KMitch

lol... Writing Crespo off and he hasn't kicked a ball for us more than 10 minutes in a preseason game... Typical VillaTalk... Adapting to the English game will take some time. One thing that stuck out to me about him during his very very brief cameo for us, was that he muscled off the ball twice by an aggressive Forest player and Crespo gave up thinking he'd been fouled. In Spain, they would have been called fouls, but not in England. He'll hopefully adapt quickly, but he might take a while to adjust. Arsene Wenger has stated many times that it takes around a year for foreign players to fully adapt to English football, both on and off the field. Writing off any of our new signings at this stage is incredibly stupid.

As an American "Free Agent" fan, who started supporting the Villa 9 years ago, I love reading stories like this. I regularly get sneered and laughed at by glory hunter Sky 5/Madrid/Barca fans for supporting such an "awful" team, but they can't even name their team's entire starting 11 or name their club's legends.

Craig Gordon. What about Willian? He was at Spurs undergoing a medical when Mourinho called. Willian said "See ya!", packed it up, and went over to Stamford Bridge. I loved laughing at all the delusional outraged Spurs fans who were angry at the player for disrespecting their great club by turning them down to play for the best manager in the world, at the moment.

Solid defender, awful going forward. 99% of his crosses didn't even make it past his mark, let alone the first man in the box. Whenever he'd go forward with the ball last season, I'd say to myself "Yep, that cross is going to be blocked for a throw in..." Hopefully returning to Porto will get him back to his roots and he can learn how to cross a ball again.

Do we? I seem to remember Barry and Petrov getting a lot of stick for passing 'soidewayyyys'. lol... Petrov was slated by a lot of fans by being a "crab" with no stamina or pace before the discovery of his leukemia. I don't remember Barry getting a lot of stick at CM, but he certainly got a quite a bit on the left and in defense.

Am I the only one who thinks Richards playing central is an experiment until Okore comes back from injury? If he plays well, Okore will have to bide his time and prove in training he is the better option. If Richards continues to make the same schoolboy errors he's made all preseason, he'll lose his spot to Okore, and I can see Sherwood pushing him out wide and telling him he has to earn the center back spot again. Richards - Okore - Clark - Amavi This defense looks beastly to me. Clark and Okore were our top performers last season, according to WhoScored, and I have to agree. They looked extremely solid together and were only let down by the awful Lambert "possession" system. IMO, the defense only looks bad because Hutton is out of position too often, Richards can't mark or position himself, and we don't have a starting goalkeeper in the net. Bring Okore and Guzan back into the lineup, and it's very strong. I'm more worried about a Right Winger/Inside Forward. I love Bacuna as a squad player, but I think he lacks the pace and guile to be a starter on the right. He was fantastic at right back last season because he was afforded the space to whip in an early cross for Benteke to get his head on (Same as Lowton in his first season for us), but he's struggled to make an impact all preseason when he's further upfield. N'Zogbia is useless and I'd rather play Gil as a number 10 and Sinclair & Grealish on the left. The right is where I see us being very weak.

I'd like to see what Lambert can do with a bigger budget. As much as everyone wants to write off his signings, I happen to think he is, or has, a brilliant scout and I'm not writing off any one of his buys yet. Look at how bad KEA, Vlaar, and especially Bennett were last season. They look like different players all together, and I think we're only 3-4 quality players away from being a top 8 side. I think Lambert will be the new David Moyes, a great scout and team builder, but a frustrating tactician and man manager.

If it is Micky Arison, we'll finally have a great owner. He's transformed the Miami Heat into the best team in the NBA, knocking the Lakers off the throne and building a legendary team of all stars in the process. Granted, haters will claim that the three star players of the Heat (James, Wade, & Bosh) were the ones who orchestrated the move and Miami just happened to be the club they decided to meet up at, but nevertheless, this Miami Heat team is one of the best of all time in the history of the NBA. I'd be very very very happy if he bought Villa, or at least helped provide investment.

Lucked out there...

Vlaar charging forward like Beckenbauer... lol... At least we're pushing forward in this half...

This half personifies my frustration with Lambert, and I'm one of his biggest supporters. 5-3-2 relies upon the fullbacks bombing forward EVERY single attack to provide width, but they aren't doing this because they're too worried about the counterattack from Puncheon and Bolasie. Gabby and Holt are static up front, and our three midfielders don't have anyone to pass to, so we aimlessly pass the ball around the midfield and the back line, before someone hoofs the ball up to the front two and we lose possession. Need to bring on Albrighton in the second half and switch our formation in order to get something from this. It's almost McLeish-like, the way we're set up not to lose, as opposed to at least trying to have a go at them.

I thought he defended alright, but his passing was atrocious. He'd win the ball, then immediately put Baker under pressure or pass the ball straight back to Fulham in a dangerous position. He seemed extremely lazy and lacked confidence. It seemed as if he just tried to get rid of the ball as soon as possible, without taking the time to make a good decision. I was glad he was subbed off, as Dejagah was giving him a very hard time in the second half and his mistakes would have ended up costing us a goal or two.

I didn't understand all the flack he got last season with Vlaar. Wenger has been quoted in the past as saying that foreign players need a full season to adjust to the Premier League, and KEA has proved this. Outstanding workrate, relentless pressing, and a good tackler. He'd be a top top player if he had a better passing ability and shot, but he is still an important part of the team. I'd still like to see him switch roles with Westwood for a few games, as I feel his passing is his weakest aspect of his game, but Westwood's strongest and we rarely get to see it, when he's playing the holding role.

Gutted... More disappointed that he'll miss the World Cup, but the good news is that he'll be with us next season. I wish him well in his recovery and I hope he'll be fit in time for next season.

Rumor going around is that Gabby will miss the Fulham match this weekend. Holt will probably get the nod, but am I the only one looking forward to see what he can do for us? I liked him when he was at Norwich. Big, strong, nowhere near as slow as everyone made him out to be, and had good touch and vision for a big man. Granted, he has looked a bit off pace in his brief cameos for us so far, but he hadn't really played a game since the start of the season for Wigan. I can see him bagging 2-3 goals for us to finish the season out and will justify Lambert's decision to bring him here to back up Benteke.

I can't watch this garbage anymore.

ANOTHER ONE! COME ON BENTEKE!

What a chance! How did he miss that?

Completely biased Manc commentary here in the States. Saying Villa needs to start getting yellow cards because we are "Destroying the game", Manchester United are "dominating" the match, Westwood's free kick was complete luck and we are "lucky" to be in the game. Lol. To be honest, if it wasn't for that questionable penalty, we'd go into halftime two poorly playing, evenly matched teams. Lots of mistakes all over the pitch from both sides. What a free kick by Westy, though.

Westwood has been out best player this half and he gets subbed off? Sylla has been off the pace all game. Lol

Westwood and Delph seem to be the only ones trying to drive us forward.

Brilliant run from Delph. Stupid from Benteke. Why argue with the ref? Not going to change anything.

He had to. Weimann and KEA both had hamstring injuries. He was just going to bring on Albrightion for KEA, then Weimann pulled up short.

The American commentators are doing the same.

You can't blame Lambert for this. He set us up right and we were a goal up after 5 minutes. Our defense has been daydreaming.