turvontour

Cant remember the year, but I seem to remember that we had a horror side at one stage that contained about 4 or 5 of this type of player, might have been when Blues first came up. The likes of Leonhardsen, Kinsella, Allback, Ronny Johnson etc.

A completely pointless couple of years from Kieron Richardson, other than that header off the line from Gerrard! As usual, I remember Richardson scoring a screamer against us at Villa park probably weeks before we signed him. Needless to say, I don't think he had a short for us. I'll add Steve Stone, although not sure he was at the end, just looked old. Another player that terrorised us in a league game the week before.

Can we merge the What's wrong at Villa and Chris Samba threads?

Am i right in thinking that last nights starting line up only featured one player to have scored a goal for us this season? Its nearly March! I know i know, new signings, but as a stat thats frightening. Im fairly confident that thats never happened before. Id be fascinated to find out who the last team to do that was, if it has happened, in the top two divisions of England.

What pressure? There's been zero pressure. We're not a Newcastle who you just know were going to be at the top for most of the season and have put in team performances week in week out. We as a fanbase/club have been seemingly happy to accept midtable mediocrity this year, with the expectation that we make a push for promotion next year (understandably given the wholesale changes across the last nine months). Unfortunately, with us having not won for about 12 games the pressure will really start to build now, the results will start to matter.

I cant believe that Sky Bet has us as wide as 28/1 to be relegated. In relative terms, is this season worse than last season? Obviously depends on how we finish, but any position lower than where we are now is surely on par with 15/16.

Purely hypothetical, but where do you think we'd be in the league and where do you think Newcastle would be in the league if we started the season with their players and they started with ours? If we were fielding Clark, Dummett, Colback etc. Would we be top?

I don’t think that the players have been under pressure particularly this season. In the Premier League the media creates this view that every game matters, and therefore performances and results are crucial. It simply isn’t there in the Championship, due to the obvious lack of interest at a lower level as well as the increased number of games and the fact that the league is stretched unlike the premier League. It’s easy for Sky to justify the importance of games when there is 3 points separating the bottom 5 and 4 points separating 5 of the top 6. Also, the fans have been on the players side for this season to date so it isn’t like they’ve been regularly booed for these appalling results. If anything, pressure will start to build now as we are getting to a stage where we simply need results to survive.

Still preferable to Dwight Yorke.

I don’t think it’s wholly the manager, I think the manager becomes the problem on the surface of it after a few months of their appointment. Just two-three months ago, Bruce was seen by many as the saviour. He can’t have suddenly turned into a bad manager overnight, his record elsewhere is simply too strong for that to be the case. Based on what Dyche and Wagner have done at smaller clubs with no money, then yes presumably with their appointment we’d be back up and in the top half of the Premier league within 18 months. However, I feel that if Wagner had come in October, or Mclaren or Moyes, and we were where we are now, you’d simply have Dyche and Bruce on that list of replacements instead. Also, we shouldn’t even need a top manager that’s performed miracles to get a decent 90 mins out of this squad, the players are also hugely responsible for their collective actions.

Maybe we're the words removed.

Rotherham in my mind is the only match that we were in complete control of this season. Of the team that we fielded back in August there were only 2 of those players present in the line up tonight. Its staggering that we could be going to Rotherham in March with a different 11 to earlier in the season having spent a shed load of money and yet be severely weaker as a team.

Shit hawks flying round Villa Park, shitting on people.

Bruce is the obvious element of the club to change right now, so that we can have another go at getting favourable results. But will a new manager not want his own players and staff, and so any semblance of continuity is again lost and we are in effect starting again?

Unbelievable. Really?

People really still take the piss out of you at work? I just get sympathy.

I gurantee we would have had a serious look at Robinson in the window if it hadnt been us that released him.

Darren Bent shitting goals.

This is more or less where I am at the moment with things. It’s interesting your point re. sustaining a good start as manager, as Sherwood and now Bruce have had similar records in that respect. Coming in and doing everything we’d hoped for in the first few months before switching to complete dross. No middle ground. I think that the atmosphere of defeat around the club is weighing psychologically on the players, and is going to be a difficult one to turn around. I still don’t know how to quantify that in a behind the scenes of a football club sense, what does a bad losing mentality at a football club actually mean? Does it transcend from the manager, owners, directors, or is it the footballers that have been there throughout this spell? They’re just football matches and results that we’re looking for at the end of the day, and this is a very strong bunch of players that regularly improves (on paper at least). You’d have thought that the tide would change at some point, just by laws of averages. Its baffling. We’ve been in a rut of losing for so long that it has just become par for the course. Leicester have been a great example of this both positively and negatively in recent times and show how belief and confidence can more or less achieve anything irrespective of players. Has Ranieri gone from presumably the best manager in Europe last season (given the players at his disposal) to one of the weakest managers in Europe this season? Similarly to Bruce, it’s the same man that had us all dreaming of automatic promotion following that bounce in October/November. I’m none the wiser. My gut feeling is that this club needs continuity at the moment, so sacking Bruce in the next few months probably shouldn’t be an option. But if he has indeed been villafied (excuse the pun) then maybe giving him time will just make things worse. And we really haven’t got time on our side at the moment given how close we are to the business end of the season. Thanks for the responses by the way folks, really opened my eyes to a few things.

Forget relating the results to the amount spent, i mean we'll be one of the worst performing clubs of the last few years irrespective of the £100 million spent on players. None of the other 91 teams will have won just 3 league games last season.

Have to agree. I dont think we'll go down as there is rubbisher rubbish in this division. BUT, it doesnt bode well that given we dont win games away, we've seemingly stopped winning games at home. If that continues, we will be snookered.

I think we'd all agree, that there's something fundementally wrong at this football club despite the wholesale changes that have been made across the last year and im hoping that somebody who understands the club and football a bit better than me can provide a view as to why that may be. Is it poor training, staff, bad atmosphere, pressure through expectation, Lerner's legacy etc. Because we see all these excuses trotted out on here but accountability generally points back to the manager. What is it that goes on behind the scenes that makes our managers look inept and our exciting new players instantly fall in line with the rest? If Bruce (the great Championship club promoter) leaves here as a failure, is it truly him thats the problem? How many more failures would there need to be until we cant just blame management? So so few players leave Villa in a better fotballing position than when they arrive. Out of our last 50 players signed say, how many left Villa as a better player? A handful? No one would even be slightly surprised if Mccormack went on to get a goal every other game through to the end of the season for Forest. Or if Bacuna left, he suddenly start scoring free kicks regularly or goals from range again. Why is that? If Hourihane and Hogan turn out to be duds, would you be surprised? I joked on here before the Brentford game that it doesnt matter whether you have Mccormack or Rhodes up front, the team/club simply doesnt have the belief to win. Both players have scored in wins subsequently and Villa havent. Its depressingly inevitable.

No more using the unbeaten at home record to put a positive angle on this season. Shaping up to be as bad as the last few. As others have said, this club remains rotten despite the changes.

Ive seen absolutely nothing to suggest that we would be a good League 1 side.

Preston casually put 4 past Brentford, who put 4 past us. Cant even be bothered to try and remember the last time we scored 4 goals. These clubs havent got any money. Pathetic.