Villa's biggest weakness

[PaulTheVillan]

Cuellar is a good centre back and Young is a good right back.

Let's just keep them where they should be.

[Toronto Villa]

As a club, our biggest weakness is our inability to come together and believe in ourselves. With the exception of Man U and Liverpool we are every bit as big, if not bigger than the rest of the clubs in the UK, and exceed that of most clubs across Europe. That said, we don't act it, or convey that sense of belief that on the brief occasions we've threatened greatness, we could ever maintain and build on it. We are our own worst enemy a lot of the time. If we can correct that there's no limit to what we can do.

[Bosco81]

Crap defense, that's our weakest link.

It is now for sure.

Warnock is just not the player he was before his injury.  Luke Young the right back playing at right back isn't that great a right back, certainly not that much better than Cuellar playing there.  Dunne although solid is all of a sudden error prone.  Only Collins appears to be showing consistent form.

Dunne has been shocking all season, and Collins is clumsy and injury prone. I'd replace the both of them. Luke Young is decent but Warnock has lost the plot.
A whole new defence please Gerard!

Why is the defence this year so much worse than last year, as much as I like Cuellar, I don't think his absence is the answer.

It's too simplistic to just get a new defence, what's wrong with working with the one we've got, we have got a much vaunted new coaching set up, and Houllier is renowned for the defensive side of the game, we need to see that in operation.

We have got an excellent left back in Warnock, but we need to understand why he is suddenly diving in for tackles, mistiming those tackles and not overlapping as much.

[TimTheVillain]

We do struggle to sign good fullbacks.

Young is OK, Warnock is OK.

Is 'OK' good enough ?

[Reuben]

Inconsistency is everywhere right now, in that a 3-4 match winning run can see someone up in the top 4.

However, in the last 25 years (my conscious memory of AVFC) we never get the balance right between playing against good and bad teams.
When we get results against the big clubs, we then struggle against Southampton, Luton, QPR, Wigan, Fulham Stoke, Wigan, whoever.  When we have the better of the division's fodder, that is when we get stuffed by the bigger teams. 

We never seem to have a normal home-away performance ratio either.  When we have been good away (last few seasons, 87-88) we are patchy at home.  This year the home form is better but now we are shite away!

[Chris Smith]

Inconsistency.

We can go from brilliant to shit and back again, often over the course of a single game. So many times we've looked like we've finally got it right only to find another way to mess it up.

[Martyn Smith]

There's a very interesting point being made about the city as a whole, and I think it can be summed up thus. Birmingham's aspect here (I will not say problem because I think it's something to be proud of) is that the city lacks an ego. It's never made a lot of noise about itself or bigged itself up. It's never sold the world a myth about itself like Liverpool: great sense of humour - based on Stan Boardman and Ken Dodd. Funny how so many people I've spoken to from the city have been such miserable gits - Newcastle: passionate and loyal support (my memories of 8,000 gates at St James in the 80s are clearly mental confusion on my part). It's just not in the Birmingham character, IME, to do that.

During the last days of standing what was the largest capacity terrace in England. The Kop gotta be...nope, The Holte End was larger than the Kop. It's just that its ego was a good deal smaller...

[hawkeye]

Its belief, we have never recovered from the mess the club became after winning the European Cup, we had the chance then to create a legacy. Every time we have been on the verge of greatness we have come up short, so now we expect it to keep happening and guess what

[SoccerHQ]

It's happened for so long, right back to the Gregory days when we'd always concede late in crucial games so the management and playing personnel has totally changed yet it still regularly happens.

Is it just a club trait like Newcastle spending millions and never ever winning anything and until recently Spurs always flattering to decieve?

[Shrek]

Villa's biggest weakness.... Bloody injuries!!!

[KevinGage]

Its belief, we have never recovered from the mess the club became after winning the European Cup, we had the chance then to create a legacy. Every time we have been on the verge of greatness we have come up short, so now we expect it to keep happening and guess what

Aye.

It's a curious mix of expectation/ ambition that comes with a club this size (much as that perplexes some outside of B6 and even some ex managers of ours) and a lack of belief to the point that deep down we now expect  to be disappointed.

Whenever we look like we're just about to break through we've probably already peaked. That would seem to be the lesson post early 80's.

[PaulMcGrathsNo5Shirt]

We never strengthen from a position of strength. When we do do well, we invariably do worse the following season.

[Gaztonniller]

Capacity. Wouldnt say it was the biggest weakness but attendances below 50000 wont help with competing or keeping up financially with the likes of MU 75000, Ars 60000,  Tot, 60000 if they get Olympic stadium,
Newc 50000, can also see Lpool/Evton sooner or later getting increased capacity stadiums. 
Puts the club in a stronger position if they can say to future signing they'll be playing infront of 50000 fan if they come to VP.

[dave.woodhall]

Its belief, we have never recovered from the mess the club became after winning the European Cup, we had the chance then to create a legacy. Every time we have been on the verge of greatness we have come up short, so now we expect it to keep happening and guess what

Aye.

It's a curious mix of expectation/ ambition that comes with a club this size (much as that perplexes some outside of B6 and even some ex managers of ours) and a lack of belief to the point that deep down we now expect  to be disappointed.

Whenever we look like we're just about to break through we've probably already peaked. That would seem to be the lesson post early 80's.

"People keep saying 'When will it start to go wrong?' Why do we always expect it to go wrong? If I can change that mindset I've cracked it." Or words to that effect - John Gregory, 1998

[KevinGage]

Capacity. Wouldnt say it was the biggest weakness but attendances below 50000 wont help with competing or keeping up financially with the likes of MU 75000, Ars 60000,  Tot, 60000 if they get Olympic stadium,
Newc 50000, can also see Lpool/Evton sooner or later getting increased capacity stadiums. 
Puts the club in a stronger position if they can say to future signing they'll be playing infront of 50000 fan if they come to VP.

Yet little over 16 years ago we had the biggest ground in the country (albeit when Old Trafford was being redeveloped) and finished the 1993/94 season with the highest gate in the Premiership.

It would be wrong to ignore the circumstances of that last game - it being the final hurrah for the old Holte obviously had a big impact on the attendance that day.

But still, it's quite a drop from that status to now probably only being in the top 7/8 re capacity and gates. Part of it is a lack of growth in the Prem years. Or -more accurately- not maximising growth to it's full potential, as there was growth and our average has steadily improved since 1993.

Part of it is also other clubs such as Chelsea and Newcastle coming on leaps on bounds, in the latter case just being involved at the top end of the table was enough to generate interest and demand up there, as there wasn't any trophies or tangible success to speak off.  That indicates that gates can improve even without the benefit of silverware and success. Big signings, big games and a general feeling of being on the up help in that regard  Our close to capacity gates for a fair chunk of the Brian Little and early JG years and more recently in the initial few years of the MON reign provided a tantalising glimpse of what we could do.

I wouldn't automatically assume that we should expect a close to 50,000 capacity as of right. But it should be a legitimate target for a club like ours.