Manager Paul Lambert

[rodigan]

we may have conceded less goals last season, but now our back line costs less than half of last years, and has an average age of less than 25 - this year's defence will also get better in the coming seasons, whereas there's only one direction for cuellar, collins, warnock, dunne to go...

 

we also should now have the budget to build on this year's defence, adding some competition in key positions...

 

PL has trodden a very fine line protecting the fragile confidence of this team, but for night's like last night, it was worth it... hats off to the boys and to PL....

 

 

 

now we need to go and finish the job in the next three games...

[Zatman]

credit well and truly deserved. He and the team could have cracked after Christmas and Bradford debacles but fought back and showed great character and many times recently we have went behind and could have surrendered, even last night when ROse scored

[PussEKatt]

@rodigan

Yes you are right.Now we need to finish the job by beating Norwich ( which should not be too hard as their confidence must be shot ) especially after our win last night.I just hope that this time its for real, not like after we beat Liverpool and Fulham.

As far as Cuella and Collins etc go.I think they should have played bit parts this season and helped teach our current back line.

[turnbull]

Maybe he thought Collins was disruptive.

And Warnock was shit?

[Zatman]

Cuellar has always been crap though. a nice guy but one of worst signings in villa history

[Woodytom]

 

 

He has some good qualities - in fact lots.  His massive weakness is his defensive ability - let hope with a few more ££££ spent in the summer he can improve here. - Thats my real doubt about him to be honest.

Why did he let Cuella,Collins and Warnock go?

Seperately you might not like them but together they were a decent back line.

 

No they weren't.

 

Cuellar showed last night why he wasn't kept on.

 

 

 

Yep, Used to get pelters on here for saying how awful he was.

 

The guys an absolute clown of a footballer - still dribbling out of defence as if hes Dani Alves, bouncing off his shins. Still going to whack it and kicking it about 20 yards to an opposition player. Poor!

 

Probably better to focus more on the game than his facebook account tbh.

Edited April 30, 2013 by Woodytom

[praisedmambo]

@rodigan

Yes you are right.Now we need to finish the job by beating Norwich ( which should not be too hard as their confidence must be shot ) especially after our win last night.I just hope that this time its for real, not like after we beat Liverpool and Fulham.

As far as Cuella and Collins etc go.I think they should have played bit parts this season and helped teach our current back line.

You're missing the fact that they were all contributing to our awful wage bill. They're in the MON average signings on stupid money category. There has been a mantra of reducing the wage bill (fair enough because it was clearly terribly distributed) since MON left. Collins and Warnock have both been disruptive too. And none of them are very good. Lambert is building for the future, and in a sustainable way. Cuellar was out of contract anyway, and it would have been silly to give him another as he has never shown he was that good—considering we were reducing the wage bill.

 

Anyway. Why is anyone talking about this nonsense. 6 **** 1!!! 

[Richard]

Agents Cuellar, Bardsley & Gardner did a splendid job. Probert was their MOTM too.

I thought the referee was an absolute disgrace

[Woodytom]

 

Agents Cuellar, Bardsley & Gardner did a splendid job. Probert was their MOTM too.

I thought the referee was an absolute disgrace

 

 

 

He was poor. Sending off was probably the right decision but there were so many poor decisions. Adam Johnson hacked down Bennett - waves play on. 10 secs later and Danny Rose with a blatant dive - freekick. Some calls were utterly bizarre!

[BOF]

Agents Cuellar, Bardsley & Gardner did a splendid job. Probert was their MOTM too.

I thought the referee was an absolute disgrace

He was. Ended up evening things out but gave us very little early on.

 

 

He was poor. Sending off was probably the right decision but there were so many poor decisions. Adam Johnson hacked down Bennett - waves play on. 10 secs later and Danny Rose with a blatant dive - freekick. Some calls were utterly bizarre!

He missed a ton of stuff and I disagree on the red card. That was a yellow. If that's a red then it is truly becoming a non-contact sport. I can see his logic in giving it but I'm sorry, it wasn't a leg breaker. (Un?)Fortunately there's no way they'll win on appeal though because it was a bookable offence rather than an outright mistake.

[LondonLax]

I agree.

 

It was a yellow card but they won't get anything on appeal. The FA don't repeal a refs judgement, only if he has made a genuine mistake would it get overturned.

[Condimentalist]

 

 

Agents Cuellar, Bardsley & Gardner did a splendid job. Probert was their MOTM too.

I thought the referee was an absolute disgrace

 

He was. Ended up evening things out but gave us very little early on.

 

 

He was poor. Sending off was probably the right decision but there were so many poor decisions. Adam Johnson hacked down Bennett - waves play on. 10 secs later and Danny Rose with a blatant dive - freekick. Some calls were utterly bizarre!

He missed a ton of stuff and I disagree on the red card. That was a yellow. If that's a red then it is truly becoming a non-contact sport. I can see his logic in giving it but I'm sorry, it wasn't a leg breaker. (Un?)Fortunately there's no way they'll win on appeal though because it was a bookable offence rather than an outright mistake.

 

 

I swear they committed about 15 handballs that could have been given as well

[Woodytom]

 

 

Agents Cuellar, Bardsley & Gardner did a splendid job. Probert was their MOTM too.

I thought the referee was an absolute disgrace

 

He was. Ended up evening things out but gave us very little early on.

 

 

He was poor. Sending off was probably the right decision but there were so many poor decisions. Adam Johnson hacked down Bennett - waves play on. 10 secs later and Danny Rose with a blatant dive - freekick. Some calls were utterly bizarre!

He missed a ton of stuff and I disagree on the red card. That was a yellow. If that's a red then it is truly becoming a non-contact sport. I can see his logic in giving it but I'm sorry, it wasn't a leg breaker. (Un?)Fortunately there's no way they'll win on appeal though because it was a bookable offence rather than an outright mistake.

 

 

 

We will have to disagree BOF. I see your point, and I thought it was unfortunate as there was no malice from Sessognon. However, he planted 6 studs into Sylla's foot which could have been damaging. Its a weird one because I probably wouldn't have been moaning if he had just given a yellow, but I do think a red was probably the right call.

[BOF]

I see your point, and I thought it was unfortunate as there was no malice from Sessognon. However, he planted 6 studs into Sylla's foot which could have been damaging.

Exactly. Since when has an incidental stamp on a foot been a red card? Anyway, people rarely agree on here so we'll move on.

[VillaGoMarching]

 

 

Agents Cuellar, Bardsley & Gardner did a splendid job. Probert was their MOTM too.

I thought the referee was an absolute disgrace

 

He was. Ended up evening things out but gave us very little early on.

 

 

He was poor. Sending off was probably the right decision but there were so many poor decisions. Adam Johnson hacked down Bennett - waves play on. 10 secs later and Danny Rose with a blatant dive - freekick. Some calls were utterly bizarre!

He missed a ton of stuff and I disagree on the red card. That was a yellow. If that's a red then it is truly becoming a non-contact sport. I can see his logic in giving it but I'm sorry, it wasn't a leg breaker. (Un?)Fortunately there's no way they'll win on appeal though because it was a bookable offence rather than an outright mistake.

 

N'Daiye made how many fouls? i counted probably 8, surely that was enough for a booking. and he put his hands up on Lowton.

[smetrov]

we may have conceded less goals last season, but now our back line costs less than half of last years, and has an average age of less than 25 - this year's defence will also get better in the coming seasons, whereas there's only one direction for cuellar, collins, warnock, dunne to go...

 

 

 

This kind of thinking concerns me. That defence needs a massive investment to avoid another season of struggle. Despite his improvement - Bennett has some horror performances in a villa shirt. Vlaar is adequate - but we have the alternatives when he got injured - Baker doing ok - but no more than OK. At least on senior full back and another top notch CB before the start of next season.

 

A players ability won't alter dramtically from April 2013 - to August 2013. And we should never start another season with only 1 fit senior CB. 

 

A defence of Vlaar\Baker\Bennett\Lowton - will still leak to many goals next season.

[praisedmambo]

 

we may have conceded less goals last season, but now our back line costs less than half of last years, and has an average age of less than 25 - this year's defence will also get better in the coming seasons, whereas there's only one direction for cuellar, collins, warnock, dunne to go...

 

 

 

This kind of thinking concerns me. That defence needs a massive investment to avoid another season of struggle. Despite his improvement - Bennett has some horror performances in a villa shirt. Vlaar is adequate - but we have the alternatives when he got injured - Baker doing ok - but no more than OK. At least on senior full back and another top notch CB before the start of next season.

 

A players ability won't alter dramtically from April 2013 - to August 2013. And we should never start another season with only 1 fit senior CB. 

 

A defence of Vlaar\Baker\Bennett\Lowton - will still leak to many goals next season.

 

I don't think you have to worry that we'll strengthen. But I also think it has taken a journey through the season to build a team and to build the players confidence—there has already been a huge improvement from August 2012 - to April 2013, so why you wouldn't expect more I don't know.

 

We have leaked a lot of goals due to the players being under pressure, partly due to them gaining experience and partly due to the pressure situation we have been in with our league position. Also, our worst defensive period came at a time when we were struggling with injuries. We had Lowton and Herd as centre backs for a while, and Lichaj as a fullback—none of which I think is ideal. The defensive unit needs to be stronger beyond the 4 you mention who started last night, but Lambert I am sure is aware of this.

Edited April 30, 2013 by praisedmambo

[Milfner]

If we went down this season but finished with more points than under McLeish, would you say Lambert has taken us backwards?

[Papillon]

If Lambert took us down this season would have been a huge, huge failure. It already is by some accords, but if we stay up I think we have gathered enough positives lately to look forward to the summer. It's all about perception anyway, for us fans. If we win against Chelsea and Wigan and stay up comfortably, then we are suddenly liking what we see even though the season on a whole has been filled with extremely bad results. If we go down on GD, only half an inch difference between staying up, then people will be furious, havoc will rise and so forth. Being a fan is about hope, about positive outcomes. When we won 6-1 last night I had a feeling compared to the average Man U-fan winning the League Cup or something like that. It was just pure bliss seeing us making every single pass and scoring 6 goals. I don't measure success in terms of trophies, I mean, how can a Villa-fan? When we do actually win a trophy is reaches a higher level, but in my 20 years of being a fan it hasn't happened a lot. I was pretty young when we won the League Cups, in fact around 10 years old and without the same TV-coverage as we have now in Norway. When Man Utd or City win a game their fans are content, which can be compared to us getting a draw at home to Everton or some other good team. When we win I am much more happy than that, because we seldom do it!

 

As long as Lambert gives me hope then he can stay as long as he wants. However, I have been extremely mad when we lost all those games and letting in 15 goals in a week or so. If we stay up and find ourselves in the bottom come Christmas the sacking rumors will arrive again and rightly so. We are Villa and the media will not let Lambert have all the time in the world if we don't see any progress. Yes we have had obvious progress lately, but that does not mean will we play like that when the season starts again after the summer.

 

As for McLeish, he never game me any hope whatsoever. When we won a game I was happy because it would help us to avoid the drop, but him being there licking his freckled lips just made me feel sad. Alex McLeish at the Villa? Disaster!

[praisedmambo]

If Lambert took us down this season would have been a huge, huge failure. It already is by some accords, but if we stay up I think we have gathered enough positives lately to look forward to the summer. It's all about perception anyway, for us fans. If we win against Chelsea and Wigan and stay up comfortably, then we are suddenly liking what we see even though the season on a whole has been filled with extremely bad results. If we go down on GD, only half an inch difference between staying up, then people will be furious, havoc will rise and so forth. Being a fan is about hope, about positive outcomes. When we won 6-1 last night I had a feeling compared to the average Man U-fan winning the League Cup or something like that. It was just pure bliss seeing us making every single pass and scoring 6 goals. I don't measure success in terms of trophies, I mean, how can a Villa-fan? When we do actually win a trophy is reaches a higher level, but in my 20 years of being a fan it hasn't happened a lot. I was pretty young when we won the League Cups, in fact around 10 years old and without the same TV-coverage as we have now in Norway. When Man Utd or City win a game their fans are content, which can be compared to us getting a draw at home to Everton or some other good team. When we win I am much more happy than that, because we seldom do it!

 

As long as Lambert gives me hope then he can stay as long as he wants. However, I have been extremely mad when we lost all those games and letting in 15 goals in a week or so. If we stay up and find ourselves in the bottom come Christmas the sacking rumors will arrive again and rightly so. We are Villa and the media will not let Lambert have all the time in the world if we don't see any progress. Yes we have had obvious progress lately, but that does not mean will we play like that when the season starts again after the summer.

 

As for McLeish, he never game me any hope whatsoever. When we won a game I was happy because it would help us to avoid the drop, but him being there licking his freckled lips just made me feel sad. Alex McLeish at the Villa? Disaster!

Shhhhh. Everything's going to be ok.