Manager Paul Lambert

[HeyAnty]

Yes and a big fit-again Belgian will have a lot to do with that you'd imagine.

What if his form doesnt return.... Just saying

How do I answer that though. We beat Citeh without him, so maybe if he's still shit in a month we drop him. Let's assume he's on the mend though, given that he has recently been injured, until it becomes clear that he isn't.

My moneys on Albrighton to start getting the creativity going again and setting up a few goals. Long shot but i like to gamble

[TJVillan]

Yes and a big fit-again Belgian will have a lot to do with that you'd imagine.

What if his form doesnt return.... Just saying

How do I answer that though. We beat Citeh without him, so maybe if he's still shit in a month we drop him. Let's assume he's on the mend though, given that he has recently been injured, until it becomes clear that he isn't.

My moneys on Albrighton to start getting the creativity going again and setting up a few goals. Long shot but i like to gamble

I don't think we've got our first choice front 3 of Weimann Benteke Agbonlahor on the pitch too many times this season. They've all had pretty lengthy injuries. Getting them fit and playing together is crucial to our scoring form. I think they'll all start tomorrow.

[Ghost_of_Pongo_Waring]

 

 

 

 

Yes and a big fit-again Belgian will have a lot to do with that you'd imagine.

What if his form doesnt return.... Just saying

 

How do I answer that though. We beat Citeh without him, so maybe if he's still shit in a month we drop him. Let's assume he's on the mend though, given that he has recently been injured, until it becomes clear that he isn't.

 

My moneys on Albrighton to start getting the creativity going again and setting up a few goals. Long shot but i like to gamble

 

I don't think we've got our first choice front 3 of Weimann Benteke Agbonlahor on the pitch too many times this season. They've all had pretty lengthy injuries. Getting them fit and playing together is crucial to our scoring form. I think they'll all start tomorrow.

 

 

Considering the problems we've had with the attack our points tally and position is all the more commendable, in my opinion.

 

If they'd all been fit all season then I could understand the doom and gloom of some, and I'd have probably been agreeing with them.

[Keyblade]

 

 

 

 

Yes and a big fit-again Belgian will have a lot to do with that you'd imagine.

What if his form doesnt return.... Just saying

 

How do I answer that though. We beat Citeh without him, so maybe if he's still shit in a month we drop him. Let's assume he's on the mend though, given that he has recently been injured, until it becomes clear that he isn't.

 

My moneys on Albrighton to start getting the creativity going again and setting up a few goals. Long shot but i like to gamble

 

I don't think we've got our first choice front 3 of Weimann Benteke Agbonlahor on the pitch too many times this season. They've all had pretty lengthy injuries. Getting them fit and playing together is crucial to our scoring form. I think they'll all start tomorrow.

 

 

The Norwich game looked the most likely. Gabby was on fire, and it was only a matter of time before Benteke put one home. Shame about what actually happened, and how he's been ever since. Another example of bad luck eh.

[TJVillan]

Yes and a big fit-again Belgian will have a lot to do with that you'd imagine.

What if his form doesnt return.... Just saying

How do I answer that though. We beat Citeh without him, so maybe if he's still shit in a month we drop him. Let's assume he's on the mend though, given that he has recently been injured, until it becomes clear that he isn't.

My moneys on Albrighton to start getting the creativity going again and setting up a few goals. Long shot but i like to gamble

I don't think we've got our first choice front 3 of Weimann Benteke Agbonlahor on the pitch too many times this season. They've all had pretty lengthy injuries. Getting them fit and playing together is crucial to our scoring form. I think they'll all start tomorrow.

The Norwich game looked the most likely. Gabby was on fire, and it was only a matter of time before Benteke put one home. Shame about what actually happened, and how he's been ever since. Another example of bad luck eh.

Agree. Those 20 minutes vs Norwich were the best CB has played this season. Weimann looked dangerous from the left, Gabby playing in behind the striker with I think Tonev on the right? We looked a real threat in that first half.

[dont_do_it_doug.]

I rarely venture on topic these days, I'm doing so now to express how very disappointed I am in our progress this season.

I'm glad we've improved defensively but not at the expense of being watchable. I hope it's just a part of the wider plan.

[Ulver]

In the last two games, the opposition have missed three sitters and hit the woodwork once

 

So i'm not sure if we've improved that much defensively or just been lucky to have played against teams with some woeful finishing

 

None of those almost impossible to miss 'goals' that weren't, were saved by us being great in defence that's for sure

[Kwan]

Against West Ham, Benteke hit the crossbar from point blank.

 

Against Chelsea, Weimann had two shots saved at point blank range.

 

Against Everton, Benteke missed two 1v1 chances and a penalty.

 

Against Newcastle, Gabby, Weimann, and Luna missed point blank shots.

 

Come off it. Luck evens out. There is obvious defensive improvement

Edited December 3, 2013 by Kwan

[Cliffy Biro]

You keep clean sheets in one game with luck you dont keep clean sheets in 4-5 purely because of luck, its undeniable the defensive progress we've made.

[darrenm]

I don't understand football apparently

Well at least you admit it.

[HeyAnty]

You keep clean sheets in one game with luck you dont keep clean sheets in 4-5 purely because of luck, its undeniable the defensive progress we've made.

Totally diff side from last season defensively. We can even defend set pieces now. Pity our forwards have been so bad. Scott Marshall must have had a big part to play in it

[Woodytom]

We are improving. Really not sure what all the fuss is about. If people were expecting faster improvements and scintillating football, then expectations were too high imo.

[Morpheus]

 

The reason for that is that there are few alternatives inside the forum of football and no alternative with the budget made available to the manager.

 

It isn't what he's trying to do that's being criticised its how he's doing it and for me the allocation of that limited funding and it should have been a more gradual process of eliminating what was here and introducing youth and inexperience hence last season may not have been such a close flirtation with relegation but I can't prove that with any degree of certainty.

 

It's easy to say he should have taken a more gradual approach but we were closer to relegation the season before, with all the expensive experienced players, and we had to reduce the wage bill. That meant experienced, under performing players HAD to be removed.

 

The fact is we weren't relegated and that is the most important fact of all.

 

In some ways you remind me of a boss I once had. Every day I'd get in at two minutes to six and he'd say disapprovingly "you're nearly late". I was not late, I was due to start work at six and I started at six.

Lambert had to reduce the wage bill and keep us up. He succeded. Whether you think it was a risky way of doing it, he succeded. You may feel there were better ways of achieving it but that cannot be proved one way or the other so it's a pointless argument.

 

If he had taken a more gradual approach then that would logically mean we'd have more of the high earning, under performing players still on the books. So we'd be not as far down the road to turning things around as we are now. I don't see how that would be better.

 

 

Assumptions.

 

That success as you call it is wholly based on the assumption that Lerner and Faulkner after giving Lambert 20m to spend then told him all we want Mr Lambert is that you keep us in the Premiership and it doesn't matter if we take until the penultimate game to achieve that. Now it may have happened and i can't prove otherwise but i would hazard a guess that both Chairman and Chief Executive were a tad more ambitious when you also take into consideration that there was no pressure on Lambert to purchase youthful inexperience. It was Lambert's decision and his alone how he spent his budget!

 

You are also assuming that we are turning things around. What is that based on? Currently lying 10th with more points which is fair enough but when you consider our current standard of football, an inability to score goals, points total in relation to other teams around and below us and of course that minor detail that we haven't yet hit the Christmas period, then that placement could be best described as fragile and certainly not set in stone as to base permanent progress. We could of course kick on from where we are but due to the aforementioned traits we could also drop just as quickly so this much lauded stated improvement that everyone is getting so excited about is rather premature.

 

One last point if i may. This is the second time i've seen you stating that we were closer to relegation under Mcleish than Lambert. For once you haven't based a statement on assumption and thats good but i would however suggest you do a little research. Both Mcleish and Lambert secured our Premiership status with just one game to go and therefore as i have already stated i'm wondering if an amalgamation between youthful exuberance and Premiership experience wouldn't have served us better certainly in the short term to give our young players more time to develop with less pressure for the future?

[Ghost_of_Pongo_Waring]

That success as you call it is wholly based on the assumption that Lerner and Faulkner after giving Lambert 20m to spend then told him all we want Mr Lambert is that you keep us in the Premiership and it doesn't matter if we take until the penultimate game to achieve that. Now it may have happened and i can't prove otherwise but i would hazard a guess that both Chairman and Chief Executive were a tad more ambitious when you also take into consideration that there was no pressure on Lambert to purchase youthful inexperience. It was Lambert's decision and his alone how he spent his budget!

 

Where have I said, or even intimated, that all Lambert had to achieve was staying in the Premiership. We needed to reduce wages. That has been widely reported, you surely must be aware of it. To reduce wages high earning players had to be replaced. Lambert could have replaced them with fewer, but more experienced, players or go the way he chose which was increase the squad depth by buying less experienced youth.

Just in case you're still not sure of what I'm saying, Lambert had to reduce wages and keep us up. He succeded. Wages have been reduced and we were not relegated.

 

You are also assuming that we are turning things around. What is that based on? Currently lying 10th with more points which is fair enough but when you consider our current standard of football, an inability to score goals, points total in relation to other teams around and below us and of course that minor detail that we haven't yet hit the Christmas period, then that placement could be best described as fragile and certainly not set in stone as to base permanent progress. We could of course kick on from where we are but due to the aforementioned traits we could also drop just as quickly so this much lauded stated improvement that everyone is getting so excited about is rather premature.

 

Again, where have I said, or even intimated, that our progress this season is set in stone?  We are turning things round, at the moment. Yes we are not playing as fluently as we were at the end of last season but we are a lot better defensively. We've already kept as many clean sheets as we did in the whole of last season. We're not scoring as well as the end of last season but it's not an assumption to think that having all three of our main strikers missing a number of games is going to have an effect. Saturday was the first time for eight games that Gabby, Benteke and Weimann had started together. Yet despite that we haven't collapsed but carried on grinding out points. You're assuming that the improvements fragile. It may well prove to be but it could also prove to be long term  improvement.

 

One last point if i may. This is the second time i've seen you stating that we were closer to relegation under Mcleish than Lambert. For once you haven't based a statement on assumption and thats good but i would however suggest you do a little research. Both Mcleish and Lambert secured our Premiership status with just one game to go and therefore as i have already stated i'm wondering if an amalgamation between youthful exuberance and Premiership experience wouldn't have served us better certainly in the short term to give our young players more time to develop with less pressure for the future?

 

I don't need to do research on who got us closer to relegation. The comparison on the number of games left when we secured safety between McCleish and Lambert is meaningless. It is ridiculous logic and I'll explain why.

 

If a team secures safety with four games to go but they lose the last four games and finish one point above the relegation zone they are closer to being relegated than a team that secures safety with three games to go but wins it's final three games and finishes nine points above the relegation zone. Using your 'logic' the team who didn't secure safety until three games was closer to being relegated.

 

Under McLeish we finished in 16th place,  two points above relegated Bolton

Under Lambert we finished in 15th place,  five points above relegated Wigan.

 

Your statement, a couple of days ago, that Lambert got us closer to being relegated than McLeish was ludicrous. We were closer, both in position and points, to be relegated under McLeish.

 

Maybe a mix of youth and experience would have been better, maybe it wouldn't. There's no way of proving either view point.

Edited December 3, 2013 by Ghost_of_Pongo_Waring

[Butterfingers]

In the last two games, the opposition have missed three sitters and hit the woodwork once

 

So i'm not sure if we've improved that much defensively or just been lucky to have played against teams with some woeful finishing

 

None of those almost impossible to miss 'goals' that weren't, were saved by us being great in defence that's for sure

We most definitely have improved defensively. The players are 1 year more wiser & experienced & this shows.

Stats work both ways. There appears to be an element on here who put "positive" stats down to luck

[briny_ear]

We've certainly got luckier defensively. Against Sunderland, Giaccherini missed a nailed on goal from about 3 yards out and, on a different day, Ciaran would have given away a penalty for his handball.

 

Against West Brom, Sessègnon missed two simple, open goals that would have put Sunderland 4-0 ahead.

 

Long may this continue. I am enjoying not conceding so many goals but I don't think that means our defensive problems have in any way been "solved"

Edited December 3, 2013 by briny_ear

[villan_007]

We've certainly got luckier defensively. Against Sunderland, Giaccherini missed a nailed on goal from about 3 yards out and, on a different day, Ciaran would have given away a penalty for his handball.

 

Against West Brom, Sessègnon missed two simple, open goals that would have put Sunderland 4-0 ahead.

 

Long may this continue. I am enjoying not conceding so many goals but I don't think that means our defensive problems have in any way been "solved"

Only on VT, what a load of rubbish, only villa fans can put our run of clean sheets down to luck and luck alone. Nothing to do with Lambert bringing in a defensive coach and our new players adapting to the league and each other.

The same fans that dismiss any chances we've also had at the other end. Utter cack.

[briny_ear]

 

We've certainly got luckier defensively. Against Sunderland, Giaccherini missed a nailed on goal from about 3 yards out and, on a different day, Ciaran would have given away a penalty for his handball.

 

Against West Brom, Sessègnon missed two simple, open goals that would have put Sunderland 4-0 ahead.

 

Long may this continue. I am enjoying not conceding so many goals but I don't think that means our defensive problems have in any way been "solved"

Only on VT, what a load of rubbish, only villa fans can put our run of clean sheets down to luck and luck alone. Nothing to do with Lambert bringing in a defensive coach and our new players adapting to the league and each other.

The same fans that dismiss any chances we've also had at the other end. Utter cack.

  

Actually, only on VT can people fail to read posts properly and then, on the back of their own misunderstanding, come out with a foolish rant and really quite inappropriately offensive nonsense like this.

 

My post is NOT about our "run of clean sheets" and it is NOT putting it down to "luck and luck alone". Where on earth did you get that interpretation from? Certainly not the words I actually used.

 

My post is specifically is about the last two games and I mentioned three incidents where opposing teams missed three of the easiest chances I have seen in a long while. The West Brom  game was not a clean sheet, in case you didn't notice, our defence sleep-walked their way to 0-2 within about 20 minutes. Very fortunately for us, Sessègnon missed two very simple chances - both completely open goals created by our defensive lapses - that would have put West Brom 4-0 up, so any talk of clean sheets would certainly have been a bit off beam for that game.

 

The nonsense about "The same fans who...etc." suggest you may not have read my post but are responding to a more general set of issues that I was not writing about.

[Ghost_of_Pongo_Waring]

 

 

We've certainly got luckier defensively. Against Sunderland, Giaccherini missed a nailed on goal from about 3 yards out and, on a different day, Ciaran would have given away a penalty for his handball.

 

Against West Brom, Sessègnon missed two simple, open goals that would have put Sunderland 4-0 ahead.

 

Long may this continue. I am enjoying not conceding so many goals but I don't think that means our defensive problems have in any way been "solved"

Only on VT, what a load of rubbish, only villa fans can put our run of clean sheets down to luck and luck alone. Nothing to do with Lambert bringing in a defensive coach and our new players adapting to the league and each other.

The same fans that dismiss any chances we've also had at the other end. Utter cack.

  

Actually, only on VT can people fail to read posts properly and then, on the back of their own misunderstanding, come out with a foolish rant and really quite inappropriately offensive nonsense like this.

 

My post is NOT about our "run of clean sheets" and it is NOT putting it down to "luck and luck alone". Where on earth did you get that interpretation from? Certainly not the words I actually used.

 

My post is specifically is about the last two games and I mentioned three incidents where opposing teams missed three of the easiest chances I have seen in a long while. The West Brom  game was not a clean sheet, in case you didn't notice, our defence sleep-walked their way to 0-2 within about 20 minutes. Very fortunately for us, Sessègnon missed two very simple chances - both completely open goals created by our defensive lapses - that would have put West Brom 4-0 up, so any talk of clean sheets would certainly have been a bit off beam for that game.

 

The nonsense about "The same fans who...etc." suggest you may not have read my post but are responding to a more general set of issues that I was not writing about.

 

 

You can't in all fairness say "if Sessègnon had scored his chances" and ignore the chances we had. Kozak hit the bar just after the first Sessègnon miss. Why does that not count in the game of 'what if'.

 

Also to be accurate if Sessègnon had scored the first of his misses then the rest of the game would have been totally different anyway, from that point onwards.

Edited December 4, 2013 by Ghost_of_Pongo_Waring

[briny_ear]

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can't in all fairness say "if Sessègnon had scored his chances" and ignore the chances we had. Kozak hit the bar just after the first Sessègnon miss. Why does that not count in the game of 'what if'.

Also to be accurate if Sessègnon had scored the first of his misses then the rest of the game would have been totally different anyway, from that point onwards.

 

Whether Kozak missed chances at the other end really has nothing to do with our defensive lapses and I'm sure you know that. But, anyway, we didn't get the same sort of clear-cut chance that we gifted to West Brom and that Sessègnon squandered. That was what was so good about our fight back. We had to dig out our goals and they were both very skilfully taken.

 

To get back to the basic point: our defence is still making rather alarming mistakes. Certainly fewer than last season, but we have been lucky in the last couple of games that we were not punished more for them. Whether Kozak had sneaked his shot under the bar really would not have made any difference to that. (But I like your optimism that, if  Sessègnon had made it 3-0, it would have become a different game -yes, Benteke would have sprung into life and banged in 4.   )