Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: villa `cross the mersey on March 02, 2011, 09:25:53 PM
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Just days after our neighbours win a trophy, albeit for the first time in a lifetime, we also get an opportunity to progress in another cup competition.
Unfortunately the manager you appointed has chosen to not take this matter as seriously as thousands of fans and certainly the 3K fans who have made the journey tonight.
I never thought I would see the club I have supported for nearly 50 years give up on this competition.
After witnessing a good team performance at the weekend I had great expectations for the game, regrettably Monsieur Houllier has decided to surrender this tie without a whimper.
Today I purchased a ticket for my son`s best friend who despite being 10 years of age has yet to pin his allegience to a club - I am looking to convince him that AVFC are the team to follow rather than Liverpool where we live. Why should I bother?
Furthermore I had been looking forward to the up coming games at Bolton and Everton - again why should I bother?
My young son and I enjoyed travelling to Wembley twice last year and we hoped this manager could take us to a cup victory - but in essence his decision tonight mirrors that of the former manager who also surrended the hope of winning in Europe.
If Monsieur Houllier is under instructions to stay in the Premiership at the expense of winning a trophy and because of the potential loss of revenue should we go down, I would prefer if this was communicated to the fans before they travel miles up the M6.
Winning the FA Cup would be a great fillip for fans of my vintage as it is the only trophy we have yet to see us win.
If this is the way it is I will no longer spend hard earned cash on FA Cup tickets -
Finally my decision to renew my season tickets for next season is no longer an automatic one. Perhaps like the manager and some of the players I will just turn up when I feel like it.
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Totally agree. Not getting anymore of my time or money again. I really am sick of modern football prioritising money over trophies.
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quite right, his decision tonight is disrespectful to us all, total fruit cake
he can fock off
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Very very disappointing
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Agered again. Total embarrassment. The team selection tonight was scandalous. Ashley Young.... no way will he stay and i don't blame him!!
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What is the point?
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Dont the stupid fucking club know that trophies = more fans and tickets? c***s all of them
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Even the pundits can't believe the team he picked. There are only 3 domestic trophies available in a season and we had a good chance of progressing in this one. I'm upset and embarrassed.
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Well said VCTM
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He was getting people behind him and then just alienates them again. I honestly do not understand his thinking.
On the plus side he must now know that some of them playing tonight are just not good enough.
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why enter the comp we more or less gave them a bye, i'm so angry what a bastard!
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Tonight is a very sad night for Aston villa - the manager has been a disgrace with his selection and I see no way forward from here- houllier has shot himself badly tonight and many of us will never forgive him for it.
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ow can i show me face round brum now, villa r really really bad i wanna go to bed
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With Houiller, it's like banging your head against a brick wall. You finally start to see some light at the end of the tunnel, then he goes and makes an unnecessary team selection like that.
It feels a lot like the Liverpool game in a way. He's pissed off a lot of fans but judging by his post match interview, he did'nt seem to think he'd done anything wrong.
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With Houiller, it's like banging your head against a brick wall. You finally start to see some light at the end of the tunnel, then he goes and makes an unnecessary team selection like that.
Once you get beyond the being out of the cup thing, that is what is most depressing. Just when we'd started to see some solidarity, some spirit, he goes and does that.
I understand entirely the concept of squad rotation, but there's squad rotation, and there's giving up, and what we saw tonight was far too much towards the latter of those two.
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ow can i show me face round brum now, villa r really really bad i wanna go to bed
Off you go then.
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Starting to lose all interest to be honest, quite an achievement to make someone like me who has lived and breathed Villa for 40 odd years feel that way. So congratulations are in order. I'd rather not see us become the Cleveland Browns thank you very much...
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ow can i show me face round brum now, villa r really really bad i wanna go to bed
Presumably your bed being a cardboard box behind New St Station - sweet dreams , and give your starving whippet a cuddle from me. Oh by the way .....**** Off
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If after the Moscow and tonight's team selections you can't see the clubs thinking on these matters no amount of weeping into your hankies is going to make it any clearer.
As we rarely if ever win at Man City and often can at Bolton, I can understand what the decision was about. I can't in any way justify it and hope for the clubs sake Blues don't go on and win that trophy too.
Bad decision just as the one in Moscow was just as his actions at Liverpool were. The more he makes this sort of decision the harder it will be for him to become accepted. If he, Randy and anyone else at the club can't see this the harder it will get for them all.
Another downer just as things were getting better, a typical shoot yourself in the foot decision, we have become prone too under Randy
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Starting to lose all interest to be honest, quite an achievement to make someone like me who has lived and breathed Villa for 40 odd years feel that way. So congratulations are in order. I'd rather not see us become the Cleveland Browns thank you very much...
That's pretty much how I feel. I am getting to the stage wondering why I bother anymore. I have seen some low points over the years this just seems worse like we're just not interested in competing anymore, just existing.
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ow can i show me face round brum now, villa r really really bad i wanna go to bed
Fuck off nose, get back in your box for the next 50 years...
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Mr lerner how do you feel about the reaction to this ?
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With Houiller, it's like banging your head against a brick wall. You finally start to see some light at the end of the tunnel, then he goes and makes an unnecessary team selection like that.
Once you get beyond the being out of the cup thing, that is what is most depressing. Just when we'd started to see some solidarity, some spirit, he goes and does that.
I understand entirely the concept of squad rotation, but there's squad rotation, and there's giving up, and what we saw tonight was far too much towards the latter of those two.
You also have to think if -like Moscow- a fair few of the senior players take umbrage at the fact that he didn't even deem them good enough to get a result against a knackered and injury hit Citeh in the first place. What kind of message does that send out.
If they were flying, all the big guns available and in great form, the decision would make a bit more sense (though I'd still diagree with it). But they were there for the taking. They've looked poor in their two recent European games and against Fulham on Sunday. And they didn't even play particularly well tonight. The sad thing is they didn't need to.
Trust us to give a team a morale boosting win when they need it most. We're good like that.
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If we'd took a full strength side up to Eastlands and got beat, then nobody would have been surprised but that team was shocking.
On Saturday we played with 3 wingers (4 if you include Pires) tonight we didn't play with any!
Petrov is a complete waste of space and Heskey I'm sure didn't break sweat. I'm sure that Joe Hart was smoking a cigar in the 2nd half. The only two shots I remember were Petrov's shot on 65 minutes and Ash's free kick that ended up 20 rows back.
Please Villa, don't bother bombarding me with emails and texts about cup games again in the future, if the club can't be arsed, why should I? In fact, why should I bother with a season ticket to watch Houlliers boring shit football.
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In fact, why should I bother with a season ticket to watch Houlliers boring shit football.
Oh now, I'm as pissed off as the next bloke, but "boring" football?
One of the reasons I'm pissed off tonight is that we were starting to play some excellent football with a team that was starting to gel and understand Hotlips' way of playing.
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In fact, why should I bother with a season ticket to watch Houlliers boring shit football.
Oh now, I'm as pissed off as the next bloke, but "boring" football?
One of the reasons I'm pissed off tonight is that we were starting to play some excellent football with a team that was starting to gel and understand Hotlips' way of playing.
The only time I've seen us play anything resembling excellent football in recent weeks is against Blackburn who are a gutless shambles.
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In fact, why should I bother with a season ticket to watch Houlliers boring shit football.
Oh now, I'm as pissed off as the next bloke, but "boring" football?
One of the reasons I'm pissed off tonight is that we were starting to play some excellent football with a team that was starting to gel and understand Hotlips' way of playing.
The only time I've seen us play anything resembling excellent football in recent weeks is against Blackburn who are a gutless shambles.
Best we have played this season = West Ham and Blackburn - says it all really
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Just days after our neighbours win a trophy, albeit for the first time in a lifetime, we also get an opportunity to progress in another cup competition.
Unfortunately the manager you appointed has chosen to not take this matter as seriously as thousands of fans and certainly the 3K fans who have made the journey tonight.
I never thought I would see the club I have supported for nearly 50 years give up on this competition.
After witnessing a good team performance at the weekend I had great expectations for the game, regrettably Monsieur Houllier has decided to surrender this tie without a whimper.
Today I purchased a ticket for my son`s best friend who despite being 10 years of age has yet to pin his allegience to a club - I am looking to convince him that AVFC are the team to follow rather than Liverpool where we live. Why should I bother?
Furthermore I had been looking forward to the up coming games at Bolton and Everton - again why should I bother?
My young son and I enjoyed travelling to Wembley twice last year and we hoped this manager could take us to a cup victory - but in essence his decision tonight mirrors that of the former manager who also surrended the hope of winning in Europe.
If Monsieur Houllier is under instructions to stay in the Premiership at the expense of winning a trophy and because of the potential loss of revenue should we go down, I would prefer if this was communicated to the fans before they travel miles up the M6.
Winning the FA Cup would be a great fillip for fans of my vintage as it is the only trophy we have yet to see us win.
If this is the way it is I will no longer spend hard earned cash on FA Cup tickets -
Finally my decision to renew my season tickets for next season is no longer an automatic one. Perhaps like the manager and some of the players I will just turn up when I feel like it.
Couldn't have put it better.
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In fact, why should I bother with a season ticket to watch Houlliers boring shit football.
Oh now, I'm as pissed off as the next bloke, but "boring" football?
One of the reasons I'm pissed off tonight is that we were starting to play some excellent football with a team that was starting to gel and understand Hotlips' way of playing.
The only time I've seen us play anything resembling excellent football in recent weeks is against Blackburn who are a gutless shambles.
Best we have played this season = West Ham and Blackburn - says it all really
The best game I've seen us play this season was our first (West Ham), which was Milner's last. It seems that spirit is completely gone now.
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Totally agree dave, I think if we'd have played our strongest fit team tonight we could have maybe got a draw at least- we were looking a decent team and we've tossed away the chance tonight.
I'm 45 so to me the fa cup is very special however much the game has changed and I saw this a real chance wasted tonight- it leaves a sour taste , it was the Moscow debacle that changed my opinion on o neill and I fear this is a bitter pill to swallow.
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i cant believe that houllier put out a team like that only a few days after birmingham proved that these top teams can be beat
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Let's not go down this whole Moscow road again. We're all gutted but why bring instability to the club? If you're reading this Mr. Chairman I'm backing your judgement with GH. He's a very good manager, let's give him time.
I just hope the media don't jump on this and stir it up. Let's stick together and push on.
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Tonight our Famous Aston Villa status was dealt a killer blow. The FA Cup is sacred.
Was this a manager decision or the board's.
I think we deserve answers.
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Let's not go down this whole Moscow road again. We're all gutted but why bring instability to the club? If you're reading this Mr. Chairman I'm backing your judgement with GH. He's a very good manager, let's give him time.
I just hope the media don't jump on this and stir it up. Let's stick together and push on.
we have one of the best teams in the land lets not get hasty gh has only had the job for a short time in football and if he can bring us half the success he bought liverpool we will be fine
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Anyone else think there's a few noses on here?
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Anyone else think there's a few noses on here?
Yep, they've spent the pittance they got fom winning the Carling Cup on educating their part time scumbase how to read and type. Not a bad effort so far but they still have a long way to go.
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Here's your answers TonyD. GH's post match thoughts from the OS:
"I started the game with three players up front - three internationals," he said.
"Nathan Delfouneso is an England U21 international and he will probably play in the tournament in June.
"Emile Heskey went to the World Cup and is one of our leading goalscorers. He was an international until last summer.
"Gabby Agbonlahor had been called up by Fabio Capello for the game against Denmark.
"The midfield were also three internationals playing for the first team, whether it is for Bulgaria, the United States or Scotland.
"The two centre-backs were Irish internationals. The two full-backs, Herd has been called up for the next international for Australia, and Delph has been called up once for the U21s when he came back from injury.
"We have an enough quality in the squad. We have an important game also against Bolton."
Houllier insists the absent players could have done little about Yaya Toure's early strike.
The Frenchman felt the ruthlessness of Roberto Mancini's team in front of goal was the deciding factor in the cup clash.
"I don't think they would have done anything to avoid the first goal," he said. "It wouldn't have changed anything. We conceded a very cheap goal very quickly.
"After that, for 50 minutes the team were a bit shaky - maybe thinking about what happened last December here.
"But apart from the goals I didn't see Brad Friedel have much work to do.
"We were beaten by a team that is better than us at the moment and who are probably ruthless in terms of goal opportunities."
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You can tell by their typing skills.
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Let's not go down this whole Moscow road again. We're all gutted but why bring instability to the club? If you're reading this Mr. Chairman I'm backing your judgement with GH. He's a very good manager, let's give him time.
I just hope the media don't jump on this and stir it up. Let's stick together and push on.
we have one of the best teams in the land lets not get hasty gh has only had the job for a short time in football and if he can bring us half the success he bought liverpool we will be fine
Can he though? I'm not so sure he has any idea what's actually important to the fans. Under MON yes things could be frustrating but we very rarely saw a roll over like that or performances like we've seen this season with no one giving a rats ass. It sickens me that our club is now resting it's best players for Bolton in the league. I honestly think we could have beaten them tonight off the back of a dodgy result at Fulham. Hart may as well have sat jacking off for the whole game, he didn't have much better to do.
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Here's your answers TonyD. GH's post match thought from the OS:
"I started the game with three players up front - three internationals," he said.
"Nathan Delfouneso is an England U21 international and he will probably play in the tournament in June.
"Emile Heskey went to the World Cup and is one of our leading goalscorers. He was an international until last summer.
"Gabby Agbonlahor had been called up by Fabio Capello for the game against Denmark.
"The midfield were also three internationals playing for the first team, whether it is for Bulgaria, the United States or Scotland.
"The two centre-backs were Irish internationals. The two full-backs, Herd has been called up for the next international for Australia, and Delph has been called up once for the U21s when he came back from injury.
"We have an enough quality in the squad. We have an important game also against Bolton."
Houllier insists the absent players could have done little about Yaya Toure's early strike.
The Frenchman felt the ruthlessness of Roberto Mancini's team in front of goal was the deciding factor in the cup clash.
"I don't think they would have done anything to avoid the first goal," he said. "It wouldn't have changed anything. We conceded a very cheap goal very quickly.
"After that, for 50 minutes the team were a bit shaky - maybe thinking about what happened last December here.
"But apart from the goals I didn't see Brad Friedel have much work to do.
"We were beaten by a team that is better than us at the moment and who are probably ruthless in terms of goal opportunities."
Sorry Billy but no matter how much you try to justify the team tonight it was totally wrong and a disgrace.
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Anyone else think there's a few noses on here?
Doubt it, they're probably all still wetting themselves about Sunday. Pains me to say it but I envy them a bit. And the worst thing of all is that on the balance of things we can't even say they got lucky :'(
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Mr Lerner / General Krulak
The previous manager's decision to give up on the UEFA Cup when we were still in it was the most disgraceful management decision ever taken at our football club in my 40 odd years as a supporter. I cannot believe that when his successor was appointed one of his first instructions was never ever to subject Villa supporters to such a disrespectful act again.
Our manager's team selection tonight was a disgrace to Aston Villa and to a competition that has a history as proud as ours. The fans who went to Manchester full of expectation after Saturday deserve at the very least an official apology – although I would say a full refund would be a more appropriate gesture by the club (deducted from the manager's wages).
The word PROUD was banded about freely by our marketing people a few years ago. There's no pride in throwing in the towell.
A big wedge was driven between the club and supporters tonight, and it will take more than a win at Bolton on Saturday to repair it.
John Gregory "lost" a lot of fans by his negative tactics at the 2000 cup final, Martin O'Neill "lost" the support of a many fans after Moscow, and Gerard Houllier has possibly scored his own goal tonight.
I wouldn't blame any player with a hunger for winning things in the game wanting to leave Villa after tonight. Good luck to Gareth Barry and James Milner for the rest of the competition, good luck to Ashley Young wherever he goes next season.
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Here's your answers TonyD. GH's post match thought from the OS:
"I started the game with three players up front - three internationals," he said.
"Nathan Delfouneso is an England U21 international and he will probably play in the tournament in June.
"Emile Heskey went to the World Cup and is one of our leading goalscorers. He was an international until last summer.
"Gabby Agbonlahor had been called up by Fabio Capello for the game against Denmark.
"The midfield were also three internationals playing for the first team, whether it is for Bulgaria, the United States or Scotland.
"The two centre-backs were Irish internationals. The two full-backs, Herd has been called up for the next international for Australia, and Delph has been called up once for the U21s when he came back from injury.
"We have an enough quality in the squad. We have an important game also against Bolton."
Houllier insists the absent players could have done little about Yaya Toure's early strike.
The Frenchman felt the ruthlessness of Roberto Mancini's team in front of goal was the deciding factor in the cup clash.
"I don't think they would have done anything to avoid the first goal," he said. "It wouldn't have changed anything. We conceded a very cheap goal very quickly.
"After that, for 50 minutes the team were a bit shaky - maybe thinking about what happened last December here.
"But apart from the goals I didn't see Brad Friedel have much work to do.
"We were beaten by a team that is better than us at the moment and who are probably ruthless in terms of goal opportunities."
Sorry Billy but no matter how much you try to justify the team tonight it was totally wrong and a disgrace.
Sorry Billy again - that was GH excuses. Bottle of red finished and off to bed. Still cannot get my head around tonight's farce.
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If anything was going to convince me that what I wrote in the latest H&V was right, tonight was it. We acted like a c*nt's club tonight, surrendering our place in the 6th round of the FA Cup. The odd thing is that we might as well have done it in the 3rd round. Thanks, Mr Houllier, you've made me ashamed to be a Villa fan this morning.
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The cups just arent considered important financially compared with the holy grail of being in the premier league....not by the managers, not by the directors/owners, not by Sky and the worldwide TV audiences who are now the paymasters.
But what about the fans ? I mean the ones who go every week and pay their money at the turnstile.
How many fans celebrated on the pitch when we finished 6th in 2007/08 ? Approximately zero.
How many fans celebrated on the pitch when we finished 6th in 2008/09 ? Approximately zero.
How many fans celebrated on the pitch when we finished 6th in 2009/10 ? Approximately zero.
And when we got to a cup final ?
(http://images.icnetwork.co.uk/upl/birmmail/jan2010/4/8/image-8-for-aston-villa-fans-celebrate-victory-over-blackburn-rovers-gallery-274808578.jpg)
Perhaps one day all of football will go bust and start again, Sky and the rest of the world goes away and the real fans can become the paymasters again.
Thats the real reason so many of us are so angry about what happened in Manchester last night.
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Starting to lose all interest to be honest, quite an achievement to make someone like me who has lived and breathed Villa for 40 odd years feel that way. So congratulations are in order. I'd rather not see us become the Cleveland Browns thank you very much...
That's pretty much how I feel. I am getting to the stage wondering why I bother anymore. I have seen some low points over the years this just seems worse like we're just not interested in competing anymore, just existing.
My sentiments exactly
Our 2 bests chances of silverware are the Cups so that french cock has managed to fuck both of them up
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Im absolutely shocked by this reaction! We are in a seriously dangerous position in the Premiership. The majority of our run in is against teams in the same situation, that most of you think are gimmes. If we lose 6 of these, we then have to beat Arsenal away and Liverpool on the last day. If we lose 6 of these we will go down. We have a squad of players who our manager can select a starting XI from. Villa fans as a whole bemoaned the previous manager for burnout in March, and being so rigid in selection and formation. Our current manager is confident enought to change things every game. The game last night was lost in the first 4 minutes after an unfortunate mistake by Clark, not by the managers selection of International players. I think we played ok as a whole, we didnt create many chances granted, but City are a class act.
To react the way most of you are today, shows that you are fickle and can't really see whats staring you in the face, which is relegation.
Get ten points on the boards and things will look better, last night just came at the wrong time.
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Well said Dave. Couple that with our accounts and you see that relegation is unthinkable.
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Very disappointed about the team selection and tactics, more so than the actual result - see my comments in the post match thread.
But I will add one more thing, as the 'pundits' and so on harp on about Houllier's team selection (I haven't read any papers this morning, no doubt he's being criticised):
If the FA hadn't allowed City to play their 4th round replay on 5th round weekend, thereby forcing us to play the 5th round tie midweek - and between two league games - we may have had a very different line-up playing on the Saturday/Sunday along with the other 5th round ties.
Just a thought. The FA doesn't always help its own cause in maintaining the credibility of the competition.
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Strange how things change in a few days isnt it?
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Very disappointed about the team selection and tactics, more so than the actual result - see my comments in the post match thread.
But I will add one more thing, as the 'pundits' and so on harp on about Houllier's team selection (I haven't read any papers this morning, no doubt he's being criticised):
If the FA hadn't allowed City to play their 4th round replay on 5th round weekend, thereby forcing us to play the 5th round tie midweek - and between two league games - we may have had a very different line-up playing on the Saturday/Sunday along with the other 5th round ties.
Just a thought. The FA doesn't always help its own cause in maintaining the credibility of the competition.
To be fair, the FA aren't helped by Uefa's scheduling in this respect.
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No, and City have a lot on, what with the exhaustive Europa League thing and all. But you see my point: Villa almost penalised, though we won our 4th round tie first off. City needed a replay, they should have to play it to keep to the structure and the schedule of the competition: that's why PL teams hate replays, it's another game to fit in - but that's the point!
We could and should have played that tie at some point over that weekend, with a full 7-8 days to go to our next match.
Don't get me wrong, Houllier went a player or two too far at Eastlands, or at least tried to wedge those he picked into a formation which didn't suit. But the FA almost set themselves up for this approach from managers IMO.
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I agree Merv, but this is nothing new. I remember our humilation at Oldham in 1990 was midweek because they had a replay against Everton on 6th round day.
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If the club can't be bothered about the FA Cup , maybe the fans should not be bothered about the next home prem game and not bother to turn up neither..
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Mr Lerner / General Krulak
The previous manager's decision to give up on the UEFA Cup when we were still in it was the most disgraceful management decision ever taken at our football club in my 40 odd years as a supporter. I cannot believe that when his successor was appointed one of his first instructions was never ever to subject Villa supporters to such a disrespectful act again.
Our manager's team selection tonight was a disgrace to Aston Villa and to a competition that has a history as proud as ours. The fans who went to Manchester full of expectation after Saturday deserve at the very least an official apology – although I would say a full refund would be a more appropriate gesture by the club (deducted from the manager's wages).
The word PROUD was banded about freely by our marketing people a few years ago. There's no pride in throwing in the towell.
A big wedge was driven between the club and supporters tonight, and it will take more than a win at Bolton on Saturday to repair it.
John Gregory "lost" a lot of fans by his negative tactics at the 2000 cup final, Martin O'Neill "lost" the support of a many fans after Moscow, and Gerard Houllier has possibly scored his own goal tonight.
I wouldn't blame any player with a hunger for winning things in the game wanting to leave Villa after tonight. Good luck to Gareth Barry and James Milner for the rest of the competition, good luck to Ashley Young wherever he goes next season.
Excellent post
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I agree Merv, but this is nothing new. I remember our humilation at Oldham in 1990 was midweek because they had a replay against Everton on 6th round day.
Dont remind me , I was there .. one of my worse nights , left early and still couldnt get out of the car park until after the game with all the Oldham fans laughing at me through the windows
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I agree Merv, but this is nothing new. I remember our humilation at Oldham in 1990 was midweek because they had a replay against Everton on 6th round day.
Dont remind me , I was there .. one of my worse nights , left early and still couldnt get out of the car park until after the game with all the Oldham fans laughing at me through the windows
I would have been, but we had a City Cup semi-final after school against Edmund Campion. We lost 4-0.
What a great day that was for a 13 year old.
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I agree Merv, but this is nothing new. I remember our humilation at Oldham in 1990 was midweek because they had a replay against Everton on 6th round day.
Really?
1990... weren't those the days when replays ran and ran though? If you're playing a tie three, four times, like clubs did back then, then you fit it in however you can!
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Dekuip, your post is the best post I've ever read on this website- excellent post!
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Strange how things change in a few days isnt it?
Totally. I'm deflated by last night's result and performance but I'm surprised by the surprise really. It has been demonstrated to us time and time again that in modern football the league takes priority.
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Mr Lerner / General Krulak
The previous manager's decision to give up on the UEFA Cup when we were still in it was the most disgraceful management decision ever taken at our football club in my 40 odd years as a supporter. I cannot believe that when his successor was appointed one of his first instructions was never ever to subject Villa supporters to such a disrespectful act again.
Our manager's team selection tonight was a disgrace to Aston Villa and to a competition that has a history as proud as ours. The fans who went to Manchester full of expectation after Saturday deserve at the very least an official apology – although I would say a full refund would be a more appropriate gesture by the club (deducted from the manager's wages).
The word PROUD was banded about freely by our marketing people a few years ago. There's no pride in throwing in the towell.
A big wedge was driven between the club and supporters tonight, and it will take more than a win at Bolton on Saturday to repair it.
John Gregory "lost" a lot of fans by his negative tactics at the 2000 cup final, Martin O'Neill "lost" the support of a many fans after Moscow, and Gerard Houllier has possibly scored his own goal tonight.
I wouldn't blame any player with a hunger for winning things in the game wanting to leave Villa after tonight. Good luck to Gareth Barry and James Milner for the rest of the competition, good luck to Ashley Young wherever he goes next season.
Excellent post
And just how many of you "proud" fans would be at the away game v Brighton next season?
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Dekuip, your post is the best post I've ever read on this website- excellent post!
Its good , we should all email it to Randy .. I cried with tears in 2000 , I just want the chance to cry with joy and see Villa win the FA Cup in my lifetime.
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Mr Lerner / General Krulak
The previous manager's decision to give up on the UEFA Cup when we were still in it was the most disgraceful management decision ever taken at our football club in my 40 odd years as a supporter. I cannot believe that when his successor was appointed one of his first instructions was never ever to subject Villa supporters to such a disrespectful act again.
Our manager's team selection tonight was a disgrace to Aston Villa and to a competition that has a history as proud as ours. The fans who went to Manchester full of expectation after Saturday deserve at the very least an official apology – although I would say a full refund would be a more appropriate gesture by the club (deducted from the manager's wages).
The word PROUD was banded about freely by our marketing people a few years ago. There's no pride in throwing in the towell.
A big wedge was driven between the club and supporters tonight, and it will take more than a win at Bolton on Saturday to repair it.
John Gregory "lost" a lot of fans by his negative tactics at the 2000 cup final, Martin O'Neill "lost" the support of a many fans after Moscow, and Gerard Houllier has possibly scored his own goal tonight.
I wouldn't blame any player with a hunger for winning things in the game wanting to leave Villa after tonight. Good luck to Gareth Barry and James Milner for the rest of the competition, good luck to Ashley Young wherever he goes next season.
Excellent post
And just how many of you "proud" fans would be at the away game v Brighton next season?
3,000 to 6,000 I guess.
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Im absolutely shocked by this reaction! We are in a seriously dangerous position in the Premiership. The majority of our run in is against teams in the same situation, that most of you think are gimmes. If we lose 6 of these, we then have to beat Arsenal away and Liverpool on the last day. If we lose 6 of these we will go down. We have a squad of players who our manager can select a starting XI from. Villa fans as a whole bemoaned the previous manager for burnout in March, and being so rigid in selection and formation. Our current manager is confident enought to change things every game. The game last night was lost in the first 4 minutes after an unfortunate mistake by Clark, not by the managers selection of International players. I think we played ok as a whole, we didnt create many chances granted, but City are a class act.
To react the way most of you are today, shows that you are fickle and can't really see whats staring you in the face, which is relegation.
Get ten points on the boards and things will look better, last night just came at the wrong time.
But why assume we will lose 6 premiership games by playing a stronger side in a cup competition?
The game was not lost last night by Clarkes fault at all. It was lost as soon as Houllier decided to play a weakened team in an unbalanced formation. Its one thing changing the side but to play two strikers as wingers is frankly absurd. Man City didn't break into a sweat.
TBH I think our chances of staying up have actually been harmed by last nights performance. Morale will be low and GH deflecting the blame to "internationals" is likely to have pissed them off.
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Mr Lerner / General Krulak
The previous manager's decision to give up on the UEFA Cup when we were still in it was the most disgraceful management decision ever taken at our football club in my 40 odd years as a supporter. I cannot believe that when his successor was appointed one of his first instructions was never ever to subject Villa supporters to such a disrespectful act again.
Our manager's team selection tonight was a disgrace to Aston Villa and to a competition that has a history as proud as ours. The fans who went to Manchester full of expectation after Saturday deserve at the very least an official apology – although I would say a full refund would be a more appropriate gesture by the club (deducted from the manager's wages).
The word PROUD was banded about freely by our marketing people a few years ago. There's no pride in throwing in the towell.
A big wedge was driven between the club and supporters tonight, and it will take more than a win at Bolton on Saturday to repair it.
John Gregory "lost" a lot of fans by his negative tactics at the 2000 cup final, Martin O'Neill "lost" the support of a many fans after Moscow, and Gerard Houllier has possibly scored his own goal tonight.
I wouldn't blame any player with a hunger for winning things in the game wanting to leave Villa after tonight. Good luck to Gareth Barry and James Milner for the rest of the competition, good luck to Ashley Young wherever he goes next season.
Excellent post
And just how many of you "proud" fans would be at the away game v Brighton next season?
I agree with you Dave, but an away trip to Brighton is almost an incentive to get relegated for me.
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We would take a load to Brighton... new stadium, big away end, by the seaside.
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Im absolutely shocked by this reaction! We are in a seriously dangerous position in the Premiership. The majority of our run in is against teams in the same situation, that most of you think are gimmes. If we lose 6 of these, we then have to beat Arsenal away and Liverpool on the last day. If we lose 6 of these we will go down. We have a squad of players who our manager can select a starting XI from. Villa fans as a whole bemoaned the previous manager for burnout in March, and being so rigid in selection and formation. Our current manager is confident enought to change things every game. The game last night was lost in the first 4 minutes after an unfortunate mistake by Clark, not by the managers selection of International players. I think we played ok as a whole, we didnt create many chances granted, but City are a class act.
To react the way most of you are today, shows that you are fickle and can't really see whats staring you in the face, which is relegation.
Get ten points on the boards and things will look better, last night just came at the wrong time.
We may not be in an ideal position in the League, but it is no way bad enough to be just giving up on a very winnable FA Cup.
Burn out this March?? Sure we only have 2 more games for the rest of the month now and we didnt play last weekend!!!
Last manager wasn't so "confident to change things every game" but he did get us to the FA Cup Semi, League Cup final and 6th in the league....this one has us losing to Blues in the quarters of LC, giving up against City in 5th of FA Cup and 12th in the League. Ok, you cant blame him entirely for the league position because of the circumstances he arrived into (still shouldnt be as bad as it is). However, our exit in both Cups are down to his management.
Mistake by Clark?? Goal was down to the players looking like they didnt know what way they were supposed to be defeneding the corner, which was brought about by 8 changes and the team/squad not prepared enough for such changes.
I'm not being fickle here, never wanted Houllier from the start wanted his head on a plate around xmas, that was tempered a touch by the signings and I've had a wait-and-see attitude until last night. Just like the Liverpool debacle, he showed his true colours of what he thinks of "little old mid-table Villa".
Get 10 points on the board....meh. Things wont look better. 10th as opposed to 12th? Who cares?
I'd gladly give up 2 places in the PL if it meant us just having a go at the Cup.
In case you didnt notice, I have a few issues with your post ;)
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Agree Jonzy, last night showed (to me) that GH is not going to take Villa forward.
Inspector Clueless.
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DBTW, you seem to think giving up on last night and accepting a heavy defeat offers us a better chance of staying up.
I disagree, had we put in a decent performance yesterday we could've carried the form on which woul have minimised the risk of relegation.
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away trip to Brighton
remenber going when i think it was the gouldstone gd
be a good weeekend so count me in
o just remenbered i said i after this season not wastein anymore money on the villa
so thats 3 season tickets you lost gh
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DBTW, you seem to think giving up on last night and accepting a heavy defeat offers us a better chance of staying up.
I disagree, had we put in a decent performance yesterday we could've carried the form on which woul have minimised the risk of relegation.
100% agree...roll out the cliches, winning becomes a habit etc.
This decent form we were in (and it was only decent) needed to be solidified by building up the confidence of the players...severe damage would have been done to the confidence last night.
Also, I cant help but imagine how p***ed off Ashley Young was last night. He hasnt had many "big games" this season to showcase his talent and when one comes along he is on the bench. He must have been sitting there thinking, that's it I'm off in the summer.
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I doubt it, why can't we sell out every away game in the premiership then?
I'm a proud fan, I love my club and I give a hell of a lot of my time and money in doing what I can.
I find some of the comments this morning nothing short of pathetic. I've seen it from the inside, and we are not far off being able to challenge for honours again. Next season, we will seee a new Aston Villa, an Aston Villa that will see all this bickering stop and every fan unite.
Last night came at the wrong time for us, and in the long run we will not miss the cup this season.
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DBTW, do you really think our best players are not capable of three games in eight days after a two week break followed by another two week break?
Okay so their might have been injuries last night, I reckon there's even more chance of injuries against those purveyors of the beautiful game in Horwich myself.
We aren't going down, we never were.
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The cups just arent considered important financially compared with the holy grail of being in the premier league....not by the managers, not by the directors/owners, not by Sky and the worldwide TV audiences who are now the paymasters.
But what about the fans ? I mean the ones who go every week and pay their money at the turnstile.
How many fans celebrated on the pitch when we finished 6th in 2007/08 ? Approximately zero.
How many fans celebrated on the pitch when we finished 6th in 2008/09 ? Approximately zero.
How many fans celebrated on the pitch when we finished 6th in 2009/10 ? Approximately zero.
And when we got to a cup final ?
(http://images.icnetwork.co.uk/upl/birmmail/jan2010/4/8/image-8-for-aston-villa-fans-celebrate-victory-over-blackburn-rovers-gallery-274808578.jpg)
Perhaps one day all of football will go bust and start again, Sky and the rest of the world goes away and the real fans can become the paymasters again.
Thats the real reason so many of us are so angry about what happened in Manchester last night.
Spot on mate.
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I doubt it, why can't we sell out every away game in the premiership then?
I'm a proud fan, I love my club and I give a hell of a lot of my time and money in doing what I can.
I find some of the comments this morning nothing short of pathetic. I've seen it from the inside, and we are not far off being able to challenge for honours again. Next season, we will seee a new Aston Villa, an Aston Villa that will see all this bickering stop and every fan unite.
Last night came at the wrong time for us, and in the long run we will not miss the cup this season.
Not far off from challenging for honours??? Why dont you tell the manager that?
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Ok, Brighton was a bad example admittedly.
Last night we had 11 players start the game who have international caps, most of them full internationals.
It's not as though Houllier went out and played a team of inexperienced youngsters who looked like cats in the headlights. They did ok, and will continue to get better gaining from the experience.
A certain "famous" person on this board said at the start of this season that it bares great resemblance to 1979, where we had to blood youngsters, struggled and narrowly avoided relegation. 18 months on, these youngsters, still averaging 23 years of age, had enough first team experience to be able to contribute to the proudest day in our history.
We will get better, everything is going in the right direction.
All of you saying we wont get relegated, why wont we?
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Mr Lerner / General Krulak
The previous manager's decision to give up on the UEFA Cup when we were still in it was the most disgraceful management decision ever taken at our football club in my 40 odd years as a supporter. I cannot believe that when his successor was appointed one of his first instructions was never ever to subject Villa supporters to such a disrespectful act again.
Our manager's team selection tonight was a disgrace to Aston Villa and to a competition that has a history as proud as ours. The fans who went to Manchester full of expectation after Saturday deserve at the very least an official apology – although I would say a full refund would be a more appropriate gesture by the club (deducted from the manager's wages).
The word PROUD was banded about freely by our marketing people a few years ago. There's no pride in throwing in the towell.
A big wedge was driven between the club and supporters tonight, and it will take more than a win at Bolton on Saturday to repair it.
John Gregory "lost" a lot of fans by his negative tactics at the 2000 cup final, Martin O'Neill "lost" the support of a many fans after Moscow, and Gerard Houllier has possibly scored his own goal tonight.
I wouldn't blame any player with a hunger for winning things in the game wanting to leave Villa after tonight. Good luck to Gareth Barry and James Milner for the rest of the competition, good luck to Ashley Young wherever he goes next season.
Excellent post
And just how many of you "proud" fans would be at the away game v Brighton next season?
I would and probably a load more. Im not saying I want it, but if we then went down to what was the old 3rd division I would probably be at every away game again.
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Aa soon as I saw the team sheet last night the inevitability of what was about to happen was obvious, and this turned into reality very quickly.
I spent most of the game talking to fellow Villains about GH - how changing a winning team isn't good ; how much the FA Cup means to the fans; how outraged we all were that GH had truly fucked up.
At Liverpool and Citeh, we've had to spend the last half hour taking the piss out of our team / club to remain sane .... last night was all sorts of adjectives - none of them positive.
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In fact, why should I bother with a season ticket to watch Houlliers boring shit football.
Oh now, I'm as pissed off as the next bloke, but "boring" football?
One of the reasons I'm pissed off tonight is that we were starting to play some excellent football with a team that was starting to gel and understand Hotlips' way of playing.
The only time I've seen us play anything resembling excellent football in recent weeks is against Blackburn who are a gutless shambles.
Best we have played this season = West Ham and Blackburn - says it all really
What about Man Utd? 2nd half against Arsenal. We've played well in many games. It takes time to get the players to pass a ball after 4 seasons of playing a different way. Nobody has any patience.
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DBTW, do you really think our best players are not capable of three games in eight days after a two week break followed by another two week break?
Okay so their might have been injuries last night, I reckon there's even more chance of injuries against those purveyors of the beautiful game in Horwich myself.
The "avoiding injuries" argument is also weakened by the ludicrous decision to throw on Walker, Young and Downing when we were three nil down with less than 20 minutes left, and to all intents and purposes, dead and buried.
I'd also suggest that, whilst resting players for a league match might have the ultimate aim of making us perform better in that match, the net effect to players morale of a sound beating like last night, and of pathetically rolling over like that, probably cancels it out.
As Frank said very eloquently on the General's thread, defeat we can put up with, defeatism is a totally different thing.
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All of you saying we wont get relegated, why wont we?
Because we are better than every team below us and we're also better than some of those above us. That's why.
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All of you saying we wont get relegated, why wont we?
Who are going to be fighting tooth and nail to stay in the league too, no game is easy, and we are too close for comfort.
Because we are better than every team below us and we're also better than some of those above us. That's why.
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Was this a clue?
The beauty of manager Houllier's approach to football is his rotational policy, meaning not one fan will be able to guess the team as Villa head to Eastlands.
http://www.avfc.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10265~2304598,00.html
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Ok, Brighton was a bad example admittedly.
Last night we had 11 players start the game who have international caps, most of them full internationals.
It's not as though Houllier went out and played a team of inexperienced youngsters who looked like cats in the headlights. They did ok, and will continue to get better gaining from the experience.
A certain "famous" person on this board said at the start of this season that it bares great resemblance to 1979, where we had to blood youngsters, struggled and narrowly avoided relegation. 18 months on, these youngsters, still averaging 23 years of age, had enough first team experience to be able to contribute to the proudest day in our history.
We will get better, everything is going in the right direction.
All of you saying we wont get relegated, why wont we?
Chris Herd, Ciaran Clark, Fabian Delph, Nathan Delfouneso, Barry Bannan total full international caps = 3
Not to mention them playing out of position. And they did look like rabbits in the headlights in the first half.
We wont get relegated because we have too many good players, some of whom were on the bench today, others unavailable, others on the pitch but clearly struggled to adapt the sweeping, nonsensical changes made by the manager. Also, there are quite a number of poor teams below us who are struggling worse than we are.
If anything, Houllier should have rested players v Blackburn for last night. I'm not saying that would have been a good thing to do, but given a choice I would have rather seen a full strength team out last night.
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We wont get relegated .............
That's what you keep saying, the reality is.....we might.
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Ok...........it is very unlikely we will get relegated. Just like it is very unlikely we will get a European spot.
6 points behind Liverpool and 5 ahead of West Ham.
Wait....maybe Houllier rested the players for our push for Europe???
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We wont get relegated .............
That's what you keep saying, the reality is.....we might.
We could qualify for Europe
The reality is.....we might.
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Was this a clue?
The beauty of manager Houllier's approach to football is his rotational policy, meaning not one fan will be able to guess the team as Villa head to Eastlands.
http://www.avfc.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10265~2304598,00.html
I said to my good friend John before the game.
'He'll make 3 changes, Gabby for Bent, Petrov for Pires and Delph for Baker.'
I couldn't have been more wrong.
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There is a gulf between us and the top4 clubs in terms of resources which will only increase year on year, as money makes money in the set up of football as it is now.It either changes to become a more level playing field or it will become more and more like the SPL where only the top 2 compete, save for the odd cup result.
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Ok...........it is very unlikely we will get relegated. Just like it is very unlikely we will get a European spot.
6 points behind Liverpool and 5 ahead of West Ham.
Wait....maybe Houllier rested the players for our push for Europe???
I actually did think that at one point last night as I'm totally convinced GH knows we won't get relegated. Does he have belief in finishing 6th?
We've as good a chance as any of the other clubs. None of the teams up to 6th are any better than us really.
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Excellent comment and one I totally agree with. Unfortunately for me (and this is purely self pity!), I live and work in Manchester, and here I am today, sat in my office, looking at Manures theatre of doom out of the window, having to listen to Citeh and Manure fans who don't go to games slating our effort last night (or lack of).. I just want to cry!
Leaving the self pity bit, Can someone tell me what GH or any other so called footballing expert for that matter, saw in Bradley?
Headless chicken springs to mind! ???
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We had more chance of winning the Cup, had we put out a decent team, than we had of being relegated.
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Ok...........it is very unlikely we will get relegated. Just like it is very unlikely we will get a European spot.
6 points behind Liverpool and 5 ahead of West Ham.
Wait....maybe Houllier rested the players for our push for Europe???
I actually did think that at one point last night as I'm totally convinced GH knows we won't get relegated. Does he have belief in finishing 6th?
We've as good a chance as any of the other clubs. None of the teams up to 6th are any better than us really.
I thought it was on but that the 2 draws against Fulham and Blackpool knocked us back. But if we win on Saturday and Utd beat Liverpool that is just 3 points between us.
The thing is that, even if Houllier pulled it off, I think he would have reached the extent of his own ambition for Villa. That is the big problem I have had with him from day one.
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Excellent comment and one I totally agree with. Unfortunately for me (and this is purely self pity!), I live and work in Manchester, and here I am today, sat in my office, looking at Manures theatre of doom out of the window, having to listen to Citeh and Manure fans who don't go to games slating our effort last night (or lack of).. I just want to cry!
Leaving the self pity bit, Can someone tell me what GH or any other so called footballing expert for that matter, saw in Bradley?
Headless chicken springs to mind! ???
Disappointed with Bradley myself....hopefully it's just a case of him needing that half a season in the PL to adjust. Players with bigger reputations and price tags have needed it.
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Excellent comment and one I totally agree with. Unfortunately for me (and this is purely self pity!), I live and work in Manchester, and here I am today, sat in my office, looking at Manures theatre of doom out of the window, having to listen to Citeh and Manure fans who don't go to games slating our effort last night (or lack of).. I just want to cry!
Leaving the self pity bit, Can someone tell me what GH or any other so called footballing expert for that matter, saw in Bradley?
Headless chicken springs to mind! ???
Disappointed with Bradley myself....hopefully it's just a case of him needing that half a season in the PL to adjust. Players with bigger reputations and price tags have needed it.
Bradley was dreadful.
I can understand him being off the pace, but he couldn't pass wind.
I counted at least 5 times where he passed the ball directly to a Man City player who was about 10 yards from him.
You have to ask why it didn't work out at Borussia, a team who are hardly top class.
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The title of this thread sounds like the title of a wartime music hall song.
I can't get the Fast Show's Arthur Atkinson out of my head now.
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It just occurred to me that if Villa made this amount of changes in a league match they'd be in trouble wouldn't they? Like Blackpool were?
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It just occurred to me that if Villa made this amount of changes in a league match they'd be in trouble wouldn't they? Like Blackpool were?
Yes. We should be heavily fined and the game played again.
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We had more chance of winning the Cup, had we put out a decent team, than we had of being relegated.
More chance of winning the cup? Chances are in the cup we'd have to play Man Utd or Arsenal (OK, Blues beat Arsenal, but 99 times out of 100 they would have lost) to win it and have beaten Man City, who we may well have lost to even if we'd played a proper team.
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The title of this thread sounds like the title of a wartime music hall song.
I can't get the Fast Show's Arthur Atkinson out of my head now.
Well Houlliers management is more Arthur Atkinson than Ron Atkinson.
(http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/69668821/1067663)
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We had more chance of winning the Cup, had we put out a decent team, than we had of being relegated.
More chance of winning the cup? Chances are in the cup we'd have to play Man Utd or Arsenal (OK, Blues beat Arsenal, but 99 times out of 100 they would have lost) to win it and have beaten Man City, who we may well have lost to even if we'd played a proper team.
If you take that approach, there's no point trying to win the Cup, as you'd always have to play a decent side.
it's hard to see how, had we overcome City last night (and let's not forget - no Dzeko, no Johnson, no Milner, no Kompany themselves), we'd be in this position:
Birmingham v Bolton
Man Utd v Arsenal
Stoke v West Ham
Villa v Reading
Had we won last night, we'd be creaming our pants at that line up, but we gave up before we kicked a ball, so it's obviously time to downplay it.
Incidentally. Four days after Blues win a trophy against a better side than Man City, and look at them in the QF draw against fucking Bolton at home.
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It might even be another Blues V Arsenal final.
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Weren't we about 12th in the league in March, 29 years ago?
I'm glad Tony Barton didn't choose to rest players in the European Cup game against Dinamo Kiev to concentrate on finishing midtable.
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Well said VCM, I agree with every single word, Houllier has shown so much contempt for us with his team selection and our only chance for a glimmer of self-respect this season. I for one, will not be renewing my season ticket next season if Houllier is in charge.
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We had more chance of winning the Cup, had we put out a decent team, than we had of being relegated.
More chance of winning the cup? Chances are in the cup we'd have to play Man Utd or Arsenal (OK, Blues beat Arsenal, but 99 times out of 100 they would have lost) to win it and have beaten Man City, who we may well have lost to even if we'd played a proper team.
If you take that approach, there's no point trying to win the Cup, as you'd always have to play a decent side.
it's hard to see how, had we overcome City last night (and let's not forget - no Dzeko, no Johnson, no Milner, no Kompany themselves), we'd be in this position:
Birmingham v Bolton
Man Utd v Arsenal
Stoke v West Ham
Villa v Reading
Had we won last night, we'd be creaming our pants at that line up, but we gave up before we kicked a ball, so it's obviously time to downplay it.
Incidentally. Four days after Blues win a trophy against a better side than Man City, and look at them in the QF draw against fucking Bolton at home.
You missed my point. I think it's equally probable that we can qualify for Europe through the league as we could've won the cup. Call me an optimist, but that's what I think. Obviously you will eventually play a decent team (as we did last night, which people seem to forget) and you should always play your best team to try and beat them. I just think we've got as good a chance of finishing 6th. Last season we played one decent team in the FA Cup and lost, we also played one decent team in the Carling Cup, and lost. We qualified for Europe in the league. It's easier for us to qualify for Europe than win a cup.
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Lets hope Bolton choose to rest players so they can concentrate on the cup!
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Fucking shite-house, Houllier!!
The only good thing to come out of last night is the realisation that Villa still mean that much to me that I can get so livid over the decision to surrender
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Weren't we about 12th in the league in March, 29 years ago?
I'm glad Tony Barton didn't choose to rest players in the European Cup game against Dinamo Kiev to concentrate on finishing midtable.
Yep, on last nights showing, GH would have picked a team of internationals and used that as 'defence'.
Mad.
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We had more chance of winning the Cup, had we put out a decent team, than we had of being relegated.
More chance of winning the cup? Chances are in the cup we'd have to play Man Utd or Arsenal (OK, Blues beat Arsenal, but 99 times out of 100 they would have lost) to win it and have beaten Man City, who we may well have lost to even if we'd played a proper team.
If you take that approach, there's no point trying to win the Cup, as you'd always have to play a decent side.
it's hard to see how, had we overcome City last night (and let's not forget - no Dzeko, no Johnson, no Milner, no Kompany themselves), we'd be in this position:
Birmingham v Bolton
Man Utd v Arsenal
Stoke v West Ham
Villa v Reading
Had we won last night, we'd be creaming our pants at that line up, but we gave up before we kicked a ball, so it's obviously time to downplay it.
Incidentally. Four days after Blues win a trophy against a better side than Man City, and look at them in the QF draw against fucking Bolton at home.
You missed my point. I think it's equally probable that we can qualify for Europe through the league as we could've won the cup. Call me an optimist, but that's what I think. Obviously you will eventually play a decent team (as we did last night, which people seem to forget) and you should always play your best team to try and beat them. I just think we've got as good a chance of finishing 6th. Last season we played one decent team in the FA Cup and lost, we also played one decent team in the Carling Cup, and lost. We qualified for Europe in the league. It's easier for us to qualify for Europe than win a cup.
To qualify for Europe through the league we not only have to pick up our form and win the majority of the rest of our games, but hope that other teams similarly go through bad runs of form.
If we had got through the Man City tie we would just have had to avoid Man U/Arsenal in the draw and have an easy route to the final, where we would be guarenteed a Euro place.
I think we are as likely to be able to pull off a shock against the likes of City/Man U/Arsenal in the Cup as we are of going on a winning run between now and the end of the season.
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To qualify for Europe through the league we not only have to pick up our form and win the majority of the rest of our games, but hope that other teams similarly go through bad runs of form.
If we had got through the Man City tie we would just have had to avoid Man U/Arsenal in the draw and have an easy route to the final, where we would be guarenteed a Euro place.
I think we are as likely to be able to pull off a shock against the likes of City/Man U/Arsenal in the Cup as we are of going on a winning run between now and the end of the season.
I don't think we'd neccessarily need an super run of winning games, just a good run because the other teams going for it aren't any better than us and are likely to lose a few games in the run-in. Liverpool are 6th and are not very good.
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6th place is still possible, that's if GH has'nt given up on it.
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6th place is still possible, that's if GH has'nt given up on it.
Me riding a bicycle through the Lion enclosure at Longleat is possible, but it's not going to happen.
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6th place is still possible, that's if GH has'nt given up on it.
Me riding a bicycle through the Lion enclosure at Longleat is possible, but it's not going to happen.
There's not reason why not, unless you're giving up GH style already. If we win on Saturday and Liverpool lose to Man Utd, then we're 3 points behind them. Maybe i'm looking for positives after last nights debacle. It's the only thing i can do at the moment.
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We had more chance of winning the Cup, had we put out a decent team, than we had of being relegated.
More chance of winning the cup? Chances are in the cup we'd have to play Man Utd or Arsenal (OK, Blues beat Arsenal, but 99 times out of 100 they would have lost) to win it and have beaten Man City, who we may well have lost to even if we'd played a proper team.
If you take that approach, there's no point trying to win the Cup, as you'd always have to play a decent side.
it's hard to see how, had we overcome City last night (and let's not forget - no Dzeko, no Johnson, no Milner, no Kompany themselves), we'd be in this position:
Birmingham v Bolton
Man Utd v Arsenal
Stoke v West Ham
Villa v Reading
Had we won last night, we'd be creaming our pants at that line up, but we gave up before we kicked a ball, so it's obviously time to downplay it.
Incidentally. Four days after Blues win a trophy against a better side than Man City, and look at them in the QF draw against fucking Bolton at home.
You missed my point. I think it's equally probable that we can qualify for Europe through the league as we could've won the cup. Call me an optimist, but that's what I think. Obviously you will eventually play a decent team (as we did last night, which people seem to forget) and you should always play your best team to try and beat them. I just think we've got as good a chance of finishing 6th. Last season we played one decent team in the FA Cup and lost, we also played one decent team in the Carling Cup, and lost. We qualified for Europe in the league. It's easier for us to qualify for Europe than win a cup.
What's the point in qualifying for Europe, though?
How seriously do we take that? If we'd been playing a Europa League match last night, what would we have done?
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We're currently on 33 points with 10 games left. Win them ALL and we finish on 63, which is more or less top 6 vacinity.
Unfortunately, we're NOT going to win all our remaining games hence we won't be 6th.
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Mr Lerner / General Krulak
The previous manager's decision to give up on the UEFA Cup when we were still in it was the most disgraceful management decision ever taken at our football club in my 40 odd years as a supporter. I cannot believe that when his successor was appointed one of his first instructions was never ever to subject Villa supporters to such a disrespectful act again.
Our manager's team selection tonight was a disgrace to Aston Villa and to a competition that has a history as proud as ours. The fans who went to Manchester full of expectation after Saturday deserve at the very least an official apology – although I would say a full refund would be a more appropriate gesture by the club (deducted from the manager's wages).
The word PROUD was banded about freely by our marketing people a few years ago. There's no pride in throwing in the towell.
A big wedge was driven between the club and supporters tonight, and it will take more than a win at Bolton on Saturday to repair it.
John Gregory "lost" a lot of fans by his negative tactics at the 2000 cup final, Martin O'Neill "lost" the support of a many fans after Moscow, and Gerard Houllier has possibly scored his own goal tonight.
I wouldn't blame any player with a hunger for winning things in the game wanting to leave Villa after tonight. Good luck to Gareth Barry and James Milner for the rest of the competition, good luck to Ashley Young wherever he goes next season.
Excellent post
And just how many of you "proud" fans would be at the away game v Brighton next season?
Judging by the scramble for Blackpool tickets last month, I would imagine we'd sell out for that seaside trip. The point you make though is valid. Boro away for a Monday night, as an example. Still doesn't excuse last night.
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We're currently on 33 points with 10 games left. Win them ALL and we finish on 63, which is more or less top 6 vacinity.
Unfortunately, we're NOT going to win all our remaining games hence we won't be 6th.
But we might as well TRY and salvage something out of the season. It's the least the players and especially the manager can do after last night.
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I attach no blame to the players for last night.
Well, as I see it you go into every game trying to win in, so whether we can realistically aim for 6th or not we should still do that.
Personally I fear what we'll see is a few of wins in the next 5 games to put us properly safe and then the season will embarassingbly tail off.
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I attach no blame to the players for last night.
No you're right, that was hasty of me, although some were poorer than others.
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Excellent post VCTM----I fully second everything you have said----and have to say i feel the same about next season,if our manager and some players cant be bothered why the hell should we??
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Im absolutely shocked by this reaction! We are in a seriously dangerous position in the Premiership. The majority of our run in is against teams in the same situation, that most of you think are gimmes. If we lose 6 of these, we then have to beat Arsenal away and Liverpool on the last day. If we lose 6 of these we will go down. We have a squad of players who our manager can select a starting XI from. Villa fans as a whole bemoaned the previous manager for burnout in March, and being so rigid in selection and formation. Our current manager is confident enought to change things every game. The game last night was lost in the first 4 minutes after an unfortunate mistake by Clark, not by the managers selection of International players. I think we played ok as a whole, we didnt create many chances granted, but City are a class act.
To react the way most of you are today, shows that you are fickle and can't really see whats staring you in the face, which is relegation.
Get ten points on the boards and things will look better, last night just came at the wrong time.
Wow. Don't think I've seen a post so wide off the mark as this one. Have a read over it and think again. You can start with a dictionary definition of f!ickle, as you obviously don't know what it means. In keeping with most of the dounghnuts who try to brandish it about as some kind of insult.
If you had just been able to include 'so called Villa fans' in there somewhere, you'd have the cherry on the icing on the cake.
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And just how many of you "proud" fans would be at the away game v Brighton next season?
...Close enough, I suppose.
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This is the lowest feeling I remember in over 30 yrs, I can take being beaten and thrashed but being beaten before kick off with such a weakened team has now left me in a state of shock, I never saw it coming, I thought we had turned a corner and would give city a tough game with our strongest team , now I feel empty and I hope my appetite for the game returns by Saturday- the game as we knew it in the 70s and 80s has gone and it's all about money now- so very sad.
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We wont get relegated .............
That's what you keep saying, the reality is.....we might.
We won't though.
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It looks like your curly mop is covering your eys in this one Gagey, I think my point will be proven when Blues go down this season having won a trophy as a distraction.
I use the word fickle as a generalisation, and we inherited many a "modern day fan" (see what I did there? ) when Randy and MON first took over who seem to have huge expectations that had to achieved pretty much instantly. The older heads amongst us know that things don't work like that. Some saw the billionaire takeover and jumped to the conclusion that Aston Villa were going to oust Manchester United, Chelsea et al as the biggest spending power, and it became easy to pick Villa to follow. Now we're in transition, things aren't so easy going, and the negativity bandwagon is all to easy to jump on.
We need to give this manager time to change things, he is doing well, and behind the scenes things are so much different that when he took over, and all for the better.
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This is really an addition to my 'What is the point?' post on the post-match thread, but I think it is relevant here. Bringing in one or two new faces to suit tactics or to replace a jaded player within the same structure can definitely freshen up a team. Houllier has proved that he has the ability and willingness to do that several times this season. But making wholesale changes to the entire team never works, not for the newbies who 'get the chance to shine', not for the seniors left to get cold on the bench, nor for the fans who (if I take myself as an example) get that 'tingle' of anticipation before the game that something may just happen - only to be slapped down as the teamsheet comes through on the mobile. I can tell you I gave up caring as soon as I saw the team. If they want a practice game to try out the second string, then don't have it in the 5th round of the cup at Eastlands. As I said on the other thread, playing your strongest team on the back of a good result, of renewed belief, of a bit of continuity, can ensure a much better end to the season than the demoralisation and defeatism exhibited last night.
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We wont get relegated .............
That's what you keep saying, the reality is.....we might.
We won't though.
Why not?
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We had more chance of winning the Cup, had we put out a decent team, than we had of being relegated.
More chance of winning the cup? Chances are in the cup we'd have to play Man Utd or Arsenal (OK, Blues beat Arsenal, but 99 times out of 100 they would have lost) to win it and have beaten Man City, who we may well have lost to even if we'd played a proper team.
If you take that approach, there's no point trying to win the Cup, as you'd always have to play a decent side.
it's hard to see how, had we overcome City last night (and let's not forget - no Dzeko, no Johnson, no Milner, no Kompany themselves), we'd be in this position:
Birmingham v Bolton
Man Utd v Arsenal
Stoke v West Ham
Villa v Reading
Had we won last night, we'd be creaming our pants at that line up, but we gave up before we kicked a ball, so it's obviously time to downplay it.
Incidentally. Four days after Blues win a trophy against a better side than Man City, and look at them in the QF draw against fucking Bolton at home.
You missed my point. I think it's equally probable that we can qualify for Europe through the league as we could've won the cup. Call me an optimist, but that's what I think. Obviously you will eventually play a decent team (as we did last night, which people seem to forget) and you should always play your best team to try and beat them. I just think we've got as good a chance of finishing 6th. Last season we played one decent team in the FA Cup and lost, we also played one decent team in the Carling Cup, and lost. We qualified for Europe in the league. It's easier for us to qualify for Europe than win a cup.
What's the point in qualifying for Europe, though?
How seriously do we take that? If we'd been playing a Europa League match last night, what would we have done?
So then let's give up (if we haven't already).
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This is really an addition to my 'What is the point?' post on the post-match thread, but I think it is relevant here. Bringing in one or two new faces to suit tactics or to replace a jaded player within the same structure can definitely freshen up a team. Houllier has proved that he has the ability and willingness to do that several times this season. But making wholesale changes to the entire team never works, not for the newbies who 'get the chance to shine', not for the seniors left to get cold on the bench, nor for the fans who (if I take myself as an example) get that 'tingle' of anticipation before the game that something may just happen - only to be slapped down as the teamsheet comes through on the mobile. I can tell you I gave up caring as soon as I saw the team. If they want a practice game to try out the second string, then don't have it in the 5th round of the cup at Eastlands. As I said on the other thread, playing your strongest team on the back of a good result, of renewed belief, of a bit of continuity, can ensure a much better end to the season than the demoralisation and defeatism exhibited last night.
Exactly Martyn.
Last night's surrender might actually harm our chances in the league. We didn't need a further dent to morale when it looked like we had just started to gain a bit of momentum, and a self inflicted one at that.
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We're currently on 33 points with 10 games left. Win them ALL and we finish on 63, which is more or less top 6 vacinity.
Unfortunately, we're NOT going to win all our remaining games hence we won't be 6th.
Fair enough, but the other teams vying for that position will also NOT win all their games. Lvierpool lose to Man Utd and we win, we're 3 points behind, we then beat Liverpool, we're 3 points behind, and that's just two games.
The bottom up will have more points than usual and the top down will have less than usual.
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And just how many of you "proud" fans would be at the away game v Brighton next season?
...Close enough, I suppose.
Hmmm, it's a bit extremem to presume that if we had played our 1st choice team last night we may be playing Brighton. With the chance of winning the FA cup, I would have expected us to play our best players, even with a slight chance 1 of them could have got injured last night.
As for the fans, it's not just last night GH pissed off, what about the rest that attended earlier rounds? If we new he doesn't give a f*ck about the FA cup this season, then I wouldn't have paid to watch B-burn.
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Maybe i'm the lone nutter here, but i've been to every round of the cup this season and understand what GH did last night.
They aren't bad players, they are all good players and deserved the chance.
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What Houllier did was unforgiveable and anyone defending it, well I'm baffled. Does not being in the cup mean you're suddenly relegation-proof? Look how well we maintained our position in the Champions League places after our surrender in Moscow. A run like that and we will go down.
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It's not matter of understanding it, it's a matter of agreeing with it.
It's not that the players were bad, it's that there were better ones on the bench.
It's not that we lost, it's that he didn't give us a fighting chance of winning.
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It's not matter of understanding it, it's a matter of agreeing with it.
It's not that the players were bad, it's that there were better ones on the bench.
It's not that we lost, it's that he didn't give us a fighting chance of winning.
The better ones on the bench would not have prevented the first goal, but it's hard to say how the game would have panned out after that.
The point is, he put a team out that he was hoping would sneak a result, it backfired, badly. I can see why he did it, I don't like it or agree with it, but on another day they might have grabbed a draw and things would be completely different here today.
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This is really an addition to my 'What is the point?' post on the post-match thread, but I think it is relevant here. Bringing in one or two new faces to suit tactics or to replace a jaded player within the same structure can definitely freshen up a team. Houllier has proved that he has the ability and willingness to do that several times this season. But making wholesale changes to the entire team never works, not for the newbies who 'get the chance to shine', not for the seniors left to get cold on the bench, nor for the fans who (if I take myself as an example) get that 'tingle' of anticipation before the game that something may just happen - only to be slapped down as the teamsheet comes through on the mobile. I can tell you I gave up caring as soon as I saw the team. If they want a practice game to try out the second string, then don't have it in the 5th round of the cup at Eastlands. As I said on the other thread, playing your strongest team on the back of a good result, of renewed belief, of a bit of continuity, can ensure a much better end to the season than the demoralisation and defeatism exhibited last night.
Spot on -
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The corner that lead to their first goal was a move down our right that seemed far too easy for me, so had he played Walker would that have prevented it?
Anyway, what might have happened isn't important. What DID happen is.
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Dear Mr Lerner,
I appreciate you might be a bit strapped for cash at the moment but any chance you could loan me £50 until pay day?
I can pay you back on March 20th.
Thanks
ps Were the manager and his assistant looking so pissed off last night because they were missing Masterchef and as a result put a weakened side out so there is no danger of missing any further episodes?
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Citeh never got out of first gear. They didn't have to yes but our strongest team (minus Bent) would not have got the result last night (as we are too powder puff in front of goal). They have a much stronger squad than us (and should have considering the ££££sss spent). I think the frustration of the fans is that the message from the announcement of the team was one of.......we're not fussed about getting a result.
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This is really an addition to my 'What is the point?' post on the post-match thread, but I think it is relevant here. Bringing in one or two new faces to suit tactics or to replace a jaded player within the same structure can definitely freshen up a team. Houllier has proved that he has the ability and willingness to do that several times this season. But making wholesale changes to the entire team never works, not for the newbies who 'get the chance to shine', not for the seniors left to get cold on the bench, nor for the fans who (if I take myself as an example) get that 'tingle' of anticipation before the game that something may just happen - only to be slapped down as the teamsheet comes through on the mobile. I can tell you I gave up caring as soon as I saw the team. If they want a practice game to try out the second string, then don't have it in the 5th round of the cup at Eastlands. As I said on the other thread, playing your strongest team on the back of a good result, of renewed belief, of a bit of continuity, can ensure a much better end to the season than the demoralisation and defeatism exhibited last night.
Spot on -
Very well put indeed.
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Citeh never got out of first gear. They didn't have to yes but our strongest team (minus Bent) would not have got the result last night (as we are too powder puff in front of goal). They have a much stronger squad than us (and should have considering the ££££sss spent). I think the frustration of the fans is that the message from the announcement of the team was one of.......we're not fussed about getting a result.
rubbish- blues and fulham drew at eastlands and everton won there , its crap to say our best team wouldnt have a chance of getting a result- they are not barcelona! we would have had a chance if wed gone for it , rather than wave the white flag.
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Just days after our neighbours win a trophy, albeit for the first time in a lifetime, we also get an opportunity to progress in another cup competition.
Unfortunately the manager you appointed has chosen to not take this matter as seriously as thousands of fans and certainly the 3K fans who have made the journey tonight.
I never thought I would see the club I have supported for nearly 50 years give up on this competition.
After witnessing a good team performance at the weekend I had great expectations for the game, regrettably Monsieur Houllier has decided to surrender this tie without a whimper.
Today I purchased a ticket for my son`s best friend who despite being 10 years of age has yet to pin his allegience to a club - I am looking to convince him that AVFC are the team to follow rather than Liverpool where we live. Why should I bother?
Furthermore I had been looking forward to the up coming games at Bolton and Everton - again why should I bother?
My young son and I enjoyed travelling to Wembley twice last year and we hoped this manager could take us to a cup victory - but in essence his decision tonight mirrors that of the former manager who also surrended the hope of winning in Europe.
If Monsieur Houllier is under instructions to stay in the Premiership at the expense of winning a trophy and because of the potential loss of revenue should we go down, I would prefer if this was communicated to the fans before they travel miles up the M6.
Winning the FA Cup would be a great fillip for fans of my vintage as it is the only trophy we have yet to see us win.
If this is the way it is I will no longer spend hard earned cash on FA Cup tickets -
Finally my decision to renew my season tickets for next season is no longer an automatic one. Perhaps like the manager and some of the players I will just turn up when I feel like it.
Are you sending that letter VCTM? If you are please endorse it fro me as well, thanks.
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Dear Randy
Could you clear it up for us fans. Did you tell GH to throw in the towel before the kick off and cause complete disrespect for the travelling fans and the good name of our club? Or did he take upon himself. Either way one of you should walk.
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Citeh never got out of first gear. They didn't have to yes but our strongest team (minus Bent) would not have got the result last night (as we are too powder puff in front of goal). They have a much stronger squad than us (and should have considering the ££££sss spent). I think the frustration of the fans is that the message from the announcement of the team was one of.......we're not fussed about getting a result.
rubbish- blues and fulham drew at eastlands and everton won there , its crap to say our best team wouldnt have a chance of getting a result- they are not barcelona! we would have had a chance if wed gone for it , rather than wave the white flag.
The same side that got tonked 4-0? Could you argue Citeh played a weakened team with Tevez on the bench? Personally I would have gone all old fashioned....4-4-2 with Gabby and Heskey up front. I can't stand this single striker up front. Only Walker could have improved the defence with Collins and Cuellar out. Petrov was though a complete waste of space and should have the captaincy taken off imo.
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if we dont think we can beat any better teams with us then we might as well not bother if thats your argument. so, we lost 4-0 in dec , we also beat them in jan and would have given them a tough game if wed put out our best available team.
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if we dont think we can beat any better teams with us then we might as well not bother if thats your argument. so, we lost 4-0 in dec , we also beat them in jan and would have given them a tough game if wed put out our best available team.
We know we're not going to win the league, so good question, why do we bother? The same goes for 15 other clubs in the Premier League.
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I'm not saying we couldn't have beaten them just that I feel our strongest team would have struggled against them with the formation we currently use. I'm certainly not defending GH.
Just pissed off and angry like you and everyone else.
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Blues "shouldn't" have beaten Arsenal. If they'd played a weakened side they wouldn't have. If you don't try, you don't deserve to win. Houllier is a chuffing disgrace.
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Blues "shouldn't" have beaten Arsenal. If they'd played a weakened side they wouldn't have. If you don't try, you don't deserve to win. Houllier is a chuffing disgrace.
Spot on! Nail Head BANG
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Dear Randy
Could you clear it up for us fans. Did you tell GH to throw in the towel before the kick off and cause complete disrespect for the travelling fans and the good name of our club? Or did he take upon himself. Either way one of you should walk.
No over-reaction there at all.
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Citeh never got out of first gear. They didn't have to yes but our strongest team (minus Bent) would not have got the result last night (as we are too powder puff in front of goal).
I'm not saying we couldn't have beaten them just that I feel our strongest team would have struggled against them with the formation we currently use. I'm certainly not defending GH.
Just pissed off and angry like you and everyone else.
pretty clear you said we would not have got a result last night. as risso said if you dont try you never know- im sure our best available side would have had a chance of a result .
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edit -repost
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6th place is still possible, that's if GH has'nt given up on it.
For me, it's time to give up on him.
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I think last night has just about done my head in and resulted in my ramblings! I'm only 40 but the game is nothing like it used to be (sounding like my late dad now).
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A bit like the tippy-tappy stuff on the half way line, 30 passes and we end up back where we began.
Sums GH's tenure up really, we either do it til May then part amicably, or do it for the next 3 years, go nowhere (or down) and start again then
Life is too short
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To me last night's crowd was just as symbolic of modrn football as the team selection. A club who haven't won a trophy for 35 years, living in the shadow of the most successful English club of all time, Wembley within touching distance and 23,000 of their supporters bothered to turn up.
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how many did they get in the previous round vs N County ? Is the 23k a sad indictment on us as an attraction ?
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how many did they get in the previous round vs N County ? Is the 23k a sad indictment on us as an attraction ?
In the circumstances, the opposition should be of no concern. Win that one and you're almost at Wembley.
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Dear Mr Lerner. Im glad you are our owner, and I wouldnt trade you for any other PL owner today, as like me, you picked Villa to be your team, and you have invested far more into it than I could ever do. Thats something that I appreciate every day, certainly when I saw the costs barrelling upwards on the accounts. My concern is that while proudly being able to afford a ST for the last two seasons, we are at something of a crossroads at home. We are delighted to know we will soon have our first child, but that will mean sacrifices due to time and money will have to (rightly) be made. I have been hoping the ST wasnt one of those things. This season has been somewhat sticky, and I was pretty down about last nights result. I would be pretty disappointed if at the end of the season we all look back on last night as a real opportunity missed to put up more of a fight. I think we have a manager in place that understands the long term issues and plans of our great club, but he was certainly testing my faith last night. I hope im in the position to be able to come next season week in week out to see his plans come to fruition.
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I understand walmley, I'm 45 but the game is so different now to when I was young, it's all about money now and the rich getting richer, the days of a forest winning the league straight from promotion are gone forever.
I fear that we will Only be chasing Europa league places for the foreseeable future and therefore winning a cup is our only realistic chance of a trophy- if we aren't going to try to do that then it's a bleak time indeed.
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I wish I could be more angry. I'm not. I'm just resigned to the fact that winning trophies is no longer what we want to achieve. i can understand it slightly more if we are trying to achieve a high finishing position in the league and one or two players are 'rested'. But to be sitting in 12th and just can't be bothered with the Cup. I feel almost resigned to it all. Its worse than not being angry, being too tired to care.
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Maybe if the General's questions was still here I could ask him to pursue the local fans more vigorously as they may be the new generation of fans that the club need. Only understand the Premier league and nothing else as the long-sdtanding fans will start to disappear again.
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how many did they get in the previous round vs N County ? Is the 23k a sad indictment on us as an attraction ?
In the circumstances, the opposition should be of no concern. Win that one and you're almost at Wembley.
If they get to Wembley, which they probably will, they'll all be crawling out and we'll be hearing stories of how "Its not fair that I've followed City for 40 years but could'nt get a semi-final ticket" etc, etc
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I just feel it sends an awful message to any players the club might be interested in signing in future and the likes of downing, young , bent etc who came here to improve their chances of winning things- what must they be thinking now?
I really could understand if last night convinced ash to go and would have every sympathy with him if he did so , players want to win things as much as fans .
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The main thing that concearns me about last night selection/performance was is it a sign of the future?
Where as a club are we going,?Are we going to hav to accept that Prem survival is our main priority, that hen we play a team like Citeeeh, ten w can't compete, that we have to accept, like Bloose, that only the League cup is a realistic target?
I don't blame GH for picking a team with the League game on sat in mind, what i do mind is that he feels he has to for the clubs future.
Worrying times for me, how many of them on the bench will be here next year?
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just checked they had 27,276 vs Notts Cty
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The title of this thread sounds like the title of a wartime music hall song.
I can't get the Fast Show's Arthur Atkinson out of my head now.
To the tune of Oh Mr Porter:
Dear Mr Lerner
What can we do?
We thought we were on a Wemberley charge
But now we’re in the poo.
We wanted have a cup run
Mais Monsieur Hou dit "non!"
Dear Mr Lerner what a ****** he am.
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Maybe if the General's questions was still here
Has no one told you yet? Ha.
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I understand walmley, I'm 45 but the game is so different now to when I was young, it's all about money now and the rich getting richer, the days of a forest winning the league straight from promotion are gone forever.
I fear that we will Only be chasing Europa league places for the foreseeable future and therefore winning a cup is our only realistic chance of a trophy- if we aren't going to try to do that then it's a bleak time indeed.
I'm 42 and I care less about football every day
The best we can look at achieving is a Cup run and/or qualifying for the Europa league.
At least in days gone by you knew that every few years or so you would have a crack at the title
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Blues "shouldn't" have beaten Arsenal. If they'd played a weakened side they wouldn't have. If you don't try, you don't deserve to win.
Yep, that's about the long and the short of it. How to take the momentum out of a side and piss players off who want to play. Seen it before with Kevin MacDonald and MON, and it doesn't appear to effing work very well for us, does it? Will Houllier learn now?
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To me last night's crowd was just as symbolic of modrn football as the team selection. A club who haven't won a trophy for 35 years, living in the shadow of the most successful English club of all time, Wembley within touching distance and 23,000 of their supporters bothered to turn up.
Isn't that about what we got in total including a full North Upper and Lower of Citeh fans when we played them at home a few years ago in the 5th round when Micah Richards scored that sodding header?
They also have something like 5 home games in a row, in the current financial climate is it surprising?
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To me last night's crowd was just as symbolic of modrn football as the team selection. A club who haven't won a trophy for 35 years, living in the shadow of the most successful English club of all time, Wembley within touching distance and 23,000 of their supporters bothered to turn up.
Isn't that about what we got in total including a full North Upper and Lower of Citeh fans when we played them at home a few years ago in the 5th round when Micah Richards scored that sodding header?
They also have something like 5 home games in a row, in the current financial climate is it surprising?
I don't know and I don't particularly care. It shows the low regard they hold for the FA Cup.
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I lay the blame for all this firmly at the feet of Paul Faulkner and Margaret Thatcher.
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Maybe if the General's questions was still here I could ask him to pursue the local fans more vigorously as they may be the new generation of fans that the club need. Only understand the Premier league and nothing else as the long-sdtanding fans will start to disappear again.
It is. We have a whole section dedicated to it.
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To me last night's crowd was just as symbolic of modrn football as the team selection. A club who haven't won a trophy for 35 years, living in the shadow of the most successful English club of all time, Wembley within touching distance and 23,000 of their supporters bothered to turn up.
Isn't that about what we got in total including a full North Upper and Lower of Citeh fans when we played them at home a few years ago in the 5th round when Micah Richards scored that sodding header?
They also have something like 5 home games in a row, in the current financial climate is it surprising?
I don't know and I don't particularly care. It shows the low regard they hold for the FA Cup.
Or maybe a lot of them just couldn't afford it Dave. Had it been at VP last night I almost certainly wouldn't have been there for one simple reason, I wouldn't have been able to afford it, even at say £20 a ticket. I'm sure I wouldn't have been the only one in that situation. It doesn't mean I have low regard for the FA Cup, just that I have to prioritise sometimes.
Sky and modern football have devalued the domestic cups, but the current climate for many does dictate how many games you can go to.
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There is a lot of over emotional stuff on this thread from people who quite frankly are old enough to know better. However, I wanted to highlight this as it is just pain wrong;
Mistake by Clark?? Goal was down to the players looking like they didnt know what way they were supposed to be defeneding the corner, which was brought about by 8 changes and the team/squad not prepared enough for such changes.
The changes were not responsible for that goal. It was the sort we've been conceding all season and was symptomatic of how things have gone for us with it bouncing off Clark's arm.
As I said last night I can understand why he did what he did even if I think he made a couple of changes too many. What does bemuse me though is the people who have been calling out for many of those who played last night to be given a chance now wailing like jilted brides when they actually get given a run out.
Relegation is unthinkable and, however much we might not like it, staying in the league is always going to take precedence. Our form is too fragile and our position too precarious for us to take anything for granted and you can bet that if Spurs or Arsenal were in a similar position they'd be making similar decisions, hard headed businessmen do not share our romantic ideas.
If I though we had a realistic chance of winning the cup then I suppose that I'd have been more angry, but I've seen us play his season and know that we are far too frail defensively to have much hope and I'm too old to think of a day out at Wembley as anything more than a ridiculously expensive waste unless you win the fucker. Of course we might always have fluked it, nothing is ever certain, but I wasn't expecting it
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The title of this thread sounds like the title of a wartime music hall song.
I can't get the Fast Show's Arthur Atkinson out of my head now.
To the tune of Oh Mr Porter:
Dear Mr Lerner
What can we do?
We thought we were on a Wemberley charge
But now we’re in the poo.
We wanted have a cup run
Mais Monsieur Hou dit "non!"
Dear Mr Lerner what a c*** he am.
I prefer Glenns efforts.
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Or maybe a lot of them just couldn't afford it Dave. Had it been at VP last night I almost certainly wouldn't have been there for one simple reason, I wouldn't have been able to afford it, even at say £20 a ticket. I'm sure I wouldn't have been the only one in that situation. It doesn't mean I have low regard for the FA Cup, just that I have to prioritise sometimes.
Sky and modern football have devalued the domestic cups, but the current climate for many does dictate how many games you can go to.
That's maybe, but they will have full houses for their league games which are twice the price of last night. City, incidentally, always have low crowds for cup ties. I don't know their pricing structure but they alway seem to get around 15k or less for matches where we get mid-20s.
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From the Guardian sportblog just now. Seems to about sum up what most of us have been trying to say:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2011/mar/03/football-should-be-about-glory
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They held in enough regard to put a decent team out though.
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Maybe if the General's questions was still here I could ask him to pursue the local fans more vigorously as they may be the new generation of fans that the club need. Only understand the Premier league and nothing else as the long-sdtanding fans will start to disappear again.
It is. We have a whole section dedicated to it.
Really?
Where?
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Just a theory, maybe Randy has been leaning on the managers, encouraging them to pick a weakened team because the league is his priority. This is the third manager it's happened under (incl. MacDonald) after all.
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They held in enough regard to put a decent team out though.
When you've spent around a quarter of a million pounds in a couple of years you tend to have a squad where you can make 5 or 6 changes without anyone noticing.
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With the millions we've spent, we should be able to also
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I can only echo original posters concerns and add that if I was part of the Villa marketing team last night would have given me the perfect excuse for not achieving targets set for enticing new fans through the door.
And for anybody within the club who has a brief to look at stadium development with a view to increasing capacity I would suggest they need to start looking for a new job.
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They held in enough regard to put a decent team out though.
When you've spent around a quarter of a million pounds in a couple of years you tend to have a squad where you can make 5 or 6 changes without anyone noticing.
Have to say, Mancini certainly gets value for money.
I thought their team cost far more than that.
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With the millions we've spent, we should be able to also
We did, just not as good as theirs. The only players we've spent money on in the last 18 months were unavailable last night.
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They held in enough regard to put a decent team out though.
When you've spent around a quarter of a million pounds in a couple of years you tend to have a squad where you can make 5 or 6 changes without anyone noticing.
Have to say, Mancini certainly gets value for money.
I thought their team cost far more than that.
Woops, I think I can forget retraining as an accountant when I get the chop.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2011/mar/03/football-should-be-about-glory
Pretty damning comment in The Guardian. Apologies if already posted.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2011/mar/03/football-should-be-about-glory
Pretty damning comment in The Guardian. Apologies if already posted.
Now that's just a rant.
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Nobody can really question RL's commitment, the accounts and the hit he has taken finacially should be proof positive of that.
What I will say though is I'm not sure it will be wise for the General to have a pop about our gates anymore. If it's Bolton-like accomplishments we're looking for, namely happy to just stay in the league, then an average of 35k is actually quite good. Excellent in fact, for a club so clearly lacking ambition and not really providing any sort of entertainment for more than a handful of home games each season.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2011/mar/03/football-should-be-about-glory
Pretty damning comment in The Guardian. Apologies if already posted.
Now that's just a rant.
And a rather predictable one, at that. The practice of picking under-strength teams in cup competitions has been going on for at least a decade; managers did it before Houllier, they'll do it afterwards. Some even do it in the Premier League now.
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Nobody can really question RL's commitment, the accounts and the hit he has taken finacially should be proof positive of that.
What I will say though is I'm not sure it will be wise for the General to have a pop about our gates anymore. If it's Bolton-like accomplishments we're looking for, namely happy to just stay in the league, then an average of 35k is actually quite good. Excellent in fact, for a club so clearly lacking ambition and not really providing any sort of entertainment for more than a handful of home games each season.
I don't think you can extrapolate prioritising not getting relegated this season into "just happy to stay in the league". We had got ourselves into a potion this season where relegation became a real possibility. We did something about it by smashing our transfer record and then last night picked a side where we showed that it is still a major concern and that it is put before anything else.
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So if we rest players when we're below half way in the table... and we rest players when we're competing near the top... when do we play a full team?
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We wont get relegated .............
That's what you keep saying, the reality is.....we might.
We won't though.
Why not?
Because we won't. Want money on it?
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6th place is still possible, that's if GH has'nt given up on it.
You do know dont you that 6th place will only bring a Europa League spot if the FA Cup final is contested by two teams in the top five of the Premier League. If a team from outside the top five play the final against a team in the top five and lose they will still get a Europa League spot. The "FA Cup" Europa League spot only goes back to the league if both winner and loser finish in the top 5 places. Looking at who is left in the probability is that a non top 5 team will make the final this year probably against either Man Utd, Man City or Arsenal. If thats the case dare I say it's probably best if its Blues, that way 6th in the league gets the Europa spot.
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Fuck Europe. We won't try to win any of the matches any way.
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It's not as if we would take Europe seriously anyway is it? The last 3 years we haven't and after last night I doubt GED would take the Europa seriously if we qualified anyway.
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Ok, so I can see both sides of the argument here and I didnt spend money going to city last night but I did spend 60quid going to see us beat blackburn at the weekend. I saw one of the best displays from our boys in a long time, controlled, passing, incisive football. Just like I argued would come when you were all calling for GH to be sacked three months back. In all honestly, do you believe that without cuellar, collins, makoun and bent we stood a really decent chance of getting a result last night? Honestly? I dont.
We have notably collapsed in the last 10minutes several times this season and are 3days away from going to one of the fittest, physically strongest teams in the PL. Relegation is still a possibility but so is europe and with the run in we have, I think the latter is more likely if we are smart with how we handle the rest of the season.
Yes its the cup, and yes, ive got all my ticket stubs in my top drawer in the hope that we got to wembley but circumstances went against us last night.
I criticised MON heavily for not rotating as im sure did others, so im not going to be hypocritical enough to critise GH for rotating....several players were individually very good last night and deserved their chance. I just hope the decision is vinidicated and Ashley/Downing combine for an 85th min winner at the weekend.
Ill be looking out for a few names on the post match thread....
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If we win at the week-end will they let us back into the Cup then?
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How many people slating Young and Downing in recent months have complained about them being rested last night I wonder?
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In all honestly, do you believe that without cuellar, collins, makoun and bent we stood a really decent chance of getting a result last night? Honestly? I dont.
Err - yes I do!
Gabby through the middle with proper wingers would be a decent replacement for Bent, Makoun isn't a regular yet, Collins and Cuellar aren't as good a centre-half pairing as Dunne and Clarke. (IMO of course)
On paper our only problematic area last night should have been at left-back with Warnock out of favour, Young away and Baker injured.
Hotlips made his own problems all over the pitch by 'resting' our best players and playing their replacements in bizarre positions.
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still angry about last night, waste of time why enter the comp if he decides to not play our best team, GH has lost me i'm afraid he is not the man for the club i love, can forgive once (Liverpool love in) but not last night, real lack of respect to us, i really hought we could beat City and Reading then who knows
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How many people slating Young and Downing in recent months have complained about them being rested last night I wonder?
Resting them is one thing, playing two centre-forwards on the wing to replace them is another.
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We're currently on 33 points with 10 games left. Win them ALL and we finish on 63, which is more or less top 6 vacinity.
Unfortunately, we're NOT going to win all our remaining games hence we won't be 6th.
John, look at your history mate. In the preceeding ten seasons before this one the team occupying 6th spot at this stage of the season (having played 28 games) has had the following number of points:
09/10 - 48pts
08/09 - 45pts
07/08 - 48pts
06/07 - 43pts
05/06 - 43pts
04/05 - 42pts
03/04 - 42pts
02/03 - 45pts
01/02 - 47pts
00/01 - 45pts
Whilst you are correct in saying around 63pts has been the required level to finish sixth, this year with liverpool currently holding that position after 28 games with only 39 points and average form at best then 63 wont be needed this year. I would guesstimate that 55 points will probably get 6th spot this term
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How many people slating Young and Downing in recent months have complained about them being rested last night I wonder?
I haven't really slated either. However, I think even those that had would recognise that they both played excellently against Blackburn. It would therefore be madness, when they appeared to be in top form, to rest them for our biggest game of the season.
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How many people slating Young and Downing in recent months have complained about them being rested last night I wonder?
Resting them is one thing, playing two centre-forwards on the wing to replace them is another.
With Emile in the middle to knock them in ( as if).
Lescott and Co. must have been shitting themselves.
Amazing treatment of the FA Cup by Clouseau.
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How many people slating Young and Downing in recent months have complained about them being rested last night I wonder?
Resting them is one thing, playing two centre-forwards on the wing to replace them is another.
Gabby has been playing there regularly, Saturday was the first one he hasn't started for a while, so I don't see that as part of this issue. So the problem seems to be giving a promising young player an opportunity.
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Yes Emile was shocking last night, Gabby down the middle everytime why can't he not see it, i truly believe that GH is mad
How many people slating Young and Downing in recent months have complained about them being rested last night I wonder?
Resting them is one thing, playing two centre-forwards on the wing to replace them is another.
With Emile in the middle to knock them in ( as if).
Lescott and Co. must have been shitting themselves.
Amazing treatment of the FA Cup by Clouseau.
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How many people slating Young and Downing in recent months have complained about them being rested last night I wonder?
I haven't really slated either. However, I think even those that had would recognise that they both played excellently against Blackburn. It would therefore be madness, when they appeared to be in top form, to rest them for our biggest game of the season.
i bet mad irish villain thought it was our strongest team and doesnt know what the fuck you are all moaning about!!
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I think the first post pretty much summed it up for me. I'll give GH a bit of credit for his audacity/foolish bravery to field a weaker team and even suggest we weren't going to win either way (I mean really, it takes a huge pair of bollocks to do that) but beyond that fuck him. What a slap in the face.
Maybe the club could email us the team sheet so we can decide whether to bother turning up or not, maybe even make a theme evening around it - Squad numbers attached to raffle prizes and everyone's a winner when Gerrard spins the tombola and pulls out a name for his team sheet.
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How many people slating Young and Downing in recent months have complained about them being rested last night I wonder?
I haven't really slated either. However, I think even those that had would recognise that they both played excellently against Blackburn. It would therefore be madness, when they appeared to be in top form, to rest them for our biggest game of the season.
And therein lies the difference. To you, as a fan, it is the biggest game of the season. To the manager and owner it is secondary to ensuring we don't get relegated. We've all seen the accounts and can be left in no doubt that going down would be very difficult to deal with, we just cannot afford to take the risk.
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I wonder if next season we can opt out of the cup competitions so we can concentrate on making 12th spot in the league?
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Gabby has been playing there regularly,
And has been mostly, in the opinion of most people I speak to, shite.
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I've had Steeler's Wheel 'Stuck in the Middle with you' in my head most of the day, in particular the lines 'Trying to make some sense of it all, but i can see it makes no sense at all'.
Pretty much sums up what i think of last night.
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How many people slating Young and Downing in recent months have complained about them being rested last night I wonder?
I haven't really slated either. However, I think even those that had would recognise that they both played excellently against Blackburn. It would therefore be madness, when they appeared to be in top form, to rest them for our biggest game of the season.
And therein lies the difference. To you, as a fan, it is the biggest game of the season. To the manager and owner it is secondary to ensuring we don't get relegated. We've all seen the accounts and can be left in no doubt that going down would be very difficult to deal with, we just cannot afford to take the risk.
But yesterday's performance does not 'ensure' that we don't get relegated. Baggies were in the top six when they decided to give up on the League Cup and play their reserves in the Quarter-Finals. They're in the shit now.
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I have read through the last few pages, and Chris is right and rather than spend time writing out my opinion on the whole thing again, he is arguing the same position I would so I will simply use a lot of words to agree with him.
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Gabby has been playing there regularly,
And has been mostly, in the opinion of most people I speak to, shite.
That's a different argument though, this is about him playing a weakened side when Gabby is mostly a first choice. The only selections I saw as particularly contentious were Herd and Bradley.
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Be interesting how many fans turn up , If we get a home draw in the 3rd round next season.
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But yesterday's performance does not 'ensure' that we don't get relegated.
Of course it doesn't but in his judgement it gives us a better chance than if the players had all played 90 minutes last night.
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In my judgement we would've been better persevering with the team that had only lost one of the last nine or so games and had a thumping four-one win at the week-end.
We're not going down anyway. If Houllier is that much of a scaredy-pants I doubt he'll be able to motivate us to a huge number of future glories.
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I would prefer us to be safe in the league, regardless of the result at Bolton, and within a chance in the FA cup when stronger next season, than up shit creek with our financials in the championship and with no possibility of even competing in either cup for the next 5-10 years.
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But yesterday's performance does not 'ensure' that we don't get relegated.
Of course it doesn't but in his judgement it gives us a better chance than if the players had all played 90 minutes last night.
The thing is though Chris, if we had played our full strength side last night and lost, we would have only had to play another 2 games this month anyway.
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I didn't see Reading's team sheet, but I wonder if their manager believed that his team stood no chance at Goodison Park.
Houllier's defeatist attitude is pathetic.
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Ok, so I can see both sides of the argument here and I didnt spend money going to city last night but I did spend 60quid going to see us beat blackburn at the weekend. I saw one of the best displays from our boys in a long time, controlled, passing, incisive football. Just like I argued would come when you were all calling for GH to be sacked three months back. In all honestly, do you believe that without cuellar, collins, makoun and bent we stood a really decent chance of getting a result last night? Honestly? I dont.
We have notably collapsed in the last 10minutes several times this season and are 3days away from going to one of the fittest, physically strongest teams in the PL. Relegation is still a possibility but so is europe and with the run in we have, I think the latter is more likely if we are smart with how we handle the rest of the season.
Yes its the cup, and yes, ive got all my ticket stubs in my top drawer in the hope that we got to wembley but circumstances went against us last night.
I criticised MON heavily for not rotating as im sure did others, so im not going to be hypocritical enough to critise GH for rotating....several players were individually very good last night and deserved their chance. I just hope the decision is vinidicated and Ashley/Downing combine for an 85th min winner at the weekend.
Ill be looking out for a few names on the post match thread....
I think you're deluding yourself about the Blackburn game because Blackburn are utter garbage and let us play in the same way that we let Man City play last night..
It may be more relevant to point to recent games against Man City Fulham and Blackpool and we didn't play well in any of those.
In my view we will never achieve anything with Houllier as manager and any progress we are alleged to have made in recent weeks is just an illusion
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I'm with you on this clampy, I think houllier made a big big mistake last night , what must the likes of Ashley young be thinking? Hardly inspiring is it , sure make 2 or 3 changes but to change 8 is ridiculous.
We are football fans, we want to see our team win games and not turn out such a weak side in a big cup game. , I think houllier has lost a lot of fans over this in just the same way o neill did in Moscow.
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In my judgement we would've been better persevering with the team that had only lost one of the last nine or so games and had a thumping four-one win at the week-end.
We're not going down anyway. If Houllier is that much of a scaredy-pants I doubt he'll be able to motivate us to a huge number of future glories.
I admire your confidence but our defensive failings, particularly with the latest crop of injuries, give me cause to think that although we're not favourites it is still a possibility.
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It's still a possibility. I would have been a possibility had we played our full team and beaten Man City. I don't understand your point.
And if it was just to avoid the risk of injury then why bring Young, Downing and Walker on when the game was lost? Also, why play Clarke and Dunne - we have no cover for them if one gets injured?
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In my judgement we would've been better persevering with the team that had only lost one of the last nine or so games and had a thumping four-one win at the week-end.
We're not going down anyway. If Houllier is that much of a scaredy-pants I doubt he'll be able to motivate us to a huge number of future glories.
I admire your confidence but our defensive failings, particularly with the latest crop of injuries, give me cause to think that although we're not favourites it is still a possibility
So is qualification for Europe.
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I'm trying to imagine the line-up if we qualify for Europe...
Marshall
Herd
Petrov
Lowry
Tea Lady
Pires
Petrov
Johnson
Programme Seller
Petrov
Groundsman
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Chris, you've been telling everyone we won't go down and how we have lost 1 in 9 and yet now you say we daren't take the risk- which is it to be?
I don't think that we'll go down but think that there is still a chance. The manager wants to minimise that risk as, I'm sure, does his boss.
There is a difference between understanding his motives and agreeing 100% with the decision. What we're getting on here is mostly emotional with little effort to to see it from any other perspective.
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In my judgement we would've been better persevering with the team that had only lost one of the last nine or so games and had a thumping four-one win at the week-end.
We're not going down anyway. If Houllier is that much of a scaredy-pants I doubt he'll be able to motivate us to a huge number of future glories.
I admire your confidence but our defensive failings, particularly with the latest crop of injuries, give me cause to think that although we're not favourites it is still a possibility
So is qualification for Europe.
Finishing 6th to 20th is a mathematical possibility for every club currently 6th-20th. Virtually anything can be claimed to be a possibility, some are just a lot more or less likely than others. I'd list us being relegated considering our run in to be highly unlikely. The same as it's highly unlikely we'll finish 6th.
Winning the FA Cup was a possibility as well. It became a lot less likely once the team sheet was handed in last night.
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I agree with all of that. So our season is effectively over. Mid-table mediocrity awaits.
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How many people slating Young and Downing in recent months have complained about them being rested last night I wonder?
I haven't really slated either. However, I think even those that had would recognise that they both played excellently against Blackburn. It would therefore be madness, when they appeared to be in top form, to rest them for our biggest game of the season.
And therein lies the difference. To you, as a fan, it is the biggest game of the season. To the manager and owner it is secondary to ensuring we don't get relegated. We've all seen the accounts and can be left in no doubt that going down would be very difficult to deal with, we just cannot afford to take the risk.
If ( and it's a big IF) Randy told him to stay up at ALL costs, even play a weak team in the attempt to stay in the Prem., then as an employee, GH did the right thing.
I can't see Randy doing this though, he wants to win the FA Cup as much as we do - surely ?
Staying up is :-
a) Not dependant on how we do in the FA Cup even though it can be argued that winning is a habit.
or
b) Very likely, looking at our team, our form lately, our run in and what other teams in the bottom half are looking like.
Bad move GH.
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It's still a possibility. I would have been a possibility had we played our full team and beaten Man City. I don't understand your point.
And if it was just to avoid the risk of injury then why bring Young, Downing and Walker on when the game was lost? Also, why play Clarke and Dunne - we have no cover for them if one gets injured?
My point Is that the manager wanted to rest some players and have a look some others so took the opportunity. He can't leave them all out but he did what he thought would be best for the squad. You don't have to like it but I would expect that you at least make an effort to understand it.
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Football is a game of emotions chris, of course people will be angry, houllier made out in the press we were taking this seriously, if we were going to play a weakened team , why not let the fans know before they travelled up there?
If we had won the club would be buzzing and on a high at Bolton but now we have taken a huge backward step and houllier has again alienated many fans, if we were in the bottom 3 maybe i'd understand it but surely the manager must have faith that his improving team can win at least 2 of the last 10 games?
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Eastie, you're not making any attempt to understand.you've decide you are right and that there are no other views allowed but then you've said previously that you think relegation is not that bad so you will obviously be coming from a different angle.
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Come on chris , Im not saying I am right, but more people feel houllier was bang out of order than agree with your understanding of things, yes I value the fa cup as the holy grail and it's clear that others don't , I agree with rotation and many other things GED has done but last night he was wrong and I stand by that, you of course are quite entitled to your view and I respect that but we will have to agree to differ on this one.
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I value the cup, but the draw was possibly the toughest we could get IMO. City are a very good side, and love playing the Villa at their place. I think the hysteria since has been way over the top, and I think the manager would argue that until next season when he has had a summer to shape his own squad that he will be solely concentrating on the league and making sure there is a next season.
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You keep missing the point, Eastie. I don't fully support his selection, I think he made a couple too many changes. What I am saying is that I understand why he did it and accept that he, as the manager, has every right to pick the team he sees fit without getting all the abuse he has and that calls for him to be sacked because of it are verging on insane.
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I'm trying to imagine the line-up if we qualify for Europe...
Marshall
Herd
Petrov
Lowry
Tea Lady
Pires
Petrov
Johnson
Programme Seller
Petrov
Groundsman
The Groundsman has some mowing to do a month later,so I would swap him with a bag of sand.
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I agree with that chris, calls for him to be sacked are insane, he has done himself no favours and alienated many again but I have been behind him until last night and although deeply shocked And angered by his selection see no point in him being sacked.
We have been showing good signs in recent games and let's hope we can put this setback behind us and get a good result at Bolton .
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I can't believe the team selection last night, I think he screwed up big time.
I said after the weekends match on here we are so inconsistent in our play we'll still lose some daft games. Probably because of new brand of football Houllier is trying to get us to play. But last night was totally down to team selection.
I still believe he will turn us around given time though. But it does seem to be 1 step forward and 3 back.
It's a frustrating season as we have had in a long time. Roll on the summer.
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You keep missing the point, Eastie. I don't fully support his selection, I think he made a couple too many changes. What I am saying is that I understand why he did it and accept that he, as the manager, has every right to pick the team he sees fit without getting all the abuse he has and that calls for him to be sacked because of it are verging on insane.
Yes he is the manager and yes he can select whom he wishes, but 3 thousand or so fans travelled up to Manchester last night and rightly feel pretty damn aggrieved (as those that travelled to Moscow did), that the team they went to support simply decided that they had other fish to fry.
I understand the reality we are in when the spectre of relegation coupled with our wage bill could send us into administration, but it does not make it any more palatable to me
AND as Dave said earlier, when 22k turn up for a crucial FA Cup game you begin to realise that the world's greatest cup competion means nothing to many people right now as opposed to the league games and that for me is a rotten description of the modern football game.
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You keep missing the point, Eastie. I don't fully support his selection, I think he made a couple too many changes. What I am saying is that I understand why he did it and accept that he, as the manager, has every right to pick the team he sees fit without getting all the abuse he has and that calls for him to be sacked because of it are verging on insane.
I have tried to understand his rationale for making the 8 changes, from his perspective. I really have. I wondered if any other mid table team would do the same. I tried to remember other examples of this outside of Villa. Bearing in mind our road to wembley was mapped out, beat City in one very difficult match, then an easier tie against a championship team. It's not like he thought god were playing City then Man u next. I simply can't understand it at all. Baffling. I find no way to defend Houllier.
I wonder if he's going to invite the away following to an apology meal (I think mon did this after Moscow?)
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Eastie, you're not making any attempt to understand.
I sat down at the time and made an effort to understand why MON played a weakened side in Moscow and although i thought he made too many changes, i understood why he did it.
I sat there at work today and tried to understand why Houiller did the same last night, but i can't.
Let's face it, I did'nt see too many people suggesting in the pre match thread that we should play a weakened side and concentrate on the league.
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Until mon did that in Moscow I was delighted with him but after that I saw him in a different light, I'm hoping that GED can turn around the fans disappointment but he has again caused his own problems just as he did at Liverpool.
Maybe a win at Bolton and we can all breathe easier but last night was a very bitter pill to swallow- as I've said whatever the reasons for it, what must the likes of Ashley young be thinking? It's hardly likely to convince him to stay - players want to win things just like we do and it's sent out a hugely negative message of us as a club.
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Ok, so I can see both sides of the argument here and I didnt spend money going to city last night but I did spend 60quid going to see us beat blackburn at the weekend. I saw one of the best displays from our boys in a long time, controlled, passing, incisive football. Just like I argued would come when you were all calling for GH to be sacked three months back. In all honestly, do you believe that without cuellar, collins, makoun and bent we stood a really decent chance of getting a result last night? Honestly? I dont.
We have notably collapsed in the last 10minutes several times this season and are 3days away from going to one of the fittest, physically strongest teams in the PL. Relegation is still a possibility but so is europe and with the run in we have, I think the latter is more likely if we are smart with how we handle the rest of the season.
Yes its the cup, and yes, ive got all my ticket stubs in my top drawer in the hope that we got to wembley but circumstances went against us last night.
I criticised MON heavily for not rotating as im sure did others, so im not going to be hypocritical enough to critise GH for rotating....several players were individually very good last night and deserved their chance. I just hope the decision is vinidicated and Ashley/Downing combine for an 85th min winner at the weekend.
Ill be looking out for a few names on the post match thread....
I think you're deluding yourself about the Blackburn game because Blackburn are utter garbage and let us play in the same way that we let Man City play last night..
It may be more relevant to point to recent games against Man City Fulham and Blackpool and we didn't play well in any of those.
In my view we will never achieve anything with Houllier as manager and any progress we are alleged to have made in recent weeks is just an illusion
well a difference in opinion is what makes supporting a football team interesting and the reason we are all on here. But I see losing sidwell, davies, and an uninterested Carew as progress. I see makoun and bent as progress. I see bannan, herd and Clark getting valuable experience and integration into the first team against one of the most expensive teams in the world as progress. I see method in GEDs selections, trial and error, right and wrong. At least it's not stubborn 1980s methods like the last idiot.
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My point Is that the manager wanted to rest some players and have a look some others so took the opportunity. He can't leave them all out but he did what he thought would be best for the squad. You don't have to like it but I would expect that you at least make an effort to understand it.
Again, and I know it's an argument that is going around in circles, there is resting players and looking at other players (squad rotation) and then there is ripping apart a winning team in an FA Cup tie with Reading at home waiting for us in the quarters.
I have made an effort to understand it but I just can't, it was a fucking pathetic decision based on either cowardice (no confidence that we will stay up if we lose a couple of players), or contempt for the FA Cup.
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ive bought my last ticket for a long while.
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I think you're deluding yourself about the Blackburn game because Blackburn are utter garbage and let us play in the same way that we let Man City play last night..
It may be more relevant to point to recent games against Man City Fulham and Blackpool and we didn't play well in any of those.
While not losing any of them and getting eight points from the above four games.
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I think you're deluding yourself about the Blackburn game because Blackburn are utter garbage and let us play in the same way that we let Man City play last night..
It may be more relevant to point to recent games against Man City Fulham and Blackpool and we didn't play well in any of those.
While not losing any of them and getting eight points from the above four games.
My point is in response to people claiming that the style of football has improved under Houllier and I disagree. Whilst we did pick up 4 points in our home games with Man City and Fulham our actual play was very poor in both those games.
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I think you're deluding yourself about the Blackburn game because Blackburn are utter garbage and let us play in the same way that we let Man City play last night..
It may be more relevant to point to recent games against Man City Fulham and Blackpool and we didn't play well in any of those.
While not losing any of them and getting eight points from the above four games.
Which i suppose is even more reason why he should have tried to keep the momentum going last night.
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There is only one way this debate about whether Houllier is or is not a competent manager will be resolved. We scrape survival in the Premiership and he gets a whole summer to discard those he considers to be dead wood, to bring in new wood and to get them all playing the way he wants them to play.
If we start the new season with good football and good results those of us who think he is years past his Best By date will have been proved wrong and those who say he should be given more time and those who disagree are insane will be proved right.
I feel very strongly that he is yesterday's man and should never have been appointed in the first place and I fully expect the autumn of 2011 to be every bit as bad as the autumn of 2010. I really hope that I am wrong.
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You keep missing the point, Eastie. I don't fully support his selection, I think he made a couple too many changes. What I am saying is that I understand why he did it and accept that he, as the manager, has every right to pick the team he sees fit without getting all the abuse he has and that calls for him to be sacked because of it are verging on insane.
Are you suggesting that a manager should be able to pick any team he likes , however perverse, whilst remaining immune from criticism from the supporters who pay his wages?
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He was always going to make changes to the Blackburn side. Bent cup-tied, Baker injured, Pires was never going to start last night. Judging by the bandage on Walkers arm when he came on, maybe thats why he didnt play him??
You cant compare the team last night to the Moscow team, that was a team of reserves/youngesters with hardly any 1st team experience. The team last night had plenty of experience, it didnt help conceding in the first 5mins.
GH felt that team with the tactics was good enough to get a result. Maybe questions need to be asked of the players for not performing to the standards he expected?
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You keep missing the point, Eastie. I don't fully support his selection, I think he made a couple too many changes. What I am saying is that I understand why he did it and accept that he, as the manager, has every right to pick the team he sees fit without getting all the abuse he has and that calls for him to be sacked because of it are verging on insane.
Are you suggesting that a manager should be able to pick any team he likes , however perverse, whilst remaining immune from criticism from the supporters who pay his wages?
This thing is though, that GH doesn't get much rational criticism. For every constructive, valid bit of argument against him or his decisons, there are many more hissy fits about how he should be sacked NOW! and the club's falling to pieces.
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I have defended him and thought he was getting to be the manager we wanted him to be. Very disillusioned now. Don't see the point if we aren't even going to try to win trophies any more.
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You keep missing the point, Eastie. I don't fully support his selection, I think he made a couple too many changes. What I am saying is that I understand why he did it and accept that he, as the manager, has every right to pick the team he sees fit without getting all the abuse he has and that calls for him to be sacked because of it are verging on insane.
Are you suggesting that a manager should be able to pick any team he likes , however perverse, whilst remaining immune from criticism from the supporters who pay his wages?
This thing is though, that GH doesn't get much rational criticism. For every constructive, valid bit of argument against him or his decisons, there are many more hissy fits about how he should be sacked NOW! and the club's falling to pieces.
Agreed, I wasn't thrilled by our selection last night. However overall recently now we have players back we have been dramatically improved. We've also started to play in an entertaining manner and GH deserves much more credit than he gets for that. Talk of sacking is ridiculous.
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It's still a possibility. I would have been a possibility had we played our full team and beaten Man City. I don't understand your point.
And if it was just to avoid the risk of injury then why bring Young, Downing and Walker on when the game was lost? Also, why play Clarke and Dunne - we have no cover for them if one gets injured?
My point Is that the manager wanted to rest some players and have a look some others so took the opportunity. He can't leave them all out but he did what he thought would be best for the squad. You don't have to like it but I would expect that you at least make an effort to understand it.
You said in one of the pre-match threads that you thought that we'd give them a decent game and maybe nick a win. Given that the way we approached the game made that an impossibility, I'm surprised that you're not more upset.
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Id prefer to see Mr Lerner explain the financial results from last season. 88% of turnover going on player wages. That kind of financial management put the club in serious jeopardy. We can blame MON and dont get me wrong he is also culpable but MON wasnt signing the cheques. To be honest it was disgraceful that the future of the club was gambled on a Champions League place.
This seasons figures will be worse Id imagine. It is only this summer where the squad will be trimmed significantly. Which is why in the midst of all this, we should have put everything into the Cup tie at City. To reassure the supporters that we would still try and be as competitive as possible, to reassure current and future players that the future at Villa is still a good one. To be honest with Houllier on board I cant imagine much enthusiasm for season tickets.
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There is only one way this debate about whether Houllier is or is not a competent manager will be resolved. We scrape survival in the Premiership and he gets a whole summer to discard those he considers to be dead wood, to bring in new wood and to get them all playing the way he wants them to play.
If we start the new season with good football and good results those of us who think he is years past his Best By date will have been proved wrong and those who say he should be given more time and those who disagree are insane will be proved right.
I feel very strongly that he is yesterday's man and should never have been appointed in the first place and I fully expect the autumn of 2011 to be every bit as bad as the autumn of 2010. I really hope that I am wrong.
I'd agree with most of that Brian, save I'd be very reluctant to continue this experiment beyond the summer.
No point getting shot now, last thing we need is more instability. And of course part of the reason we were faced with a relatively limited selection pool last time out was the timing of the departure of the last guy.
Come May 22nd though I hope that's it for him and us -poetic that it should also be against his favourites. I really don't fancy another season like this one; same waffle at press conferences, same largely ineffective football, same defensive howlers and so on.
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You keep missing the point, Eastie. I don't fully support his selection, I think he made a couple too many changes. What I am saying is that I understand why he did it and accept that he, as the manager, has every right to pick the team he sees fit without getting all the abuse he has and that calls for him to be sacked because of it are verging on insane.
Are you suggesting that a manager should be able to pick any team he likes , however perverse, whilst remaining immune from criticism from the supporters who pay his wages?
No, I'd I'd wanted to suggest that I would have posted "a manager should be able to pick any team he likes , however perverse, whilst remaining immune from criticism from the supporters who pay his wages".
The point here is fairly obvious to me, the clubs priority is staying in the Premier League and the side he picked last night was done with that in mind. It doesn't give us any guarantees, of course, but there's little doubt that a number of our players will be sharper on Saturday than if they'd played 90 minutes last night.
As fans we have the right to criticise but abuse is another thing and calling for him to be sacked because some don't like the side he picked is mental.
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It's still a possibility. I would have been a possibility had we played our full team and beaten Man City. I don't understand your point.
And if it was just to avoid the risk of injury then why bring Young, Downing and Walker on when the game was lost? Also, why play Clarke and Dunne - we have no cover for them if one gets injured?
My point Is that the manager wanted to rest some players and have a look some others so took the opportunity. He can't leave them all out but he did what he thought would be best for the squad. You don't have to like it but I would expect that you at least make an effort to understand it.
You said in one of the pre-match threads that you thought that we'd give them a decent game and maybe nick a win. Given that the way we approached the game made that an impossibility, I'm surprised that you're not more upset.
In response to the idea that we had zero chance and that defeat was inevitable I said that although they were favourites I couldn't accept the idea that we had no hope whatsoever. I'm pissed off that we're out of the cup but I never had any sense that we could win it this year (due to the defence) so I'm more relaxed about it that many.
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I heard City supporters booing their side last week, you remember when they hadn't got a pot to piss in? now to draw at home is not acceptable. We have become the age of instant gratification where nobody is prepared to look ahead, we want it and we want it now otherwise we will scream our heads off. If we finish above mid table then Houllier has done a good job
considering the disaster he inherited. I will wait until the middle of next year when he has his own squad before i will pass judgement on him.
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Rest some players > why?
Look at some players in the 5th round of the FA Cup at Man city > why?
Select a player to make his debut in a tough fixture surrounded by irregular team mates > why?
Play Delph at LB > why?
Play all 3 Heskey, Agbonlahor and Delfouenso > why?
It hurts me that we virtually gave them a free ride in to the qtr final. FA cup wins are precious and we threw it away without a fight.
Why why why did you do this to us Houllier?
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You keep missing the point, Eastie. I don't fully support his selection, I think he made a couple too many changes. What I am saying is that I understand why he did it and accept that he, as the manager, has every right to pick the team he sees fit without getting all the abuse he has and that calls for him to be sacked because of it are verging on insane.
Are you suggesting that a manager should be able to pick any team he likes , however perverse, whilst remaining immune from criticism from the supporters who pay his wages?
No, I'd I'd wanted to suggest that I would have posted "a manager should be able to pick any team he likes , however perverse, whilst remaining immune from criticism from the supporters who pay his wages".
The point here is fairly obvious to me, the clubs priority is staying in the Premier League and the side he picked last night was done with that in mind. It doesn't give us any guarantees, of course, but there's little doubt that a number of our players will be sharper on Saturday than if they'd played 90 minutes last night.
As fans we have the right to criticise but abuse is another thing and calling for him to be sacked because some don't like the side he picked is mental.
I agree that this was the rationale and like many others I strongly disagree with it as if Houllier does not feel capable of leading a squad of players as talented as ours into 17th position or better whilst attempting to win the odd cup match then he shouldn't be doing the job in the first place.
What makes the situation even more absurd is that Houllier won't actually admit that he played a weakened side in order to improve our survival prospects. Really he is just insulting the intelligence of our supporters and the criticism or "abuse" that he gets is not only inevitable but totally justified.
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As this is primarily a letter to Randy Lerner I'd just like to let him know that this week has seen two outcomes that I thought in my life I'd never see..
1) Our neighbours win something of note
2)Watch the one time record holders of the most prestigious domestic football knock out competition throw the towel in when there was a chance this season of trying to get that record back.
How does that play any part in our bright future?
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The people on here that are trying to justify our managers decision just dont get it, he killed a lot of supporters rationale for supporting the club, there is absoloutely no justification for Aston Villa to act in this cowardly and disrespectful way. You should read again what VCTM said, why on earth should any one comit to a club that is not commited to the majority of it supporters. Yesterday was one of the darkest days in our history and what is so sad about it was the fact that it was self inflicted.
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The people on here that are trying to justify our managers decision just dont get it, he killed a lot of supporters rationale for supporting the club, there is absoloutely no justification for Aston Villa to act in this cowardly and disrespectful way. You should read again what VCTM said, why on earth should any one comit to a club that is not commited to the majority of it supporters. Yesterday was one of the darkest days in our history and what is so sad about it was the fact that it was self inflicted.
No, no over-reaction here either.
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The people on here that are trying to justify our managers decision just dont get it, he killed a lot of supporters rationale for supporting the club, there is absoloutely no justification for Aston Villa to act in this cowardly and disrespectful way. You should read again what VCTM said, why on earth should any one comit to a club that is not commited to the majority of it supporters. Yesterday was one of the darkest days in our history and what is so sad about it was the fact that it was self inflicted.
No, no over-reaction here either.
its the way i feel, sorry that you cant see it, i never thought that we would surrender a chance to win the FA Cup, a lot of fans have made it clear that the decision to give up on the FA cup in such a cowardly fashion was the last straw for them, I am one of them, so sugesting that its an over reaction is a bit futile, the existing and future fan base has been dininished by this.
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I know people are upet about yesterday. But calling for the manager's head. Really? I was hoping for much better last night, and while I'd liked for him to have played a stronger team, he decided against it. I understand why even if I don't entirely agree. A manager needs to be able make those decisions and not be subject to having people called for him to be fired just because we don't see it that way. You'd honestly think by the reaction of some that we'd been relegated last night. Be upset, but let's not go so overboard as to make ourselves out to be so emotional as to lose all sense of rationality.
I know our hated rivals won a cup on Sunday, and on the back of that the circumstances of this game couldn't have come at a worse time. But we're still a great club with great traditions, fans and history. And contrary to current feelings we also still have a very good manager, coaching staff and players. We need to see this season out now, get rid of the some of the crap that cannot fill in when needed, and get in hungrier and more talented players.
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The previous manager 'surrendered' every other cup, so what's different about this?
"One of the darkest days in our history" "I don't trust the club anymore" "the first generation of my family that will not be brought up to support Aston Villa". If that's not over-reaction, I've never seen it.
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I really can’t see how MON surrendered every other cup, Dave. We got to the final of the League Cup and had a decent pop at Man U who, notwithstanding a ludicrous bottling decision by the ref, were just too good for us, especially once Wazza came on, and we were Chelsea’s equals too until that poor header by Dunne gave Drogba a goal. Chelsea fans I know told me they were really worried until that goal as our team and fans were growing in confidence – our 5-6 minute version of “My Old Man” had them pleading with each other to make some noise. We lost both games but we certainly didn’t surrender them. Europe was a different matter, mind.
A day of venting our spleens is fine but now we need to focus on supporting the team tomorrow. I fear some venom if we go a goal down, though.
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My two penneth - The FA Cup is the one trophy I want us to win more than any other - don't give a stuff about the prize money, it's the prestige and experience that i'd love and how it would make me feel that makes it the No 1 in my eyes. It's the one game i'd happily fly 12,000 miles to watch us play in.
Randy's been here for long enough now and should understand how we feel about the FA Cup. I can't believe he'd need telling.
However, Randy doesn't pick the team and if the instruction to GH on his appointment was ''Gerard, whatever you do keep us in the Premier league'' then resting players is a no brainer for him.
So was Gerards instruction on appointment ''Please keep us in the Premier League'' or ''Please win us some silverware''.
Depressingly, I think we now all know the answer to that question.
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To be honest ozvilla if geds instruction on arrival was to keep us in the premier league after 3 top 6 finishes then I'd find that hugely disturbing- I'd hope the intstruction would be keep us at the right end of the table and try to win a cup.
Like I say , we need 2 wins from 10 games , if the manager isn't confident that we can achieve those and still play a strong side in the cup then it's a sad state of affairs. Of course he shouldn't be sacked but he should be strongly reminded that we are a club that expect to compete to win trophies and not roll over.
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The FA Cup is the one trophy I want us to win more than any other - don't give a stuff about the prize money, it's the prestige and experience that i'd love and how it would make me feel that makes it the No 1 in my eyes.
This. Please.
Preferably in my lifetime, and I'd like to think I've got another 30 - 40 years left.
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I know people are upet about yesterday. But calling for the manager's head. Really? I was hoping for much better last night, and while I'd liked for him to have played a stronger team, he decided against it. I understand why even if I don't entirely agree. A manager needs to be able make those decisions and not be subject to having people called for him to be fired just because we don't see it that way. You'd honestly think by the reaction of some that we'd been relegated last night. Be upset, but let's not go so overboard as to make ourselves out to be so emotional as to lose all sense of rationality.
I know our hated rivals won a cup on Sunday, and on the back of that the circumstances of this game couldn't have come at a worse time. But we're still a great club with great traditions, fans and history. And contrary to current feelings we also still have a very good manager, coaching staff and players. We need to see this season out now, get rid of the some of the crap that cannot fill in when needed, and get in hungrier and more talented players.
He should never have been given the job, should then have been sacked ages ago, and should definitely not be in charge for next season. Houllier is a walking disaster. There's a reason he was in semi- retirement doing a desk job for the French FA and that's because he's past it. A truly hopeless excuse for a manager.
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Yesterday was one of the darkest days in our history
You clearly haven't been supporting us for long if you think that.
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The previous manager 'surrendered' every other cup, so what's different about this?
Well, we got to the Semi Final and Final of two Cups last year. Not really what i'd call 'surrending'.
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But risso how do you really think about him, rather than sitting on the fence?
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I'm glad we have a really tough fixture tomorrow and not a cushy Blackburn at home type game where GH & the players can easily redeem themselves.
Bolton away is a tough game and we won't get anything other than a bashing unless we are set up correctly, committed, organised and with a game plan.
I want a performance tomorrow and will be there watching closely. I want them all to dispell from my small cynical brain the myth that they're all done for the year and can't wait for their summer hols.
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I doubt anyone thinks that wiki, I'd expect the likes of ash and downing to have been as pissed off at not playing as the fans were at not seeing them start, good players want to play in big games and win things and I expect a lot were shocked to see the line up.
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Ash has got what 9 games tops with us left (assuming he doesn't get suspended / injured)
How committed will he be between now and his big money move ??
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I want a performance tomorrow and will be there watching closely. I want them all to dispell from my small cynical brain the myth that they're all done for the year and can't wait for their summer hols.
That's the irony of all this.
He played that weakened sign hoping to make it "easier" to get something tomorrow. However, now everyone is going to be watching far more closely than they might have done, and the pressure is higher than it might have been.
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Ash has got what 9 games tops with us left (assuming he doesn't get suspended / injured)
How committed will he be between now and his big money move ??
The team and lack of ambition to win things on Wednesday hammered the final nail into the coffin of Ash's Villa career for sure. Players like him will stay if they think they can win things with us. To win things you need that hunger and desire. The culture at the Villa looks totally wrong if Wednesday is anything to go on.
If I were him i'd be off i'm afraid.
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So would I,oz!
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I think when a player as a Cup winning medal in his cabinet , it could make a player want to sign a new contract . If a player knows he will never win a trophy with this club he will move on .
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The people on here that are trying to justify our managers decision just dont get it, he killed a lot of supporters rationale for supporting the club, there is absoloutely no justification for Aston Villa to act in this cowardly and disrespectful way. You should read again what VCTM said, why on earth should any one comit to a club that is not commited to the majority of it supporters. Yesterday was one of the darkest days in our history and what is so sad about it was the fact that it was self inflicted.
No, no over-reaction here either.
I agree it's not an over reaction. The reason that it was one of the darkest days in our history is that not did we only let our own supporters down, we let every neutral football supporter in the country down particularly those who can't afford Sky who want to watch a decent game on terrestrial TV. Beyond that we let down the FA, the sponsor,and ITV.
In essence we let the entire game down and it was an absolute disgrace.
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I really can’t see how MON surrendered every other cup, Dave. We got to the final of the League Cup and had a decent pop at Man U who, notwithstanding a ludicrous bottling decision by the ref, were just too good for us, especially once Wazza came on, and we were Chelsea’s equals too until that poor header by Dunne gave Drogba a goal. Chelsea fans I know told me they were really worried until that goal as our team and fans were growing in confidence – our 5-6 minute version of “My Old Man” had them pleading with each other to make some noise. We lost both games but we certainly didn’t surrender them. Europe was a different matter, mind.
A day of venting our spleens is fine but now we need to focus on supporting the team tomorrow. I fear some venom if we go a goal down, though.
Losing to Leicester and QPR at home means he hardly took it seriously.
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The people on here that are trying to justify our managers decision just dont get it, he killed a lot of supporters rationale for supporting the club, there is absoloutely no justification for Aston Villa to act in this cowardly and disrespectful way. You should read again what VCTM said, why on earth should any one comit to a club that is not commited to the majority of it supporters. Yesterday was one of the darkest days in our history and what is so sad about it was the fact that it was self inflicted.
No, no over-reaction here either.
I agree it's not an over reaction. The reason that it was one of the darkest days in our history is that not did we only let our own supporters down, we let every neutral football supporter in the country down particularly those who can't afford Sky who want to watch a decent game on terrestrial TV. Beyond that we let down the FA, the sponsor,and ITV.
In essence we let the entire game down and it was an absolute disgrace.
And we're the only club who ever put out a weakened side?
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And we're the only club who ever put out a weakened side?
to be fair, we're the only club that anyone on this site is bothered about
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And we're the only club who ever put out a weakened side?
to be fair, we're the only club that anyone on this site is bothered about
I know that and I'm annoyed about what happened, but some of what's been said is a bit ridiculous.
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We were lucky to beat Cardiff with a weakened team as well if memory serves me correctly.
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Forget previous managers and other teams, in the context of Aston Villa and this season, it was a mind-boggling decision.
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I really can’t see how MON surrendered every other cup, Dave. We got to the final of the League Cup and had a decent pop at Man U who, notwithstanding a ludicrous bottling decision by the ref, were just too good for us, especially once Wazza came on, and we were Chelsea’s equals too until that poor header by Dunne gave Drogba a goal. Chelsea fans I know told me they were really worried until that goal as our team and fans were growing in confidence – our 5-6 minute version of “My Old Man” had them pleading with each other to make some noise. We lost both games but we certainly didn’t surrender them. Europe was a different matter, mind.
A day of venting our spleens is fine but now we need to focus on supporting the team tomorrow. I fear some venom if we go a goal down, though.
Losing to Leicester and QPR at home means he hardly took it seriously.
Very true, but we made a final and a semi last year. Achieving this once every 4 years (ie, MON's tenure) would be a good step towards a decent cup record for me.
Your point about some comments on here being ridiculous is spot on. I haven't seen any of the game over here, so defeat does hurt a little less than if you are in the ground or even watch it on the box - and suffer crappy jibes at work - but I have felt far, far lower than this on many occasions in the past 25 years.
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i think mon took the fa cup a lot more seriously than the league cup, maybe because its eluded him as a player and manager , he always spoke very highly of the fa cup.
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Very true, but we made a final and a semi last year. Achieving this once every 4 years (ie, MON's tenure) would be a good step towards a decent cup record for me.
Going to Wembley was good, but noone remembers the losers except the losers. Win one of the cups every 4 seasons would be nice
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Win one of the cups every 4 seasons would be fantastic!
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The people on here that are trying to justify our managers decision just dont get it, he killed a lot of supporters rationale for supporting the club, there is absoloutely no justification for Aston Villa to act in this cowardly and disrespectful way. You should read again what VCTM said, why on earth should any one comit to a club that is not commited to the majority of it supporters. Yesterday was one of the darkest days in our history and what is so sad about it was the fact that it was self inflicted.
No, no over-reaction here either.
I agree it's not an over reaction. The reason that it was one of the darkest days in our history is that not did we only let our own supporters down, we let every neutral football supporter in the country down particularly those who can't afford Sky who want to watch a decent game on terrestrial TV. Beyond that we let down the FA, the sponsor,and ITV.
In essence we let the entire game down and it was an absolute disgrace.
And we're the only club who ever put out a weakened side?
We are Aston Villa and I was brought up to believe that we were a force for good in football.
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The people on here that are trying to justify our managers decision just dont get it, he killed a lot of supporters rationale for supporting the club, there is absoloutely no justification for Aston Villa to act in this cowardly and disrespectful way. You should read again what VCTM said, why on earth should any one comit to a club that is not commited to the majority of it supporters. Yesterday was one of the darkest days in our history and what is so sad about it was the fact that it was self inflicted.
No, no over-reaction here either.
I agree it's not an over reaction. The reason that it was one of the darkest days in our history is that not did we only let our own supporters down, we let every neutral football supporter in the country down particularly those who can't afford Sky who want to watch a decent game on terrestrial TV. Beyond that we let down the FA, the sponsor,and ITV.
In essence we let the entire game down and it was an absolute disgrace.
And we're the only club who ever put out a weakened side?
We are Aston Villa and I was brought up to believe that we were a force for good in football.
So was I. Then came the Premier League.
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We are Aston Villa and I was brought up to believe that we were a force for good in football.
Given the result, nobody liked the decision the other night, however, to act like this concept of weakened teams and more emphasis on the league has crept up on you and smacked you in the face is a little incredulous. Where have you been the last 15-20 years?
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I know people are upet about yesterday. But calling for the manager's head. Really? I was hoping for much better last night, and while I'd liked for him to have played a stronger team, he decided against it. I understand why even if I don't entirely agree. A manager needs to be able make those decisions and not be subject to having people called for him to be fired just because we don't see it that way. You'd honestly think by the reaction of some that we'd been relegated last night. Be upset, but let's not go so overboard as to make ourselves out to be so emotional as to lose all sense of rationality.
I know our hated rivals won a cup on Sunday, and on the back of that the circumstances of this game couldn't have come at a worse time. But we're still a great club with great traditions, fans and history. And contrary to current feelings we also still have a very good manager, coaching staff and players. We need to see this season out now, get rid of the some of the crap that cannot fill in when needed, and get in hungrier and more talented players.
He should never have been given the job, should then have been sacked ages ago, and should definitely not be in charge for next season. Houllier is a walking disaster. There's a reason he was in semi- retirement doing a desk job for the French FA and that's because he's past it. A truly hopeless excuse for a manager.
Risso, if Villa managers were appointed and dismissed based on your criteria the job would be a revolving door down there. Nobody would want it. A manager should have the right to make certain decisions, even if as fans we don't always go along with it. I'm not happy about how things transpired on Wednesday but frankly some reactions about it have been borderline Stephen Ireland level crazy.
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Similar age group to yourself dave,and similar opinions.Can't get that upsetby it, just think its a by-product of modern day football.
Since the "Prem Lge" was founded, in 1993, only 4 teams have won it, and how many times has the double been done in that time, in comparison to the previous 100 years.
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It may well be a sad state of affairs that we 'threw away' a chance to get through to the next round, but all this abuse Houllier is getting and people saying they aren't going again, is in my opinion, ridiculous. O'Neill threw away 3 cups to try and get 4th place, which some people actually backed. If this counts as 'throwing away' as well, then it's to try and keep us in the league. Surely our league status is more important in this transitional season. If we went down and won the cup, it still wouldn't be the same for a long time. The mass exodus of players and huge fall in revenue could put us in a horrendous financial position, not worth thinking about. Unfortunately, money does run Football these days, but we need to keep with this to be successful.
When it was reported that Gary Gardner was in the squad, there were Villa fans all over Twitter and Villa Talk (not sure about here) ranting and raving about him, saying he should start etc. He's never even sat on the bench before let alone played for us. Then Herd, Delph, Bannan, Bradley come in, we lose, and Houllier lost the game on purpose, didn't want it. I personally think the 3 young lads there could play a massive part in our future, and can start to make an impact now. It went wrong, now let's move on.
GH is turning this club around, we played fantastically to beat Blackburn 4-1 less than a week ago, yes, not a huge team, but a great performance and great result. It's taken him a while to get us playing well, but we are getting there. There are 3,000 going to Bolton tomorrow, including myself, and it will be extremely disappointing if we get on his back early on, as we do need to back the team. We need to try and get at least a point up there and kick on again.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not happy about what he did, but it was a gamble, not throwing away a trophy. The gamble didn't pay off and we have to wait another year.
I genuinely cannot believe some of the things I'm reading on here... This is still the Aston Villa you follow, and always have. It's always been a rollercoaster ride, always will be.
'We did not choose - We were chosen.'
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The people on here that are trying to justify our managers decision just dont get it, he killed a lot of supporters rationale for supporting the club, there is absoloutely no justification for Aston Villa to act in this cowardly and disrespectful way. You should read again what VCTM said, why on earth should any one comit to a club that is not commited to the majority of it supporters. Yesterday was one of the darkest days in our history and what is so sad about it was the fact that it was self inflicted.
No, no over-reaction here either.
Dave over reaction by the paying customers...now what's wrong with that?
Hawkeye and VCTM have it bang on.
My support for the club started with the relegation from the second division and was cemented during 1970/71 season and in particular the semi final and final of the League Cup. I know that our top priority was to get out of the Third division however the daunting task of 46 league game did not mean giving up the League cup. All I and many other fans ask is that we compete and when we don't I reserve the right to over react.
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My two penneth - The FA Cup is the one trophy I want us to win more than any other - don't give a stuff about the prize money, it's the prestige and experience that i'd love and how it would make me feel that makes it the No 1 in my eyes. It's the one game i'd happily fly 12,000 miles to watch us play in.
Randy's been here for long enough now and should understand how we feel about the FA Cup. I can't believe he'd need telling.
However, Randy doesn't pick the team and if the instruction to GH on his appointment was ''Gerard, whatever you do keep us in the Premier league'' then resting players is a no brainer for him.
So was Gerards instruction on appointment ''Please keep us in the Premier League'' or ''Please win us some silverware''.
Depressingly, I think we now all know the answer to that question.
The problem with that would be is that it tends to highlight that either GH or the board didn't think he was capable of delivering both.
Inheriting a team in 8th position -who were top 6th last year- and the target was just to stay in the division. Really? He was by no means my first choice, but even I had him down as a bit more competent than that.
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The people on here that are trying to justify our managers decision just dont get it, he killed a lot of supporters rationale for supporting the club, there is absoloutely no justification for Aston Villa to act in this cowardly and disrespectful way. You should read again what VCTM said, why on earth should any one comit to a club that is not commited to the majority of it supporters. Yesterday was one of the darkest days in our history and what is so sad about it was the fact that it was self inflicted.
No, no over-reaction here either.
Dave over reaction by the paying customers...now what's wrong with that?
Hawkeye and VCTM have it bang on.
My support for the club started with the relegation from the second division and was cemented during 1970/71 season and in particular the semi final and final of the League Cup. I know that our top priority was to get out of the Third division however the daunting task of 46 league game did not mean giving up the League cup. All I and many other fans ask is that we compete and when we don't I reserve the right to over react.
It isn't 1971 anymore. Talking about darkest days in history and never watching the team again is ridiculous. There isn't a team in the league, and possibly any league, that take league positions less seriously than cups.
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The most recent trauma always seems to be more painful than the rest though, by dint of the fact that is far easier to recall. Apart from the nadir of Billy McBingo and relegation in 1987, just 5 years after Rotterdam - that will stand alone for a while yet.
I'm not sure where in the league table of shame Wednesday night's episode comes (is it better or worse than Doncaster, 03/03/03 or -for older fans- the calendar year of 1968?) I couldn't possibly say. But it is pretty grim. Not just the result, but the affirmation that we're seemingly not even bothered about chasing trophies anymore.
Who genuinely thought almost five years into the RL era we'd be doing a Bolton or Wolves, and effectively chucking cup ties to remain in the division? Rumours of a five year plan vary in authenticity depending on how we're doing, when we were 3rd back in 2008/09 we were well on course and it was all part of the plan. When it was obvious we wouldn't be cracking the glass ceiling of going beyond 6th anytime soon, there was definitely never any 5 year plan. I'll take the General and the rest at their word.
I'm pretty certain that for the amount of money RL invested he was looking for more than just staying in the division though, and Wednesday night was equally (probably more) painful for him.
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We are Aston Villa and I was brought up to believe that we were a force for good in football.
Given the result, nobody liked the decision the other night, however, to act like this concept of weakened teams and more emphasis on the league has crept up on you and smacked you in the face is a little incredulous. Where have you been the last 15-20 years?
I'm furious not incredulous and I'm furious because we have an arrogant and patronising manager who selected a side to get us deliberately knocked out of the FA Cup and expects us idiots who pay his wages to believe him when he claims that he didn't put out a weakened side..
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I'm furious not incredulous and I'm furious because we have an arrogant and patronising manager who selected a side to get us deliberately knocked out of the FA Cup and expects us idiots who pay his wages to believe him when he claims that he didn't put out a weakened side..
Are you saying that with a straight face?
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I just cannot believe Dave Woodhall's comments on this. At one stage you used to go on so much about us winning silverware, I assumed you had changed your middle name to Trophy by deedpoll and I agreed with you 100%. But to say we are over reacting beggars belief. The side that was played the other night was entirely (except for forced changes) without justification or understanding at this stage of the competition with the potential rewards ahead. Barring an absolutely shambolic collapse in the last 10 games we are not going down, with games at home to Wigan, Wolves and other assorted average sides to come.
Therefore the strongest possible side should have been played. I actually believe he went there not having a care whether we went out of the cup or not as was evidenced by Liverplopesque body language.
It was a ridiculous decision, and made even worse by trying to defend those that did play by saying they are all internationals. What absolute codswallop. Arrogant, obstinate, any other amount of adjectives don't cover it.
Don't worry though it's just 54 years now, what's another year as that Irish bloke sung.
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I know people are upet about yesterday. But calling for the manager's head. Really? I was hoping for much better last night, and while I'd liked for him to have played a stronger team, he decided against it. I understand why even if I don't entirely agree. A manager needs to be able make those decisions and not be subject to having people called for him to be fired just because we don't see it that way. You'd honestly think by the reaction of some that we'd been relegated last night. Be upset, but let's not go so overboard as to make ourselves out to be so emotional as to lose all sense of rationality.
I know our hated rivals won a cup on Sunday, and on the back of that the circumstances of this game couldn't have come at a worse time. But we're still a great club with great traditions, fans and history. And contrary to current feelings we also still have a very good manager, coaching staff and players. We need to see this season out now, get rid of the some of the crap that cannot fill in when needed, and get in hungrier and more talented players.
He should never have been given the job, should then have been sacked ages ago, and should definitely not be in charge for next season. Houllier is a walking disaster. There's a reason he was in semi- retirement doing a desk job for the French FA and that's because he's past it. A truly hopeless excuse for a manager.
Risso, if Villa managers were appointed and dismissed based on your criteria the job would be a revolving door down there. Nobody would want it. A manager should have the right to make certain decisions, even if as fans we don't always go along with it. I'm not happy about how things transpired on Wednesday but frankly some reactions about it have been borderline Stephen Ireland level crazy.
The most mental thing of all is Lerner pissing his investment up the wall by retaining and backing Houllier. Still, he can always flog off another bit of land to pay for it when it goes tits up. The stadium must be worth a fair bit.
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We are Aston Villa and I was brought up to believe that we were a force for good in football.
Given the result, nobody liked the decision the other night, however, to act like this concept of weakened teams and more emphasis on the league has crept up on you and smacked you in the face is a little incredulous. Where have you been the last 15-20 years?
Living in the hope or belief that we would see us lift the cup?
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What land of ours has RL flogged to date ?
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We are Aston Villa and I was brought up to believe that we were a force for good in football.
Given the result, nobody liked the decision the other night, however, to act like this concept of weakened teams and more emphasis on the league has crept up on you and smacked you in the face is a little incredulous. Where have you been the last 15-20 years?
Living in the hope or belief that we would see us lift the cup?
I'm right there with you, but to be surprised at squad rotation for cup games at this stage of the Sky revolution seems a little, errr, surprising.
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What land of ours has RL flogged to date ?
£8m worth to a parent company to settle the outstanding management charge. I asked the General about it but he didn't want to talk about it. There's also a new company called Reform Acquisitions Realty Limited, which as the name suggests must have been set up to deal in property.
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I can't believe this thread has lasted so long when the issues at stake are so simple.
Put simply Houlier made a very very poor error of judgement.
1. This match was will not alter our chances of survival in the premier league.
2. This match was winnable.
3. This match didn't warrant squad rotation.
Our 1st XI squad hasn't played been overplayed to the same extent as the past few seasons. It is more than capable of finishing mid-table or even higher this season. This is no chance of being relegated.
For the avoidance of all doubt perhaps we should list our personal priorities just so the board understand what we would prefer.
For me:
1. win the league
2. win the champions league
3. win the FA cup
4. qualify for CL
5. win the league cup
6. win uefa cup
7. qualify for uefa cup
In fact I go as far as to say I'd trade any silverware for relegation as its so easy to get promoted again (see WBA, Newcastle, Blues, ...).
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It may well be a sad state of affairs that we 'threw away' a chance to get through to the next round, but all this abuse Houllier is getting and people saying they aren't going again, is in my opinion, ridiculous. O'Neill threw away 3 cups to try and get 4th place, which some people actually backed. If this counts as 'throwing away' as well, then it's to try and keep us in the league. Surely our league status is more important in this transitional season. If we went down and won the cup, it still wouldn't be the same for a long time. The mass exodus of players and huge fall in revenue could put us in a horrendous financial position, not worth thinking about. Unfortunately, money does run Football these days, but we need to keep with this to be successful.
When it was reported that Gary Gardner was in the squad, there were Villa fans all over Twitter and Villa Talk (not sure about here) ranting and raving about him, saying he should start etc. He's never even sat on the bench before let alone played for us. Then Herd, Delph, Bannan, Bradley come in, we lose, and Houllier lost the game on purpose, didn't want it. I personally think the 3 young lads there could play a massive part in our future, and can start to make an impact now. It went wrong, now let's move on.
GH is turning this club around, we played fantastically to beat Blackburn 4-1 less than a week ago, yes, not a huge team, but a great performance and great result. It's taken him a while to get us playing well, but we are getting there. There are 3,000 going to Bolton tomorrow, including myself, and it will be extremely disappointing if we get on his back early on, as we do need to back the team. We need to try and get at least a point up there and kick on again.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not happy about what he did, but it was a gamble, not throwing away a trophy. The gamble didn't pay off and we have to wait another year.
I genuinely cannot believe some of the things I'm reading on here... This is still the Aston Villa you follow, and always have. It's always been a rollercoaster ride, always will be.
'We did not choose - We were chosen.'
Great post, Supertom. Similar to the Gary Gardner story, people were angry that Pires started against Blackburn (before the match) and were convinced we'd lose because of it. Sometimes the manager gets it right, sometimes he gets it wrong but it's not just a question of field our strongest side against Citeh and we've won the FA Cup.
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I know people are upet about yesterday. But calling for the manager's head. Really? I was hoping for much better last night, and while I'd liked for him to have played a stronger team, he decided against it. I understand why even if I don't entirely agree. A manager needs to be able make those decisions and not be subject to having people called for him to be fired just because we don't see it that way. You'd honestly think by the reaction of some that we'd been relegated last night. Be upset, but let's not go so overboard as to make ourselves out to be so emotional as to lose all sense of rationality.
I know our hated rivals won a cup on Sunday, and on the back of that the circumstances of this game couldn't have come at a worse time. But we're still a great club with great traditions, fans and history. And contrary to current feelings we also still have a very good manager, coaching staff and players. We need to see this season out now, get rid of the some of the crap that cannot fill in when needed, and get in hungrier and more talented players.
And, assuming we were to sack Ged, who would we replace him with? And what would we do if the replacement had a similar philosophy to Ged?
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Please timvilla let's not even open up that can of worms...
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I just cannot believe Dave Woodhall's comments on this. At one stage you used to go on so much about us winning silverware, I assumed you had changed your middle name to Trophy by deedpoll and I agreed with you 100%. But to say we are over reacting beggars belief. The side that was played the other night was entirely (except for forced changes) without justification or understanding at this stage of the competition with the potential rewards ahead. Barring an absolutely shambolic collapse in the last 10 games we are not going down, with games at home to Wigan, Wolves and other assorted average sides to come.
Therefore the strongest possible side should have been played. I actually believe he went there not having a care whether we went out of the cup or not as was evidenced by Liverplopesque body language.
It was a ridiculous decision, and made even worse by trying to defend those that did play by saying they are all internationals. What absolute codswallop. Arrogant, obstinate, any other amount of adjectives don't cover it.
Don't worry though it's just 54 years now, what's another year as that Irish bloke sung.
Try reading what I've said. It was wrong, inexcusable, unjustified and in the context of the season, mystifying. It was also, sadly, the sort of decision all too prevalent in modern football. It was not the darkest day etc and to cite it as a reason to refuse to attend another match is a bit ridiculous.
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The people on here that are trying to justify our managers decision just dont get it, he killed a lot of supporters rationale for supporting the club, there is absoloutely no justification for Aston Villa to act in this cowardly and disrespectful way. You should read again what VCTM said, why on earth should any one comit to a club that is not commited to the majority of it supporters. Yesterday was one of the darkest days in our history and what is so sad about it was the fact that it was self inflicted.
No, no over-reaction here either.
Dave over reaction by the paying customers...now what's wrong with that?
Hawkeye and VCTM have it bang on.
My support for the club started with the relegation from the second division and was cemented during 1970/71 season and in particular the semi final and final of the League Cup. I know that our top priority was to get out of the Third division however the daunting task of 46 league game did not mean giving up the League cup. All I and many other fans ask is that we compete and when we don't I reserve the right to over react.
It isn't 1971 anymore. Talking about darkest days in history and never watching the team again is ridiculous. There isn't a team in the league, and possibly any league, that take league positions less seriously than cups.
As I said paying customers and those who said "darkest day" and "never" are entitled to their opinion.
Heard what you said on WM about payments for League positions but winning is a habit and teams that compete on all fronts do end up being most successful.
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Maybe those that are tyring to justify GH selection are doing it out of a mis placed sense of loyalty to the Club. The majority of fans are angry because thier loyalty to the club includes doing the best to win and to experience glory. That opportunity was shamelessly denied them by our managers actions. His subsequent attempt to justify his decisions was disrespectful and arrogant.
Those that are now insulting those fans because they are rightly angry and upset is very sad.
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I believe all comments after a loss should be left for two or three days for rational thinking to get some space. Some (not all )
posters may be a little ambarrassed over their knee jerk responses.
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Maybe those that are tyring to justify GH selection are doing it out of a mis placed sense of loyalty to the Club.
I don't think anyone has justified the selection, have they? From my perspective, it was baffling at best and not a decision I support in any way.
I think the difference of opinion centres only on the (over)reaction people have had to what happened.
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I can't believe this thread has lasted so long when the issues at stake are so simple.
Put simply Houlier made a very very poor error of judgement.
1. This match was will not alter our chances of survival in the premier league.
2. This match was winnable.
3. This match didn't warrant squad rotation.
Our 1st XI squad hasn't played been overplayed to the same extent as the past few seasons. It is more than capable of finishing mid-table or even higher this season. This is no chance of being relegated.
For the avoidance of all doubt perhaps we should list our personal priorities just so the board understand what we would prefer.
For me:
1. win the league
2. win the champions league
3. win the FA cup
4. qualify for CL
5. win the league cup
6. win uefa cup
7. qualify for uefa cup
In fact I go as far as to say I'd trade any silverware for relegation as its so easy to get promoted again (see WBA, Newcastle, Blues, ...).
Yeah, see Leeds, Sheffield Wednesday, Southampton, Portsmouth, Norwich......... oh, hang on.
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Maybe those that are tyring to justify GH selection are doing it out of a mis placed sense of loyalty to the Club. The majority of fans are angry because thier loyalty to the club includes doing the best to win and to experience glory. That opportunity was shamelessly denied them by our managers actions. His subsequent attempt to justify his decisions was disrespectful and arrogant.
Those that are now insulting those fans because they are rightly angry and upset is very sad.
That's a bit rich coming from you.
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I believe all comments after a loss should be left for two or three days for rational thinking to get some space. Some (not all )
posters may be a little ambarrassed over their knee jerk responses.
Good idea! We could save money by giving up our internet connections and sending in irate postcards (2nd class so they don't arrive in the heat of the moment).
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I believe all comments after a loss should be left for two or three days for rational thinking to get some space. Some (not all )
posters may be a little ambarrassed over their knee jerk responses.
Good idea! We could save money by giving up our internet connections and sending in irate postcards (2nd class so they don't arrive in the heat of the moment).
Maybe Dave could do a video blog in a "Points of View" stylee, reading out only the most indignant and outraged letters.
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Maybe those that are tyring to justify GH selection are doing it out of a mis placed sense of loyalty to the Club. The majority of fans are angry because thier loyalty to the club includes doing the best to win and to experience glory. That opportunity was shamelessly denied them by our managers actions. His subsequent attempt to justify his decisions was disrespectful and arrogant.
Those that are now insulting those fans because they are rightly angry and upset is very sad.
That's a bit rich coming from you.
thanks for your contribution, well done
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I'm furious not incredulous and I'm furious because we have an arrogant and patronising manager who selected a side to get us deliberately knocked out of the FA Cup and expects us idiots who pay his wages to believe him when he claims that he didn't put out a weakened side..
Are you saying that with a straight face?
I would say that with a massively under strength team including a number of players playing out of position with no apparent plan the result was inevitable and Houllier knew it.
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Thanks for responding guys - there were some good points made from many sides.
Two days on I am just as perplexed as I was Wednesday night when I saw the line -up. It was quite surreal - VCTM jnr switched over to ITV just as the teams were shown - we both looked at each other in utter disbelief.....I commented that it was going to be a waste of time watching it ...little did I realise I would be vindicated 4 minutes in !!!
I became disenchanted with football once before - when Keegan joined Newcastle as a player and he was on £2K a week - I was barely picking up £100 with overtime. I gave up my season ticket and attended less frequently for several seasons. It is only since VCTM jnr was born (10 years ago) that I rediscovered my love for the game again.
As the Villa slogan once said - "It`s in the blood" - Villa that is.
My disdain for the "modern" game (i.e. the Premiership) has grown season on season. Its no longer a game but a huge business with all the unpleasant traits of the business world thrown in - cheating, fraud, scandal, bullying, bungs etc.
Sadly my club have now followed the trend of several other clubs by disrespecting the FA Cup and more worrying its own fans who had travelled miles to watch their team compete for a place in the next round.
OK "rotation" might be what the "modern" game is all about, however you can`t convince me that Houllier sent out a team that he thought could draw let alone win the tie.
Some say that`s what we have to put up with these days - the same was said about Ticket prices, re-arranged fixtures, replica kit prices, players ridiculous wages etc.
There comes a time when the scales tip or the camel gives into that last straw.
I am close to that right now - I will be there at Bolton tomorrow but without VCTM jnr who would rather go to his mate`s birthday party ! I will also be there at Everton to meet up with all my old work mates - but will I be there in the Lower North next season? Hmm .....will depend on the noises coming out of the corridors of VP - and not from Houllier, or General Krulak but from the owner who I believe should let the fans know what he wants from a manager and what as a club we should be striving for. If it is solely survival (i.e where 16th has become the new 4th) then he should state that so fans can decide whether it is worth spending £100`s on following their club. I will always love the club I have watched since 1960/61 however if the club`s aspirations no longer match those of thousands of loyal fans I may seek an alternative form of "therapy"
Over to you Mr Lerner - regards VCTM
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I'm furious not incredulous and I'm furious because we have an arrogant and patronising manager who selected a side to get us deliberately knocked out of the FA Cup and expects us idiots who pay his wages to believe him when he claims that he didn't put out a weakened side..
Are you saying that with a straight face?
I would say that with a massively under strength team including a number of players playing out of position with no apparent plan the result was inevitable and Houllier knew it.
Fair enough if you think that. I just think he took a gamble and it backfired badly - a gamble I wish he hadn't taken or don't think he needed to take.
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It was a gamble he couldn't afford to take.
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Marvellous posts VCTM ! I respect your opinion ,as a true "non local" supporter,far more than those with tens of thousands of posts and given moderator status on here ,who never see hide or hare of Villa Park and subsequently contribute ,presently ,nothing financially to our great club and yet question our current owners !
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It was a gamble he couldn't afford to take.
The thing is we are stuck with him. They will hope it has all blown over by the summer after he has over come the mighty challenge of keeping us in the League. I am far from convinced that he is the right man for The Villa. Its such a shame when it seemed that he was getting it right on the pitch that he seems intent on shooting himself in the foot. I cant believe that this will be the last time that he alienates the fans. He seems to have a real talent for it.
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Marvellous posts VCTM ! I respect your opinion ,as a true "non local" supporter,far more than those with tens of thousands of posts and given moderator status on here ,who never see hide or hare of Villa Park and subsequently contribute ,presently ,nothing financially to our great club and yet question our current owners !
I take it you mean me. Well I'll be at the game tomorrow, so see you there.
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Marvellous posts VCTM ! I respect your opinion ,as a true "non local" supporter,far more than those with tens of thousands of posts and given moderator status on here ,who never see hide or hare of Villa Park and subsequently contribute ,presently ,nothing financially to our great club and yet question our current owners !
I take it you mean me. Well I'll be at the game tomorrow, so see you there.
Bromilow Arms at 12.30 for me - Is Blandy coming?
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I don't think it was aimed at you risso, you certainly weren't the person who sprung to my mind anyway when I read it .
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Marvellous posts VCTM ! I respect your opinion ,as a true "non local" supporter,far more than those with tens of thousands of posts and given moderator status on here ,who never see hide or hare of Villa Park and subsequently contribute ,presently ,nothing financially to our great club and yet question our current owners !
I take it you mean me. Well I'll be at the game tomorrow, so see you there.
Bromilow Arms at 12.30 for me - Is Blandy coming?
Should be there about the same time with Blandy and Gareth, see you there.
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The people on here that are trying to justify our managers decision just dont get it, he killed a lot of supporters rationale for supporting the club, there is absoloutely no justification for Aston Villa to act in this cowardly and disrespectful way. You should read again what VCTM said, why on earth should any one comit to a club that is not commited to the majority of it supporters. Yesterday was one of the darkest days in our history and what is so sad about it was the fact that it was self inflicted.
No, no over-reaction here either.
Dave over reaction by the paying customers...now what's wrong with that?
Hawkeye and VCTM have it bang on.
My support for the club started with the relegation from the second division and was cemented during 1970/71 season and in particular the semi final and final of the League Cup. I know that our top priority was to get out of the Third division however the daunting task of 46 league game did not mean giving up the League cup. All I and many other fans ask is that we compete and when we don't I reserve the right to over react.
It isn't 1971 anymore. Talking about darkest days in history and never watching the team again is ridiculous. There isn't a team in the league, and possibly any league, that take league positions less seriously than cups.
Fulham did last year when they sacrifced a couple of league places for the chance of winning the UEFA cup.
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Marvellous posts VCTM ! I respect your opinion ,as a true "non local" supporter,far more than those with tens of thousands of posts and given moderator status on here ,who never see hide or hare of Villa Park and subsequently contribute ,presently ,nothing financially to our great club and yet question our current owners !
Yes, VCTM makes a good set of points. By the way, I attend every home game and some aways. I regularly frequent the club shop. Post count does not equate to Moderator status, by the way.
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I got to page 20 and now im depressed, my two penneth.
I'm as disappointed as everyone else but I think this whole season has been a farce from that wanker walking out with 5 days to go. The kit, the manager farce, Europe, Newcastle, Stephen Ireland, the injuries, The FA cup, the League cup and many other things.
I'm hoping next year will be a bright one im willing to forget the other night for now and look forward to hopefully a much better season next year.
We've had worse days and recovered
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The people on here that are trying to justify our managers decision just dont get it, he killed a lot of supporters rationale for supporting the club, there is absoloutely no justification for Aston Villa to act in this cowardly and disrespectful way. You should read again what VCTM said, why on earth should any one comit to a club that is not commited to the majority of it supporters. Yesterday was one of the darkest days in our history and what is so sad about it was the fact that it was self inflicted.
No, no over-reaction here either.
Dave over reaction by the paying customers...now what's wrong with that?
Hawkeye and VCTM have it bang on.
My support for the club started with the relegation from the second division and was cemented during 1970/71 season and in particular the semi final and final of the League Cup. I know that our top priority was to get out of the Third division however the daunting task of 46 league game did not mean giving up the League cup. All I and many other fans ask is that we compete and when we don't I reserve the right to over react.
It isn't 1971 anymore. Talking about darkest days in history and never watching the team again is ridiculous. There isn't a team in the league, and possibly any league, that take league positions less seriously than cups.
Fulham did last year when they sacrifced a couple of league places for the chance of winning the UEFA cup.
granted, but this isnt a couple of seasons ago and were not guarenteed mid table mediocrity. There has never been a season like this whereby any of the bottom ten clubs could reasonably go down. If we had another 7points on the board now, I think we would have gone full strength.
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VCTM - In reply to your summarising post, Its a shame you feel that way about modern football and in particular, the premiership. And maybe its because I was not around to see alot of football before the premiership but......I chuffing love it! Its a real-life, living, breathing soap opera. I love the drama, the sub plots and sagas. I love SSN, Soccer AM, Soccer Saturday. I love Match of the day and their X-Factor, light weight post match analysis. I love to hate Mark Lawrenson, El Haj Diouff and Joey F'ing Barton.
This season alone, we have had The crash and re-emergence of Liverpool, Spurs lighting up the CL, little league blackpool teaching the big boys a few lessons, Fat Sam getting the boot, The BEST transfer deadline day ever, a great cup final (the less said the better, but it was a bloody good game), great manager battles like Houllier and Holloway, King Kenny returning etc etc. I could go on, but the point im trying to make is that its bloody entertaining.
Even Houlliers line up and subsequently this thread has made for great reading and reasoned debate, rather than coming on here to find people discussing technical problems with their laptops and their favourite motown one hit wonders from the 1970's #Yawn#
It may not just about the football anymore but I hate eastenders and corrie so im going to keep on embracing the madness
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Marvellous posts VCTM ! I respect your opinion ,as a true "non local" supporter,far more than those with tens of thousands of posts and given moderator status on here ,who never see hide or hare of Villa Park and subsequently contribute ,presently ,nothing financially to our great club and yet question our current owners !
Yes, VCTM makes a good set of points. By the way, I attend every home game and some aways. I regularly frequent the club shop. Post count does not equate to Moderator status, by the way.
Just as well, else I'd be one!
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Maybe those that are tyring to justify GH selection are doing it out of a mis placed sense of loyalty to the Club. The majority of fans are angry because thier loyalty to the club includes doing the best to win and to experience glory. That opportunity was shamelessly denied them by our managers actions. His subsequent attempt to justify his decisions was disrespectful and arrogant.
Those that are now insulting those fans because they are rightly angry and upset is very sad.
That's a bit rich coming from you.
thanks for your contribution, well done
Your just jealous because I've got a shift key and you haven't.
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I'd rather have Colonel Gaddaffi in charge right now than that fuckin French surrender monkey!
Forgive me, but I thought our club motto was prepared! Prepared for what? Failure? Certainly aint winning trophies!
Bayern Munich were a collectively better team than us! Did Tony Aston send out a team with the thought, don't worry about it lads - give it a good go, but no one's expecting too much. And when Jimmy went off injured did we roll over and cave in? Did we fuck!!!!!!
No wonder the French caved in in 6 weeks! Their generals were probably saving the legs of their best infantry for the following week!
I shant set foot in VP until he's gone
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That should have said Barton, not Aston! Stupid predictive txt!
Still not going again until the surrender monkey leaves!
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Your reaction to what you claim is giving up without fight is to give up, brilliant satire.
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I'd rather have Colonel Gaddaffi in charge right now than that fuckin French surrender monkey!
Forgive me, but I thought our club motto was prepared! Prepared for what? Failure? Certainly aint winning trophies!
Bayern Munich were a collectively better team than us! Did Tony Aston send out a team with the thought, don't worry about it lads - give it a good go, but no one's expecting too much. And when Jimmy went off injured did we roll over and cave in? Did we fuck!!!!!!
No wonder the French caved in in 6 weeks! Their generals were probably saving the legs of their best infantry for the following week!
I shant set foot in VP until he's gone
Hilarious!
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I'd rather have Colonel Gaddaffi in charge right now than that fuckin French surrender monkey!
Forgive me, but I thought our club motto was prepared! Prepared for what? Failure? Certainly aint winning trophies!
Bayern Munich were a collectively better team than us! Did Tony Aston send out a team with the thought, don't worry about it lads - give it a good go, but no one's expecting too much. And when Jimmy went off injured did we roll over and cave in? Did we fuck!!!!!!
No wonder the French caved in in 6 weeks! Their generals were probably saving the legs of their best infantry for the following week!
I shant set foot in VP until he's gone
Thank you for putting everything into proportion for us.
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His comments about the 'danger' of getting a draw at Man City can only be construed as an admission that we threw a 5th round FA Cup tie, which had a home quarter-final tie against Reading as a reward.
I'm genuinely suprised that anyone is trying to defend or justify that decision.
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His comments about the 'danger' of getting a draw at Man City can only be construed as an admission that we threw a 5th round FA Cup tie, which had a home quarter-final tie against Reading as a reward.
I'm genuinely suprised that anyone is trying to defend or justify that decision.
Quite.
It's as though Houllier saw the draw and decided there and then that we weren't going to get anywhere near winning the game, so why bother.
Unbelievable attitude.
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I'd rather have Colonel Gaddaffi in charge right now than that fuckin French surrender monkey!
There's no need to stoop to racism pal. Ever. WTF has Houllier being French got to do with it?
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I'd rather have Colonel Gaddaffi in charge right now than that fuckin French surrender monkey!
Thank you for putting everything into proportion for us.
There's no need to stoop to racism pal. Ever.
Why ?
He is French and he surrendered.
What's racist about that comment ??
Have you ever 'called' McLeish 'Scottish' ?
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I'd rather have Colonel Gaddaffi in charge right now than that fuckin French surrender monkey!
Thank you for putting everything into proportion for us.
There's no need to stoop to racism pal. Ever.
Why ?
He is French and he surrendered.
What's racist about that comment ??
Do I really need to answer that? I'm sure you can work it out.
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I'd rather have Colonel Gaddaffi in charge right now than that fuckin French surrender monkey!
Thank you for putting everything into proportion for us.
There's no need to stoop to racism pal. Ever.
Why ?
He is French and he surrendered.
What's racist about that comment ??
Do I really need to answer that? I'm sure you can work it out.
I'm sure I can't.
Answer that.
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I'd rather have Colonel Gaddaffi in charge right now than that fuckin French surrender monkey!
Thank you for putting everything into proportion for us.
There's no need to stoop to racism pal. Ever.
Why ?
He is French and he surrendered.
What's racist about that comment ??
Do I really need to answer that? I'm sure you can work it out.
I'm sure I can't.
Answer that.
Why mention his nationality if not to emphasise a point, or to satisfy a cliche?
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Stop using racism when your losing the argument. It devalues the whole argument.
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Stop using racism when your losing the argument. It devalues the whole argument.
Hmmmmm sometimes I take a 'sense' check with my partner who's a Lawyer, she thinks it's mad to see this as racism.
That people who see things like this on this as racism, really shouldn't be posting here !
And, for the record, I love most things French.
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Racist? No. Xenophobic? Quite possibly.
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technically its a mixture of the two, as race can be defined by geographical location, ie, the german race...
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I'd rather have Colonel Gaddaffi in charge right now than that fuckin French surrender monkey!
There's no need to stoop to racism pal. Ever. WTF has Houllier being French got to do with it?
So you think of the French as a race? Why is that?
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I'd rather have Colonel Gaddaffi in charge right now than that fuckin French surrender monkey!
There's no need to stoop to racism pal. Ever. WTF has Houllier being French got to do with it?
So you think of the French as a race? Why is that?
If you refused to offer a job to a man because he was French you would be liable to prosecution under the Race Relations Law.
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The Arc De Triomphe-that's a race (and an arch) and its French.
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well, for most of last season, most on here seemed to be bemoaning the fact that we didn't have any foreign flair and that MON bought English only. That's a racist statement isn't it?
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I'd rather have Colonel Gaddaffi in charge right now than that fuckin French surrender monkey!
There's no need to stoop to racism pal. Ever. WTF has Houllier being French got to do with it?
So you think of the French as a race? Why is that?
If you refused to offer a job to a man because he was French you would be liable to prosecution under the Race Relations Law.
That's completely different to the French being a race.
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don't forget the ageist arguments against Pires and Friedel as well.
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Yes, but is it PC Gorn Mad, that's what I want to know.
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well, for most of last season, most on here seemed to be bemoaning the fact that we didn't have any foreign flair and that MON bought English only. That's a racist statement isn't it?
So, the English are a race too? No wonder people get het up when everyone and everything is a racial group.
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footballers are a race, aren't they?
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footballers are a race, aren't they?
Cornflake eaters are a race too :-)
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I'd rather have Colonel Gaddaffi in charge right now than that fuckin French surrender monkey!
There's no need to stoop to racism pal. Ever. WTF has Houllier being French got to do with it?
So you think of the French as a race? Why is that?
If you refused to offer a job to a man because he was French you would be liable to prosecution under the Race Relations Law.
That's completely different to the French being a race.
Obviously the French are not a distinct racial group but as far as the law is concerned they are and it is an accepted way to use the term.
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Benty!!!!
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Wrong thread.
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I'd rather have Colonel Gaddaffi in charge right now than that fuckin French surrender monkey!
There's no need to stoop to racism pal. Ever. WTF has Houllier being French got to do with it?
So you think of the French as a race? Why is that?
If you refused to offer a job to a man because he was French you would be liable to prosecution under the Race Relations Law.
That's completely different to the French being a race.
Obviously the French are not a distinct racial group but as far as the law is concerned they are and it is an accepted way to use the term.
Semantics. Let's use prejudiced then. Either way the mentioning of his nationality in this context was designed to point out that he is in some way typical of his people's stereotype (French surrender monkey?) and there's just now need for it imo.
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I'd rather have Colonel Gaddaffi in charge right now than that fuckin French surrender monkey!
There's no need to stoop to racism pal. Ever. WTF has Houllier being French got to do with it?
So you think of the French as a race? Why is that?
If you refused to offer a job to a man because he was French you would be liable to prosecution under the Race Relations Law.
That's completely different to the French being a race.
Obviously the French are not a distinct racial group but as far as the law is concerned they are and it is an accepted way to use the term.
Accepted by whom? Those that misuse the term?
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I was making the point against the guy who shouts racism when he is losing the argument..
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Has anyone ever drunk Californian Champagne ?!?!?
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He's French. He surrendered. He probably eats cheese. The simian link is debatable.
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Accepted by whom? Those that misuse the term?
Everyone but the incurably pedantic.
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i don't care he has to go, his decision making is shocking brought in a managerial failure as his number 2 talks like a confused great Uncle i once had. He is as bad as D O'L imo
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We played very well today, should have scored more.
They had 3 chances and scored them all
One of those days I'm afraid
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We played very well today, should have scored more.
They had 3 chances and scored them all
One of those days I'm afraid
one of those days!! its a good job they didn't have more than 3 chances then
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My wife and children all say "fuck off you bunch of Sun-reading, boiled-vegetable slurping, overdone beef-eating baldy fat ******!"
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Yes, yes.
But were they taken out of context?
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I'd ask, but they are hiding under the bed in case Britain sends in the best troops in the world to protect USA interests. Or something.
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Ha ha!! "One of those days!" We're having a whole f**king seaon of those days!!
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I'd ask, but they are hiding under the bed in case Britain sends in the best troops in the world to protect USA interests. Or something.
Maybe they'll send the reserves.
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We played very well today, should have scored more.
They had 3 chances and scored them all
One of those days I'm afraid
Yes, but its happened too many times this season, its infuriating. He needs to sort the defence out badly, and we knew that before the window but little was done. Yes, overall January was a very good window, but i was always concerned that we needed a couple of solid defenders in, and it didn't happen. I don't think it will cause relegation but we need it sorting for the start of next season. I would give Houllier the chance, but unless we have improved that dept significantly by the end of next season i would get rid.
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Most decent teams have a keeper who commands and dominates the 6 yard box and the defenders who in general defend the rest of the penalty area, a top keeper will say to his defence , anything in the 6 yard box is my domain, but friedal doesn't come off his line even for crosses 4 yards out making the defences job extremely difficult- it's basically a case of it their player heads it 1st it's probably a goal.
Rather than standing on his line shouting away he should be coming out to punch clear or catch the ball, any cross outswinging or outside 6 yards fine , stay on the line but not the ball is so close.
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PS Mr Lerner
I have witnessed some bad times and poor managers at Villa Park over the years- I am not saying these are the worst of times or Houllier is the worst manager however I have witnessed the igmony of relegation and I can spot the signs.
Like my late father urged the board many years ago to remove Joe Mercer from the Managers role I urge you to dispense of the services of Monsieur Houllier. He appears out of touch with the modern game and appears to lack motivational qualities - this added to his inappropriate comments amount the club, fans and FA Cup make him "hard to like".
Please Mr Lerner, get rid immediately and bring in a motivational leader.............I`ve said this numerous times - the time to play pretty football is when you are 3 -0 up ...lets win ugly until the end of the season and then regroup in Hong Kong under a top manager who has the respect of players and fans alike - Van Gaal and Jol have been mentioned - they would be worth considering I am sure.
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Spot on
PS Mr Lerner
I have witnessed some bad times and poor managers at Villa Park over the years- I am not saying these are the worst of times or Houllier is the worst manager however I have witnessed the igmony of relegation and I can spot the signs.
Like my late father urged the board many years ago to remove Joe Mercer from the Managers role I urge you to dispense of the services of Monsieur Houllier. He appears out of touch with the modern game and appears to lack motivational qualities - this added to his inappropriate comments amount the club, fans and FA Cup make him "hard to like".
Please Mr Lerner, get rid immediately and bring in a motivational leader.............I`ve said this numerous times - the time to play pretty football is when you are 3 -0 up ...lets win ugly until the end of the season and then regroup in Hong Kong under a top manager who has the respect of players and fans alike - Van Gaal and Jol have been mentioned - they would be worth considering I am sure.
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Regroup in Hong Kong? :o
Our young lads tend to do well in the annual Summer Sevens comp they have out there but I don't think that's what you're on about...
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Vctm- post it on the generals thread and he will probably pass it on to randy ,very good post.
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Regroup in Hong Kong? :o
Our young lads tend to do well in the annual Summer Sevens comp they have out there but I don't think that's what you're on about...
I suggest you do your homework young man - Barclays Asia Trophy
http://www.avfc.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10265~2189027,00.html
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How could I have forgotten..
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PS Mr Lerner
I have witnessed some bad times and poor managers at Villa Park over the years- I am not saying these are the worst of times or Houllier is the worst manager however I have witnessed the igmony of relegation and I can spot the signs.
Like my late father urged the board many years ago to remove Joe Mercer from the Managers role I urge you to dispense of the services of Monsieur Houllier. He appears out of touch with the modern game and appears to lack motivational qualities - this added to his inappropriate comments amount the club, fans and FA Cup make him "hard to like".
Please Mr Lerner, get rid immediately and bring in a motivational leader.............I`ve said this numerous times - the time to play pretty football is when you are 3 -0 up ...lets win ugly until the end of the season and then regroup in Hong Kong under a top manager who has the respect of players and fans alike - Van Gaal and Jol have been mentioned - they would be worth considering I am sure.
I agree.
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PS Mr Lerner
I have witnessed some bad times and poor managers at Villa Park over the years- I am not saying these are the worst of times or Houllier is the worst manager however I have witnessed the igmony of relegation and I can spot the signs.
Like my late father urged the board many years ago to remove Joe Mercer from the Managers role I urge you to dispense of the services of Monsieur Houllier. He appears out of touch with the modern game and appears to lack motivational qualities - this added to his inappropriate comments amount the club, fans and FA Cup make him "hard to like".
Please Mr Lerner, get rid immediately and bring in a motivational leader.............I`ve said this numerous times - the time to play pretty football is when you are 3 -0 up ...lets win ugly until the end of the season and then regroup in Hong Kong under a top manager who has the respect of players and fans alike - Van Gaal and Jol have been mentioned - they would be worth considering I am sure.
great post.spot on
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PS Mr Lerner
I have witnessed some bad times and poor managers at Villa Park over the years- I am not saying these are the worst of times or Houllier is the worst manager however I have witnessed the igmony of relegation and I can spot the signs.
Like my late father urged the board many years ago to remove Joe Mercer from the Managers role I urge you to dispense of the services of Monsieur Houllier. He appears out of touch with the modern game and appears to lack motivational qualities - this added to his inappropriate comments amount the club, fans and FA Cup make him "hard to like".
Please Mr Lerner, get rid immediately and bring in a motivational leader.............I`ve said this numerous times - the time to play pretty football is when you are 3 -0 up ...lets win ugly until the end of the season and then regroup in Hong Kong under a top manager who has the respect of players and fans alike - Van Gaal and Jol have been mentioned - they would be worth considering I am sure.
great post.spot on
Well said Clive.
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Hard to disagree with most of it -save the Jol and Van Gaal flights of fantasy.
Why would they want to risk their reputations getting embroiled in a relegation scrap?
Unless you mean in the summer when Jol (though not Van Gaal) might be a tad more realistic.
They both strike me more as long term vision types. What we would need if we take the decision before the summer is someone who could hit the ground running as it were, someone who could get the players onside and deliver pretty much from the get go. Whether it's just grinding out a few tedious draws or getting the side well drilled at the back.