tomav84

the xmas day hangover is a drawback but xmas eve is the best night out of the year IMO...miles better than new years

mullets...missed the meeting where it was decided they were fasionable again

Agreed. Fans knew the team was giving 100% and backed the team. As you say, shame about the result, but if we play like that all season we should be ok. 100% agree...was great atmosphere tonight and deserved all 3 points. wasnt too be but thats football. felt 20 times better walking away from the ground than i did on sunday knowing that we played some great footy tonight and will be fine this season if we continue playing like that

ah in typical villatalk style bent misses glaring chances and its mcleish's fault...

based on how long i had to wait to get through on the phone this morning i reckon these are gonna go quick

anyone been there before and know where to drink?

i agree he made a mistake by appointing him due to the slap in the face to fans, the underestimation of the rivalry, and the fact that there was better out there. im not denying the investment that he has made, but once he suddenly tightened the purse strings to the extent that he has done, alarm bells rang for me. im just saying personally im not calling for mcleish's head YET...ask me again in january once we have played all the top teams and ability has truely been put to the test

That's very odd. Can't understand how you can possibly be no to Randy but only unsure about McLeish? because i question the lack of investment from lerner considering turnover from player sales etc. lerner's intentions are quite obvous as far as im concerned. i dont believe any manager deserves the sack after only 14 games in charge. hence im unsure.

It is partly where he's come from, but it's also his managerial reputation in general & it's hard to separate the two. I think if it was McGrath he would not be getting the same venom, but that is an extreme contrast because McGrath is a player beloved to the fans here, so of course they would be more generous to him. A better question would be if it was a different manager with no links to either Villa or Birmingham. I think it is very possible for a manager with no previous history with the club to quickly become heavily disliked by a fanbase. How about a hypothetical for you: If McLeish had done everything exactly the same this season & all previous seasons, with the sole difference was that instead of it being Birmingham who he managed and relegated twice, it was with a similar sized club with no particular link to Villa (say, Portsmouth) - do you think he would be getting the same venom? I think it would be slightly less, but it wouldn't take long to get to the same point he's at now. He would still have the relegation & bad football reputation, the appointment would still have been met with much skepticism, albeit probably less hatred at the start - but the football would quickly speak for itself. yep i can agree with that, eventually with this style of footy us fans would become unhappy and be looking for a change in management. but i just feel that calling for mcleish to be sacked was always going to happen even if we improved on last season. after a decent (not great, but decent) start to the season considering our squad, people were calling for his head when we went out of league cup to bolton. it was as if people were just waiting for our first defeat so that they could finally say what they wanted to since his appointment. i might be wrong, thats just how i percieved it.

i have voted unsure to mcleish and no to lerner...you cannot lay all the blame for our prediciment on the manager (yes you can send some blame his way) we received around 20m for milner which we spent on bent (fair enough). we received 40m for young and downing and spent it on n'zog hutton and given - 15m roughly? where has the remaining 25m gone? this is without mentioning the annual prem league tv cash plus ST sales, for which they proudly told us were around the 20k mark (£4m for season tickets sound about right?) the guy is cutting his losses and getting ready for a sale...if we get relegated in the process then so be it as far as he's concerned. him and his little sidekick faulkner openly admit they know squat about footy so they bring in 'advisors'. these advisors say prem league experience is a must...despite the fact that the most succesful managers the league has known had no experience of managing in england before they came over (mourinho, ferguson, wenger)

Nope, I said before Lerner will be stubborn and stick with it to prove a point, he see's the fans as the ones who got GH our and stopped the possible appointment of McLaren, he'll want to make sure he doesn't let the fans win again. We are of course, simple men of the terracex. Which means we can only try but force him out. well if attendances being down around 5000 this season hasnt done it then nothing will. just have to say tough shit, we're stuck with him, and if lerner were to sack him then he would prob have bruce lined up as a replacement anyway...

McLeish has previous experience he isn't a novice or learning his trade. His Birmingham side was perhaps the most boring team ever in the Premiership side. His "premiership experience" is of relegations. Completely negative no plan B. You do realise Blues only lost ONE more game than we did last season . Wolves lost FIVE more games than they did but Blues went down. He doesnt know how to win games. We are seeing the same turd football again at Villa. It is carbon copy. 3 wins so far this season? That is unacceptable. Ask any Bluenose fan what the actual football was like under him. They will tell you . He has no record with developing youth , his Premiership experience is rubbish and his sides play god awful antifootball. Have you not been watching us this season? Playing Heskey and Hutton in midfield? Fielding 6 defenders ? Reluctance to use subs ? Isolation of Bent? Winning 3 games?? He is shite. Possibly the worse manager in Premiership and certainly the most negative. yep thanks been to most games including the dire display at spurs...im not defending him, nor our style of play, im just indicating the verocity of the hate towards him would not be as much had we had a villa legend as opposed to our rivals' former manager (ok, mcgrath bad example...platt/dean saunders might have been a better example) look at the protests before his appointment, IMO mclaren would have been a poorer choice but there were no protests outside VP when we thought he was to be our next manager...

said it before and ill say it again now...the root of most people's hate is cause of where he has come from. let give you a for instance: we make the same transfers as we have done, played the same line ups in games, same style of play, and same results...but paul mcgrath is our manager. who on here can HONESTLY say that they would be calling for his head with the same venom that you are calling for mcleish's?

correction, we were a striker away from glory. we were calling for a darren bent for the entire time he was manager. we were set for the champions league and all we needed was a goal scorer to secure it. arsenal bought arshavin...MON bought heskey. nuff said.

no...we played some of our best football under him but must remember the numerous shocking ones too. signings? more poor ones than good ones IMO. take away milner, dunne, young, and downing and you struggle to think of many proper good players that he bought in

what time are the games usually? thinking about jumping on the bandwagon here!

assuming it is depression (and til told otherwise think its fair to assume this) it is a perfectly valid explaination to what happened. having lived with someone who had severe depression i can, like others on here have, tell you what a horrible illness it is. to everyone outside they appear perfectly normal - hence why savage etc cant begin to explain why he did it. but living with them is a nightmare as they lash out on those closest to them. they cant help it, and theres nothing you can do to help things. horrible as it may sound, but it wouldnt surprise me if this wasnt a complete shock to his wife...just hope she doesnt blame herself as there is nothing she could have done (assuming the twatter rumours are false of course)

Not sure if this should have belong in main villa page but just seen some quotes on swansea forum about us on sunday. was nice to read

because people need a scapegoat and if you're being managed by a bluenose it's always going to happen. If we were managed by a villa legend, you can guarantee people would be criticising lerner far more and blaming our performances on the squad, not the tactics. 100% agree...people can say they dont care where we got him from all they like but we all know thats the root of most of his hate. if this was mcgrath managing and picking the same teams as eck with the same results who on here can honestly say they would be calling him a word removed and wanting him out?

i heard he turned us down cause he wanted 50m to spend im prob the only fan of heskey's but even ill admit today wasnt his best game. delph had a lot of energy but wasnt great. gabby looked a threat every time he got the ball. bent couldnt be arsed. herd great game, very composed on the ball and would have been my MOTM had gabby not been on the pitch. n'zog was decent 2nd half. 2 new fullbacks in jan please RIP gary speed - not sure if its been mentioned but it was villa fans that turned silence into applause

great night out...reflex turned into a villa bar...kc and the sunshine band came on and the whole place sang along 'darren darren bent'! similar for karma chameleon for gabby...then hi ho aston villa for good measure! locals sound...no problems at all in terms of women there are some right monsters there

yeah they serve everything in plastic in those places...could be a wise idea that!

im looking forward to tomorrow night so much more now i know they have a reflex

better turn out than i was expecting. half day off work, hopefully get too drunk to care about the result

none for a sing song that i know of and most in the centre dont approve of any footy shirts i generally go to pubs near liverpool st station...not really footy pubs though