Manchester City v Aston Villa Post-Match Thread

[JUAN PABLO]

I am bored of reading about our injuries; the more players we get back from injury the worse we get.

thats whaat i was thinking

[adam#1]

As Delboy once said.......Bonjour Mr Houllier

mangetout mangetout.

[Mister E]

After many of this season's games, and particularly after the Sppurrrrs game, it was obvious to me that we needed to stop giving away soft goals - in the first half, we gave away three soft 'uns. I don't know how it is possible that a professional coaching team cannot see it and do something about it! Warnock and Collins seem to struggle to position themselves effectively: is it because Collins is more used to playing right CB? - if so, get Clark in at left CB!
RL now needs to find some way of re-building the confidence at the club 'cos at the moment we are smelling and looking like relegation fodder; and you can see that in the players' body language, too.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Well that was the most gutless performance I have ever seen by a Manager and his Assistant.
The pair of them just sitting there shivering and praying for fulltime.

Go get your nice warm cup of Hollicks Houllier and Fuck off!

Are you forgeting Anfield? Today was a repeat performance.

Only positive from today was Delph.

[DC Fontana]

Sh*t Sandwich....

[bertlambshank]

I expect a press release on the OS later or I going to get mighty pissed off.I backed GH when he came but no more.He must go now!

[nuninho]

Absolute Bobbins. Go!

[Risso]

Well that was the most gutless performance I have ever seen by a Manager and his Assistant.
The pair of them just sitting there shivering and praying for fulltime.

Go get your nice warm cup of Hollicks Houllier and Fuck off!

Are you forgeting Anfield? Today was a repeat performance.

Only positive from today was Delph.

And even he got injured.....

[TonyD]

Gutless and clueless.  A combination that leads to relegation.   The fans were singing "fuck off Houllier",  lets hope his hearing is better than his coaching.

[SteveD]

Whoever's in charge, and I hope it's not Houllier for much longer, it won't be the mystical powers of the transfer window which will get us out of trouble, it will be about organising and motivating the existing team who have lost confidence, and are not doing the basics. The effort was poor and some of the marking and closing down (again) was abysmal. Downing, Warnock and NRC were particularly shocking.

[TEEJAY]

Sh*t Sandwich....
[/quote without the bread......]

[barrysleftfoot]

   Well MON bought players in to fit into a system.A team that were organized and structured, that relied on 4 defenders, and 2 midfielders to defend the goal, and 4 players to create and score.

  Those defensive players wee brought in to do a job, not because they were good footballers.GH has come in and triesd to make the same players play more football, and for the team to pass the ball better, that has led to us being more open, and vulnerable.

  Now we either perserve with this philosophy, which should reap benefits long term, or appoint an Allardice kind of manager to revert back to MONs kind of football, functional but productive.

  On todays game, we were outmuscled, not physical enough, the time for NRC, and probably Petrov, has gone, Albrighton and Downing look jaded, Gabby a bit more support.

  There are plenty of reasons as to why i am sceptical about GH, but you have to allow him to bring in his own players, and then judge him, do'nt see the point of getting rid now.


 I'm afraid the days when we could compete with Spuds and Citeeeh seem to be behind us am.

[adam#1]

Look, time for the board to man up and realise they've made a mistake with Houllier. This team lacks passion under him, and the senior players look like they don't want to play for him - which is why he sticks with impressionable youngsters, who'd work hard even if I was the manager. The team reminds me of GT mk2, DOL teams etc. There has been no "new manager bounce", no surge in energy, just a collapsing defence which had previously been one of the best in the league, repeated media stories about squad infighting and upset, team tactics and selection that look plain strange when you're trying to balance the ship (tonight being rime example of that by playing a 19yr old relative rookie who's been out for 9 months as a starter against a team pushing hard in the champions league), and supporters clearly unhappy after a really short space of time.

Its all very well arguing that it was his team that won the champions league at Liverpool (even though he wasn't managing them) but if you want to play that analogy, he's now managing a team that finished 6th two seasons running, with two recent Wembley appearances and he's guiding them into a relegation dogfight. There is little point in allowing him to spend what little money the club clearly doesn't have to spend this January (hence the repeated rhetoric at the moment about how much Lerner has invested - its so cynical to harp on about what you've done so far, when you know you're about to pull the rug from underneath and stop doing the same level of investment), because our resources are scarce and need to be spent wisely (you know the money from the sale of milner and young - which will net us about £25m profit and allow £10m to be spent on transfer fees). Sack now, get Jol in and get us going again. Otherwise, we will most definetely be in those clubs facing a relegation fight. 

Sorry, like the manager I couldn't be arsed to try (typing) anything different today. Might as well type the same for the next five games as well. It ain't going to get any better.

[mistymopcap]

Villa are in a perfect storm. MON resigns. Rushed appointment (remember how hard Graham Taylor said it was when he returned to Premiership with Villa after being away from it). Learner's order to reduce costs. Injuries. All means that the club is in a mess.
Houllier is not going to turn this and no decent player is going to come in January.
Martin Jol has the experience and the passion to fight in a relagation battle. H must go; Jol is the man.

[tsvet]

if he's lost the dressing room, which is looking likely, we cannot allow him to spend what money we have in the january transfer window,

From all the reports I've heard even before the last 2 games, no one is planning to trust him with a penny. We can only hope of some loanies (I guess the likes of Pires).

From back to front we were useless but Nigel Reo Coker managed to achieve a level of uselessness that I didn't think possible.

I'm 1000% with Chris on this one.

The brightness of our future comes from the lights of the express train that just crashed us in full speed...
I do not think we looked that bad even in the 7-1 v Chelsea? By the way Chelsea is coming and they need someone to put them back on track. Anyone's going to bet on the result?