Rating and Reactions: Villa 2 (3) - 1 (4) Bradford

[TRO]

Well done Bradford you throughly deserved the win. Now go on and win the Cup.

The blame lies completely with Lambert. He learnt absolutely nothing from the first leg where we hoofed the ball from wide positions into the Bradford box. Their defence must have thought it was feeding time. He did exactly the same thing tonight.

Lambert is tactically clueless. Like MON, he only has Plan A. In Lambert's case, Gung-ho!

You can blame Lerner, the young squad, individual players but the real blame lies at the Manager's door. The man's an idiot, way, way out of his depth.

The fans deserve much, much better than this shit team and clueless, useless manager. They were fantastic.

I have to say, I'm beginning to think you are right.

To still be struggling with set pieces is scandalous....its just gone on too long.

[TwirlyDoors]

Agree with this but what on earth is going on with our defending. It's not new, the fact that most villa fans expected Bradford to score from a set piece is embarrassing!

I don't know.

I think we are better when Guzan is in, and I thought Bennett was very good, especially in the first half.

I think a lot of teams are worse at defending now, (obviously not quite as bad as us), I watched Southampton - Everton last night, Eveton have a lot of experienced and quality defenders, better than ours, yet they were constantly a little luck away from conceding.

[Laivasse]

He set up their goal when beaten as favourite to a ball on his flank, which led to the corner. Considering that was the goal that put us out, I'd say he's a bit short of MOTM territory. Sure, he did some good things, too. Charles N'Zogbia did not play badly and therefore got my vote. The fact he made no notable mistakes, that his contributions apart from a crude challenge were positive, distinguishes him from Joe Bennett when it comes to the aforementioned insignificant poll.

I think we've all got better things to do than argue who was our 'best' player after that shitshow, but we're the only team around where conceding a corner is treated like conceding a penalty, and players who do so are vilified to the same degree. The root of that problem is somewhere on the training pitch or in the mind of the management (hopefully soon to be former management). IMO the only reason Zog made no notable mistakes was that he faded very badly in the second half apart from one good run with no end product. Had he continued his first half display he would have been my MOTM too but it's a bit of a worthless accolade, considering.

Edited January 22, 2013 by Laivasse

[VillanousOne]

I have to say, I'm beginning to think you are right.

To still be struggling with set pieces is scandalous....its just gone on too long.

yep as someone has already said the way Lambert set us up after the goal was like a 7 year old child playing Fifa.

the sad thing is i don't think there is a single fan on this board who didn't think we'd concede a goal from a set piece today, in fact i wish i'd put money on it

[sutherland]

Unlucky boys played well, We go again, honest buch of lads!...

**** off lambert and take your bull shite tactics with you... out your depth here and out played by a 4th division team!..

YOU SHOULD REFUSE YOUR WAGES WANKA!..... DO ONE!...

[Paul33]

I don't get the tactics tonight ?

Why did we play multi-passing tippy-tappy keep ball down the middle of the pitch against a League Two side who must have been laughing at our failure to play with width and exposing them to the pace of CNZ, Gabby and (in theory) our full backs ? Every time we got wide, we just turned back inside again ..... it was like they had been told "do not play anywhere near the flanks" !

Certain players were shockingly poor tonight (Bannan, Bennett in particular) but above all else it had to be Lambert's plan that they played to and that plan was totally wrong ....... a complete tactical disaster and worthy of him (and his coaching team) losing their jobs.

That was certain relegation material so, for me ...... LAMBERT OUT !

[AVFCforever1991]

A 7 year old playing Fifa is extacly what it was

[dounavilla]

Lambet has to go , what a complete embarrassment the worst in my 20 odd years of supporting Villa , we could not beat a league 2 team over two legs !? Awful really awful and just to finish off ... Even Birmingham city won the cup when they got relegated . Bye bye premiership football .

Oh and one last thing , Lerner please take your billions and **** OFF !

[islingtonclaret]

I don't understand how we are still in the position to concede from these set pieces so easily. It's like a domino effect of massive wars when nobody learns from the past. Houllier, McLeish and now Lambert can't get players to stick to their men. It's not impossible for Christ's sake...

[Spawnsworth]

I have to say I wouldn't exactly be feeling inconsolable if Lambert was sacked as long as we get a replacement in sharpish. He had enough money in the summer to bring in 4 or 5 decent players. Instead he spunked away cash on the likes of Lowton, Bennett, Bowry and, El Amahdi. Benteke and Vlaar are good. Still undecided on Westwood.

He let Collins and Cuellar go (he could have done a Guzan with him with ease). All those fans bitching about Richard Dunne not being good enough. Well how we could have done with him over the last few weeks. We miss our captain big time (Get well soon Stan). We're just a total mess at the minute.

Our midfield is lighter than the contents of an inflated balloon. Bannon, although I had high hopes for him at one point is just NOT GOOD ENOUGH. He's far too light weight and too many times I see him getting brushed off the ball like he isn't there.

Delph? How can I give my opinion on him without using tonnes of swear words? Very **** difficult I'm afraid. He's complete and total **** shite and should be embarrassed to pick up his weekly pay check of about 30k or whatever. I bet he's too rich to be embarrassed or even give a slight **** about Villa. **** him. Send him back, We'd be lucky to get 8p for him never mind the £8 milliion we donated to Leeds for his lack of services.

We were pretty decent in the first half tonight. You'd expect no less playing against a team in the 4th tier and who cost considerably less. By a long long way. However in the 2nd half, they got a a corner. We defended it poorly. Benteke nodded it out rather uncomfortably for their 2nd corner in a row. Then it was somewhat inevitable that they scored from this. Vlaar of all people guilty as sin (though I'll give him a by ball since he's only back from injury and is usually very good).

The 2nd half was a total shambles. Did anyone notice that when we had the ball in midfield out players were quite literally saying 'Well what the **** am I supposed to do now'? when the had the ball? Really? I mean they actually did look like they'd never played football in their **** lives. It was a total disgrace and they should all hang their heads in shame. They are making a laughing stock of our great club. The only players who deserve any credit for having any ounce of desire to win tonight were Ireland, Benteke and Wieman when he came on. No one else seemed to give a flying fiddler's **** including Gabby of all people (as far as I could tell).

It's hard to see how we pick ourselves up from here. I personally feel that getting completely dicked on by Chelsea, Spurs, Wigan, Southampton and BRADFORD CITY is too much to take. LAMBERT MUST GO. Bring in someone new in the next week and they might be able to attract one or 2 players. If not then who in the name of good **** would want to come to Villa at the minute?

Our relegation seems inevitable at this rate unless something changes, very ,very quickly

[VillanousOne]

what really hurts is that i am beginning to see good things from the team, Zog has been much better, Benteke is scoring, Delph is looking better, Vlaar is back, Bennett can actually cross a ball

but we still get a lot of basics wrong, we can't expect to score three or four goals a game knowing we will concede at least two ourselves!

[switters]

What in the sweet **** was the plan after they scored? We ended the match playing:

Lowton-Vlaar-Clark

Delph

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--

--

--

--

--

N'Zogbia-Ireland

Weimann-Bent-Benteke-Gabby

All the forwards were getting in each others way. We kept punting it forward and someone would flick it on to nowhere. Again and again. Finally got the goal but it was a freak rather than result of real sustained pressure, and we managed to do nothing else after except pray for another freak. Dismal.

God knows where we go from here. Lowest of the low. Until we follow it with heavy defeats at Millwall and Newcastle.

[islingtonclaret]

Lambet has to go , what a complete embarrassment the worst in my 20 odd years of supporting Villa

Well, for me actually third worst. Blues 2002/03 home and away. Then this. Then Doncaster. Then a shoeing from Wimbledon in about 1993. Point is, it's really up there.

[TRO]

It seems like folk in the Outer Hebrides know that we have defensive frailties.

No one wants to see managers moved on after such a short period of time, but some our problems are so basic its alarming.

I'm not sure what conclusion, we should be coming to, but I simply fail to see an experienced manager like Harry Redknapp or Sam Allardyce presiding over some of the basic faults we have.

Paul Lambert needs to shape up quick, because some of the stuff on display is unacceptable.

Having said all that good luck Bradford.... you applied yourself in the second half, just about a carbon copy of the Albion recovery.

Edited January 22, 2013 by TRO

[Daniel]

To the bloke a few rows back that said "Delph! why don't you have a heart attack on the pitch you word removed". What a **** utter stupid thing to say.

[Xann]

Well done Bradford.

For the past couple of seasons I have only been able to watch Villa under heavy sedation.

Sober and lucid for this one, thought I'd be really angry, but after the shittest Christmas ever (and we've had some poor ones) it's just numbness now.

On the bright side, it may have stopped Chelsea putting 20 past us in a single season.

[Paul33]

Why did Lambert take Bennett off? He was one of our better players .

**** me you are kidding right ?

Not only Villa's worst player tonight but he's been the worst player several games running. On tonight's showing he'd not make Bradford's side !!!!

[Jimzk5]

Andy marshall tweet

Can only apologize on behalf of the players. Not good enough.

[The_Rev]

Shit.

[TRO]

Blimey... a corner against us now holds as much profile as a penalty.

ps sorry its already been said.

Edited January 22, 2013 by TRO