1974Centenary

I have not seen any posts were people are expecting the Villa to be in the top four.Would be nice if we were competing for the top 6-8 or even 10th places but were not,and that's the problem,not the lack of champions league football.

seems odd to post that on a football forum.

This. & we have a much better manager. Lambo will prove his worth. His investment in young, vibrant energetic blossoming potential talents will eventually bear fruit. Still time to be patient & keep the faith. I'm already excited about our in comings in January. Lambo has shown his eye for talent & will do so again. Believe. In fact one of them, Benteke, will bear his fruits for some other team sooner than later. He wont be here this time next year.

So expecting a club like ours to be better than surviving on the cheap is acting like a spoilt child? Constant bitching and moaning about how our great club should be at the top of the league, and how far we've fallen and how loads of us are brainwashed to accept this rubbish etc. etc. It's just being realistic, we can all sympathise with the fact that we were top 6 a few years ago and now we're not. Simple fact is we aren't anymore, get over it. The spoilt child thing comes from the amount of people going way over the top stamping their feet and throwing their claret and blue toys out the pram because we aren't up there again now Lambert has been our manager for a year. We all love Villa, we all WANT us to be at the top of the league, we all know it's been sh*t for ages. No-one is settling for just surviving and loving it. Stomping your feet and crying like Lerner just nicked your sweets and repeating the fact that we SHOULD by some divine right be competing at the top of the league is mental. Not going to be happening this season for sure, might start happening next, it'll be a slow process though and I for one think Lambert is just the type of manager we need to oversee this long process away from the crap end of the table and to where we can all feel a bit happier winning football matches a lot more often. No super rich sugardaddy is on the horizon, we haven't produced the next Messi in the academy yet so you know, be patient and let Lambert get on with it. I don't know who your speaking for but your sentiments certainly don't match mine. But at least we agree on one thing.

Does anybody know what Tonev and for that matter Bacuna's favourite position is? Is Tonev a winger(as listed on Wikipedia) or ACM?

First ten games Well obviously. However, it's a fact that we've had a very tough start to this season. In the history of the premier league Villa have undoubtedly had the toughest start to a league campaign ever.And yet we started by beating Arsenal,go figure.

It's getting more and more ridiculous. Not only are people rewriting our history to justify lowered expectations they're now trying to rewrite football history. Yeah money wasn't important. That's why the 4 teams who had champions league football dominated the top 4 for so long. I'm not rewriting anything. It was a different time. Football has changed. Money was always important (I never said it wasn't important, so please don't put words into my mouth), but it's become even more important over the last 5 years or so. What could be done on tens of millions a decade or so ago now takes hundreds of millions. What a ridiculous post. You do know football clubs also earn more money than they did decades ago? Money being spent has increased but so has the money coming back into clubs. Clearly the two haven't been going at the same pace though. If that was the case then how come the league is far less open than it once was? How is it far less open? It used to be the exact same 4 teams finishing in the top 4 every single year. It's more open for the top 7 teams but far more closed for the rest of us. I was under the impression the season finished in May? I don't really think that stat bears much relevance because it doesn't take into account the quality of the teams we've faced. That's your opinion,others may see it differently.Maybe I should list all the results from these years to see who we did play.

And that's fine,if your expectations year in and year out are to avoid relegation you should be content,but when you play with fire eventually you get burnt,and relegated.

Don't be misled by some posters use of the fixture list ........ We are in a much better position now than at any time under McLeish and are 5 points ahead of the same fixtures last season - so slow progress. the above league positions show we are not in a better position,and using fixture list instead of games played is a false stat because we did not play hull last season!

Since Randy took over our league position at this time of the year has been this.... 2006/07 played 11- points 18 2007/08 10 15 2008/09 10 20 2009/10 10 18 2010/11 10 18 2011/12 11 15 2012/13 11 9 2013/14 10 11 now as you can see our worst start to a season has not come under mccleishs time or even Houllier's,the last two seasons belong to Mr Lambert.

They'd be just as frustrated if we were fighting for top four. There's no patience among fans today and having so much coverage of the game in the media and on the net just adds to the frustration. We're in transition and we're steadily improving. If we finish comfortably mid-table this year that will be progress and allows us to build again for improvement next year. All this moaning and failure to see the bigger picture smacks of the Venky's boardroom at Blackburn Rovers. I think that's one of the strangest things ive read today.What would these frustrations be based on,considering this hypothetical position?

That doesn't even make sense. Ill find someone to explain it to you.

We are 3 points out off the relegation zone,this time last season we were 3 points out of the relegation zone,so ill go with 15th,were we finished last season and hope for the best.

you cant have any complaints,this is the norm for this team.

Detroit has gone bankrupt.

Kozak"was too robust"

Ive said it before ill say it again,Bacuna should be out wide not playing defence,he has the pace to go past players and put a cross in!

Ill believe my own eyes thank you.

Obviously 'proven' to be shit in 2 starts. Utterly pathetic. Please please bring on Tonev so our season can be saved by the messiah!

The performance was expected and for you guys to be gobsmacked over what you just watched is a little OTT.

Get used to it and embrace it.

that's how you expect villa to play these days,no disappoint their for me just the usual mediocrity.

I cant work out why so many people are surprised at the way we play! Is this the first game you've watched all season?

Now tell me what their expectations are and compare them to the Villa's and tell me who's in a better position for the future. Mediocrity is becoming the norm on here.

Guzan Bacuna vlaar baker clark Luna Tonev Scylla Delph Benteke Gabby