NormandyVillan

In terms of entertainment value (or lack of it), I'd say the 0-0 v Everton in the 1977 League Cup final. Ninety minutes of play in which nothing happened at all.

IIRC, we did the same against Arsenal in October 76, two months before the famous Liverpool game. 0-1 at HT, 5-1 at full time. Can't remember who scored. Gray? Little? Graydon? Carrodus? I've got a funny feeling we could be seeing a semi-repeat of that tonight. I mean, the 0-1 at HT bit sounds plausible enough...

Don't you mean vindicated rather than vilified? Actually I would say that Lambert has disappointed me by not even turning us into another Norwich. I thought Norwich under Lambert played decent football even though some of the players were a bit lacking in quality. They were certainly better to watch in their first season after promotion than Villa have been (mostly) since he took over. My hope was that he would bring to Villa the same ability (as I saw it) to get the most out of players, with maybe some additional investment in players to take us to a higher level than what we saw with him at Norwich. So far we seem to be struggling to even reach that level.

Quote from the Mat Kendrick article linked to the survey: "Lambert is right that this home hoodoo pre-dates his tenure. Villa have won just 11 of their 48 Premier League home games since the start of Alex McLeish’s season in 2011-12" True, but oddly enough the "hoodoo" actually started immediately after Lambert's first visit to Villa Park as a manager, with Norwich on the 5th of November 2011. Villa won 3-2 that day, and at that point had a quite respectable home record (W3 D2 L1). Since then, the record is: Played 42 Won 8 Drawn 12 Lost 22. Did Lambert put a curse on Villa that day?

Nothing unexpected there. The ref eagerly points the way through to the Man Utd goal, turns away in frustration when Swansea lose the ball, and then suddenly remembers he's supposed to be refereeing and starts running back to keep up with play. All seems perfectly normally to me. Wouldn't most of us be like that if we were refereeing a Man Utd game?

You might have to hunt to find any exact quote to that effect by a manager, but I think it's fair to say that only a few decades ago (certainly in the seventies and eighties) a 3rd Round FA Cup tie was very often seen as more important than the League matches either side of it. In those days the fans would turn up in greater numbers for a cup match than they would for a League match against the same opponents, because Cup matches were seen as more exciting and having more at stake. Winning the FA Cup was almost as prestigious as winning the League, and the knock-out nature of the competition made the games particularly intense. That's why a very hard-fought League match would sometimes be referred to as "a real cup-tie" even though it was "only" a League match. Anyone back then saying that the FA Cup was an "unwanted distraction" from being 11th in the League would have been thought slightly crazy.

Not true. Bristol City were in the First Division from 1976 to 1980. I remember seeing us play them and being slightly disappointed we only won 3-1 after beating Arsenal 5-1 three days earlier. Those were the days...

Yes, our home form has been a problem for a while, but it was a different sort of problem under O'Neill. In the three years in which we finished 6th, it was a case of our home record not being good enough to take us where we wanted to be: into the top four. It wasn't a dreadful record (we won about twice as many as we lost, and had quite a lot of draws), but it was only what you'd expect of a team finishing about 8th to 10th, and let us down compared to an excellent away record. The above table shows that, after a "transitional" season under McDonald/Houllier, in which our home record stayed the same as under O'Neill but our away results deteriorated, the problem has now become that our home record is not just "not good enough for where we want to be", but is absolutely disastrous. Just a couple of facts: In terms of points per home game (and using any system of adjustment to compare seasons before/after the introduction of three points for a win), the last two seasons have been the worst in our history. Our three worst seasons at home: Worst: 2011-12: P19 W4 D7 L8 Pts19 2nd worst: 2012-13: P19 W5 D5 L9 Pts20 3rd worst: 1966-67: P21 W7 D5 L9 Pts 19 (would have been 26 pts with 3 points for a win). By the time we go into our next home game against Cardiff, our home record for the past two years will read: P37 W7 D10 L20 Pts 31 That's the sort of home record you would expect of a team dropping through the divisions, finishing rock bottom of whatever League they're in. At any rate I think it's safe to say that no team can ever have performed that badly at home over a period of two years without getting relegated at least once in the process. Meanwhile... just to "compare and contrast", our away record over the past 12 months reads: P18 W7 D6 L5 Pts 27 The only teams we have lost to away in the past year are last season's top four: Manchester City, Chelsea (twice), Arsenal and Manchester United. So apart from the Champions League teams, nobody has won a home League game against Villa for over 12 months... Actually, I'm not quite sure which of the two is more amazing: our incredibly bad miles-worse-than-anything-in-our-history home record, or the fact that our away record over the past 12 months would, over a season, have been good enough for 4th place in 6 of the last 10 seasons...

He's done excellently so far results-wise. Record points total for them in the Premier League last season, high in the League again this season. At the same time he seems to have turned Spurs into the dullest to watch of all the teams in the top part of the table. The team that qualified for the Champions League under Redknapp was very exciting to watch and got a lot of neutrals cheering for them. The current team probably sends even some of their own fans to sleep. A couple of bad results and the fans could turn against him.

If it had been 3-0 they would be top of the League on goal difference. Pity for them it was actually 0-3...

I still have "a few doubts" about our title-winning potential, but it's nice to be able to look up the table for once. I note from the League table and the fixture list that if the next two Premier League games are draws (Everton v Newcastle tonight, then Man City v Everton in the early kick-off next Saturday), we will go into the Hull match just needing a win to go 4th. It would probably only be for 24 hours, and probably wouldn't be seen again this season, but it would be good while it lasted...

It's much too early to talk about "must win" games, but the result here could certainly have a big influence on the pessimism/optimism meter. A defeat will very probably put us in the relegation zone (only a draw between West Brom and Sunderland and a defeat for Palace at home Swansea could just about keep us out of it). The inevitable thread will be opened and it will be as you were last season... A win will take us back up to mid-table (possibly as high as 10th) and we will back on track. One reason for optimism is that we haven't actually lost an away game to any team outside the top 4 for nearly 11 months (the last one being the 1-0 defeat at Fulham last October). Since then, we've had 5 wins, 5 draws and 0 defeats against non-top-4 teams. One reason for pessimism is that I pointed out something similar before our last game under McLeish (also at Norwich). We had quite remarkably, despite being rubbish all season, managed to reach the last day without losing a single away game to any team outside the top 5. Of course, pointing this out jinxed the fact and we lost, although I don't think many people cared much at that point. Anyway, just in case, I hereby predict a defeat.

Woah. You must think Vlaar is dog shit if you think Okore is error prone or are you putting Vlaar's mistakes onto Okore? I'm talking about misjudging a ball at Chelsea that then bounced over his head .. And being wrong side of the ball / player v Newcastle on sat ... Errors I've not since since I stopped playing Sunday league football . You sometimes see experienced top-flight defenders making mistakes like that. I remember Richard Dunne doing something similar for Ireland at the time we were giving him rave reviews in his first season at Villa and we had one of the meanest defences in the country (that was before he started getting fatter and more regularly blundering). I admit I've only seen Okore play once - in that game at Chelsea - but I thought he had a great debut. After that early mistake he settled in remarkably quickly. He looked fast, powerful and competitive and was generally a reassuring presence in defence. I also thought he improved us as an attacking force by driving forward with the ball rather than just passing it sideways/backwards or hoofing it forward, which is what we're accustomed to seeing our centre backs doing. It was maybe no coincidence that before he came on just before half time in that game we had looked totally inept as an attacking force, offering nothing but hopeful punts up to an isolated Benteke, but then looked much better once he was on the pitch. My general thoughts after that game was that he was a young player who would inevitably make one or two mistakes, but who already had the ability to more than make up for that with his overall play and influence on the team. Even though we ended up unluckily losing that game, that period with Okore on the pitch against Chelsea was actually the best I've seen Villa play against one of the top sides for years. It seemed like we were competing on equal terms rather than just being dominated and hoping to get lucky on the counter. OK, that was maybe not just down to Okore, but I had the impression he was contributing to it happening. I saw him as an energetic presence who was helping to galvanize the team. We'll never really be able to say how big a miss he'll have been this season, but I would much rather we were in a position to judge how much he was contributing to the team instead of speculating on how much we were missing him.

This sounds like a plausible theory, but it seems to be totally contradicted by the facts (at least as far as Villa are concerned). The last time there were more goals scored in Villa’s home matches than in their away matches was in 2000-01. Since then, over the past 12 seasons we’ve seen: Total goals scored (by both teams) in Villa’s League matches, home and away: 2001-02: H 39 A 54 2002-03: H 39 A 50 2003-04: H 43 A 49 2004-05: H 43 A 54 2005-06: H 40 A 57 2006-07: H 34 A 50 2007-08: H 56 A 66 2008-09: H 48 A 54 2009-10: H 45 A 46 2010-11: H 45 A 62 2011-12: H 45 A 45 2012-13: H 51 A 65 So in the past 12 seasons, Villa’s home matches have produced fewer goals than their away matches 11 times out of 12, the only exception being 2011-12 in which the total was the same (45) for home matches as for away matches (that season being a brief, McLeish-inspired “golden age” of gritty 0-0 draws at Fulham, Stoke, etc.). In all, there have been 528 goals scored in League matches at Villa Park over this period, and 652 in Villa’s away matches. That’s 23.5 % more goals scored in our away matches over a 12-year period. The pattern seems to be the same whether we are having a relatively good season (scoring more goals than we are conceding), or a poor one like last season. This leads me to ask to one or two questions: * Is it actually true that bigger pitches are correlated to a higher number of goals per game, or is the opposite in fact the case? * If the opposite is the case, why is this? * If it is actually true that bigger pitches generally lead to more goals (or if in fact there is no correlation), why do our home matches so consistently produce fewer goal than our away matches? Is there some other factor at work?

To be fair to the keeper, he dives the wrong way but makes a good attempt to recover by sticking his left leg out to stop the ball. He just needed his leg to be about 12 feet longer.

I just checked Villa's results against Sunderland for the 1894-95 season, and Villa lost 1-2 at home (at Perry Barr) and drew 4-4 away. So does this painting actually depict Villa's ground at Perry Barr?

Sorry for the belated pedantry here, but in this conundrum you turn your chance of winning the Ferrari into a 66.67% chance by switching, not a 50% chance (obviously the probabilities have to add up to 1). You should also have stated that it is agreed in advance that the quiz master will open one of the other doors to reveal a goat after your initial choice, and then give you the chance to "stick or switch", otherwise the situation is not clear. It's a nice example though. Perhaps anyone who is going to make decisions on transfer dealings should be tested with this problem. You need someone who can at least answer it correctly if you're hoping to bring in the football equivalents of Ferraris rather than a bunch of goats.

Love it how John Carew speaks like he always gave his all for Villa. Hence why he's bigger than me and you. Love Carew. I reckon Carew's love for Villa must be at least partly thanks to whoever thought up that song. Surely one of the most memorable and loudly-sung player songs in football history. He must have loved hearing his name sung that way. If his name had been Przybyszewski or something, things might never have been the same.

More like: Kee-yo-tah-keh =) As in “Hiroshi, kee-yo-tah-keh corner?”

"pretty much illusion"? ??? Anyone? I'm not too hot on Spanish, but apparently "con mucha ilusion" (what he wrote in Spanish) means something like "with a lot of dreams" or "with a lot of enthusiasm". He sounds very keen. I hope he (and we) don't end up too "disillusioned".

Villa fans use to sing YNWA regularly throughout the 70s. I had no idea of this, what was the significance? (genuine question) I think fans at all clubs used to sing it in those days. It was like a tribal display of unity and loyalty to the team. At some point in the match (usually in the second half) everyone on the terraces would hold up their scarves to create a sea of the club’s colours and sing You’ll Never Walk Alone. That might seem odd to people now. The song seems to have been “copyrighted” by Liverpool and comes across as a bit “maudlin” when they sing it before their matches at Anfield. But it didn’t have the same feeling to it in the seventies.

To be fair, it's probably just someone like his sister or whoever decorated the cake who's a bit confused. I don't think there's any need for this cake to cause a Houllier type "incident".

So an actual sports journalist / match commentator on major TV channels is saying that Villa have agreed terms for Belhanda? Almost sounds like a credible source...

Sorry to be dumb, but is this Philippe Genin saying that Villa are in agreement with the club, or is it "paulf82"?

Or he could still decide not to go to either of the clubs Montpellier have agreed terms with and hold out for a better move.