VillanousOne

hope he now starts against Sunderland!

http://www.thefa.com/TheFA/Disciplinary/NewsAndFeatures/2011/herd-claim-upheld-251011?

yep

Mark Delaney wasn't a bad player but he spent so long injured and the amount of penalties he gave away because he used to throw himself into block challenges with his hands in front of his face.

also Graham Fenton and Phi King scored two of the most important goals in our great history but both were pretty rubbish.

Stefan Moore is another worthy mention of an awful player, Luke wasn't much better.

but we didn't throw a lot of money away on the above.

Mustapha Hadji and Hassan Kachloul were two players who really excited me when we signed them, if i remember rightly Kachloul was great for about two games and then never played again. Hadji never lived up to the expectations and I think (Gregory?) didn't fancy him so he barely played.

but didn't they score a goal that was wrongfully rule offside and the set piece defending had nothing to do with the rubbish decisions!

Apart from the fact that Herd would've been marking Olsson for the header he scored, and that their corner and pressure in the second half were entirely due to us being overrun in midfield, where we were obviously too light with just Bannan and Petrov.

possibly but you can't honestly say for certainty unless you are Mystic Meg that Herd would have picked up Olsson or even Scharner.

Petrov being shit is a different matter.

but didn't they score a goal that was wrongfully rule offside and the set piece defending had nothing to do with the rubbish decisions!

Apart from the fact that Herd would've been marking Olsson for the header he scored, and that their corner and pressure in the second half were entirely due to us being overrun in midfield, where we were obviously too light with just Bannan and Petrov.

possibly but you can't honestly say that Herd would have picked up Olsson and Scharner.

Petrov being shit is a different matter.

but didn't they score a goal that was wrongfully rule offside and the set piece defending had nothing to do with the rubbish decisions!

can anyone actually confirm if it was a **** stamp, even replays are completely inconclusive?

I have to say i am really done with ruining my weekend by watching this utter **** toss every week, I don't believe in the manager, the owner and i can't say i really have that much belief in the players, i am really done with this.

I am an intelligent guy, I have more letters after my name than I care to mention.

Can someone explain to me why this idiot has been appointed our manger ?

because he would do what Randy told him

good fortune and luck, we get none

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

i do not get one thing - in midfield, we are not marking players individually instead of, we are allowing them acres of space constantly running away from opp. players (it is not zonal marking - we are running right away from opp. players!). i do not get it - ffs why are we doing it? just stay with your player and do not run away from him making him unmarked. even in sunday league football which i play currently is the basic rule to mark your player in areas where are the ball coming to. villa players are staying in spaces when defending but it should be just by contraries, stay with your player when defending and find spaces between opp. defenders when we get the ball and attacking. how it should be a problem in one PL team???

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.