danceoftheshamen

I thought we were Ok last night with flashes of promise but also some flashes of poor quality interlaced in the performance too. We are quite scary to watch because you know there is always a shockingly amateurish pass just around the corner which could cost us... just as we are liable to miss even the easiest of sitters in front of goal... & we did a couple of times with Benteke's & Weimann's misses before half time. But whilst against better opposition those weaknesses will undoubtably cost us more often than not i do feel there are as many positives as negatives In Benteke we have a player in my opinion. He is a real handfull & with better support upfront we could finally have found our new Peter Withe!... (Given a bit more experience of course).. Yes i do rate him that highly. So now we need to find the perfect partner for him... Weimann could be that man eventually but i think the jury is still out on him at the moment as he misses too many easy chances. In midfield i think we lack grit & our creative players are way too inconsistent. Again this is possibly due to inexperience for the most part but it needs sorting. Defensively what we lack in experience we appear to make up for in energy although we do run around like headless chickens back there on occasion... This seems to be if anything confusing the opposition though at present resulting in the 2 clean sheets. Not a long term solution though & we need some work back there. Guzan i do like, he just is getting better all the time. I always like to compare any Villa side to the Title winning team from 80', 81'.. I don't know why? maybe it's because that was a proven & successful formula for this club with a limited squad & resources (sound familiar?) & well lets face it we won the ultimate prize with that team, the European cup, so it's not a bad way to check our progress... So lets compare the two for what it's worth (bearing in mind the game has changed considerably since those heady days of course) but what i have done below is to leave blank the players where i think we have yet to find a comparable / equivalent type of player. 1980/81 side 2011/12 side 1. Rimmer 1. Guzan 2. Swain 2. Lowton (potentially) 3. Gibson 3. 4. Evans 4. Vlaar 5. Mcnaught 5 . 6. Mortimer 6. Westwood (potentially) 7. Bremner 7. 8. Shaw 8. 9. Withe 9. Benteke 10. Cowans 10. 11. Morley 11. So although it would be ridiculous to compare the two teams in reality my point is that when you try to go through the positions player by player it highlights the weaknesses in the team very well in my opinion. Guzan is for me quite similar to Rimmer.. a small stocky keeper who does his job very well. Lowton can be a very classy (Same as Swain was) RB & with a bit more experience could be great. Vlaar i have compared to Alan Evans.. different types of player but he has a shot on him like Evans did & is a good solid player. In Westwood i see a potential Dennis Mortimer.. of course needs a lot more experience but i do like him & he has some similar qualities. Captain for the future? Finally the only other one i can compare is Benteke with Peter Withe. Both rugged forwards, lethal in the air & terrorisors of defences. So now to the missing links 3. Left back - Enda Stevens may be the man but it's way too early to say at this point. Colin Gibson was a great attacking full back with pace & just a good all round left back. 5. Central defence - this is surely an area of concern & we lack our Ken Mcnaught in my opinion.. we lack ruggedness & although Richard Dunne is that kind of player he is now surely too slow & error prone... Can Clark be the man? Jury again is out. 7. A tough rugged midfielder in the Des Bremner mould is desperately lacking to break up play & do the dirty work. 8. We lack a good foil for Benteke.. Gary Shaw was the lethal "fox in the box" in the 80's team & although Weimann is showing flashes he lacks the creative side Shaw possessed & his finishing is far less consistent. We need a 20 goal a season man to partner the big guy.. Bent is a lone soldier so not the man. 10. Our midfield creator.. We have Bannan & Ireland but they are both way too inconsistent & posses 1 good pass to 1 bad one from what i've seen. This is very reflective of how we play at present & is the fulcrum of the frustrating nature of this side. Sid Cowans was the man back in the day & neither of these two are fit to lace his boots. 11. Tony Morley was one of the main strengths of the Title winning team with pace & a lethal shot & cross. Our current pace man Gabby has flashes of all those qualities but again is just so inconsistent & lacks the brain, crossing & dribbling ability & long range finishing of Morley. Albrighton is too slow for the role & we erm..sold all the rest. So for January.. Left Back (Unless one of the 3 we have steps up) Creative midfielder Defensive midfielder Stiker Pacey Wide man. We are half way to a decent team in my book.

Yes i thought we got stuck in the no mans land of stick or twist when we went 2-0 up against Man U.. They got rather a lucky break to make it 2-1 with the free kick that wasn't leading up to the goal & indeed the slightly fortuitous way the ball ran to set up Hernandez... even the finish on another day would've hit an outstretched leg or something. But once that had contrived to go in it rattled our young side & the inexperience came to the fore... This appears to be happening on occasion with the same "rattled" thing happening at both Southampton & Man City too when we capitulated. It seems to be when they get a bad break in a game they can't handle it.... Definately a symptom of inexperience.

Great post which really does put things into perspective.. All sounds good long term & i really hope we turn the corner & start climbing that table soon as i would love this to be the blueprint for the future & desperatley hope we don't get sucked down & PL gets ousted before it can all kick in proper etc... Do we think Randy would stick by PL regardless? Even if we did succumb to the dreaded relegation?

""I would sooner the FA was investigating the possible bribing of officials rather than wasting their time with this. "" This.^^ exactly this!... Will never happen though.. It's a bit like expecting a casino to investigate the payouts on it's slot machines. The fact is it's all about the money so far as the FA are concerned. I really don't buy this "the ref was swayed by the home crowd" stuff either, for the simple reason they are .. well... Premier League referees!..Maybe a raw, new ref on a sunday league park could be pressured into making such a blatant error of judgement yes but surely a Premier League official would have enough knowledge & experience of such matters to not allow it to have such an impact? In the same way i wouldn't expect a fireman to run away from a fire because there were flames present. Or a politician to cave in & give away the real truth when being interrogated on TV?.... Because they are highly trained in how to deal with this as it is what they do!! So i'm afraid the "pressured into it" line simply doesn't wash in my opinion. Then we have the other argument of "Fear of reprisals" especially when officiating games involving the sky4 & the extra scrutiny they bring. This begs the question "fear of reprisals from whom exactly?" Most employees would surely be most afraid of upsetting their boss? So doesn't the evidence actually indicate that they are under extra pressure to make sure they don't make errors which go "against" those particular sides? For me this shows that they often take what they percieve to be the "easy option" when officiating in these games. The easy option appearing to be if in doubt award it to the big team? This for me gives evidence of the general brief from higher up... In other words they protect themselves by calling all the big decisions in favour of the "big" team as they know this will get them favour with their employer... who just happens to benefit financially when those "big" teams have a successful season with extra monies coming in from overseas (As admitted by certain a FA member not so long back). Then we have this situation with our own Paul Lambert. He dared to mention the shocking decisions which ultimately effected the game in a major way. Yes we were second best... of course we were but that is immaterial. We all know that at 0-0 it's anybody's game no matter how much one team is dominating...thats football for goodness sake. We also know that goals change games so that dog awful decision was huge & definatley a deciding factor in the game. So Mr Lambert rightly was appalled at the decision (amongst others) & was right to say what he thought considering just how bad it was. We also know of some other managers who would have been outraged at far less. Even a couple of minutes injury time can cause some managers to practically go into seizure, so i dread to think what they would have done when being victim to a phantom penalty award with the game at 0-0?!... Mr Ferguson for example. Funny how you just know the FA would not even mention the affair however if it had been him & not PL let alone fine him 8000 & touchline ban him for a game?! Odd is the only way i can sum it all up....Just odd?

I've cooled down a bit now after the annual "w**k manc" week. It's just groundhog day every year now & it's frankly infuriating.. Corrupt officials, being the thing which always tips me over the edge & for me they are just that ...corrupt!.. I know there are many who refuse to believe that for whatever reason but for me there is simply way too much evidence & it keeps on growing week in week out but people just seem to choose to ignore it. Maybe they don't want their illusion of the good old game shattered or something? Who knows but it's getting a bit ridiculous trying to conveniently ignore the fact that there's a huge massive elephant in the room.. In fact it's more like a Brontosaurus actually! As for relegation? Well i'm worried but hopefull. But we have to now be among the favorites surely?

Still at least our strikers will be happy enough today...... Arsenal won

Ah.... yet another grim day in the life of a Villa supporter....... It's getting really boring now... Are you listening Mr Lerner?............................." hears a pin drop"........................................................ Nope didn't think so!

Lol!.. thought i would just pop on to see how we were performing today...........DOH! What a complete waste of space lol! Roll on next season.......AGAIN!

Well its the Sun as many have already stated!.. Who's staff are stuffed full of fans of London based fans no doubt a large portion of whom just happen to be Arsenal fans..They love a good old gloat at the best of times & as they have been getting a bit of an inferiority complex of late, with their best players being poached by "bigger clubs", maybe this is some way they can big themselves up a bit again? Typical Red top tripe all biased towards the London clubs & derogatory towards us. Let me see don't we play them soon? Impeccable timing!..nuff said

Very good point actually re: Spurs.. Of course this lad will be being fed by advisors too no doubt all telling him how to make the most money over his career blah blah blah.. We are of course a great bet at the moment ....So long as we remain in the Prem of course... As we are possibly the best route to 1st team action in the Prem at the Mo for a youngster. Guess we'll just have to put up with the fact we will be viewed as a stepping stone at the moment.

Well at least we know what he is all about now.. just as soon as he hits a bit of form he'll be off. Remind me to not bother buying a top with his name on it lol! It'll be obsolete rather quickly! The sad part is you just know that we are going to have this constantly revolving door of young players in.. better players out thing going on with the net result that we can never build a successful team & if we do it'll last about 1 season then all our stars will be poached by the moneybags fat cat clubs & we'll be back to square 1 again.

Had to laugh at Smallings pathetic attempt to persuade the Ref that Benteke had fouled him in the build up to our 1st goal. Was watching on TV as sadly couldn't be there through work commitments & on the replays it was embarrassing.. He practically assaulted Benteke who simply was too tough for him & he came off 2nd best but the ridiculous bit was he firstly looked kind of stunned & then when he realised Benteke was still there with the ball at his feet... he looked at the ref & suddenly went into what i can only describe as what looked like a kind of fit!.. As though he had been kicked in the head or something!? Pathetic ....absolutely pathetic.

Thanks ciggiesnbeer...& Stevo believe me i wouldn't have turned it off against any other team apart from the mancs.. not a chance!. I'm a bit surrounded by plastic Man U fans by me too & just cannot bear to listen to them gloating so this probably had something to do with it too i guess.. Anyhow i didn't take your comments Stevo as making me any lesser of a fan...& i can see how it would seem maybe odd lol! Even if you had it wouldn't have washed with me anyhow as i have been a season ticket holding Holte ender since the days or Brian Little & Andy Gray & home & away fan even in our 2nd division days. Goodness me i've even hitch hiked to Plymouth, Nottingham & Manchester so as to not miss a game before now lol! Plus i was in Rottedam in 82' so nobody can say i'm anything other than a hard core Villa man that's for sure!. Only wasn't there yesterday due to a work clash. Anyhow back onto the important stuff & i really like the look of what Lambert is building here. I thought Man U just didn't quite know how to cope with us for a while yesterday but then our inexperience showed too quite often...but that will improve for sure. I just wish Gabby would start to produce more regulary as he had 2 or 3 chances to do something yeasterday & each time he either made the wrong choices or his excecution was very poor. He should be doing better than that as one of our senior players now (which in itself is quite scary). we had a couple of openings when 2-0 up to put the game to bed & each time we kind of got "rabbitinheadlightsitis" when a simple pass or level head could have won us the game.. Good signs though & although i chose not to watch the inevitable capitulation (no doubt Ref assisted to a point as always against them) I feel quite hopefull now for survival this season & a much better one next time out!

Well thanks for the compliment Stevo..After all who'd want to be ordinary? .. Actually i really did ..Call it a hunch if you will .. Next time i correctly "guess" what is going to happen, having witnessed it year in year out for goodness knows how long, i'll remember to force myself to endure the misery of watching it. I guess i'm just that sick & tired of repeatedly watching the same thing over & over again against that lot that i just decided this time i'd switch it off whilst the going was good instead of having more horrid memories polluting my brain forever & a day... It's actually worked quite well as i have very pleasent memories from the game that i watched ... Some may say odd.. some however may call it prophetically wise

Lol! Same old load joke.. Remarkable how this club manages to find so many new ways of completely cocking up a promising (Although sadly all to predictably false) position. It's actually boring now. It was so obvious that the annual F**K it up against Man U from a winning position was going to happen i actually stopped watching at 2-0. "The Mrs said have a look you never know" to which i gave a "suprised at such a ridiculous comment" glance. I genuinely didn't even bother to check the result until now what 8:15 as i am off out to work & wouldn't have been able to see the inevitable until tomorrow otherwise & i simply couldn't be arsed to wait that long. Groundhog day continues at Villa Park.

Bye

And there we go we go... the Ref starts to intervine .............Just for a change .. I can't even stand to watch it now.. Especially listening to the shockingly biased commentary on Sky.. And Ray Wilkins should be sacked for even daring to suggest that Benteke fouled Small in the build up to the 1st goal.. Shocking & its ruining a good game for me so I'm offski! Now wait for it we'll get a man sent off & thet'll win with a last minute dodgy penalty in the 20th minute of injury (fergie) time.

Yup! I still say, with whats gone on here over the last 3 seasons, that staying up would be an acheivement! I do not say that in the sense i would be content with that as a norm, not at all, but rather that since last season (when we were somewhat fortuous to stay up) we have lost Petrov, Dunne, Collins, Heskey & Cuellar amongst others. Ok Dunne can come back in possibly but that is a hefty chunk of experience we have lost from the squad....Again! We spent 20m yes but really the squad is smaller & less experienced than last season. My point is that many clubs of lesser stature than AVFC would surely have already succumbed & fallen with what has gone on here recently. So my comment is made viewing the big picture of the last few seasons as a whole & what i am saying is that if we survive this season, when in my opinion we have "Bottomed out" so to speak, then that is indeed quite some acheivement & a testament to the potential size of this sleeping giant of a football club.... I am not saying that i am "content to just stay up" at all as you appear to infer. I would of course take survival this season as the "minimum of expectancy" but do still think that if we do stay in this league it will put us in a much better position ready for next term & in the summer we could move on the likes of Hutton & Dunne clearing some space on the wage bill & we can at long last start to climb back towards where this club should be with a bright young manager & a fresh vibrant young squad in place.... But we need to survive this season for now.. Thats why i think it would be a big achievement.

I'm absolutely delighted for Brad, i remember when we won the inter toto cup & he was immense all that tournament & i was really disappointed when it appeared he'd left the club.

I would be delighted if we can somehow scrape a win against Reading & 2 points from the other 3 no matter how unlikely it appears. The point a game marker is a good indication of how we are doing & so long as we remain within 2 or 3 points of that we have a chance especially considering that thus far we have been kind of gelling whilst coping with injuries to Dunne, Clark, Ireland, Bent (The spine of the team) & now El Ahmadi plus suspensions & the like. I do expect us to improve & we also have the January window fast approaching so if we can stay in touch until then we may yet survive & if we do.. That will be one heck of an achievement in my view with whats gone on at this club over the last 3 seasons. UTV

I'd be content with 2 points from the next 3. Then if we can beat Reading that would put us on about 14 played with 14 points which would be a solid platform to build on considering all the new players were gelling etc in the first quarter of the season. That win against MON was crucial. Love the look of Benteke & although Gabby looks to have lost a yard since he beefed up he is still quicker than most & appears to be finding a bit of form at last. We still need a good partner for Benteke though in my opinion.. A Gary Shaw type who will work off his knock downs & take some of the attention away from him.

The problem we have is chance conversion in the main. The main thing in football is putting the ball in the net & we are dismal at it!..we are 3rd from bottom as it stands of the chance conversion table (See here http://tinyurl.com/cqfxhv8 ) As it happens todays opponents Sunderland are TOP of the converted chances table with over 50%.. So for me if we can put more chances away we will climb the table.. if not we will end up in trouble.

Dwight Yorke & Rednap were absolutely spot on on Sky earlier when commenting on that tripe. We have nothing.. No stars no leaders or exciting players whatsoever.. Just 15 "mr bog standards". Awful football team which surely will get relegated now. I think this has been just one gamble too many .. we were not in a position to gamble like this having luckily escaped the drop last season... You surely don't gamble in that situation? Surely you solidify things for a while with some experience? I really cannot even see January saving us this time as we will be that far adrift by then it won't matter. Imagine going into the run in this season 10 points worse off than than we were last term!! Well that is whats on the cards with our upcoming fixtures! Disappointed & rapidly losing interest altogether this has been going on for far too long now & the excuses have run out!

I can now honestly say having watched that today & this side this season that this is by a clear country mile the worst Villa side i have ever seen. Absolutely dog awful & for me we are easily the worst side in the Premier League. It is just men against boys as is being shown with the sendings off we have suffered now twice this season already. We just made Norwich City look like a top 4 side with us being the home side & even despite going 1-0 up. Norwich on another day would have had 5 or 6 goals in that game. I have 0 interest in this Villa team whatsoever as it stands they are quite frankly just plain dull. To think we are thanking our lucky stars for a 1-1 draw at home to Norwich City. Oh how the mighty have fallen..Sort it out Randy because this team is pathetic.

Not confident at all i have to say although like many i do think we will get better eventually. My biggest concern is we are playing with fire for the 3rd season in a row. We've had 3 seasons of squad decimation the like of which i've never witnessed before. I shudder to think of the list of players we have either released, sold or had poached from us over the last 36 months. We have replaced quality, skill & solid experience with Youth, potential & inexperience. That is one risky policy in the World's toughest league especially when considering we barely survived the last two campaigns & we have now decimated the squad still further! Having said all that i do like Lambert & think he has signed some real gems......for the future! My biggest worry is where we will be by the time that happens. We are playing kind of ok in patches but the inexperience is really costing us at the moment, either with a sitter being missed or a goal conceded as players struggle to find their feet having been quite literally thrown in the deep end. Many of these guys will turn out to be top players for sure but how long is it going to take as we do not have much time for things to start turning. We need a couple of big wins now to make up for the bad start. Here's to hoping :s This is possibly one of the biggest seasons in the history of Aston Villa FC.