VillaAndLoyal

That's clearly not true, is it? Lambert gets loads of grief (quite a bit of it justified). 

 

Holt **** up once yesterday, unfortunately at a crucial point - he didn't do anything that bad otherwise. Gabby deserves a lot more stick for being so anonymous and offering us absolutely nothing,

If you can drag yourself away from the internet for just one minute lexicon then you'd know it clearly is true. Holt gets far more abuse in your average Villa game than our manager, as I said by comparison.

I couldn't go today as I had a mates' wedding and I'm delighted I saved myself 50/60 notes.

I will say one thing though: I got told to shut up on here when I dared suggest months ago that Lambert's "brand" of football was every bit as bad as Alex McLeish's, if not worse. Where are those people now?

At least McLeish (as dire and negative as it was) had a very defined footballing philosophy... Does Lambert have one?

Club is an utter shambles and I truly believe this is our year for relegation; we thoroughly deserve it. Find it hard to comprehend how, at our last home game, everybody around by me thought we were safe from relegation. Oh and those 4 Norwich fixtures, I'd bet my house on them winning at least one of them...

So over to you Villa and stop relying on everyone else for a **** change...

Agreed, either vitriol or there's some good crack being smoked in the Midlands at the moment. No serious fan, who watches us week in week out, can honestly think Paul 'uninspiring' Lambert is a.) Doing a good job, b.) Likely to do a good job, or c.) has a way back with the fans now. He's a dead man walking and not before time. We're about to be relegated...

It has to be said, some of our fans are absolute rocket polishers of the highest order. We're 4-1 up and what do some of our fans want to do? Abuse our OWN player Grant Holt by singing a variety of disgraceful and embarrassing songs alluding to the theory that he is fat. I hope to god he didn't hear any of these chants.

Let's get one thing straight:

GRANT HOLT IS NOT EVEN FAT!!!

If Grant Holt is fat then 90% of the UK must be obese.

Thick morons. You're better off down the Blues if you have that mentality...

It's **** cringe-worthy.

Anyone else wish they did an 'away season-ticket'? I would definitely ditch my usual season-ticket then. Like many others, I just don't enjoy going to home games any more. Naturally there is more expectation to win a home game and time and time again we just leave our fanbase numb with disappointment. At least with away games you can get pissed with your mates, stand all game and have a sing song with little expectations generally. I always say I won't renew, but always do, it's like a bad habit. But there's only so much more of this tripe I can take.

I think many people's apathy is much to do with English football in general though. It's an absolute joke, in all honesty. German/Dutch football has it right. Cheap tickets and transport, standing areas, allowed to drink pints in the stand - that is what football used to be about. The whole demographic has changed unfortunately which is why most English stadia are half empty, more quiet than my local library and all look the same (cereal bowl esque).

Teams like Chelsea, Man City and Arsenal charging people in excess of £50 a ticket are taking the mick! Yet people still pay it...

I think you lot have forgotten how bad we were to be honest

Nope, far from it. We were bloody diabolical a lot of the time, but we still are now. The overall standard of performances this season has been terrible, and the negative approach often implemented by Lambert is nothing more than baffling considering the attacking football we often played the season before. Added to that, the statistics actually back up this viewpoint as we were doing better under McLeish at the same point in the season.

Therefore, you cannot say in any seriousness that "we are much better under Lamber than McLeish" - we simply aren't, however much you and the rest of the happy clappy brigade try and convince yourself. But I guess Lambert isn't an ex-nose and buys cheap, youngsters, so it goes unnoticed to some people...

What is that chap smoking?

"Miles better under Lambert than McLeish"

As somebody else said, the facts tell me a different story and my eyes do too, on a weekly basis. McLeish's reign was terrible and massively negative, but how on earth anyone can claim this pile of tripe is any better is completely beyond me.

It is precisely this attitude that brings me to the conclusion that we are finally sleep-walking towards the relegation trap-door. Last year, everybody thought we were going down but then around about February time (after the Millwall defeat) we turned the corner and actually finished the season very strongly. Can anyone foresee the same happening this season? With Chelsea, City and United in March? And with our main attacking threat looking as useful as a chocolate teapot?

Four points clear of relegation is absolutely nothing when your rivals are picking up points and you are in a worse position than when Alex **** McLeish was in charge. We're an absolute mess.

I was there last night and the whole Villa end was just completely baffled at the final whistle about how we never won that game. Cardiff are the worst team we've played this season and despite hitting the woodwork twice in a minute, once we weathered the first half storm and got our act together we completely dominated the game. Yes, they could have scored 2 in the first half, but we could have had 5 or 6 in the second half. Had some unbelievably good chances and the Cardiff messageboards tell their own story - they're delighted to come away with a point in the circumstances.

Us, on the other hand, should be devastated with that result. We only play well away from home and we won't have a better chance of picking up 3 points. 4 points above the drop zone now with the likes of City, Chelsea and United on the horizon - I am very, very worried. We don't play well enough for long enough, and even when we do play well (like the second half) our finishing is invariably woeful.

If you've been coming down to Villa Park since 1968 then surely you'd be aware that since the introduction of all-seater stadia, and the pricing out of many of the working class fraternity due to extortionate ticket prices, most home areas of support in grounds up and down the country are quiet for the vast majority of the time.

It is no coincidence that away days, when everybody is pissed up and stands all game, are when you get any sort of atmosphere nowadays. The exception to the rule being derby games, the odd dramatic/exciting game and European nights (like Ajax a few years ago).

There are a small but dedicated bunch at the back of the Holte End who sing and try to create an atmosphere every single game. And a similarly small but dedicated bunch in the lower North who do the same. Yes, I agree, some of the chants which are sung are pretty cringeworthy but that is besides the point really. Unfortunately, and sadly, the vast majority of supporters prefer to sit in silence for 90 minutes in the modern game, clearly encapsulated by our one-touch, dynamic football. Jesting aside, the fact we have (probably?) the worst home record of any Football League club over the past 3/4 seasons probably has something to do with the number of 'loud' chants which catch on around the ground.

But to try and claim nobody was singing yesterday is just plain wrong. For it to come from somebody who has been coming down Villa Park for so long is pretty bizarre. I can only assume you were singing so loud yourself in the lower North that you didn't notice...

Got a loss written all over it this has.

-Possibly no Vlaar

-They will want to bounce back after derby day humiliation

-This is exactly the type of game we should be winning, so we won't

-We've already beaten them once this season

-They have a physical striker and pacey winger

- It's on tele

- I'm going

Call me negative, but I'd be absolutely amazed if we win this.

Special mention for our fans today who were absolutely incredible. That was possibly the best I've ever seen our away fans - I'm not exaggerating when I say that we sung literally non-stop for the entire first 45 minutes - song after song - and it was bedlam when we scored. Their fans, in stark contrast, were completely terrible and barely mustered a song even when they scored. I had to laugh at the poster a few pages back who said he turned the game on in the second half and it was notable how the home crowd were driving them on... erm, what!?

The fans deserved better than to lose 2-1 and unfortunately, playing the way we did, it was inevitable that they would eventually score. We've seen it so many times in the past, not just under Lambert, we get into a brilliant position in a game and then become our own worst enemies by camping in our penalty box. I tend to agree that, as Everton were without a recognised striker on the pitch today, it was a great chance to come away with something and the tactics and substitutions in the second-half just contributed to our downfall. Thought most of the players battled well but we got the tactics/formation wrong today and as usual it's a case of two steps forward, one step back.

Amazing game, just amazing. So great to shut those small time Sandwell tossers up, I guess they'll have to wait a little longer before releasing their next blockbuster DVD...

A blog one of my mates put together...

Cracking read and I, for one, agree with pretty much all of it.

http://tomclover.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/the-unholy-trinity.html

 

The men who destroyed Aston Villa....


Jimmy Haslam isn't anyone's idea of a saviour. After making his fortune in the less than glamorous industry of motorway service stations, he has toured the NFL, buying shares in various franchises. Each time, he declares his undying love for his new team, be it the glitz and glamour of the Dallas Cowboys, or the grit and grime of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Haslam left no doubt about his supposed adoration for the Steelers; yet, when the opportunity arose, he purchased a controlling interest in their great rivals, the Cleveland Browns.

The reaction in Cleveland, a proud but perennially unsuccessful franchise, was less than predictable. Outbreaks of cheering were reported, which passes for tearful emotion in this most blue collar of Midwestern cities. They may not like the varied and easily-seated loyalties of Haslam, but at least he replaced their current owner, consistently voted the worst and least productive in the entire NFL. Haslam might be dreadful, but at least he's not Randy Lerner.

The NFL is geared towards parity. An absence of transfers and a draft which significantly favours the weaker teams is intended to offer each team an equal chance of success. Yet, Cleveland are a terrible team, a national amusement as one losing season follows another. The major reason, according to the hardy fans who brave the freezing winds off the Ohio river to watch the appalling fare on offer, is Randy Lerner. Lerner ran the franchise in a manner typical of the heir to the MBNA credit card fortune. He risked nothing, spent only when a return was guaranteed, and, appropriate to an heir to a business about which he knew nothing, he left the running of the Browns entirely to others.

Lerner is the antithesis of Harry Truman. For him, the buck stops anywhere but on his desk. He is the ultimate delegator, the man who believes that someone, somewhere, knows more than he. For such a man, the credit business is an ideal home. Less so the risk-intense world of sport. So it came as a surprise to many when Lerner doubled his portfolio with the purchase of Aston Villa. In fact, this was yet another risk-averse decision. Villa were begging to be bought, a club owned by an octogenarian chairman run on the sort of autocratic lines that would have pleased Edward Heath fully three decades before. Here was a club that had somehow survived the first flood of overseas investment in the English Premier League, chock full of assets and potential upside.

Other buyers wanted to asset-strip the club. Lerner, instead, saw an opportunity. Investing in the team was almost embarrassingly low-risk. Success meant the untold riches of the Champions League. Failure meant a compensatory parachute payment and, at worst, recouping his original outlay. Lerner, as usual, intended to appoint sharper minds than his own to the key decision-making posts. Yet here, again, we see a staggering lack of judgement.

Non-executive director, effectively face of the franchise, was to be General Charles Krulak, a decorated Vietnam War veteran and senior member of the Sons of the Revolution, a reactionary group still glorying in the eighteenth century war of independence against the British. This most unnatural of football club leaders was joined by incoming chief executive Paul Faulkner, a disastrous appointment that would condemn the club to free fall in years to come.

Faulkner remains a laughably dreadful appointment that belongs in the realm of situation comedy. Educated at Cambridge, he progressed rapidly through Lerner's MBNA, and just ten years after leaving the privileged surroundings of King's School, Chester, he was in command of one of the world's great football clubs. It was like giving Augustus Gloop the keys to the chocolate cupboard. Unable to believe his luck, Faulkner pursued the first high- profile manager that came to mind; the formerly great German striker, Jurgen Klinsmann. When Klinsmann turned him down, he set his sights on the man who would become the final link in the chain that would ultimately destroy Aston Villa: Martin O'Neill.

O'Neill had made his managerial reputation at Leicester City, converting a team of rugged physicality into Premiership regulars and League Cup winners. His professed and overtly political Catholicism helped him to a post at Glasgow Celtic, a stint in which he was generally outshone by the less-experienced Rangers boss, Alex McLeish.

 

O'Neill excels in man-management of players, and arrived with a track record of success in converting journeymen professionals into accomplished role-players. He would have been the perfect appointment for a cash-strapped club looking to survive - he was a disastrous one for a team preparing for its biggest ever cash injection.

 

O'Neill started brightly, as the beneficiary of enormous goodwill created by cheap-but-effective publicity gestures on behalf of the new ownership. Someone, perhaps the ever-mistaken Faulkner, arranged for supporters to be given free coaches to a Carling Cup tie at Chelsea. Chaos ensued at the ticket office, as thousands of Brummies queued for a bargain free coach to the capital, depositing their match ticket in the bin as the did so. As these initiatives were progressing, O'Neill made a cautionary start in the transfer market. The marquee signing was Ashley Young; the introverted, socially awkward but enormously talented winger being a classic O'Neill project. O'Neill's only other financial outlays of the summer went to former club Celtic, for his old captain Stiliyan Petrov and another precocious oddball, Shaun Maloney. Young and Petrov were successes, especially the former; more than enough to compensate for Maloney's swift return to Glasgow due to chronic homesickness. A strong performance in the League left Lerner, and most fans, feeling that the building blocks were in place for a very special team.

 

The problems began in the 2007/08 season. O'Neill, never one to tolerate dissent, put an end to his sectarian feud with former player of the year Steven Davis by sending him to Fulham, whilst personal issues were also said to have been behind the catastrophic sale of Gary Cahill to Bolton for just £4 million. The replacements were laughable. Future England regular Cahill was replaced by the abysmal Zat Knight, with another troubled talent, Nigel Reo-Coker, brought in to bring drive to the midfield. Villa climbed the league, but their wage bill was already beginning to spiral.

 

The following season, O'Neill spent a remarkable £46 million, though he deserves credit for somehow persuading West Bromwich Albion to pay £4.5 million for the declining Luke Moore. In, for huge money and with crippling wages, came the likes of Steve Sidwell, Curtis Davies, Nicky Shorey, Luke Young and Carlos Cuellar. In the moment, the crowd-pleasing success of another import, James Milner, covered up the wage-bill cancer that was eating at the heart of the club. It was in this season that O'Neill would make bitter enemies of a section - though arguably not a majority - of Villa's most loyal supporters. The team had enjoyed a bumpy if enjoyable ride to the quarter finals of the Europa League, with highlight-reel victories in Prague and at home to Dutch giants Ajax. In the quarter finals, they were drawn against CSKA Moscow, then an impressive, fast-paced team with claims on the trophy. Villa drew 1-1 at home, an insipid display which nevertheless gave them a fighting chance in the return leg.

 

It was amongst the freezing snow and wind-lashed ice of Moscow that the O'Neill reign unravelled. Pleading a key weekend League match at home to Stoke, the manager sent out a half youth, half reserve team in one of the most hostile environments in European football. The youngsters, to their credit, only lost 2-0, but for many fans, the defeat was far greater off the pitch. This, after all, is a tea that relishes past glories, a team that, in the summer of 1982, lifted the European Cup on a balmy night in Rotterdam. For a Villa team, then, to treat European competition with such arrogant disdain was for many a appalling betrayal of the club's heritage. Had O'Neill's decision carried the club into the Champions League, it may have paid off. Instead, the rested Villa team drew anemically with Stoke, and the hangover continued, as the drive for a top four place capitulated amongst a sea of finger-pointing and recriminations.

 

This wasn't the end of it. In a tacit admittance of wrongdoing, the club took the extraordinary step of laying in a lavish free meal for all 300 supporters who had travelled to witness the Moscow fiasco. O'Neill, never a man given to explaining himself, much less apologising, gave an extraordinary speech. He raged against anyone, from chairman to supporter, having the temerity to question him on football matters. It bore the astonishing claim that he had never once made a poor sale or purchase in the transfer market, and it betrayed a man in need of greater autocracy than Aston Villa could ever provide. Surely no supporter present that night could have been remotely surprised to hear of his resignation the following August.

 

The timing, typically of the man, was petty and self-aggrandising, leaving the club with no manager on the brink of the a new season. Faulkner began his search for O'Neill's replacement with less than stringent criteria. "We require someone," he said, "with a strategy for building on the existing strengths in our current squad."

 

This sentence is worth underlining, highlighting and repeating, for it is integral to the decline of Aston Villa. The first reaction, of course, is to be amused by they fear that experienced top-level managers might arrive at interview without a strategy. But in fact, this is a rare example of clarity in the David Brent-rivalling corporate speak lexicon of Faulkner. Read between the lines: there will be no more money, ever. O'Neill's spending sprees were the Lerner gamble, and they crashed down at the last hurdle like Devon Lock. From now on, prudence would be the watchword.

 

The man to replace O'Neill was Gerard Houllier, considered a safe pair of hands, though at 63 and with a history of heart trouble, it was a surprising return to the managerial hot seat. The amiable Frenchman would perhaps have been a better fit in a director of football role, for despite an excellent season with limited resources, his health began to visibly deteriorate. Houllier was rushed to hospital in April, and never returned to the Villa dugout. Faulkner, in typically irrelevant fashion, thanked him for his "work ethic", and began the search for his replacement.

 

Villa were now labouring under the yoke of O'Neill's profligacy. Not prepared to risk further investment, Lerner and Faulkner sold off the key playing assets to compensate for the exorbitant wages of those high earners languishing in the reserves. Faulkner then made the incredible decision to appoint Alex McLeish as his new manager. McLeish arrived lacking in credentials, having been relegated the season before, but more importantly, he had been the manager of hated rivals Birmingham City. Fan protests immediately followed the appointment. It was wholly typical of Faulkner to utterly disregard the rivalry, and fail to realise the key issue: that an enormous surge of ill-will meant that supporters' patience would be non-existent. This, of course, not ideal at a time when the club, as Faulkner himself might have it, were "rapidly downsizing." McLeish himself probably warrants some sympathy. His unattractive brand of physical football delivered results sufficient to keep the club in the Premier League, a workmanlike nine months of pushing shit uphill. But his was an impossible job. The fans would never accept him, and he knew it was a one-season appointment long before an abysmal final day defeat at Norwich.

 

The architect of that defeat, Norwich boss Paul Lambert, swiftly emerged as favourite to replace the beleaguered and swiftly fired McLeish. Lambert held all the attributes desirable to Lerner and Faulkner; his swift rise made him young, cheap and unlikely to complain at heavy fiscal constraints. With the sale of the Cleveland Browns complete, many at Villa may have expected Lerner to take more interest in Aston Villa, but this was not to be the case. To him, Villa were like a defaulting account at MBNA; the goal being to recoup the losses, and get out. How very different from the much-maligned American owner of Liverpool, John Henry, who missed the firing of his Boston Red Sox manager, Terry Francona, in order to watch the Merseyside derby on television. Lambert, and the young squad he managed, would be precisely the kind of gamble Lerner liked: one with no downside. Stay in the division and turn a few youngsters - such as the improbably prolific Christian Benteke - into saleable assets, great. Be relegated, asset-strip the club and pocket the parachute payment; well, gee, that's fine too.

 

Villa supporters remain largely divided on the merits of Paul Lambert as a manager, particularly after a disastrous festive period and the catastrophic FA Cup defeat to Sheffield United. What they are surely united on, though, is that whilst their club may struggle to repeat its glory days, it deserves better than to be treated as a low-risk business buried deep in the portfolio of a disinterested American and run by a chief executive of almost unimaginable imbecility. Aston Villa were made great by a true visionary, William McGregor, it would be tragic if their story ended as the micro-managed plaything of Randy Lerner.

 

Not a Premier League standard full-back, in my opinion. Shocking defensively tonight. Can put a decent ball in, yes. But if he's already cost you two goals then what's the point?

I've seen Grant Holt play many a time for Shrewsbury Town and he was decent in League 2. 

As I said, after the recent tripe served up, many fans are getting misty eyed about what 25 minutes (tops) decent-ish football. Shows how low our expectations have sunk.

I couldn't care less if you are banned for swearing at me on the internet. You disagree with my opinion, and vice versa. Get over it.

It's amazing the mindset of Villa fans. Fascinating, in fact. I genuinely think we've been driven to such despairing lows recently that some people, rather like people often over-react in a negative way, are actually going the other way now.

When Alex McLeish, yes I said his name, started with 5 at the back at home and played similar negative rubbish that we played in the first-half he got slaughtered for it on the terraces and the message boards. Yet, when Lambert does it, it's just part of our 'game plan' and we 'kept Arsenal at bay'. I find it unbelievable - that first-half was as negative as anything AMC served up. People saying we kept Arsenal at bay until their goals, are you forgetting the two great chances Giroud spurned in the opening 8 minutes? The game as a contest should have been over far sooner.

Don't get me wrong, there are positives to take from tonight and Christian looked a different player after his goal. So, in that sense, we have improved on recent home games. But a bit of fight in the second half when the game was effectively already won has led to some pretty big cracks being papered over. I said to my old man at half-time that Arsenal would ease off the gas in the second 45 and it proved to be the case. They dominated the first-half and allowed us back into the game in the second-half. When we scored our goal, we finally got a bit of confidence and their unprofessionalism almost cost them.

But how much of that was REALLY down to how well we played? I unfortunately agreed with 606 when they said that for 65/70 minutes we looked like credible relegation candidates. Only Gabby looked like a threat up front for us, and Bacuna when he came on.

I hate Arsenal with a passion and would have loved for Benteke's second header to have rippled the back of the net, but I honestly thought that was a walk in the park for them and only their naivety almost gave us a way back into the game.

 

We're going to get smashed, aren't we?

 

Yep.

 

Don't you just love the way our fans remain optimistic, we do well against top rated clubs and a draw is ok at the moment given that we play shit at home mainly because off the BOOO boys.

 

We play shit at home 'mainly because of the 'booo boys' ?? Don't be so utterly ridiculous and give your head a wobble.

At the end of the day if you choose to sit in any part of any home ground, but choose to still celebrate like you're in the away end, then you're playing with fire and I wouldn't be surprised if you get burnt. Like wedge said, go to a rugby game/ Fulham match if you want to openly mingle.

I actually defended Lambert's comments about the FA Cup before yesterday's game. Comments that suggested we'd maybe see youngsters like Gary Gardener finally given a go. And then what does he go and do.. completely hang himself out to dry by playing a near enough first-team, and still managing to lose to a struggling League One side.

Is Lambert idiotic, taking the mickey or just thick as pig shit?? I can't quite work it out. And now any momentum we might have gained through the Sunderland win is just a distant memory, with four really tough Premier League games approaching.

I think it speaks volumes that arguably our best player yesterday, Helenius, was signed by the manager in the summer but has rarely featured presumably because Lambert has been disappointed with what he's seen from him in training etc. And yet, when he came on, we finally had some link-up play for Benteke, somebody who could hold the ball up and a player who is not afraid to actually attack a cross from a corner. The fact Helenius impressed so much was partly down to him playing well and partly down to the rest of his team-mates just being so poor and that is so depressing.

There were about 18,000 Villa fans in attendance and the sense of apathy around the Club is now deafening. A manager under any other owner would surely have got the sack by now? We are beyond dire almost every week and I'll be really surprised if we stay up this season. Yet again I came away from Villa Park kicking myself for being stupid enough to go, when the result and performance was oh so predictable. That was Sheffield United's first win at Villa Park in 48 years and they deserved their day... another impressive record shot to pieces under Paul Lambert...

I was coincidentally at Villa Park today for a stadium tour and let's just say no expense was spared for Doug's birthday celebrations in the VMF Restaurant. The four bottles of champagne on ice must have cost a wedge!