rjenkins

He played well and scored that belter against Bournemouth however I dont recall him doing much against Arsenal,Chelsea,Hull or Stoke if I'm honest He was excellent against Chelsea. He set up our goal and gave their left back a real game. Hes been playing in a conventional right midfielder role since which isn't his position. He needs to be starting closer to Benteke to have most effect, but obviously Sherwood sees something in N'Zogbia and Agbonlahor ahead of him.

Economic Left/Right: -3.13 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.05 It's funny to see how these things change over time. I'm becoming less left wing but more libertarian as I get older it seems. Based on the positions plotted for UK parties on the site, however, I'm still out of whack with most mainstream political parties.

Welcome Tim, and best of luck. Thirteen massive games to go, and you can't say the man lacks fighting spirit. Just hope we can stay up.

You do realise the aim is to STAY in the league ?! Adkins was doing reasonably well with Southampton I thought before his sacking. He's been managing since the 90s too, albeit with spells as physio and coach inbetween. If we're looking at Dyche and Howe I don't see the difference.

I wanted Paco Jemez when it looked like Randy would sell in the summer, but now I think that is too risky. Prandelli would be a massive statement, but I think we're best off going for someone who knows English football. Sherwood isn't experienced enough for me, what about Nigel Adkins? He didn't do well at Reading, but the club has been a mess since relegation. I think it's worth a shot until the end of the season at least.

I can't see us staying up this time. The fight of previous seasons just isn't there, and we don't look like a team failing to implement a tactic, but rather a team not sure of what they are supposed to be doing. I don't know whether it's the injury or whether it's attitude but Benteke is not what he was, and no-one else is going to score enough for us to maintain a Premier League status. On paper we have a very decent team, but I can easily see us entering the championship with a lineup of Steer; Lowton, Senderos, Clark, Bennett; Bacuna, Gardner, Westwood, Grealish; Weimann, Agbonlahor. There's no way we're coming straight back up with that team.

I like Westwood as a player, and he is the most reliable passer out of our starting midfield three, although I think his inclusion in the starting line up really hampered us on the weekend. Sanchez was doing really well in that holding role and I don't see the logic in trying to fix one of the only things in our team which was not broken. I think we really need to look at how best to include them both tactically, since we know Delph is going and Cleverley isn't cutting it. If we can't then Sanchez starts for me out of the two on form. I'm interested to know what you guys think on how best to play them both.

For me, in no particular order... Benji - Sun Kil Moon Annabel Dream Reader - The Wytches Tied to a Star - J Mascis Soused - Scott Walker + Sunn O))) Burn Your Fire for No Witness - Angel Olsen

So was McLeish's assistant Peter Grant, Karsa and Culverhouse, and supposedly Roy Keane if you listen to the tittle tattle. Not sure what our players are after in an assistant manager really? O'Neill's guys seemed to be OK though. I've heard before that John Robertson was a big factor in O'Neill's successes actually. Seems like he was rated.

We were utterly hopeless throughout, bar maybe 15 minutes of the first half. In a way it was a good thing Cole got injured because Sanchez's first half performance was the only reason we got a foothold in the game and got our goal. After that... utter dross. We won though which at least puts an end to the run we've been on.

On the one hand, at least both clubs are being charged. On the other, surely the incident came about because Neil Swarbrick lost control of the match?

It isn't just you.

You'd think this is our second string though to be fair, excluding Delph and maybe Weimann. Senderos looks ok.

Well we look awful.

Anyone else just getting replays of that Jeff Talpas guy? edit: obviously yes

I've held off from posting on this thread until now, but there have been some interesting points thrown up over the last few pages on which I wanted to share an opinion. Tranfer Funds / Wage Bill / Spending Lambert has had £20million per season to spend on tranfers by most calculations. That is not a lot in terms of our recent history but it's more than a lot of clubs around us in the league, of course it does come with a caveat regarding the wage structure, which may balance this out to some extent. Overall, I think much of this could have been spent more effectively. Through our spell of selling our best players in recent years, it is the midfield which has suffered most. Barry, Downing, Milner and Young were stars of our team. You only have to look at the amounts we sold them for to see this, and yet our attempts to replace them have been poor to say the least. Our midfield is not without some talent, but unbalanced and lightweight. I believe our tendency to get over-run in this area puts unnecessary strain on our defence, forcing more errors and causing us to leak goals. Whilst we have some defenders who I do not particularly rate, I feel that our midfield issues are the principal factor here. Under Lambert our midfield signings have been Bacuna (?), El Ahmadi, Sylla, Tonev and Westwood (excluding Holman as I believe he was a McLeish signing). That is not an impressive list as only Westwood is a signing who has been a mainstay in the team and a decent performer throughout. Bacuna has done well from right-back this season, especially in terms of goals, but I'm not the only one unconvinced that he has the technical ability to start in our midfield. At the same time we have spent over £15million on strikers (37.5% of our total). Benteke is the best player at our club and I can understand the arguments that we needed cover for him. However, I believe that had we spent more on the midfield we would not have the play the strikers we do have out wide so often. We may also have been less reliant on a singular counter-attacking tactic. In terms of the general cost-cutting exercise, then I have no complaints regarding Lambert as he has executed what was asked of him. I'm excluding rumours of loan deals for Barry, Hotlby and Lukaku from this as we have no idea whether we were really in for these players or, if true, how much of their wage we were offering to cover. Tactics / Coaching / The 'McLeish' Effect I do believe that, as a collective, Villa fans have consciously wanted to back Lambert for a reasonable amount of time. I believe this is down to the relative popularity of his appointment and the quick succession of previous managers. The instability at the club was partly blamed by some sections of supporters for our decline and as a rule I completely support the idea that managers need time to implement their ideas and build a squad. I also think that because McLeish was so unpopulr even before his appointment, this heightened the effect of wanting to keep hold of the man we had chosen. I feel that in terms of tactics Lambert has not helped himself. This is partly linked to the issue I raised regarding transfers but we are a one-dimensional team with a low level of technical abilty (particularly close control). There are managers in the Premier League who we would not think worthy of the Villa job who have not had a great deal of difficultly in working us out, and nullifying us completely as an attacking threat. This may only be my perception, but I also feel as though we don't make a lot of substitutions until we are already behind in a game, even in cases where pressure has been building for some time in a match or when one individual is clearly struggling with an opposition player/generally underperforming. I'm sure there are exampes we have done this successfully, but I can't think of many certainly. I personally don't feel as though our players are progressing technically either, and if we are stuck with signing players on low wages for the medium term then this is a problem as we may have to rely on the lower leagues domestically and second-rate leagues on the continent for new recruits. I don't feel it is fair to speculate on the effect of the Culverhouse/Karsa situation at this stage as I simply don't know the whole story. Bullying happens in all industries and not every manager is sacked because of bullying by one of their subordinates. However, I don't believe they were doing a particularly good job of coaching our players before this anyway as I've stated above. Lambert has appointed backroom staff in both close-seasons for which he has been manager so he has had opportunity to address general coaching effectiveness in my view. Conclusion Even given the restrictions under which Lambert is operating that we know of, I believe there have been issues with his general performance as manager. With regards to coaching, tactics and game-management in particular I feel these are serious enough to warrant his dismissal at the end of the current season. I appreciate that the Aston Villa job is very difficult, and as has been pointed out in this thread very few managers go on to greater things after a stint in charge of this club. However, I feel that in a situation where it is necessary to purchase players for low fees and on low wages then the ability to coach them until they reach their full potential is of paramount importance and I see no evidence that this is a specialism of Paul Lambert. This is not to say that I do not believe that he is a good manager; after all he has won several promotions already in a short managerial career. Rather, I believe we need a specific type of individual to work under the parameters set by our current board if we are to manage them successfully and Lambert has not demonstrated to me that he is perfectly suited to these parameters. If these circumstances change after a takeover, for exmaple, then given the difficult conditions he has experienced so far I would be happy to see him attempt to show what he can do under a less restrictive strategy, at least for a time.

I thought Albrighton and El Ahmadi were both excellent. Westwood looks out of sorts. He is losing the ball so often. We were good for the point and just one more now will keep us up I reckon.

I don't really want to speculate about this whlst Lambert is still in the job, but I was reading about Paco Jemez of Rayo Vallecano not so long ago and he seems to be getting a poor team with a small budget to play good football. The only problem I can see is that, like Lambert, apart from one job he doesn't exactly have a glittering record.

It wasn't as bad as it feels now because of the way we lost it. However, I can't see this side winning another game this season without Benteke and that does worry me.

Hope Agbonlahor and Weimann are dropped for our next game. Think we may just be sleepwalking into trouble at the moment.

I saw a lot of police after the game. From what I heard there were loads of broken down pallets and planks of wood against the wall in that away fan car park opposite the North Stand and one or more Swans fans attacked a Villa fan with some they managed to grab. Looked pretty bad. As for the game, better than Palace but the Swansea midfield was just too good for Delph and Westwood to cope with. Bacuna I thought had a good first half. Tonev was very poor.

For me: 1. AM - The Arctic Monkeys 2. How To Stop Your Brain In An Accident - Future of the Left 3. Once I Was An Eagle - Laura Marling 4. ...Like Clockwork - Queens of the Stone Age 5. Amok - Atoms for Peace 6. Shaking the Habitual - The Knife 7. Holy Fire - Foals 8. Our Science is Golden - Exit_International 9. Reflektor - Arcade Fire 10. Push the Sky Away - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds

In.

First of all, well done Bradford. Beating three Premier League teams to reach a cup final is absolutely magnificent really. Secondly, failure to beat a League 2 side over two legs is ridiculous. Lambert out.

I was patient with Bannan for a good while, and I'm shocked he's only had one assist in all honestly. Still, he doesn't seem to be progressing and I can't say I'd be too concerned if we sold him.