NeilS

Can anyone remember the last time we had back to back wins in the Premier League? I'm struggling to remember the last time it happened. This is something we need to do to build some confidence in the team, but we have been unable to achieve for what seems like years. It wouldn't suprise me if we had to go back as far as Houllier and McAllister's last few games for back to back wins, which is terrible. We definately need to win those two games in March against QPR and Reading if we're to have a chance of staying up.

Yep, the lack of continuity between those two appointments was shocking. Swansea have built the club over recent years by employing managers with the same ethos as the previous manager, moving from Martinez to Rodgers to Laudrup. That should have been the thinking when we were looking to replace Houllier. Instead Randy went the anti-football route and went for McLeish.

Well at least Hutton managed to avoid almost breaking the legs of the other guy juggling the football. He must be improving.

What I don't understand is that we are crying out for defenders and midfielders, and all we can muster is a French league 2 player, who may or may not be good, and some young player who I have never heard of. We have plenty of young and unproven players already, the majority of which are proving to not be good enough. Disgraceful for Villa. I resigned myself to relegation earlier in the month, it looks like to mangement at Villa have to.

I think we are gonners now. I have been thinking this now for the last few weeks, but each passing week and result is cementing my opinion that we have gone. We lurch from bad result to bad result, showing no sign of changing the form we are in, whilst others below and around us in the league show signs of fight and improvement. The manager is showing no sign of changing things for us, and the fact that we seem to conceed at least twice every game, and have a dodgy 45 minutes every game is very worrying. You would think that Lambert would have drilled the team and organised them to make them hard to beat after the Chelsea and Spurs games. Redknapp came in at QPR and instantly made them harder to beat. Lambert has done nothing, we still make the same mistakes every game. The recent losses to Milwall and Bradford would suggest that we will struggle to win enough to come straight back up. It will be a battle, especially as we'll be seen as the boys to beat by the regular Championship teams. With our lack of fight, and talent I do fear we will become a mid table Championship side at best.

Delph was bought into the conversation because he is part of our midfield, and I was speculating that Lambert may have thought that he would add some quality and steel to our midfield and therefore didn't think he needed to buy any more midfielders. Delph has been incosistant in his Villa career partly due to injuries and a lack of a decent run, so it was going to be risky to rely on him to come good. We have plenty of average midfielders in the squad, and some quality additions in the summer would have been appreciated. I do not think anyone thinks that he has finished his overhaul yet, and that is fine, as nobody could expect him to completely rebuild the squad just yet. What concerns me is that after some heavy defeats Lambert hasn't made us hard to beat and well organised, we constantly make errors and gift goals to the opposition. The first thing that a good manager does is organise his players and drill them in the basics, and for whatever reason we seem to be repeating our errors most weeks. I would love Lambert to prove us doubters wrong, but since the Chelsea beating he doesn't appear to have had any success in rebuilding the teams confidence or reorganising them. Although I wouldn't be happy, I could take the Chelsea beating as a one off as under MON, but to follow that up with the Spurs/Wigan/Soton/Bradford games has knocked all of my belief in Lambert out of me. A decent manager would have got a response after that Chelsea game, and it would have been a one off, not a trend. It feels like the Christmas run has left us as an unattractive prospect to most players, which is probably why we haven't got anyone in sooner. This is sad, because prior to the Chelsea game we did start to show a bit of promise. I would think that any quality players we are looking at are biding their time to see if better options become available to them.

Yep, you would have thought that if we could see it, then surely someone who is a supposed professional would see it. Even with Petrov fit and in the team in past seasons we looked like we need someone else to cover him, losing Petrov has been a massive blow, but he was getting to the twilight of his career and we should have been looking at longer term options anyway. Massive oversight imo. The midfield is the most important part of them team as they decide whether you are controlling things or being over run.

Yep, the Midfield has been an obvious weakness for the last couple of years. The Midfield is where the game can be won or lost, you would have thought that would be number one priority to sort out. I can only guess that Lambert thought KEA coming in was going to sort the issue out along with Delph returning to fitness and gambled on those two being enough when combined with Ireland and N'Zogbia. It always looked a bit lightweight to me, but maybe they were showing enough during pre-season to assure Lambert that we were ok in that area. Sadly KEA has been disappointing and Ireland/N'Zogbia and Delph have never been consistant enough for me, the first two really should offer more to the team than they actually produce.

I was hoping we would get a couple of seasons minimum from Benteke, but things don't look promising on that front. If we could have built a half decent team for this season then we would have had more chance of holding onto him. The only thing in our favour is he will still have 3 years left on his contract in the summer so we don't have to be bullied on the fee. I would have thought the bigger teams would want to see a bit more consistancy from him before making a move, but maybe they have seen enough to take the chance. However, I think Weimann will show us some loyalty having come through the youth system and after we stood by him after his injury problems. Benteke doesn't really owe us much other than we gave him his chance in the premier league., he will see little chance that we can build anything here and be off to someone who can match his ambitions. To be fair to Belgian Guy and the sinking ship comment, it is what most people on here are thinking. It hurts to hear because it is true.

Arrgh, I had forgotten some of those above especially the 3-0 at sha. That made me so angry, as everything went against us that night and it was horrible to see there jubilation at beating us. That kind of got put to bed thanks to the 5-1 at VP under MON, I had closure after that result. I always hate losing to Spurs as I know a few Spurs fans, and they generally are the gobbiest bunch you will ever see, so to lose 4-0 recently was another kick in the teeth, also we took a beating 5-0 at WHL a few years back under DOL.

So many to remember. Forest 6-0 at the City Ground in 86, could easlity have been double figures. Doncaster 3-0 under DOL Chelsea 7-1, and 8-0. Lightning striking twice in recent seasons making it doubly bad as my Wife likes Chelsea. I have vague memory of Tony Woodcock sticking 5 past us at Villa park for Arsenal when I was a young lad, my first heavy defeat and only time I have cried at a football match. David White scoring 4 for Man City at VP in a midweek night game. I also have memory of John Aldridge and lower league Oxford doing us in a semi final of the League Cup.

Yeah that sums my feelings up as well. The results over Christmas have done it for me, Lambert should have been making us hard to beat after the Chelsea game, keeping it tight and organised and rebuilding the teams confidence, but we followed that up with 4-0 and 3-0 losses at home which is unforgiveable. I was unsure over Roberto Martinez when he was linked to our job (mainly because of the 9-0 at Spurs), but he got a reaction from his team in the matches following that hammering. We have just had embarrasment after embarrasment in the last 4-5 weeks. I haven't felt this low about Villa since the relegation season in '86. This season has many similarities with that one, ie the over reliance on youth etc. We have been crying out for a strong defensive minded midfielder to sit in front of the back four offering protection for years, and for some unknown reason we haven't addressed that issue which leaves us open to being outmuscled regularly and opened up at the back. Lambert's only credit against his name so far is the signing of Benteke and maybe Westwood, other than those two, his signings have been rather average. I really hope Lambert proves me wrong, but I have serious concerns now after the last 6 weeks that, 1. He even knows how to turn things around, 2. He has built a team that lacks talent and backbone for the fight.

Have we ever won a game when this idiot has refereed it? It seems that he constantly makes bad decisions against us, notably Vidic incident, and the Herd red card, it seems rare that we go a game with him as ref where we don't have a player sent off or concede penalties. Him and Halsey are the worst refs for us.

They lost there game prior to the first leg as well, I think they very much have their eyes set on our game. Which is fair enough, as their players won't get many better chances to play at Wembley. Our defence is so leaky, that I don't think we will be able to score enough goals to get through. Our only hope is that we can get a couple of early goals and their heads drop, and we steamroll through them. I personally can't see this happening though, we are not showing any signs of life and fight which are key to overturning a 3-1 deficit.

Exactly, we have not shown any signs recently of ending this extremely poor run that we have been on over the Christmas period, and the longer it goes on the deeper in trouble we are going to be especially as we have been giving the teams around us three points. Of all the teams in the bottom five, all of them bar us seem to be showing signs of fight and picking up points. It is going to take a monumental turn around to get our season going, it looks like the players are shell shocked and don't have the knowhow or fight to turn it around. Even with a couple of signings you have to wonder whether the damage is already done. A couple of midfielders is a minimum requirement. One to offer some protection to the back four and improve ball retention, and another that can offer some creativity and importantly goals from midfield. Our return of goals from midfield is embarrasing with only Holman looking a threat to the score sheet. Goals from around the team would ease the pressure on Benteke and Weimann, who must feel that if they don't score then Villa don't score. An extra defender would also be nice, someone who can calm the back four down and mean we can rest the likes of Baker and Clark.

He was my initial thought as well. I remember going to matches with my Dad and my mate when I was a youngster, and he was my mates favourite player at that time, although I can't remember much about him. He only played a handful of games for us during his one season with us, so looking back I'm not sure if you could class him as succesful.

The only players in our squad worth keeping are Benteke and Weimann, the rest are simply not good enough or living off past glory.

Agreed, it is pretty embarrasing right now. My Facebook is a nightmare, I can ignore that, I don't live in Birmingham, so I can only think how bad some of you guys must be getting it in the neck from rival supporters. Bad times!

Really? I would have thought and 8-0, followed by a 4-0 and 3-0 deafeats, then quickly followed by defeat at a league 2 team in a cup semi is pretty high up in the list of embarrasing runs a team can have. What player would see those results and think, hey they are going to be a good club to join?

I have lost virtually all faith with PL now. A decent manager would have shored things up after the pummeling at Chelsea, but we followed that with a pasting against Spurs and Wigan and a lucky point at Swansea. The Chelseas result was embarrasing, but would have been soon forgotten if he would have got a reaction from his team over the next few games. The reaction he has got, has been total capitulation. A team with little talent, and no bottle or fight in them. He won't be sacked at the moment, as he deserves a chance to put it right, but my belief is at the lowest it has ever been. I highly doubt there will be any Tranmere style comebacks in the second leg, as this team has about 10% of the talent and fight of that Big Ron team.

To be honest, and I'll probably get shot down for saying this, but I'm not 100% convinced by SI. I think for all the style with Ireland there is little substance. He doesn't get enough goals or assists for my liking, he needs to do more as one of the more senior midfielders in our team.

This is the same conclusion that I find myself coming to. I had high hopes for The Fonz, and this was raised by his early goalscoring exploits for us in Europe and cup matches. But for whatever reason he hasn't kicked onto the next level, and it looks like his time with us is running out as he is falling further down the pecking order. I had hoped that maybe a succesful season long loan may reignite his career here, but he doesn't seem to be doing consistantly enough at Championship level to make Lambert sit up and take notice. Shame really as he looked a good prospect.

I have just done a Google search on Wanyama and Villa, and there is an article on the beeb saying he turned us down to win trophies for Celtic and to play in Europe, as we don't look likely to be doing either anytime soon I would say Villan_007 is correct. We need to find a similar type of player, but I think that particular player is unlikely. Hopefully the new German Scout can help us unearth some similar up and coming players who want to play for us.

I didn't realise that NUFC had such an injury problem, I've just noticed that they're both apparently out until February which will be a big blow for them, especially Cabaye. I guess they'll hope make do for the time being and to pull away when Cabaye comes back into the fold, although there is no guarantee that he'll find form straight away after a lengthy spell on the sidelines. Talking of injuries, we have suffered our fair share this season, I was looking the other week and we had 5 players out. We have rarely had a weekend with a full squad to choose from from memory. If we can improve on this side of things and get a regular-ish (Isay this as PL likes to rotate a bit) starting eleven then hopefully we can gain some consistancy to our form and results.

I was looking at the table last night, and was very suprised to see that Newcastle were only one point above us. I wonder why they are struggluing, is it a case of second season syndrome? Or are some of the players minds elsewhere, or are they suffering as a result of Europa cup exploits? Are Newcastle potential relegation candidates?