icouldtelltheworld

Not sure if anyone else has read about this, but the young lad who had this discussion on the phone-in show was knocked down and killed on Broad Street in the early hours of the morning before the Man U game which he had tickets for. He was a young Irish lad who was over here to study sport, and chose to study in Wolverhampton to be close to the Villa. Very, very sad news. There appears to be a campaign for a minute silence before the Crystal Palace match. RIP Jody. http://www.myoldmansaid.com/jody-oreilly-holte-ender-in-the-sky/

Anyone think that the Aalborg fan could be ITK? He's stated a few times that he doesn't expect Helenius to be involved much until the spring, perhaps there has been a special routine in place to help Nicklas adapt in time for a bit of a bedding in process towards the end of the season. Our other new signings aren't exactly setting the world on fire but I'd say Helenius is probably making the biggest step up. Give the lad time, Lambert obviously rates him or he wouldn't be here in the first place.

I think we're dreaming if we start imagining there are better managers for this job, who would stick to the very tight budget in place and keep us competitive in the PL. Who is currently out of managerial work that we would realistically want here? I also think it'd be a mistake to appoint a trendy foreign name; not that I can see any rushing to take up the job here. With this squad and the rules in place, Lambert is probably about the best we can hope for and he has my support even though things are frustrating at the moment. With regards to the change in playing style that we have seen this year, here is my little conspiracy: Lambert obviously held himself in fairly high esteem after what he had achieved with Norwich in getting them to the PL and then securing a very respectable finish. I believe he came to Villa because he felt he could go on to achieve more here than at Norwich and I reckon that is still what he thinks. I also believe that Lambert expected last season to run a lot more smoothly than it did and the rough patches we went through were probably very sobering for him. Expectations at Villa are higher than at Norwich, which I'm sure everyone who knows anything about football would agree with. From the experience of last season, I believe that Lambert realised that there is a ceiling to how well an all out, plucky attacking team can do in this league. If we kept playing how we did last season, whilst being very exciting to watch at times, we would probably never finish higher than Norwich managed in Lambert's PL season there. We were crying out for the defense to be sorted out and from what I can see the manager has made serious attempts to do so. We have been very unfortunate to lose Okore; but even without him we have generally looked more solid this year than we did last. I believe we have also employed a new defensive coach ? Lambert has never played defense-minded football; until this season Lambert's mantra was all-out attack. One of the things that I both love and hate about our manager is his apparent stubborn persona, however I do think that he is genuinely trying to mature tactically and we are experiencing some growing pains. We are building a more solid foundation at the back of the team which is vital work that I did not think Lambert would bother to address. Things will click for us and we will start scoring goals again, once the injury situation is a bit healthier and a few of our under-performers find form. Further to this, a few of the new signings should start to make more of an impact in the new year. This was always a long term project and whilst I think we will be safe this year we will most likely be unspectacular about it, next year we will have a full squad that have been together a while and we can look to add some quality. I think a lot of people on here got carried away with our excellent finish last year - players like Gabby were always bound to lose form eventually and Benteke wasn't going to keep up a better than 1 in 2 goalscoring record forever. That said, I wouldn't be surprised to see us click and finish very strongly again this year. If you look at how many new players we are trying to integrate and the shortcomings of the team as a whole we really aren't in that different a situation to last year. For me, it is vital that we allow Lambert the time to do what he is doing. It will be difficult and frustrating at times along the way but here is a manager who looks like he is willing to put in the effort to completely overhaul this football club and build a more sustainable basis for us to become competitive again. It's no secret our team is weak in places by PL standards and I believe almost any other manager would get us relegated. This is Lambert's team and he gets at least til the end of next season for me.

**** villa

KOZAAAAAAAAKKK

charlie **** adam

No thanks

Of course service doesn't mean it being put on a plate for him and we all know our team is short on quality. However, today there were a number of occasions where we passed the ball around and Benteke lost possession. A number of occasions where this happened and he wasn't really under any extraordinary pressure. I'm not sure I buy the unknown quantity thing either - I'm sure at some point last season teams wised up to the fact that he was the danger man and started to target him, it's not as though it took every other team in the league until the start of this season to realise the goals were coming from him. He has been very poor all season. He was scoring goals at the start of the season without playing well, and has since gone on to play badly without scoring goals. I think he's getting frustrated which has led to the performances dropping, but they weren't great this season to start with. As someone who felt he could force a move away from the club in the summer, he really needs to start showing some quality. I wouldn't start him on this form.

Was the service any better last year when he was banging them in? I thought that's why we all rated him so much - he was making chances from nothing and scoring all types of goals. Furthermore, the reason Darren Bent didn't fit into the team was because he needs service to be anything close to effective. It's not about the service, Benteke was awful today - woeful first touch. A good number of our passing moves ended with him miscontrolling. Not only out of form but playing like he doesn't want to be here, perhaps we should have cashed in over the summer.

The physical part of his game makes Baker quite likeable; he's good at getting in the way of things and putting his head to the ball. If we're being honest though, there's only so long that those attributes can hide the fact he is a very poor, limited footballer. Clark has looked vastly improved this season, Baker is still making the same stupid mistakes and still looks as if he is playing well above his level. With the signing of Okore I don't think that Lambert had been planning to use Baker much this season.

Luna offers very little going forward and isn't really much of an improvement on Bennett defensively. The crowd have made a villain of Bennett though so Luna gets cut a lot more slack.

I felt we kept the ball on the ground a bit more today which was nice to see, not that we did it particuarly well. Albrighton had a good game and has to keep his place ahead of Weimann - who looked awful once again after he came on. There were a few signs of Lowton and Marc linking up down the right which needs to be encouraged. Still yet to see anything from Luna to suggest he's any better than Bennett, doesn't offer much going forward and defends very poorly. Benteke was useless, there were a few decent passing moves in the second half that broke down once they got to him, his first touch was absolutely dreadful and he doesn't deserve to start whilst playing like this. Baker was woeful and continues to be a liability, the sooner Vlaar is back in the better. Danny Welbeck won't score two goals against many teams this season. Typical Villa - if a player or team are in a bad run of form they can always rely on us to kick start their season.

Clark has been a real positive of our season so far, the step up in his performances makes him almost like a new signing. Hope he keeps it up and continues improving, massive potential.

Very disappointing this season so far, but his form will pick up again in time. Kozak or Tonev deserve the starting position above him for me at the moment.

Well you can always rely on the Villa to waste a good chance to consolidate their position after building you up the game before. This was exactly the type of game we struggle with and so I always felt that we'd have a hard time here. The first Villa match my dad ever took me to was at home to Fulham in the 3rd round of the cup, at a time when we were 2nd in the Premier League and Fulham were a League One side. We lost 2-0, and I learned a valuable lesson about supporting the Villa. Anyway, we weren't good enough; we are deadly on the counter which works for us against the teams that are going to bring it to us, but to sit back and try and soak up the pressure against a team on a 7 game losing streak with a bodge job defence was always likely to go against us and it did. In these games we have to at least try and take the game to the opponent, but we are hopelessly lacking in creativity. Delph and Gabby the only two to have a particuarly decent game for me, although good to see Benteke looking livelier than he has done of late and Clark continues to look much improved. Playing Herd instead of Lowton was a very strange decision. It can't be that the player who hadn't previously played since January was in better shape - Matty and Lambert must have had one hell of a falling out. On that showing, we'd better hope Vlaar isn't out for too long or we could get dragged right back into it with a bad run of results.

Hello, I'm a long time lurker of this site, often use the post-match threads to check my own opinion against that of other Villa fans; and I generally enjoy to read the reasoned debate you guys have on here so I thought I'd join the conversation. I'm from Birmingham and inherited the status of Villa fan off my dad who witnessed some of the best games in our history, including Rotterdam. I'm 21 and don't have a season ticket but get down to every home game that I can afford. Up the Villa!