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Ratings and Reactions: Villa 1-4 Stoke


limpid

Match Polls  

69 members have voted

  1. 1. Who was your Man of the Match?

    • Guzan
      2
    • Bacuna
      0
    • Bertrand
      0
    • Westwood
      1
    • Vlaar
      0
    • Baker
      1
    • El Ahmadi
      0
    • Delph
      33
    • Benteke
      20
    • Weimann
      2
    • Agbonlahor
      0
    • Albrighton (for El Ahmadi 33)
      2
    • Sylla (for Weimann 33)
      1
    • Holt (for Westwood 73)
      7
  2. 2. Manager's tactics

    • Very Poor
      21
    • Poor
      26
    • Average
      19
    • Good
      2
    • Very Good
      1
  3. 3. Refereeing Performance

    • Very Poor
      10
    • Poor
      21
    • Average
      26
    • Good
      10
    • Very Good
      2


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**** rubbish all round

 

30k in there, flat as a pancake, stoke are a **** horrible team full of thugs who seem to know every trick in the book, problem always is refs seem oblivious to it and horribly inconsistent, battenberg had a shocker, but worse than that we simply werent up for the fight, got bullied, then got embarrassed, id say delph aside no one was good enough, gabby was shocking, bacuna considering last week frustrating, baker back to his old self, sylla nowhere near good enough

 

lambert though... **** me, what has he been doing all week? got so much wrong today, albrighton in the middle FFS 

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Excellent post OBE. I didn't see the game live, i didn't know the score until 5 minutes to full time but i sky+ it and watched it on x15, there was a massive lack of effort today, but the buggest reason we lost (Imo) is we have 1 way of playing, which will never work against big, solid teams like stoke, we know we cant break teams down, so we need the oppo to come at us leaving holes for us to play in on the counter, stoke are too organised to let that happen, until we get squad depth we will only ever be able to play 1 way.

our first real hiding of the season though

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We lost this game yesterday.

 

Some teams benefit from the release of pressure, the chance to relax and play a bit, express themselves. Ours isn't one of those teams, without that bit of pressure, or that bit of a challenge that someone like Chelsea brings, we revert to our default lazy, weak, uninspired dross - today's was all of that and less.

 

We started badly - I know we scored after five minutes, but we were rubbish for four of those - warning signs which we were happy to ignore once we went one up and decided we were good.

 

We didn't lose on the basis of ability, we lost because of our mentality - we didn't care. Without something to play for, without the big bad wolf of relegation or the carrot of a major scalp, these players don't have a week in week out winning mentality, they're timid, they hide.

 

Unfortunately Stoke didn't feel like playing out the last 85 minutes at walking pace and promptly took advantage of a couple of our errors and forced us into a couple more. Ably assisted by the quite dreadful Mr Clattenburg, they battered us without playing well - Christmas come early in the Potteries.

 

The injuries didn't help us and Sylla is as much a Premier League midfielder as I am, but the double change didn't seem to bring about any change in attitude anyway - no one cared enough to try to lift the others enough to carry him through it.

 

We could have had two penalties although I'm told that the Benteke one doesn't look it in replays and the handball has gone largely unmentioned - if it was Chelsea we'd have three weeks of Mourinho talking about that decision - here, no one cared enough to make a fuss.

 

And if the players don't care, and the media don't care, then there's ample excuse for a crowd that was too small and too quiet, much like the team - 30,000 for a club like ours is a disgrace - how do we happily point the finger at those that run the club when we live in a city that doesn't care - Newcastle has a catchment area of around 300,000 people, one in six of them go to games. If we were the same our average attendance would be a quarter of a million people a week - as it stands, of the 1.5 million people that live near enough to Villa Park to attend, only 30,000 could be arsed to go today.

 

Players don't care, owners don't care, fans don't care.

 

On days like today, you have to conclude that Mr Holloway was right.

 

Maybe next week we'll be arsed again.

 

Excellent post.

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Who was it last week who said people were wrong to question Lambert?

I don't think his position should be in doubt. When we play well we have beaten the best teams in the league. When we play badly we can be awful.

Today was hideous but let's not forget how good we were last week so quickly. Let's also not forget this is a work in progress and that we STILL have to get rid of some dead wood. Time to judge whether this project will be a success is this time next year.

Who was it last week who said people were wrong to question Lambert?

I don't think his position should be in doubt. When we play well we have beaten the best teams in the league. When we play badly we can be awful.

Today was hideous but let's not forget how good we were last week so quickly. Let's also not forget this is a work in progress and that we STILL have to get rid of some dead wood. Time to judge whether this project will be a success is this time next year.

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It was a showing of a back four that didnt include Vlaar except it did which was worrying. That was his worst game this season by a long shot but it was visible the whole side were shook from the moment of the equaliser. Our mental strength has always been a major problem for our side.

Gabby look so uninterested it was annoying me. Only players who looked as if they cared were Westwood, Delph and Benteke today. I thought we'd win and kick on after the last 2 results so shame on me, been fooled so many times by these false dawns.

Beat Yanited and all will be forgotten

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I see your point and agree to a degree but this cannot go on, if we have another season like the 2 under lambert then how can you defend it. Their is work in progress I know but are we any better this season? I've been saying we should stick with him and I'm prepared to give him more time because this aint all down to lambert to be fair. But if next season their is no improvement again what do you do. Tell you one thing if the club carrys on being run like this we will go down in the next 2 or 3 seasons. We keep hearing we need to balance this and that first and ok I'm up for that but things need to improve

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Beat united and everything will be great again like it was last week

 

to be fair though beat utd and it'll probably be the highlight of the last 2/3 years, which im not sure what that is at the moment? the anfield performance last year?

 

says it all really

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Beat united and everything will be great again like it was last week

 

to be fair though beat utd and it'll probably be the highlight of the last 2/3 years, which im not sure what that is at the moment? the anfield performance last year?

 

says it all really

 

 

Chelsea, last week?!

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even the players you would think are experienced and professional enough to put in reasonable to decent players go missing under Lambert

 

Gabby has disappeared up his own hype hole for way too long

 

even Vlaar and Bacuna who have had the most plaudits this season seem to descend into pub league form at times.

 

we know that our entire back line is woefully inconsistent.

 

we fold in so easily and maintaining any semblance of confidence seems impossible - once one fails the whole team follows like dominoes. You can taste the panic at home, no leadership or clue. Whatever Lambert said at half time did absolutely nothing.

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Beat united and everything will be great again like it was last week

 

to be fair though beat utd and it'll probably be the highlight of the last 2/3 years, which im not sure what that is at the moment? the anfield performance last year?

 

says it all really

 

 

Chelsea, last week?!

 

 

nah we play well vs chelsea quite often really, and arsenal, utd away...i know we did under MON but that was the 1st time in 20+ years wasnt it?

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