The Midfield

[OzVilla]

I think it is well established by now that the number one concern is that our midfield is so weak that any team resembling Premiership quality can easily create opportunities (and score goals) against us. If we manage to fix that in January I'll be quite confident that we won't be relegated.

So would I but that is a massive job to sort out just by itself and will take some decent cash spent - 20-30 million on 3/4 good players.  Preferably ones that either haven't been good enough previously or are well known to have a pair of hamster bollocks.

[myf]

Benteke has gone from Drogba to Fashanu in a fortnight.

complete and utter rubbish

[steffo]

If you play 3-5-2 then your 'wing backs' have to be attacking full backs. Lehaji and Bennett are not.

[tomd2103]

There was a major flaw with our midfield today. When Wigan's back 3 central defenders had the ball they carried it out of defence on a regular basis, committing one of Ireland or Holman from our midfield, thus when they went to close them down they moved the ball on making our midfield completely outnumbered

Agree with that - especially in the 1st half.  It soon became apparent that our formation wasn't working and I think changing to a 4-2-3-1 (he could have moved Herd into midfield and had Weimann and Holman as the wide options) could have solved a few of those problems. 

[Gareth]

Bannan - was the only one of the starters trying today, with a physical player alongside him he might be able to impose his creation
Westwood - had a good run, hope he is being rested to come back on Tuesday
Gardner - is getting better with every inept midfield show by the others

The crab brothers
KEA - give him a ginger wig and he is Sidwell, runs around 5 yards after the ball and the odd time he catches up he boots someone in the air  - Memo to KEA, you are allowed to pass the ball forwards
Delph - see KEA

Albrighton - looked up for it when he came on today, been garbage for 18 months so needs to prove himself, the closest we have to true width, give him a run
N'Zogbia - the 9.5m invisible man - time he came to the party, if he is here to just purely draw a salary then get rid, if he wants to play football get him on

Holman - runs around, half decent shot....cant pass water.  Can see why McLeish wanted him.

Ireland - utterly pathetic, would have no qualms with never seeing him in a Villa shirt again - not despised one of our own players as much since Ginola - both work shy charlatains

[john2710]

Three years ago Petrov was the one who needed replacing, instead we sold Barry, Milner and Downing.  Now we are scraping around to find anybody who can play there. None of the current midfielders can be relied on to perform week in week out, others are just not good enough. We need to buy 2 experienced midfielders over the next few weeks

[He wears a magic hat]

Lets face it. it aint just the midfield is it.

Look at the players that played today. put everyone on a free transfer and how many would end up at another premiership club. my guess would be 2 at most.

The rest would be signed by championship clubs whuch is exactly where they will be next season if lambert isnt allow to spend

[villan from luton]

Westwood is a good player who looked as if he is in need of a rest, must be fecking hard work carrying some of the pile of turd alongside him there. Bannan continues to flatter to deceive, I like Holman's attitude but he has limitations. Delph did slightly better v Spuds, but another who has done feck all of note. The player that pisses me off the most is Ireland. This guy has talent, but has an attitude that stinks like the Sty. I would love to grab hold of him and tell him he should be honoured to play for our club, before kicking him in the nuts and telling him to go forth and multiply as he wouldnt give a toss what I had said anyway. KEA I still hold fire on, but certainyl doesnt seem the player that I thought he was going to be. If we can get Vlaar and Dunne fit, I would not be adverse to sticking Clark alongside Westwood, he gets stuck in at least

[OzVilla]

Ireland - utterly pathetic, would have no qualms with never seeing him in a Villa shirt again - not despised one of our own players as much since Ginola - both work shy charlatains[/b]

Me too, in two minds about whether we should just pay up his contract now and have done with him.  He can't be good to have around the place and he offers us less than nothing.

At least it would send a message that we refuse to suffer fools anymore, an attempt to inject some fight, fire and dignity into the situation - it won't happen though.

[Dave Clark Five]

Benteke has gone from Drogba to Fashanu in a fortnight.

complete and utter rubbish

Agreed. Cue the return of that pillock who kept slagging him off - 'told you so'.

[PeterWithe]

The midfield yesterday seemed to offer the worst of all worlds, no physical presence or energy yet that wasn't balanced by increased creativity as it should have been, at least on paper. It looks a unit designed to try and outscore teams but we looked most threatening and when we simply booted it up to Benteke.

I think Bannan is the best crosser of the ball we have yet hes rarely in the final third of the field to feed Benteke.

[PaulTheVillan]

Benteke has gone from Drogba to Fashanu in a fortnight.

complete and utter rubbish

Agreed. Cue the return of that pillock who kept slagging him off - 'told you so'.

Was impressed with him at Liverpool. All he's done since is get caught offside.

[Ron Manager]

Obviously we need someone like Terry Hurlock to put some fear into the opposition or a Roy Keane type (but not as good as he was) to put some fear into our lot.

[myf]

he had a good chance against spurs and missed a decent header on goal yesterday. he wins almost every ball played to him in the air. a good player in a dire side, with less than 6 months prem experience.  he's not the problem - the midfield and injury list are

[PaulWinch again]

We need an aggressive ball winning midfielder and a creative midfielder to go alongside Westwood. Wanyama would be ideal but he wouldn't join us.