VillanousOne

albrighton only player who can win a tackle but the opposition still keeps the ball

every 50/50 an bit of luck goes those c un ts way

so MON thought Heskey could be an answer now McCleish does, question is what the **** is the question?

first time i have seen us play with shape and close players down and then we get shafted by either stupid stamp or ridiculous ref decision. Can't **** believe it!

why didn't Herd appeal?

Players let their heads drop easily because as soon as they get to the final third no-one knows what to do with the ball, we have completely forgotten how to attackl The matchtime thoughts of Fabian Delph: 'Wowee i've got the ball, and wait no i've lost it' 'Hang on i've won the ball back great now lets just get in their half without giving it away within 3 seconds, blimey i've done that now what erm - pass to Gabby..... nope he's being marked heavily, where's Hutton? HUTTTTON? Nope he's not making a fwd run and oh i've lost it.' 'Got the ball, right this time i'm gonna yes i'm gonna pass it to Petrov and...... oh he's passed it back to me and i've, oh i've lost it.' 'Right great pass from Warnock to me and gonna make this one count ok so HOOOF, oh gone out of play again damn' 'Hmmm may aswell just put in a bad tackle' 'Got the ball GOT THE BALL, Bent is waving at me, no wait he's waving at his model girlfriend in the crowd - right lets pass to Ireland, done ..... right where's he going he's crowded out, no-ones made any runs for him and he's lost it and we are getting carved open again' 'Miscontrolled again doh' 'Miscontrolled again doh' 'Miscontrolled again doh' 'Miscontrolled again doh' 'Miscontrolled again doh' 'Over run it' 'Miscontrolled again doh'

I expected us to lose 4:0 - but for the first 20 mins i genuinely thought that score line wouldn't happen. What worries me is when we did have possession as in many times this season we look clueless as what to do with the ball in the final third, Gabby was the only threat we had and Warnock also did his best to get fwd. McCleish bought Nzogbia surely as Young/Downing replacement on the wing and yet he's never really played there. Albrighton hasn't been great but surely he on the right and Nzogbia on the left is the best attacking set up. Midfield wise we are just all over the place, I don't rate Delph at all this season and I think Bannan and Ireland would get turned over by most teams. we play like Birmingham City did under McCleish, i'm not a ' Eck hater' but we are as bad as we were under O'Leary.

Stephen Ireland is a luxury player that we don't yet have the luxury of being able to play, maybe if the team was more confident and closing down better then we could afford to play him. Having said all that the Premiership is no longer a place where you can have midfield players who don't work hard and track back and tackle. so maybe he should go play in Spain or Italy or just work harder, thing is he can tackle and track back when he wants to.

should be dropped, he's been poor of late.

I got sick of watching NZogbia and Delph lose possession every time they got the ball and Hutton backing away from the QPR players. Positives was Ireland was ok. exciting times

Attendance 24,768 apparently Ireland has been doing well

this is spot on, the fact we don't press and close down players quickly is ridiculous - we can't afford to give teams this much space. If we do this against any of the top 5 we will get ripped to pieces. Sometimes we genuinely look a threat and i am immensly impressed by the potential shown when going fwd, but for some strange reason this still isn't coming together, Bannan is great on the ball but he and Delph are headless chickens when not on in possession. Zog doesn't know what he is doing and Bent struggles to get involved. Warnock was much better today definitely the second best player to Given Hutton wasn't bad either, Petrov and Gabby were ok but the rest were pretty poor. Defensively we are ok but there is no back bone to our team anymore.

It would be nice to see something a bit more adventurous involving Albrighton and Ireland but i can't see McCleish doing that. I would drop Delph and bring Bannan and Albrighton in but again i can only see Bannan coming in. Be nice to see Gary Gardener and Fonz used from the bench though

The issue I have is I don't understand why Zog doesnt seem to be played on the wing, he seems to float around behind Bent but not really do much and playing Heskey instead of albrighton? I just want to see an offensive 442 and ok fair enough be more cautious against the bigger teams. I realise Eck can't win no matter how we play and he needs time to get the new players playing the way he wants, but my argument is that the current team and tactics aren't working.

We have too small a squad to start freezing out players again like MON and Houllier did. If Eck doesn't rate Makoun then he needs to sell him quickly and get Parker in or whoever, not have him sat around not playing whilst other players burn themselves out. Both Ireland and Makoun need to feature or be sold, not sat doing nothing all season. IMO we need both and are hardly likely to be able to move on either easily. I rate Makoun and would hope that he replaces Petrov more often than not as Stan can't play every game. I would also swap Ireland for Heskey (with a different formation). we can't afford to be freezing anyone out anymore.

The trouble with Petrov is i believe he has much more to his game than he shows for us, its like he has been moulded into a holding defensive midfielder but doesn't have the energy or tackling accuracy to play that way. I like Petrov and thing he has been great for us, but we need someone loud and inspiring who can drive the team forward and organise us. We saw a few times last season when he came back what Petrov can do - but Eck needs to tell him to be more offensive and let Makoun do the holding role. Bent Nzogbia - Ireland Bannan - Makoun - Delph Warnock - Clark - Dunne - Young Given or some formation containing those players maybe Petrov instead of Delph.

Utter Tedium Given: 5 - Couldn't do much about the goal but looked a liability at times and distribution poor. Defence as a whole were piss poor with only Warnock coming away with some credibility. Young: 5 Dunne: 5 Clark: 5 Warnock: 6 Petrov: 4 Dire as ever - sideways or back passes and sod all inspiration Makoun: 6 - Tidy but did little wrong i guess but he and Petrov are the dullest midfield combo ever. Heskey: 5 - Not sure where he was supposed to be playing, worked hard and defended well at times but fluffed the chances he did have unsurprisingly. Gabby: 4 - One good cross and nothing else Bent: 6 Starved of service but still looked a threat Nzogbia: 6 - Scored and looked good when he got some of the ball Subs - all had too little of the ball or time really Ireland: 5 - passed well and got into some ok positions.... Bannan: 5 - did ok, did more than Petrov did the entire game Albrighton: 5 - did ok but not great can't wait for the new season to start!

never realised what a massive Chelsea fan Dion was

even with Nzogbia we need another winger

thank christ a reason to watch this dirge

we were mostly sh*t with Young and Downing last season, so erm now.....

no midfield protection, no midfield whatsover in fact. Albrighton was p*ss poor so was Ireland, Petrov dire - only Delph has put in any effort.

I think when Lerner bought Bent he was cashing in his 'we are selling Young to Manure for 16 mil' in the summer card. In which case he invested and extra 2 mil from the coffers. The money from Young was never going to be reinvested, we let a large number of players leave and probably recouped enough to get a goal keeper on board (remember Lerner could have just said give Guzan a go but he didn't). He's also ended up spanking 3 -5 mil (depending on which paper you believe) mil on getting new manager and back room staff. The Downing cash i'm sure is available to spend, but you can forget about anything else, Lerner is asking the manager to use what we have first, its a consolidatiion effort after a p*ss poor season. He's realised as we all should that where once spending 20 mil in a transfer window would put you in competition with the big boys, now you have to look at 60-100 mil - to try and compete with the top 5 (cept for Arsenal who still aren't spending at that rate). Lerner cannot afford to bankrupt himself and the club going for Champions League football. You may all hate me for saying the above - but in my opinion that is where we are at, recovery and consolidation before re-investment.

Seeing as the transfer topic thread imploded I thought i would post here: Firstly I think unless we sell Downing then we won't have any money to sign players (goal keeper aside). I don't think Lerner has any intention of replacing Young with the likes of Nzogbia especially if the player costs more or the equivalent. Young's sale was just to balance the books from buying Bent. Lerner probably thinks that having Warnock, Beye and Ireland back in the frame could make up for any player shortfalls. I think the manager knows that he needs to use the squad he has already and develop youth players and make BETTER use of the players that are already there as Lerner is probably sick of shelling out fees and wages on players that then get frozen out for whatever reason. I'm sure we will buy Given, but i think outside of that Big Eck will be expected to assess what he has and maybe just maybe before the window closes - identify a player or two that he needs, but don't expect any big money signings. I think selling Downing would be suicide, but if we can get 25mil and he wants to go then we have no choice but to cash in and strengthen the squad with the proceeds. As soon as Liverpool started throwing stupid money around on average players like Henderson and Carroll - the market got so inflated that for the mid table clubs it has effectively imploded. Nzogbia was once worth 9mil at best, you can now expect him to go for about 15 thanks to the greedy Liverd*ckheads and their delusional fans.

http://www.fanhouse.co.uk/2011/06/28/stewart-downing-the-latest-sorry-saga-for-aston-villa-fans-to/ we are not alone in thinking he's a **** ungrateful c**.N*.T !