know what to look for. Using any football related body is totally pointless as the number one concern will be to cover up any corruption to both keep the status quo of the Media 6 and help out the swathe of London clubs as well as to make it look as though nothing is really wrong so as to not taint the game in the "best league in the World". Most corrupt league more like.

So now Gerrard is out of his job and his last chance was effectively taken away by the outragious VAR & Ref decision (even though we had been poor to that point, nobody knew whether we may just have turned it around if Mitrovic had been sent off for blatantly cheating). That incident alone may just have fired up the Villa players. I doubt it but that is not the point. We were cheated on a really crucial night for the team & in particular SG. 

It's an utter disgrace.

They should seriously hang their heads in shame the lot of them & Mitrovic in particular.

6 minutes ago, daft said:

We are not in a relegation battle.

As it stands we are totally in a relegation battle and looking the most out of sorts team in it.

Hopefully the right appointment changes it fast but with Brentford, Newcastle away, Man U & Brighton away upcoming it is not looking like changing anytime soon!

The new guy seriously needs to hit the ground running to avoid one that's for sure.

6 minutes ago, duke313 said:

Does he look happy? Does he look settled?

Well he is according to his own words apparently as was quoted above somewhere. When Wolves were linked I believe. Of course words are cheap and this may be very wrong and just professional soundbites. 

So as fully expected, it appears as though Poch is not at all interested in joining a relegation battle. In all honesty I am not overly disappointed as I feel he would have been off as soon as Spurs (looking quite possible with the angst their fan base is showing currently) or one of the Euro super clubs & possibly even a big international job came knocking. The last thing we need is a manager jumping ship part way through a project! I don't think it would have been very long either with a load of international jobs likely appearing too after the World cup.

As for the other contenders? Personally I think we have zero chance of Thomas Frank leaving Brentford, who are far better than us currently. I cannot see Tuchel going from a Champs League club to a relegation battle either. I'd also put Emery in that bracket...... So who?

The guy from Sporting appears very happy at Sporting & that release clause, if true, is abscene for a guy who has never managed in a top League with all due respect to the Portugese division. That is an expensive gamble!

So I really have no clue. Beale I feel is just too involved in proceedings at QPR & would be too closely associated with the whole Gerrard saga. He'd likely turn it down out of respect for SG too regardless. 

It really is looking like a small to medium pond with some smaller sized fish swimming around in it along with a few medium sized fish & just a few ageing bigger fish who have a little fungus appearing around the edges which cannot see or swim as eagerly as they used to. The truly big fish would come nowhere near this pond however as there is simply not enough room for them to manouvre as they would like.

Simply had to happen, despite the odd small spike in the graph the overall trend was rapidly down! 

I do feel a bit sorry for the guy and in particular Critchley leaving a decent role at Blackpool & SG having left a good role at Rangers etc but it was clear Beale leaving was catastrophic for him. He did have some bad luck with the injuries etc but he simply did not have the skills to adapt the team accordingly.

Just now, VillaChris said:

It's ridiculous we're not actually in the bottom 3. We are terrible.

No away wins and we've already played the three promoted teams, yikes.

Next manager going to have his work cut out as our usual of 6-7 wins at VP isn't going to be enough if we want a reasonably comfortable season now.

I really think we're going down as things stand Chris. This is a shambles.

Only hope is a new manager & limping through till Jan and hopefully get Kamara & Carlos back pls a new striker & midfeilder.

So looking ahead to a season or two in the Championship. I wonder who we would be able to keep? Surely the likes of Coutinho, Bailey, Martinez, Kamara, McGinn, Ramsey, Digne etc would depart straightaway? I also think Luiz, Carlos & a few others would want out? Not sure on Buendia as he was in there with Norwich for a good while but he may want out too.

So It would likely be

                     Olson

Bidace - Konsa - Mings - Augustinsson?

      Dendonker / Iroegbunam?

        Kesler Hayden  Buendia   

              Archer     Watkins

Subs: Ings, Ben Chrisene, Aaron Ramsey, Calum Chambers

Plus some incoming no doubt.

I have no clue how that team would fare but that's near to what I think we'd have left.

It's going to take a while for me to buy into Villa again in all honesty. I won't be listening to anymore BS soundbites and false promises. Even before tonights game we got the pathetic "Me & the players are determined to put it right and we are going to be looking for a win at Fulham" nonsense. 

I am not falling for it again.

Show me the results and excite me Villa if you want my belief back. As it is I have zero faith or belief in the club which is currently quite frankly a joke.

Can someone explain to me, why the heck would you drop Matty Cash to put Bednarek in when our back 4 has been so disrupted anyway? On what planet was that a good decision? Surely if there were these apparent green shoots against Chelsea it would have made sense to keep that vibe going rather than remove one of the attacking full backs? Such a bizzarre decision which for me did not help with cohesion at the back and gave Fulham the inititative right from the get go. He of course had to change it at half time as it had badly failed.

Just another example of clueless management & coaching in my eyes. The one thing we needed tonight was that little bit of continuity in the team after all the disruption of the first 9 games.

A daft mistake which the half time sub confirmed for me.

1 minute ago, KentVillan said:

That was never a headbutt in a billion years, Mitrovic is a fat **** cheating word removed, and the whole point of VAR was that it wasn’t meant to make mistakes like this. At worst that was two yellows (with Mitrovic the bigger culprit) and I am **** livid about that.

Ruined the game. **** off

The corruption at FA towers continues apace. How the ref cannot see that was played for, clear acting and a pathetically exaggerated reaction from the cheating bully boy that is Mitrovic the Lord only knows.....Or it could be the ongoing bias/corruption towards the Media 6 & London clubs of course. For me Mitrovic should have been sent off for blatantly trying to con the officials. 

As for VAR, well we all know it's corrupt regardless.

Was a played for red card by the cheat that is Mitrovic. Of course it's against a London club so VAR couldn't wait to give it. You could not clearly tell from the images I saw, except that Mitrovic clearly played for it. 

Another joke handball too which would not have been given had it been a media 6 club against one of the rest.

We were however an embarrassment regardless.

Leicester are far better than us and it was only a matter of time until they picked up. Wolves will be next once the new manager is in place there. Nobody above us is worse than us either, a few maybe on a par but now we are playing catch up from below them which will be very tough.

Get the guy gone for goodness sake, it's shambolic!

We are going down. This team is appalling and Gerrard should have been sacked before this was allowed to get engrained. Instead Purslow sat on his hands and now we have a team bereft of any confidence at all with fewer & fewer games left for a new manager to save the season.

We are from what I have seen the worst team in the division by a country mile. 

We have the odd flash or half game when we are competitive but it happens like once every 3 games. and even then is rarely enough to get 3 points unless it's against a team having a serious off day. 

Shocking performance from him.

Can't believe he lost a foot race with a Fulham player who started the race about 10 metres behind him. Thought he was supposed to be quick? 

Me & my daughter will not be wasting time watching this tragedy team again this season either until he has gone. Biggest waste of money ever those season tickets. What an absolute disaster he has been. It's actually an embarrassment being associated with it all. 

Relegation fodder.

2 minutes ago, Folski said:

Hasn't done this at all. Everyone saying to give him more time also seems to think if we went 1-0 up to Chelsea yesterday that they'd have rolled over. Were Chelsea even in second gear yesterday?

I personally think we did give them a very tough game yesterday, as in we made them run around a heck of a lot in that 1st hour, (It was like taking candy off a baby for them in that last 30 mins though)... However we totally let them off the hook with awful, panicky finishing, plus a few top saves from their keeper of course. I do think though that with better finishing, he would not have been able to make the saves regardless, so again it boils down to poor finishing. Confidence is clearly now a factor in that. 

That result was by-en-large substandard finishing and Football League level (& quite a low one at that) control & quality from a few of our players. Unfortunately there really is not a lot Gerrard can do about that. He can however drop players for repeatedly doing the same & give a go to others. The issue is that it's our "big" players doing it... McGinn, Watkins, Coutihno & others. The quality some of them are showing is way below the level it should be at. 

I was watching the difference with City against Liverpool&  in similar situations the control of those players is instant and clearly what you would expect at Premier League level. It made a huge difference to the attacking threat. 

So for me, on Sunday at least, it was down to poor quality from the players when thye should be much better, for the 1st hour. The rest of the game after 0-2 was frankly appaling however and that was not helped by Gerrards Substitutions in my view.

To play well, at home and lose 0-2 is very concerning however. Normally the saying is "if you play badly & win it's the sign of a good team" so quite what "if you play well & still lose" says I really don't know.