danceoftheshamen

I see West Ham lost again tonight 2-3 against Spurs & they could yet get dragged in as they have a very tough run in..harder than anyone i'd say...Still a long shot though.. I thought they would draw tonight & they would finish around the 40 point mark..so that now goes down to 39.. Another bad defeat or two & they could be right in it. Good news is their most winnable games are now against Wigan (h) Reading (h) & Southampton (a) so this keeps them badly needing points so they could either do us a favour by beating those lot or get dragged in themselves if they don't... Either way it could just help us a little.

A 'Free Go' at them. Are they not turning up until the second half then? Even if they didn't turn up until the second half we'd still squander our lead and lose in the last minute. That sounds about right... 7-0 up by half time (as City physically hadn't turned up) (& i say only 7-0 due to the fact that even if we were playing against nobody i doubt we would manage to score more than 7!)..Then City arrive & win it 8-7 with a minute to spare having scored 3 "offside" goals, 4 penalties & a last minute headed corner. I wouldn't trust this team to beat a carpet!

Well i think we'll get royally stuffed against City... Just in time to give us the jitters & affect confidence for the two most crucial fixtures we have left.

You would think so but it doesn't appear to be affecting any other clubs.

Well if we don't get a super rich owner then we can forget winning anything other than maybe the odd League cup for decades. How this is supposed to be entertaining i really don't know? A question i have always pondered is whether you should be happy to go along & watch a game lose, lose or draw? (Ok with the odd random win popping up now & then) Frankly i am bored of that now. I insist on at least having a chance to see us win something of note, even if it is just occasionally. To have to put up with mediocrity decade after decade however is simply soul destroying & eventually makes the whole thing rather pointless. I was brought up watching a good Villa side who won things & this utter garbage we have to endure now is unacceptable in my opinion. So Yeah i would take someone who had the ability to make us at least competitive any day.. I have endured the alternative for 30+ years now.

Just looked at the remaining fixtures for all those clubs who are still "at risk" to varying extents, apart from West Ham & Sunderland & i have this Newcastle......46pts Southampton 45 pts Norwich.........44 pts Wigan...........37 pts Villa...............35 pts QPR..............33 pts Reading........30 pts Thats with us losing against Man City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Man U... Drawing with QPR, Reading, Stoke, Norwich & Wigan, .. & Winning against Fulham & Sunderland. Lose against QPR & i fear for us Win against Wigan & we have a chance But must not lose against QPR, Reading or Wigan & really we need to win at least 2 of those Ok just looked at the Sunderland & West Ham fixtures too & they could indeed still get dragged in but even on a pretty poor run i still have West Ham finishing on about 40 pts & Sunderland around 38/39

I don't think 35 points will be enough Minimum 37/38 if we're lucky though i fear it will be more like 40/41 as Wigan are improving.. Doesn't matter about Reading & QPR really as we have to better the best of those 3 being Wigan. If one of the others gets dragged in then great but i still think it will be a surprisingly high points tally to stay up this season by the end of it all. Do i think we will do it? ....... Not for a second. We still lose even when we apparently play well so that says all that needs to be said for me. Arsenal played poorly on the back of 2 defeats, one of them against a Championship team plus we were, or at least should have been, much fresher than them. At the same time we played really well according to Lambert, were on the back of a win & the fresher team having had 2 weeks to prepare for the game.......But despite all this we still lost!.. Ok Arsenal are still a decent enough side but even so.....

The Qpr v Southampton game will be interesting... A draw probably being the ideal outcome for us.. Southampton could yet get dragged back in too & if they lose that they may just get the jitters but the last thing we want is QPR getting their tails up just before we play them. Sadly i fear the damage is done this season though & whilst we are not out of it we badly need a big win a la Anfield this or Chelsea away last season. That Chelsea result is what kept us up last season.

Well that puts our defeat against Bradford over 2 legs into perspective! 5-0 Watching that today i struggle to see how on Earth we lost against them? they were shockingly bad. That was a practice session for Swansea today.. how embarrassing that we actually lost to that side.

I recall the Arsenal defenders saying they needed to watch him prior to the game... Didn't see the match but it sounds as though they did what they set out to do & took him out of the game? Anyone see it? Is that what happened or was he just poor?

So it seems that is now 11 times we have been behind & lost 10 of them? very bad loss for me.. I know it was away at Arsenal etc but we should have been fresher than them having had 2 weeks off & with them having had a very tough game in midweek, plus they are nowhere near as good as some recent Arsenal sides... Especially going into the last 5 mins at 1-1, to lose it again is extremely disappointing. Maybe we are trying to break the "losing it in the last few minutes" record to go with the other records we have achieved this season?

Agreed.. Not a chance we will finish above Wigan now in my opinion. They are miles better than us... How sad! Quite a ridiculous statement. After 27 games (Quite a large set of data), they are entirely equal in terms of points. Yep, absolutely miles better than us. I take it when we leap frogged them only a couple of weeks ago was a one off that has no chance of happening again? Well they did stuff us 3-0 at VP too very recently. Ok "miles better" is maybe overcooking it a touch but for me they are definately a better team than us.

Agreed.. Not a chance we will finish above Wigan now in my opinion. They are miles better than us... How sad!

Just logged on... Don't even know the score from today although i have no doubt we lost.. coz well... erm.... we're crap! & judging by the above posts looks that is indeed the case. The usual pre match BS of how we are now so much better after a win against West Ham & the players have had chance to recover & work on some things etc............ So we lose... Again!

I was brought up on Villa in the late 70's & Early 80's... Ever since i was spoiled rotten by witnessing the greatest ever achievement in the clubs history i have been waiting to see us get close to a good team again.... We have never done it in my opinion. I do like comparing our present sides to the European Champions of 82' but player for player we never really get close. As for the MON side...erm Nope!.. Nowhere near in my opinion! The current side has lots of potential to me though. They just lack Arial ability at the back, experience and grit in midfield, pace on the wings & the full backs are weak. LB's are weak defensively & Rb is weak attacking wise+ lacks decent cover. The CB's are poor in the air in my opinion & lightweight although Vlaar is huge of course. Also the CB's pose little to no threat in an attacking sense. All good sides get 4 or 5 goals from the CB's per season. I do like Weimann, he reminds me of Gary Shaw. Benteke reminds me of Peter Withe just with less nous but that will come.. Best we have had since Withe in my opinion. Should break the bank to try to keep him. Westwood reminds me of a young & very inexperienced Dennis Mortimer & he needs to add goals to his game. Vlaar is ok Baker i like a lot.. reminds me of a young Martin Laursen but his inexperience does cost occasionally.. that again will improve though. Again he needs to become an attacking threat too. Clark? Well can't quite see it with him. Seems too weak for CB & i see him more as a Midfielder.. He's decent but just where do you fit him? Bannan?.. No Guzan? Not bad.. seen better though. Lowton? Awful in an attacking sense & otherwise average but should improve. LB's? No Nzogbia? Lacks pace Gabby? Lost his edge Albrighton? Too slow & very inconsistent. Thats my opinion of the current lot.

Definitely not all Randy's fault - but he wears the blame since he is the owner. The buck stops with him. As for MON - you can blame him for the (poor) quality he paid top dollar for..... ....but you can't blame him for using the freedom given to him. Absolutely.. shame he didn't know how to make the best use of that freedom!

If they did say that, it was in a very low-key way. I certainly don't recall it - would love to see the source. In any event, I don't think anyone appreciated they would seek to "get the money back" in the space of two seasons. It is by that precipitate change of direction (and failure to create any coherent new sense of direction) that Lerner has really damaged the club. By the way, in terms of "poor value for money" for MON's signings, most of the money they have "got back" over the last couple of seasons has come from sales of his signings, or in one case (Barry) for a player whose market value he increased immensely during his time, so I guess his regime wasn't quite the disaster some claim. It was low key I suppose, partly because we were all caught up in the (at the time) excitement of the earlier days, but Gen K put it in the thread he had. No idea whether it's still somewhere in the site, or if it went when the site moved to here. I also read it where newspapers picked up on it, to an extent - the Guardian I think, and David Conn, but yes, low key. And no they didn't say "in 2 seasons" it was more about a 10 year thing - there was some stuff GK wrote about a kind of 5 year approach, or plan, and then the longer term. It started to become apparent once the HOK thing and the plans for the ground vanished off the radar, then the withdrawing from the Olympics and stuff like that - they'd clearly, even then, decided to stop with the growing the club off the pitch, the team followed pretty quickly. I think it started, once it became clear(ish) MO'N wasn't going to get into the top 4 - after the third year. Yes, most of the money "got back" has come from Young, Milner, Downing, but most of his signings left for little or no money, and that's not just down to the owner "cost cutting" it's down to the type and age and ability of the players he signed. His reign wasn't a disaster at all - he was very much part of the Club re-finding itself. I assume he was told, or by default allowed to assume, that money wasn't an issue at the time, early on. Later it turned out for a number of reasons already mentioned, that it became an issue. I think the world thing and personal circs effectively brought forward the time to balance the books, and meant it was done more sharply. It's not been good for anyone. So IMO we are where we are because of a complex set of reasons. I don't believe it's simply because "randy is useless" or not rich enough, or whatever. It's collective, with the responsibility resting ultimately with the owner. He's made lots of mistakes, for sure. But to you use your phrase in a different context "I guess his regime isn't quite the disaster some claim." In terms of damage to the club, yes it's way back from where it was 3 or 4 years ago in terms of performance and so on. No... Its simply a case of a manager buying poor players that some fans cannot reconcile.... because a modicom of success was achieved, the bigger picture is blur.... He put this club back years, interms of development. The owner backed the manager in a way that the previous owner was castigated beyond belief and protest marches against his interference was well documented and lack of investment is folk lore. Some of our fans have short memories. A new owner comes in and backs the manager ( who all the fans wanted - including me)without any interference and the manager spunks millions (in the transfer market) up the wall. All Randy's fault Don't thinks so. Martin ( mr **** teflon) O'Niell Agreed... MON is not the right kind of manager in my opinion to give zillions of pounds to. All he did was spunk it on mr average players on high wages as they are the kind of players he thrives on. Ditto when he was at Leicester & Celtic (apart from the awesome Henrik Larrson of course). For me that was when we needed a manager who knew how to spend money on quality foreign players & had the technical knowledge to have brought this club up to date & instill a lasting footballing style throughout the club from youth level to reserves to 1st team. With the funds available at the time & the quality of player we could have attracted, with the right manager, i think we would now be a force to be reckoned with. MON exists on motivation & getting inside players heads & for me this is why he insisted on bog average British players. He knew he could motivate them & if he couldnt for whatever reason they were ousted... The problem with that is it is simply unsustainable.. As soon as MON left we had nobody here who could do the same thing with those players.. & they were found out very quickly... Of course selling all the best ones didn't help either! Also we had differing styles in my opinion at Youth level to 1st team. McDonald had a different style to MON & this in my opinion slowed up progress of those players... Indeed many of them simply didn't fit MON's criteria & therefore didn't get in as soon as they should have. Badly thought out really the whole thing was.. basically the wrong choice of manager & this was repeated again & again too which is very poor. Still it happened & we have to move on now.. Big few months ahead in the history of this club!

For me the West Ham win was simply a case of law of averages dictating we were due to win one at some point. We win about 1 in 6 or 7 it appears so that one was overdue & as with our other wins this season we could easily have not won it too. We seem to follow a cycle of: 1. Get royally stuffed 2..Lose again but not quite so bad 3. Draw 4. lose 5. Draw 6. Win Repeat So that's 5 points from every 6 games which pretty much adds up to where we are today. Worryingly that puts us down for getting hammered against Arsenal & losing badly to City followed by a draw at Reading then a loss against QPR a draw against Liverpool & then a win due against Stoke or Fulham.. Be interesting to see how that pattern holds up as it does look a very possible set of results from those games. If we can somehow win one & draw one against Reading (a) & QPR (h) & pick up a win against Fulham or Stoke plus a surprise draw or two then we are in with a shout. .. That would leave us with around 32 points from 33 games We would then need around 8 points from Man U (a) Sunderland (h) Norwich (a) Chelsea (h) Wigan (a) So really we would have to beat Sunderland, Norwich & Wigan It's gonna be a bumpy ride i fear & there is simply no room for error now.. What a difference a win in one of the next two would make!

I can't see him signing for Spurs... Doesn't he support Arsenal for starters?

Thing is though isn't Dawson out of contract in the summer anyways?

Do you know what it's more fun supporting the kids at Villa than the 1st team. At least they win some games & give you a lift now and then with an exceptional performance here & there. They do a lot of good for the name of Aston Villa FC... Unlike the 1st team! So i think i am transferring to becoming a Villa Youth supporter from now on... Much more fun! "Villa Youth, Villa Youth"........................................... Oh ... Hang on :s

Yeah right lol!...Bale of hay maybe!

I havn't liked it for the same reasons Briny_ear Facebook is business for me & i can't have it cluttered up with football stuff... Just shows though there must be many more genuine fans out there than the 1 million (although i appreciate that not all of those million will be genuine fans of course)

I'm very surprised Chelsea have more FB fans than Liverpool and Arsenal. I'm not. Plastics go where the trophies are. Quite incredible how people "hang on" to success. Thing is we have done well really considering we have been relatively unsuccessful over the last 30+ years.. In fact we must be the best supported unsuccessful team looking at those figures!!

I love how how the media have already priced him up as a "16m striker" Is that his agent trying to keep the price down to ensure a move?