El-Reacho

I was pleased with what Neville said about us the other night - the negative stuff he was saying I took as him pointing out the difference between the current regime and previous regimes when he would have played here.

Did anyone see Gary Neville last night before the Arsenal game? I'm sure it's been mentioned somewhere else on the forum, but he had a fair bit to say about us. He said that when he came to VP as a player it was a 'nice' place to come to. There were lots of good 27-30 year old established premier league players who didn't really try hard enough. But Lambert had completely changed that. Did a good analysis of the goals - plenty of praise for Benteke and Holman. Also said Weimann's goal was the best team goal you will see all season. Nice to hear. I've been tuning into every football show since Saturday to hear the plaudits. Football Weekly on the Guardian spent a bit of time talking about us and again they talked about previous un-named players (presumably Warnock) blaming everyone else for their shortcomings all being gotten rid of and how the new squad was running through brick walls for Lambert. Apparently Villa's Press Secretary was in Dortmund last week - interesting perhaps.

I was hoping for Chelsea win today as they would hopefully relax this week as a result. Either way they don't get back here until Tuesday and play Leeds on Wednesday I think. Leeds to win on pens after a gruelling 120 mins would be ideal. Would make us favourites for the League Cup and would really soften Chelsea up for next Sunday.

It's seems a bit different to John Gregory's in that it's 5-4-1 when we don't have the ball and we just let them have it in their own half. It springs into life and becomes 3-5-2 when we bring the ball forward short quick passes. I don't remember JG's being as sexy as this, or as counter attacking. We had Merson, Dublin, Taylor, Carbone, and Boateng then so we could keep the ball better in the final third but it was still much more direct IIRC?

Will be good to see Villa among the goal of the month contenders again - maybe goal of the season contenders too? I haven't seen Weimann's goal from the very start of the 16 passes - MOTD only showed the last couple of passes when Bannan left Lucas (I think) on his arse and played it forward. Would love to see Benteke's goal against Norwich in its entirity too - 18 passes? I remember Argentina scoring a goal like that in the World Cup a few years back and they repeated all 20 passes or whatever it was over and over.

Forgot about Routledge! Amazing that him and Luke Moore are both playing great football in one of the slickest sides in the PL. And people said our bunch couldn't be converted into a passing team.

Sidwell and Collins? Maybe Freidel? Don't think many have left us to go on to greater things. Milner and Barry the obvious exceptions but Milner certainly not starting games. Most Utd fans I know are so underwhelmed by Ashley Young he's becoming something of a hate figure for them.

Villa probably a perfect club for him in Wilmot's eyes - playing PL football, starting every game but not having to deal with Wenger or Ferguson stopping them from coming to international games.

Whittingham suggested a few pages back - it would be great to have someone in the side who can take a free kick - and score. Haven't had anyone that would get you excited about a free kick in a while. Young thought he was CR9 with his stance over the ball etc. but was pretty crap. Seem to remember Milner scored a peach against Everton at VP a few years back - haven't had anyone who's in any way prolific at free kicks in an age. Not many about in the PL as a whole at moment.

He was one of the few positives to come out of the McLeish 'experience' - had a good partnership with Petrov, and was the best RB we had last season.

Imagine we'd had him in that O'Neill side with Milner, Young, Downing, and Gabby. I know he was only 16 or whatever but just imagine..........

Their comments remind me of the Arsenal fans singing 'We want our Arsenal back' at Wenger.

Getting lots of plaudits for our slick 3-5-2 on the twittersphere.

Sounds like we're doing well here.

Sweet.

Lowton getting grief for being out of position at RB!

Are Villa playing a back 4?

Are Villa playing a back 4?

That's not actually my logic - I'm just looking at it from two different perspectives - Most good managers won't allow the board to police their transfer policy and decide who's worth the money - O'Neill certainly didn't. So the club have to hand over much of that responsibility to the manager within an overall budget. The ideal situation is when the manager knows and understands the financial implications of everything he does on the club - and will himself take the responsibility for the effect it will have on the club long term. This is something that Wenger clearly does, and strangely something that Redknapp seems to be doing at QPR by saying he's not going to risk bringing in big signings if he feels the club will go down. The Chelsea situation is an extreme - but can you really say the results are rarely positive? They're the current European Champions. I think their plan to be self sustaining within a certain period is also ahead of schedule?

It's qualifiers like this when Given and Dunne are at their best usually (were in Given's case). From an Irish point of view I'll be delighted to have Dunne back in time. Will help us get that heroic 0-0 victory Trap will be so desperate for ;-)

The problem with this is that the board have no football know how to be able to judge what should be financially acceptable for a particular player. So for example how would they have known not to give Habib Beye such a long lucrative contract, but have known to get say Ashley Young tied down to a longer contract. And when the manger proposes N'Zogbia as a replacement for Ashley Young - the board's first instinct will be get him tied down to as long a contract as possible - because the guy in charge of the football side of things reckons they should. But if the board has an advisor say, for talk's sake Houllier - how can they be sure what their advisor says is going to tally up with what Lambert is recommending. Would Houllier have 'sanctioned' the Lowton deal for example? The board is in a tough position either way. Arsenal and Wenger seem to be in a good position as Wenger has clearly bought into maintaining the club's financial position at all times, even as they're losing their best players. In return they trust him to buy whoever he wants, and negotiate contracts.

I would consider Chelsea to be in the same boat as us - they have a striker who can put the ball in the net, but does bugger all else - and they're moving away from that style of play to use more complete attackers.

It's not Lambert's job to protect the value of the club's 'assets' - he was appointed to put a squad together to win games. He's decided that the best way to do that is with the current line up which doesn't include him. He shouldn't change that just so he can increase his value. Besides based on Bent's last few appearances, he was not exactly enhancing his value.

Would definitely be keen on him. I don't see why Southampton would sell him for that price - they're fairly wealthy I think.

Those are the type of players I think we need (again I don't mean those actual names, but that type of player). Weimann, and to an extent Gabby are goal scorers but we need players whose first instinct is to create, either by running at defences and unsettling them - getting them all out of shape so other players can capitalise. I suppose it's no longer being a winger really, because you want someone like Ronaldo who will just cause havoc right across the pitch in the final third. We're pretty easy to defend against at the moment - even with the 4231. Benteke in the air is the big fear for opposition defences at the moment. Gabby doesn't really use his pace as effectively as he used to.