Big_John_10

2 strikers? That will never work!

Cheeky!

I couldn't help myself.

2 strikers? That will never work!

Well it depends what you want to do, i would hope that having ambitions of a top 4 place we would go with to teams like blackburn with the emphasis being on trying to win instead of trying to not lose.

Why does setting up with a 4-5-1, which invariably in our case ends up being more of a 4-3-3, mean we're not trying to win?

Such an odd selection. Carew is bang out of form and I don't have faith in Petrov and Delph as a pairing.

But we've won 6 on the bounce. Until that ends, well, I'll keep the faith.

Because against liverpool, fulham and blues we didn't look threatenting going forward and we struggled to create chances. We looked solid but i think we lose a bit going forward with this formation.

Blackburn are a poor team who are going to sit back and be happy with a draw today, 4-5-1 didn't work against blues when they did the same so i don't think it would work well against blackburn.

We will lose.

MON is a stubborn ****.

We only beat blues once we switched to 4-4-2 and we beat pompey playing 4-4-2.

Why is a guaranteed loss because we are playing that formation today?

I think we are more able to take the game to them playing 4-5-1 than 4-4-2, just by having an extra player up front it doesn't mean we are going to be better going forward.

I think we will create more chances and look more of a threat going forward than if we just played 1 upfront.

I think 4-5-1 is the right formation for us in certain games but i don't think this is one of them.

I'm glad we've gone for 4-4-2 we need to be attacking against teams like this if we want to win.

The blues game showed that playing 4-5-1 against a team who are going to sit back and defend is not going to work well enough.

If we want to finish top 4 we can't go to places like Ewood park with a defensive attitude.

Disagree completely. The 451 is set up to counter attack away from home which is what we are fantastic at. Chelsea based two outstanding title winning seasons on a solid 451. 442 with petrov works in reverse for us as however good we are going forward, we get ripped apart by any opposition through the middle.

The counter attack works if teams will push forward and attack us, blackburn today will play like blues did and in that situation it doesn't work well.

They'll beat us unless they play crap.

shut up! maybe we will play brilliantly and deserve to win. that sort of comment is the epitomy of negative villa fans - we only win when the oppostion are bad - just as some said after the liverpool game. occassionally, you know, we do actually deserve the good things that happen to us.

Yes you are right, although the situation is this- when we play 4-5-1, we don't lose, the opposition can't break us down. When we play 4-4-2 with petrov, we invariably get outplayed by poor opposition. So in this case my only optism is that Rovers are very poor, otherwise we will be overrun again.

Well it depends what you want to do, i would hope that having ambitions of a top 4 place we would go with to teams like blackburn with the emphasis being on trying to win instead of trying to not lose.

I'm glad we've gone for 4-4-2 we need to be attacking against teams like this if we want to win.

The blues game showed that playing 4-5-1 against a team who are going to sit back and defend is not going to work well enough.

If we want to finish top 4 we can't go to places like Ewood park with a defensive attitude.

Shorey .... was dropped for the new signing; just because he was the new signing!

Got any evience of that Jez?

It's one hell of s staement to make, and an ill founded one, IMHO.

Maybe Shorey was dropped for Warnock because, get this, MON feels Warnock is a better player.

So just because he is a better player the concept of squad rotation is dismissed?

What if god forbid Warnock is injured who comes in? A pissed off Shorey, why should he bother, he started this season well and was dropped because Warnock turned up!

For all we know Shorey could improve playing games and become better than Warnock. I doubt it as Warnock is the better player, but currently squad players have absolutely no incentive to play well when they get into the first team as MON will just drop them next game.

Once again evidence imo that MON is not comfortable with squad rotation something he has improve on for us to continuing improving. Otherwise knackered players will be replaced with pissed off players i bet resulting in a lower team performance.

How about an incentive is that those fringe players are paid alot of money to perform to the best of their ability when the manager calls upon them.

Like another poster said how can you explain N'Gog playing well and scoring last night, knowing full well that he will never get in ahead of torres? How can you explain delfonsou playing well in europe last year even though he knew he wouldn't start in the premier league the next game? How do you explain the arsenal youngsters playing well in the league cup last sason even though they were dropped for the next premier league game?

Squad roation isn't about playing someone till they are tired, giving someone else a chance and if they do well play them until they are tired and keep repeating. Squad rotation is about picking the team based on the opponents, sometimes that will mean playing your best team and sometimes that will mean giving the fringe players a chance.

I'm sure the fringe villa players know full well that performing in the league cup doesn't meant they should start the next premiership game but it certainly doesn't hurt their chances of getting a chance in the bigger games.

It wouldnt surprise me that if our reserve full backs are given a game they are both lackluster.

I mean whats the point?

They know they will be dropped regardless.

Shorey was impressive and doing just if not better job that Warnock has done since coming back, yet he was dropped for the new signing; just because he was the new signing!

He may be the lesser player but how are you meant to rotate and give people encouragement to play for their place when it doesn't happen!

You can't honestly think that just because warnock was new he was picked? You can't ignore the fact that shorey was poor for the majority of last season, he spent £8 million on a left back so why stick with a player who has proven that he can't perform well enough week in and week out?

I think the team will be

..........................guzan.........................

cuellar......collins...........dunne........warnock

albrighton....delph........petrov..........milner

................carew............fonz....................

After the fulham game i would have said that shorey deserves to start and given his performances he really does.

However the club don't want him and have shown that and therefore i can't see anyway he could play.

Warnock is an experienced good player, can't see him having big problems making his debut against the scum.

For me you gauge a defender on their mistakes, not on how many things they do right. If a defender does 20 good things in a match, but makes 10 mistakes then you can't defend them by pointing out the good things. I think you could watch Beye's matches so far and point out a slew of mistakes and passes to opponents or going awol. A bit like how Shorey was at leftback before we threatened him with a replacement, though without Shorey's quality forward play.

Beye will win headers and tackles. Woopdeedoo. But the opposition will, more often than not, come down his side and get joy going past him and getting crosses in. Anyway, as I say, he may improve, I just think we've bought a dud.

fair enough, i think at times his passing has looked poor but as a defender i really haven't seen many mistakes and i'm confident that when luke young is out beye can step in and do a job for us.

That said, people deal with things in different ways. I'm not going to judge.

True, Collinson at west ham was playing the night after his dad had died.

Hopefully Luke will be back soon.

Rino, I've been diplomatic on here up til now about Beye because he's still new to Villa and he might still improve, but from what I've seen of him, and I've watched him closely, I honestly think we have on our hands possibly the worst rightback since I've supported the club.

I don't think i could disagree more.

I thought he was excellent against liverpool and if you watch the fulham game again you'll see 3 important wins in the area where he read the danger and was able to get there and clear it.

Thought he was very poor going forward against fulham but as a defender i haven't seen anything wrong with him.

But what we lack is a real goalscorer and that's what we have been crying out for for a number of years. Carew and Gabby won't score more than 10-15 league goals a season and often go missing for months.

Last season carew and gabby scored 22 premier league goals between them, they got 11 each.

take the 2 forwards who scored the most goals for their teams last season and only chelsea and liverpool beat us, if you class ronaldo as a forward then man u do to.

I think we underestimate the quality we already have sometimes.

Yes. Think we spent the most last summer and 2nd most this summer. Must be around the 150 mil mark spent by MON now, it really is time to deliver a trophy or Champions League. Tuncay for 5 mil would have been nice though.

I agree we really need a good cup run but i don't think you can say we should be in the champions league because of the money we've spent.

We've spent for two summers that's nothing compared to what the top 4 have been able to spend over the years and the quality they've been able to attract because of champions league football, also what we've spent is nothing compared to man city.

For me i think the window was pretty good but nothing special.

Very easy win, a comfortable performance and from the moment we took the lead we were never going to lose.

I thought it was fair that NRC came off, he played well but he was the worst midfielder, i thought sidwell was excellent.

I have given shorey some stick but he was very good and warnock may have to wait awhile.

The formation makes us hard to break down but we lack something going forward and rely a lot on counter attacking, it worked well yesterday but i'm not sure it will work all the time.

Well this wasnt suppose to turn into a slag MON of fest lol. The only mistakes he is making is playing Heskey and playing a 4-4-2. If we play 4-5-1 and drops Heskey the man will be a genius again, if he continues with Heskey and plays 4-4-2 he is going to fail. Come on MON, we know you can see it, your just being too loyal to Petrov and Heskey, and too stubborn towards us fans. Do what we all know is right......................take Heskey off to the quarry for a little chat and do what you gotta do...

So he is making mistakes because he won't listen to internet fans when it comes to team selection and formations. I used to laugh at spurs and newcastle fans for their attitude, we're fast becoming a lot worse.

4-4-2 worked last night. The only failure was that we never took the lard off for NRC at two-nil, reverting to 4-5-1.

And i guarantee had we done that and still lost the same people would be moaning about going defensive and changing things when we were winning.

There was always a threat of rapid scoring, we needed that 3rd goal and before rapid scored the 4-4-2 and the 11 players on the pitch looked like they could have got that 3rd goal and should have got it.

not bitchy at all in my view. its the same in any walk of life. i firmly stand by the pay your money have your say motto. always have always will.

Hypocrite. Or is your gold lion in the post?

Surely he is only a hypocrite if he moans about how the site is run?

O'Neill dismayed by Euro exit

Villa boss left deflated after Rapid setback

Martin O'Neill has expressed his 'desperate disappointment' at seeing Aston Villa crash out of Europe.

The Villans saw their Europa League ambitions crushed by Austrian outfit Rapid Vienna on Thursday, despite claiming a 2-1 victory on home soil.

A 2-2 aggregate scoreline over the course of the two legs saw Rapid progress courtesy of the away goals rule.

Villa made more of the running in the second leg and went ahead when James Milner converted from the penalty spot, after Ashley Young had failed from 12 yards minutes earlier.

John Carew added a second after the interval, but Nikica Jelavic bundled home 14 minutes from time to bring Villa's continental adventure to an end before it had even begun.

O'Neill said afterwards: "We should have won. We did actually win the game. We should have got through. We should have had the game out of sight before they scored and it was unfortunate.

"They exerted some pressure at 2-0, which you would be expecting, but I thought we had a number of chances to go from 2-0 to 3-0 and that would have sealed the tie.

"Overall I was very pleased with the application of the side. I am desperately disappointed that we are not through.

Experience

"It would have been great experience again particularly for the younger players and last season, despite the way it ended for us in the Uefa Cup, I thought we had some splendid nights at Villa Park.

"I will miss those but we have to get on with it now and we will come again."

O'Neill refused to condemn Young for his penalty miss, insisting Villa did more than enough over the course of 90 minutes to have booked their place in the group stages.

"They were both penalties and the one time the ref did pretty well in the game was to allow the play to continue for the first penalty after Young was fouled," he added.

"Ashley was disappointed to miss the penalty. He scored a great one against Liverpool and felt confident about taking it. James converted the second and then we went in front.

"We always felt we needed three goals in the game because there is the possibility of conceding. We had two good chances to seal the game.

"I thought the team played very well."

Mon speaks

to the part in bold if you knew it was coming why didnt you make achange to combat it? we clearly wasnt coping. their manager made a change at teh right time and paid off while you buried your head in the sand

He said they put us under some pressure but it wasn't like they were creating chance after chance.

Also although we had a 2 0 lead we knew all they needed was to score 1 goal, trying to get another wasn't a terrible decision and had milner finished his easy chance we'd have been laughing.

Honestly if we had made changes and still lost would you be on here saying it was unfortunate but at least MON made the right changes or would you complain that we changed things when we were winning and should have gone for another goal? I get the impression that every game we lose a section of fans will be on his back for not doing something.

Just got back and was surprised by the attendance, to be fair to the ones there they made a good effort to show support especially after the final whistle and i think that was fair the players didn't deserve to get booed.

Think we were unlucky, we had chances to put the game away.

Love milner and thought he played well but his poor cross early on and his missed chance cost us alot IMO.

Youngs pen miss was poor.

Delph played well but completely lost his man for their goal.

MON will no doubt get the usual stick but if we played 4-5-1 and lost i doubt people would have said unlucky Martin, your tactics were right though, no they would have a go for only playing 1 up front in a game we needed to win.

It's easy to sit there and say we should have changed this player or that player when there are no consequences for us, again had we taken delph off for NRC and still lost people would have moaned at MON for changing things when we were winning.

Wigan was shocking, tonight was better and like i said i think we were unlucky.

Going to games certainly shows that the anti MON attitude is only really present on the internet.

No one could really demand more than top 6 and european qualification last season, we were 1 point from being the best of the rest.

Yes we went on a terrible run and things were poor but at the end of the day we finished with a good points total, a decent league position and european qualification.

You can't possibly sack the manager for meeting his target as i'm sure Randy would not have expected more at this stage.

I agree that this is a big season for him and if he fails this year it's all down to him due to his transfer dealing this summer.

There is no doubt though that the man deserves a chance to continue trying to progress. We may not agree with the way he does things but if they get results then who cares, if it doesn't work then we need to look for a manager who might do things differently.

It's easy to say your argumet with the line it's all speculation so no one knows.

What we do know is Mon wanted milner, the deal didn't go through and we signed him 2 years later. Do you not think in those 2 years that the manager might have watched him and liked him considering he made him our record signing?

There is no point in getting rid now.

After 2 consecutive top 6 finishes he deserves the chance to conclude his business this window and see what he can do this season.

If he doesn't get it right then next summer is the time to start thinking about getting rid.

An absolute disgrace! I thought the days of being embarrassed while watching villa were over. There was not a single positive to take from the game.

Our two signings didn't look good enough and had to be replaced and our current players were shit.

We have 2 weeks to sign some quality otherwise we will struggle.

I was completely wrong in thinking cuellar and davies could produce the goods, davies was **** terrible all game.

I really didn't think we would miss barry that much but our midfield was terrible and we had two strikers who didn't do a thing all game.

I hope MON doesn't let me down but i'm a lot less confident than i was yesterday.

It was truly truly shocking today.

Over the last season people on here have turned into the people they dispise most - you here it all the time "SPurs fans, thhey make you laugh, they think they have the divine right to be successful" - now, some Villa fans think we only have to turn up to get top 6 !.

Hang on, aren't you the one moaning about only finishing 6th?

Aren't you the one constantly crying your eyes out because we haven't signed the players you want and we aren't doing as well as you want?

Well what divine right do we have to be higher than 6th? What divine right do we have to go and snap up all the players that YOU want us to?