Rob182

Is he completed wrong though? Us not having 4 starters in Gabby, Bent, Herd & Given would be similar to Liverpool missing Suarez, Reina, Adam & Bellamy. Do you think we'd have lost as badly if they had Brad Jones in goal & Andy Carroll upfront? I don't know, but I doubt many teams in the league could put in excellent performances with 4 starters unavailable for selection. He is completely wrong. Bent has been one of our poorer performers in many games, with AM's system possibly to blame. Herd has been mediocre, not a player whose injury excuses anything. Given has been good but exactly what did Guzan do wrong for the goals? Little, if anything. The only one that really may have made a difference was Gabby. As others have said, in any case, all 4 of those have been available in other terrible performances this season. That sounds like a comment from someone who just wants to join in with the McLeish bashing and not from someone who has actually watched us play this year. Have you watched us this year? Within his first game, Given looked like he was going to save us a bucketload of points. Guzan hasn't been bad, but Given is better. Given might have organised his defence better or got a hand to Liverpool's shots. Herd has been excellent in the games he's played in. He never stops running, he's been 10 times better than Delph defensively and he is actually a decent attacking threat with his heading ability. Bent has been poor, but he still has the ability to nick a goal, even if he hasn't shown that in his last few games.

Is he completed wrong though? Us not having 4 starters in Gabby, Bent, Herd & Given would be similar to Liverpool missing Suarez, Reina, Adam & Bellamy. Do you think we'd have lost as badly if they had Brad Jones in goal & Andy Carroll upfront? I don't know, but I doubt many teams in the league could put in excellent performances with 4 starters unavailable for selection. Well, seeing as the performance was just as bad as against Tottenham and Man Utd when he had every player to choose from, NO EXCUSES. I completely disagree. Against Spurs we were terrible. Against Man Utd we were better. We might not have had the final ball or the attacking flair, but we had the ball quite a lot in the 2nd half (even if Man Utd were happy to sit on their 1-0 lead). Today we were better than in both of those games, despite the players we had missing. We had the ball loads, we tried to attack, we pushed the fullbacks foward, Collins even ran into the box when we were on the attack at one point, Heskey had a few chances where he should have forced a decent save from Reina, N'Zogbia released a few good shots. We were no-where near as bad as people are making out. We were undone by 2 set-pieces and got lucky on a few occasions when Liverpool caught us on the counter. Today, that's it. I bet randy wishes there were 40,000 people like you out there. Probably. I'm positive. I'm positive when I shouldn't be. If everyone was as positive as me then maybe Houllier wouldn't have been hounded as much as he was. Maybe that would have put a bit less pressure on the players, so maybe, just maybe, we'd have got a few more points in games we could have won. Then maybe Houllier could have brought in Cabaye and a few other decent players for cheap. Just a thought.

Is he completed wrong though? Us not having 4 starters in Gabby, Bent, Herd & Given would be similar to Liverpool missing Suarez, Reina, Adam & Bellamy. Do you think we'd have lost as badly if they had Brad Jones in goal & Andy Carroll upfront? I don't know, but I doubt many teams in the league could put in excellent performances with 4 starters unavailable for selection. It's not the result though is it. It's the inept display, lack of effort, lack of desire... The entire can't be arsed attitude by an ill prepared, badly coached and poorly motivated set of players. A few first teamers were missing but we've been this poor and worse all season. It's garbage. Finally, a post I can agree with a bit. The lack of effort was clear from a few players. Heskey looked terrible, Fonz looked lazy, Delph has been poor all season & Petrov, though he can be a calming influence, was rubbish, in my opinion. BUT N'Zogbia looked loads better, Warnock appears to have found some form again, Albrighton is looking dangerous & Dunne looks like the player he was 2 years ago. We don't see what happens on the training ground. They didn't look like they had been told to sit back and defend to Me. They pushed forward, they attacked on the wings, they tried to flick balls over the top for the forward, but the runs from players we had on the pitch aren't as clever as Gabby's or Bent's runs. I just don't think a tame 2-0 loss to Liverpool, due to 2 set-pieces, is enough for Me to pile more pressure on McLeish. The players have to take some of the stick too.

Is he completed wrong though? Us not having 4 starters in Gabby, Bent, Herd & Given would be similar to Liverpool missing Suarez, Reina, Adam & Bellamy. Do you think we'd have lost as badly if they had Brad Jones in goal & Andy Carroll upfront? I don't know, but I doubt many teams in the league could put in excellent performances with 4 starters unavailable for selection. Well, seeing as the performance was just as bad as against Tottenham and Man Utd when he had every player to choose from, NO EXCUSES. I completely disagree. Against Spurs we were terrible. Against Man Utd we were better. We might not have had the final ball or the attacking flair, but we had the ball quite a lot in the 2nd half (even if Man Utd were happy to sit on their 1-0 lead). Today we were better than in both of those games, despite the players we had missing. We had the ball loads, we tried to attack, we pushed the fullbacks foward, Collins even ran into the box when we were on the attack at one point, Heskey had a few chances where he should have forced a decent save from Reina, N'Zogbia released a few good shots. We were no-where near as bad as people are making out. We were undone by 2 set-pieces and got lucky on a few occasions when Liverpool caught us on the counter. Today, that's it.

We didn't even have a shot off targ..oh.. We didn't have a shot on tar---- oh... We didn't even play 4-4-2----oh erm.... MCLEISH OUT! HE SHOULD HAVE PLAYED BENT, GABBY, GIVEN & HERD DESPITE THEIR RESPECTIVE INJURIES AND BANS!!!!! lololololololololol

Is he completed wrong though? Us not having 4 starters in Gabby, Bent, Herd & Given would be similar to Liverpool missing Suarez, Reina, Adam & Bellamy. Do you think we'd have lost as badly if they had Brad Jones in goal & Andy Carroll upfront? I don't know, but I doubt many teams in the league could put in excellent performances with 4 starters unavailable for selection.

I'm disappointed with Delph. I had high hopes for him a few years ago when he put in great performances against Blackburn/ Man Utd/ Fiorentina etc. But Today he looked poor. I hope it's a confidence issue, and he improves, but his first touch seems poor and he is still reckless in his tackling. He was better in the 2nd half, but it was still a below-par performances.

The joke is on you if you think a man with 2 Premier League relegations is good enough for this club. Show me where i said i was happy with him? All i said was i'd like to see the available managers out there do a better job. MARK HUGHES. Our last manager was Gerard Houllier and our current manager is Alex McLeish. Something tells me if we sack McLeish we are going to end up with someone even worse. Houllier was far from perfect and many years past his best but at least he got Villa players to pass the ball to Villa players and go forward. This manager can't get the team to pass the ball with any conviction other than when going backwards towards their own goal. Houllier was hated here. He left and we now have McLeish. If McLeish is sacked, what's to say that a better manager will even want to come to us? Managers will see the way that our fans get on the managers' and players' backs, they'll also see that we probably have no money to spend and have to sell players/ reduce the wage bill before we can bring anyone in. Be careful what you wish for.

It's strange that everyone's commenting on Hutton Today. He didn't play badly. He made one big mistake, but other than that he didn't have a bad game. His positioning was questionable at times, but it didn't create any Liverpool chances. He was decent attacking. He passed forward well and made a few decent runs into/ towards the box. Just because other players aren't getting into positions for him to pass to, doesn't mean that he's at fault.

I don't think he set the team up badly. I don't think the tactics were bad either. I just think that we need to tighten up on set-pieces and we need to improve our movement when in the opponents half. Maybe with Gabby & Bent available, we would have had a few more chances? The blame should fall on the players more than the manager, imo.

I'm sure I'm in the minority, but I'm still not getting on McLeish's back.... yet. My opinion of Today's game: Given, Bent, Herd & Gabby have been our better players this season, they were all out. Jenas also played pretty well in the 3 short appearances he made for us, he too is out. That's 5 players unavailable that McLeish would probably prefer to be in his first team. I don't think many people would have put out a team much different to the one we saw Today, with the options we had available. Maybe some people would prefer to not see Heskey start? But with Bent & Gabby out, surely it's the sensible option to put at least one experienced forward on the pitch? Delfouneso finally got a chance to show his worth, Wiemann tried hard when he came on. Maybe some people would have played Cuellar at right back? But I don't think Hutton was too bad. He made one bad mistake, but other than that he was okay defensively and showed how much he wants to attack with quite a few forward runs. Maybe some people would like to bring Clark in for Collins? But that's something we've wanted for ages and we don't get to see the players on the training field. Perhaps Collins and Dunne is our best defensive pairing, despite Collins' occasional gung-ho attitude. The only change I would have preferred, would have been for Bannan to get more time on the pitch. The 2 goals we let in were down to our inability to defend set pieces. We had a lot of the possession (maybe because Liverpool were happy to sit back after they got the goals), but still, the only other attacks that Liverpool had were when they caught us on the break. We passed it around, we got players forward, N'Zogbia played pretty well (which is a positive!), we had a decent amount of shots, but we just didn't have a creative player in the middle to thread a ball through to a striker, (or a better striker upfront to make good runs into a good positions). I don't think we played with 10 men behind the ball, like loads of people say. I'm getting a bit tired of the constant negativity. I agree with people that we're played poorly. I agree that some of our games have been way, way too defensive. But also, it appears to Me that a lot of people are unable to forget their preconceptions of how McLeish will play, and instead should just be looking at the players available and the players that are not putting in the performances. A guy behind Me kept shouting 'F*ck off Hutton!' & 'F*ck off Warnock' every time they made one mistake. Hutton has been below-average this season, but Today he wasn't bad. He made one big mistake when he lost the ball and luckily Suarez hit the crossbar. Warnock has been, suprisingly, one of our more consistent performers this season. I've let go of all the rumours of last season and I've given him another chance. His tackling hasn't been as bad this year and he's not been picking up yellow cards like he did last year. Yes we lost, but we had a lot of the ball and we were trying to attack, even if the players couldn't pull off the final pass or actually score one of our chances. Don't get me wrong, I'm not happy with how we're playing, at all. But I can't see Lerner sacking McLeish any time soon, so I'm not getting on the team's or manager's back. I believe McLeish will be here for a while. The only thing I am really annoyed about (apart from our losses!) is the fact that I thought that McLeish would be tightening us up defensively. If we wanted a manager who couldn't defend, we could go for someone like Holloway or Brendan Rogers (I saw 'someone like', because Holloway will never come here, after what he said about Villa) who would let goals in but also have a bit of attacking flair going forward.

We better keep McLeish then :winkold:

You should have stayed, we played better after the break

So! Being a smashing boyfriend, I bought Me and My girlfriend a trip to Paris for christmas. Are there any experienced travellers who can tell Me the best (and cheapest!) ways to get there and back? The flights I've looked at are roughly around £85 per person. Is the train a better method? (Getting the train from Birmingham to London then the Eurostar to Paris?) Help!

I like him. He is McCool.

I'm going to open a shop that sells nothing but crisp sandwiches. You get a choice of: - white bread/ wholemeal/ half & half - butter/ no butter - any flavour of crisps that I have in stock £1 a sarnie. College kids will love it!

Grow up Stu! Habib Beye can't afford a boat! ... yet

I think he was joking :winkold:

You sound better than Me! Last night my average K/D ratio was about 2 kills, 12 deaths. I'm on PS3, so I wont fit in at all Gareth!!!!

I hate how shit I am at MW3

I've always stood by my opinion that he is shit. He had a few average games, one or two 'good' games, then the rest were bad bad bad! I don't know if others ignored him or were concentrating on other parts of the game, but my lasting memory of him, in two or three games, is him standing with the ball at his feet, looking like he didn't know what he should be doing. Literally, he stood with the ball between his feet, while he shuffled them forward inch by inch, one foot at a time, as if he was about to have a panic-attack, instead of simply releasing a pass to Milner/ Young/ whoever was infront of him/ to the side of him.

I'm not sure what you think your displays of hatred and sarcasm are going to acheive, but each to their own. If you think that moaning will change the manager or change his methods, just wait a few weeks and see whether it does. I see little point in huffing and puffing when it's down to Lerner and McLeish.

It depends. If someone hated McLeish but was no different in the way they supported the team (ie. chanting/ not shouting abuse or moaning constantly), then it has no effect, as you say. But if people are constantly shouting abuse, or are starting chants of 'We want Delfouneso on!', then it'll have a negative effect on the team, I believe. Like Blackburn. They dislike Kean, but the players are definatly being effected.

Perhaps to support the team... unlike.......... Yes, as are the other 4-5,000 Villa Park stay aways.

As Brommy said, there is a difference between faith and hope. I'm optimistic, I'm hopeful he will come good. Not because I'm a bluenose or in a 'head in the sand' brigade or any other bollocks some people spout, but because I want Villa to do well, I don't want us to go through another change of manager and I don't see the point of crying about something that we can't change. Lerner isn't going to replace McLeish anytime soon, so I'll stick behind McLeish.