Harry

I just had to turn the TV off now, I just can't bear to what the shit we serving up any more. Its so bad its just embarrassing. Collins is a **** joke of a player, out jumped at every single set piece. I had hoped for tight game and optimistically hoped for a point but we have never been anywhere near. I don't think, beyond the Gabby chance, we have had a shot on target. Bottom line is now I am seriously wondering about Houllier. Tippy tappy football all the way to the Championship it seems to me. Nice bloke but I am rapidly forming the opinion he is utterly clueless. I bet MON is laughing into his beer watching this shambolic display

This is just appalling to watch. Yet again we have been let down by our comedy defence. Every time Liverpool get anywhere near our penalty area they look like scoring. Its difficult to decide which of the back four is the worst. I think that accolade currently belongs to Warnock for his dreadful mistakes. I don't think so far we have had a sensible attack on goal and I just cannot see where a goal will come come from. Gabby seems to be glued to the left wing leaving no one in the middle. Make no mistake this is relegation form, we are that bad. I cannot see us getting a single point between now and 2 January. If that is the case we will be in the bottom three and we simply do not have the strength of character or commitment to get out of it. As for attracting players in the transfer window, the way we are playing we have no chance whatsoever. MON has left us a poisoned chalice and GH has drunk it.

Having read the thread he put up which I thought was quite good I did have to smirk about the H&V link on it. I get the impression there was a slight over reaction there!

I did not realise two were available. Perhaps we can negotiate a discount if we buy both. :shock:

I think that's a pretty sensible conclusion. AY does not want to be 'distracted' by contract negotiations. For that read I'm hedging my bets and if I move in the summer with 12 months on my contract I can probably negotiate a sweeter deal for me. I think he will be gone by this summer. N'Zogbia is a decent shout at the quoted £8m. Allegedly he wants £50k p/w which the Unwashed baulked at. That's less than AY gets now and he's a good out and out winger. Given AY's preference to play in the middle which does not entirely convince me if he went it opens up options in the middle. In theory, and I stress theory, that is Ireland's role. Alternatively we shift Ireland on and get a different face in. Oh and N'Zogbia is French which probably helps.

Well that will make the police's job a little easier. There were two or three clearly identifiable 'fans' smashing things. I sure that they will check You Tube as someone is bound to be stupid enough to post a video of his mates smashing up the Sty. Job done then. I find it very sad that these idiots nominally support Villa. They are no better that the Neanderthals who were running all over the pitch last night.

Too right! Where was the general when you needed him. I would have happily settled for a couple of Bradley APCs post match.

So its not Mark Fowler from Walford then?? I think you will find he died some years ago

And that's the point. A couple of mates pointed out that we invaded the pitch after the Blackburn semifinal but I replied that it was totally different as it was the sheer joy of getting to the final. No one went anywhere near the Blackburn fans. On reflection I think some of our fans shamed our club last night but it seemed to me that a combination of the WMP and Blues Stewards let hundreds if not thousands of fans run riot on the pitch. Added to that we get all the usual stories of Blues fans after the game and they won. It beggars belief!

If you come 120 yards to start a fight, I think you can accept the lions share of the blame. I wouldn't be surprised if we've not heard the last of this one - and we might well see a game or two with no away fans. small heath have got a terrible reputation for this and the stories that are starting to appear elsewhere from around the ground only reinforce what an unpleasant place it is to visit. I would hope that when the FA look into this (and they've already said that they will) they'll remember small heath's atrocious record in the past. Throw the book at them I say. I agree ObE this is not new news. I won't set foot any where near the Sty as I go to the games with my 14 year old son and seemingly the Blues fans will attack anyone regardless of age or sex. I think we will be seeing the usual rogues gallery of Blues fans on the front of the Mail in the next few weeks.

On the plus side our midfield looks very good and is starting to really gel as a unit. However I lost count of the number of times the ball was put into the box to pretty much no one. We desperately need a striker who can put the ball in the net. I think I would have been tempted to have given Carew the last 20 minutes. As I said in the pre match thread Blues have a good defence and we seem to fail to get crucial goals. That's what happened tonight. Our Achilles heel is our defence. Dunne defines clumsy defending to me. Collins looks woefully average, Luke Young is too old and Warnock is too inconsistent. Having said that Warnock did OK tonight. Cuellar needs to be in the side and I'd be tempted to drop Clark back to CB when we get NRC back. As for Friedal I think he also past his best too and I can't see Guzan filling that role so it looks we need a new keeper too. Most of Blues counter 'attacks' consisted of lumping the ball up the pitch in the vague hope that either Zigic or Jerome could get on the end of it, which they often did against our pedestrian back four. I was saying all the way through the last quarter that Blues would nick a goal at the end and guess what? As for the pitch invasion at the end it proved to me, yet again, the mentality of the the typical Blues fan. I do hope Blues face some sort of retribution for that ugly behaviour. They really are an underclass in their own right. The irony is that it could even affect our 2018 World Cup bid. Overall disappointed but not surprised. I predicted we would lose and we did but in my opinion we did far far better than I thought we would. Oh and the final kick in the nuts, Young is now suspended for the Liverpool game.

I have to say that I have a bad feeling about tomorrow. My reasons: Our defence is shite. I know Blues don't score many goals but we seemingly can't defend against anyone, good or bad. We have a shedload of injuries so we don't have some of the real battle hardened players like NRC to rely on. Our goal scoring is unpredictable to say the least. Yes we score goals but we lack the cutting edge to score crucial goals. Added to that Blues have a very solid defence. We are in the depths of a full blown crisis, at least in my opinion. Sliding down the league with a string of difficult games to come in the next month or so. I hate to say it but I suspect Blues want it just that little bit more than us. I really hope I'm wrong but as I said I have a bad bad feeling about tomorrow.

And another thing. In our new passing game can the players please remember to pass to their own team please. First goal for Arsenal was from a 'pass' from a Villa player (Collins I think). Sorry to continue the rant but for the first time today I sat freezing my knackers off and I thought 'Do you know what, I'd rather not be watching this, its that bad'. We are all over the place. The defence is utterly laughable and worse still its our first choice defence. Eight goals in the last three games is a **** disgrace. OK injuries are an issue but I get the distinct impression the players just don't care. Arsenal were so so vulnerable when on the back foot but as ever we just let ourselves get out thought and out played and over run in midfield. Utterly, utterly pathetic.

Thank you P&D for putting it into perspective. It was completely and utterly abject today and any poster who thinks otherwise is deluding themselves. I was ready to go home at half time because it was only Arsenal's poor finishing that stopped them being about 4-0 up. Ok we gave it a go in the second half but yet again we gave away a very sloppy goal. Our defence is appalling and to be honest on the basis of today I would sell every single one of them because they were shite!! Oh and thanks for mentioning the R word because that's where we are now, a relegation dog fight. A challenge for the optimistic posters on this forum. How many points do you think we will get between now and 2nd January (the Chelsea game). On the basis of today a big fat zero. Oh and SHA will almost certainly stuff us next week. Yes it is that bad.

Yes but we never do that, we always end up defending deeper and deeper and then the inevitable happens. If we play like we played in the Man U game we could win it but I hate to say I have absolutely no confidence that we will. Our problem is scoring goals pure and simple. Carew is great on his day if he plays, Gabby is not fit and is now apparently ill and the Fonz can't carry the line on his own. We do not have Albrighton to rip into them so I am just wondering where the goals will come from. I'd love to say we will win this but I just can't see it

I really hope not! Carrick is past his best, whatever his best was.

Nothing like a push, Brown is simply holding is shoulder, in fact Vidic drags Brown in to the crowd along with him. One rule for United, one rule for the rest of us. It was ever so. The refs are just shit scared of Fergie and the FA just panders to the so called big clubs especially Man U with their plastic fans. Did anyone see how empty the coach park was? Nuff said!

Albrighton for me as MotM just for his goal. Enough said.

I think that pretty much sums up my feelings. I'm trying very hard to focus on the positives.

So so right in that analysis. It really annoys that lots of posters have just written Hogg off after one good but not outstanding performance. Its was his debut, against Man U FFS!! I think he showed some real promise but I also think a season long loan in the Championship could transform him as it did Bannan who many did not think could make it either.

I think the very fact the tread was created on their forum tells you all you need to know. Its a shame we could not close out and win yesterday but the performance of our young players was absolutely outstanding and says much about how Villa could and should develop. Man U side were yesterdays men and it showed. Where are all their exciting young players? Well that's easy to answer as there are'nt any. Even that Machieda (?) who was raved about when he scored the winner against us two seasons ago cannot get into their side. OK he scored a good one today but he's hardly a world beater. Beyond that they have a bunch of largely very good but generally ageing players and despite all the protestations no money to build a new squad. Fergie still has the ability to scout quality players and make canny signings such as Hernandez but where are the big money signings? No money to sign quality players and no pipe line of good young players coming through. No wonder they are casting envious glances at the quality we are bringing through.

The big plus from last night was three points. They were much needed and as a few have pointed we have played better and lost, or drawn. I think its also important to remember the number of injuries we are running with at the moment. Given that you could almost say the highlight of the night was Gabby back on the pitch. The defence is starting to worry me as both goals came from very sloppy defending. The second which was right in from of us in the DE Stand was almost comical. Having said that once we strung passes to together and attacked we looked very good. A bit more luck and perhaps a better finishing and we could have scored 4 or 5. Yet again I thought the kids were very good. Both Clark and Bannan are still a little rough round the edges but get better in every game. Albrighton is already something a bit special. MotM for me was a toss up between Downing and Ashley Young and I think Downing just scrapes it. But based on that performance I am very nervous about Saturday.

Why had you taken a coffee table to Villa Park? I'm frankly astounded the stewards let you bring it in.

£5m-£10m for me on two criteria. Its net spend and there will be some sales and lets not forget its January so its difficult to get good players at senisble prices. Can definitely see a few players leaving though which depending on precisely who goes is a good thing.

Thank for a more balanced view. I like all posters am gutted to concede in the 95th minute but a point away at Fulham is a good result and given our injury woes pretty much all of us would have taken that before the game started. The massive positive I take from the game is the performances of the young players. MON talked a good game about our young players but in reality gave them very few opportunities. Houllier is giving them opportunities. Some are enforced by injury but for the most part its been straight selection. The convention in football is that if you can turn one academy product into a quality first team player every couple of seasons you are doing well. We have very real prospects in the shape of Albrighton, Bannan, Clarke, Lichaj and arguably the Fonz and better still there are more to come. Far better than the Cahill, Davis, Ridgewell crop of a few years back. The thing that pisses me of is the lack of recognition in the media who cream their collective jeans over the likes of Arsenal's 'young guns' who are more often than not beaten by our kids. Sorry I'll get off my soap box as I know I heading off topic! Talk of relegation is bollox. We are building something here and on balance yesterday was a good result particularly given injuries. I'm looking a few weeks ahead when we have most of our injured players back and I'm sure GH will do something in the January window.