Ratings and Reactions: Bradford 3-1 Villa

[VillaCas]

Disgraceful.

Given - 4

Lowton - 5

Baker - 3

Clark - 4

Bennett - 4

Bannan - 5

Delph - 6

Agbonlahor - 3

N'Zogbia - 4

Weimann - 6

Benteke - 2

Bent - 2

Burke - ?

We had 31 efforts on goal in that game and even though we defended like the cast of glee, with better finishing we still should have won handsomely.

Awful team performance. Shocking.

We need to buy half a dozen to stay up.

Far from being the best Villa players, Bannan and Delph were the cause of most of our problems. Didn't get back to cover and no idea going forward. If Bannan is still appearing in the Prem for anyone next season I'd be shocked and if Delph is worth a tenth of the £7m(£6m) we paid for him I would be amazed. Both absolutely awful and made everyone around them look far far worse. Bennett and Lowton looked shaky but I really feel for them - no cover or support at all

I'm a supporter of Lambert but he has to step up and take responsibility - the formation didn't work. Even against L2 opposition 4-2-3-1 relies on a strong 2 - if you don't have them at your disposal don't play that formation. Not a fan of Ireland, but have to think he could have added something last night. We needed to play with much more pace and authority

We need to sign at least 4 including a couple of really decent CMs

Very very poor

[blunther]

What a pile of wank. Pass it around the back four, then to Bannan, then back to the back four, and lump it to Benteke. Great game plan against a League Two team. Lose the next two, and fail to qualify after that, and I think Lambert needs to go, sadly.

[Nath182]

Bannan, Bennett and Delph were all shit. Personally thought N'Zogbia played well (maybe that's just compared to his usual dross performances). If we have the same game back at VP we will finish most of those chances and end up winning. I'm not confident of us going to the final now but I think it will be an exciting game to watch.

Don't think sacking Lambert will do us any good though.

[TOTTI-THE-GOD]

This result reminds me of Doncaster under o'leary that day we turned up cocky and expected to win and got turned over easily , last night we turned up and weren't even cocky we were just plain **** awful . Its funny the commentators were saying Villa look shacky from set piece's so whats **** new we've looked shaky at them for the last 2 years .

Fair play to those that travelled up there and gave some great support shame that shower of shit couldnt be **** to clap you at the end .

[Pez1974]

A shambles from start to finish.

The shape of the team was odd - I would have thought that Delph and Bannan against a League 2 team in midfield was asking for trouble, and that's what we got. At the start I thought that Herd in there (or similar) was needed for the away leg.

The midfield was largely absent - Delph ran around to no end, and Bannan may as well have not bothered turning up.

Gabby thought the game was a joke, and Bent showed why he was dropped; however, Benteke showed the sort of finishing to make you dream of a Emile Heskey comeback. And he badly needs to work on his defending from corners (it's not the first time).

The defense reverted to type - although Baker switched off for their second, I thought he was our best defender, constantly bailing out Clark, who was awful, and is possibily the worst captain we have ever had - he is no longer young and inexperienced, and simply should not be at our club.

Weiman in a deep and wide position makes no sense - he is a great finisher, so put him where he can finish. If we needed a player in that position, either play someone who can play there, or **** buy someone!

I only hope that PL had **** all sleep last night, has a similar sized headache to mine, and is taking it out on the **** lot of 'em today. And starting Saturday, we get a reaction, big time.

[Ron Burgundy]

I hope Lambert kept his receipt for Bennettt and can get a refund - he is really, really, rrreeeaaallllyyyy rubbish.

I dont know where to start really.

At the top we have an owner who has no experience of running a football club, the only experience he has, is of inheriting an NFL team who, if relegation was a possibility in the NFL, would have been relegated almost every season he oversaw things. That lack of experience is now really beginning to tell - infact it has been since the MON debacle.

We have a chief executive, who looks like the Pillsbury Dough boy, and again has no experience of running a football club - I understand that he was a marketing executive for Nike before joining us – alarm bells are ringing!

There is no joined up football strategy – the managers we have appointed since RL took over have had nothing in common in terms of footballing philosophy. To move from MON to GH to AM to PL shows that there is crazy lack of joined up thinking. Look at Swansea and how they have kept to a particular brand of manger Martinez, Sousa, Rodgers, Laudrup.

The current manager looks clueless – he looks lost on the side-lines, I want to get behind him but ive lost patince now. I think the way we set up last night was bizarre. I’ve seen some people on her slating the ‘midfield’ but as far as I could see watching it on TV it seems as if we played a 4-2-3-1 system i.e. NO MIDFIELD – it was just Bannan & Delph – there was no link up with the front four. That’s a tactical decision taken by Paul Lambert – not the players.

And finally the players….. well I’m afraid they’re just not good enough, I feel bad for slating them because many of them are so young. And I hate criticising the academy graduates because you can tell they want to succeed at Villa so much, Weimann in particular. But they’re so poor, we have no quality at all, there just….. not good enough. I feel as if it’s not their fault because they have been thrust in to the Lion’s den. We have replaced top professionals - players like Barry, Young, Downing, Laursen, Milner, Mellberg, Carew etc. with players of championship standard and below.

Oh yeah and as I’ve kept it clean so far…..

**** YOU VILLA !

[PandaMac]

How on earth did we not win last night? We must have had at least twice the amount of attempt's on goal as they did. I think this is just a freak result tbh as we could have easily scored 6 or 7 on any other night and I think we will score quite a few back at VP.

I will agree though that we need to buy a new CB and we need Vlaar back ASAP. The bigger worry though is midfield, we really need a sitting midfielder to just get stuck into people and not venture too far forward. We looked disjointed last night between defence, midfield and attack.

Also I believe Bennet may come good but unlike Westwood and Lowton he isn't ready for the prem. I'd buy a new LB in jan and try and send him on loan to a decent championship club, leaving Steven's and Lichaj as backup to the new LB and Lowton.

[Ron Burgundy]

A shambles from start to finish.

The shape of the team was odd - I would have thought that Delph and Bannan against a League 2 team in midfield was asking for trouble, and that's what we got. At the start I thought that Herd in there (or similar) was needed for the away leg.

The midfield was largely absent - Delph ran around to no end, and Bannan may as well have not bothered turning up.

Gabby thought the game was a joke, and Bent showed why he was dropped; however, Benteke showed the sort of finishing to make you dream of a Emile Heskey comeback. And he badly needs to work on his defending from corners (it's not the first time).

The defense reverted to type - although Baker switched off for their second, I thought he was our best defender, constantly bailing out Clark, who was awful, and is possibily the worst captain we have ever had - he is no longer young and inexperienced, and simply should not be at our club.

Weiman in a deep and wide position makes no sense - he is a great finisher, so put him where he can finish. If we needed a player in that position, either play someone who can play there, or **** buy someone!

I only hope that PL had **** all sleep last night, has a similar sized headache to mine, and is taking it out on the **** lot of 'em today. And starting Saturday, we get a reaction, big time.

I note what you say about Gabby - he kept laughing all the time, it leaves a sour taste in the mouth i have to say.

Just in relation to your point on Benteke not defending - i hear what you say - but surley our defenders should be defending - not our striker. i think our defensive coaching has a lot answer for, we are constantly at sixes and sevens.

[CI]

Do people realise this is far more humiliating than Doncaster

Bradford are mid table Division 4 FFS !!

We are a national laughing stock

[TOTTI-THE-GOD]

Do people realise this is far more humiliating than Doncaster

Bradford are mid table Division 4 FFS !!

We are a national laughing stock

To be fair Doncaster were a mid table league 1 team when we played them they played us off the park and we didnt have a single shot on goal that night , it was still one of if not THE worst match i've ever been to .

[Willy_Evergo]

Do people realise this is far more humiliating than Doncaster

Bradford are mid table Division 4 FFS !!

We are a national laughing stock

Don't know if it's been posted already but I read on another site that their entire team cost £7.5K and that was for Hanson who was stacking shelves and playing for Guiseley.

[CI]

Gabby running about laughing all night wtf !

Pretty sure Given is cracking up as goal 2 goes in too

[The_Steve]

Had more than enough good chances to score, didn't take them, we were punished. Defensively too static. It happens sometimes in football. Still have enough the side if they perform to win and advance to the final.

[Ron Burgundy]

Don't know if it's been posted already but I read on another site that their entire team cost £7.5K and that was for Hanson who was stacking shelves and playing for Guiseley.

It appears that the £7,500 stat is true, Phil McNulty quotes it on his BBC blog this morning. It really is disgarceful that we got panned by them last night....

[Shillzz]

It's pretty embarrassing to be a Villa fan at the moment, probably the worst spell I can remember enduring as a fan.

As I've said before, I really like Lambert and want him to succeed, but as things stand, we ARE going to go down. Either the management needs to change, or we need to bring in a new spine to the team.

Bannan, Delph, Bennet & Clark are nowhere near good enough to play for a premier league side.

[The_Steve]

It appears that the £7,500 stat is true, Phil McNulty quotes it on his BBC blog this morning. It really is disgarceful that we got panned by them last night....

Except we did not. We dominated large parts of the game until they scored a goal via a very lucky deflection. We dominated large parts of the second half until they scored from a poorly defended set piece (against the run of play). They caught us out on the counter after we had scored. Better finishing last night and the game would have been long over.

[AValon]

It was bad.

But lets be honest, the game could and should have been finished after the first fifteen minutes. Our finishing was piss-poor, despite their defense practically handing several chances to us and Duke was going to stop those kind of efforts all day long.

Thats not to take anything away from Bradford, of course. It was a cup tie, a semi-final and it happens and, tbh, their finishing was top draw. But yes, we were dreadful in all areas of the pitch and I can't even be arsed to cast a vote because they don't deserve it. Bennett was quite shocking, followed closely by the increasingly dire Bannan, but in all sincerity there was hardly a glint of pride or passion in the whole side worth a mention.

I expect we'll win at VP, but tbh if they held us to a draw it would be nothing more than Bradford deserve. How absolutely disappointing to be a Villa supporter this morning.

[Willy_Evergo]

to be fair the majority of that team (cox for teale) also lost 3-1 to tranmere too

Also to be fair, Tranmere had players like Aldridge and were in the second tier and narrowly missed out on promotion to the premiership reaching the playoffs for three years in a row around that time.

[choffer]

I still can't believe how fragile our attitude is at the moment. They didn't have a sniff of the ball in the early exchanges. We were bossing it and created chance after chance. As soon as their first goal goes in we completely fell apart. It just seems like the players don't believe in themselves and the slightest setback sees them panick.

Motm was the Villa faithful last night. Great support all the way though from the sound of it.

[sherl]

i saw the odds before the game - i think any villa fan could be taking the bookies for a ride at the moment as they keep giving teams good odds against us - wigan were 2 -1 to win at villa, bradford were 3-1 i think last night. im gutted but notsurprised we lost. i think we could score 4 or 5 at VP with a full house behind us but i think they could also score the same.

i couldnt believe they had two corners in the last minute and kept the ball in the corner!! if i was them they shouldve been goiung for the kill. i think they deserved to win as bar the first ten minutes of the second half our plan was hoof. nzog looked half decent but we had 4 players within yards of each other and no width, as for the centre mids - we havent got a clue.

special mention for bennett as he looks like he's about 14. i feel for him as clearly way out of his depth but if you have a manager who picks you and then sits in stoney silence on the bench when you are being battered what can we expect. no leadership on the pitch or off - phil parkinson was heading every ball from the dugout, lambert was head down, clueless. dont think we should change managers again but if he goes into the transfer market to sign a 20 year old from inter milan he needs sectioning - that kind of player is not going to scrap their way out of a dog fight.

sad to say we need the unfashionables like WBA's midfield - unknown brits who get stuck in. and a leader or ten.