Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Match Threads & Player Ratings => Topic started by: Legion on December 17, 2011, 05:35:51 PM
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Available Sunday evening.
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The players looked inept, dispirited and lacking ideas.
Manager was far too cautious about the subbs.
The ball retention was shocking.
What we learned:
- Delfouneso ain't going to be our saviour (unless in a much better side).
- Heskey really is shit.
- Petrov still has lots to offer.
- too many players really don't care enough to be in our team.
- something has to change, and fast, if we are to avoid another relegation battle.
- the home crowd know and also can't be arsed to raise a shout.
Overall, this afternoon has been a particularly smelly shade of shit.
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Gutless, embarassing garbage!
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The most worrying thing for me is that we have shown absolutely no signs of improvement since McLeish was appointed. The man is not capable of coordinating a decent offense. Thank god the bottom 3 to 5 teams are pantywaist's. I'm ashamed of our club.
WHERE ARE WE GOING?
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The most worrying thing for me is that we have shown absolutely no signs of improvement since McLeish was appointed.
WHERE ARE WE GOING?
down?
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That was yet another utterly insipid diabolical display. Fucking terrible and we are rightly getting panned on the TV again. Bolton are clearly terrible. The club from top to bottom is an utter shambles.
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Complete and utter shite. I wish I could go to work and put in the same effort for £40k a week. Disgraceful and no sign of it improving.
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This really is relegation football.
I feel very sad.
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Simply isn't good enough. No desire, no idea, no fight. Dreading Wednesdays game.
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Aside from a few all to brief promising passages of play from N'Zogbia and a couple of good saves from Guzan that was somewhat bleak from a claret and blue perspective.
I don't think we can blame McLeish too much for today as had a limited choice of players available to him being without a few key players. However, there were a lot of concerning things today. The fact that we were so poor at keeping the ball, the fact that we were tactically out-thought and out-numbered in midfield and our defence had an absolute nightmare. The thing that really bothers me is how obvious it was that some of our players looked like they just couldn't give a fuck.
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We look like a team accepting of its fate before we set foot on the pitch, too much respect for the opposition and no fight!
Please move on McLeish, before you drag us down!
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decent performance. only losing by two is nothing to be ashamed of. We've lost Gareth, James, Ashley and Stuart yet we are still comfortably mid-table. credit to McLeish where it is due. Not ideal, but not too bad
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Too many players clearly don't care. We have no leader and no captain out there.
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Aside from a few all to brief promising passages of play from N'Zogbia and a couple of good saves from Guzan that was somewhat bleak from a claret and blue perspective.
I don't think we can blame McLeish too much for today as had a limited choice of players available to him being without a few key players. However, there were a lot of concerning things today. The fact that we were so poor at keeping the ball, the fact that we were tactically out-thought and out-numbered in midfield and our defence had an absolute nightmare. The thing that really bothers me is how obvious it was that some of our players looked like they just couldn't give a fuck.
It is the manager's job to give the players a clue. Give them a direction and outline a philosophy that will enable them to win the game. McLeish is in way over his head and offers none of the above. It is impossible to win with this man at the reigns.
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Mediocre players producing mediocre football on the instructions of a mediocre manager.
MEH.
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Shit. And I could only stomach the first fifteen minutes. We're utterly rudderless from the chairman, to the manager and the players. There might be three worse teams than us, but one of them might change their manager and fight their way back. We won't.
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My God that was awful!!!!! Clearly the players don't want to play for Mcleish. There wasn't one single Villa player who came out of that with any credit whatsoever. Wouldn't trust Mcleish in the January transfer window.
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No urgency, no movement off the ball, no passion........all in all pretty shit.
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You pick a shit team and you will lose. Simple.
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No difference from the Spurs,Utd games,gutless,lacking basic passing and movement,yes we were depleated a bit today,but McCleish is worryingly out of his depth at a club like Villa. 'were lucky that there are 4 or 5 teams who are worse than us,thats our only saving grace.
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Have a stinking cold and hoped for a result today after last weeks win. Awful. Basically, no movement, all we did was give ball away under no pressure, hoof it form centre backs to no-one in particular. 2nd hald L-pool just sat back we had no answers, they didn't need to get out if 2nd gear. It was dreadfull. Can we learn how to control / pass?
Delph - powder puff, Albrighton - in-effective, Delfounso - missing.
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2-2 against ManUtd - we had half of the reserves then starting - yet played them of the pitch. No excuse for that apathy on show almost every game.
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decent performance. only losing by two is nothing to be ashamed of. We've lost Gareth, James, Ashley and Stuart yet we are still comfortably mid-table. credit to McLeish where it is due. Not ideal, but not too bad
you been on the sauce?
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No urgency, no movement off the ball, no passion........all in all pretty shit.
Holy shit, I forgot to put this in my previous post. We are terrible at movement off the ball. Delph, Petrov, Delf, and N'Zogbia just standing around.. it was a joke.
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decent performance. only losing by two is nothing to be ashamed of. We've lost Gareth, James, Ashley and Stuart yet we are still comfortably mid-table. credit to McLeish where it is due. Not ideal, but not too bad
you been on the sauce?
Decent???? We lost!!!!! I hate to think what you pt down a s a bad performance. You on Crack?
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I watch most prem games over here and Bolton apart we are the worst footballing side, Relegation is a real possibility under Mcleish.Most of the young kids have been tried now and they are just not good enough, Bannon when he came on continually gave the ball away unless it was on the half way line, the Fonz will never make it, just not good enough, Albrighton may be okay in a good side. Why Clark hasn't been given his chance is anybodies guess. I suppose the word to express todays effort was embarrassing.
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I'm not on the sauce or the crack. I'm on planet reality.
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Another meek surrender against a team from the top six. Pitiful.
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decent performance. only losing by two is nothing to be ashamed of. We've lost Gareth, James, Ashley and Stuart yet we are still comfortably mid-table. credit to McLeish where it is due. Not ideal, but not too bad
you been on the sauce?
Decent???? We lost!!!!! I hate to think what you pt down a s a bad performance. You on Crack?
I didnt know Chris Smith had two usernames.
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I've just witnessed the most depressing live commentary on Radio WM that I've ever heard...it was like listening to a funeral service. RIP Aston Villa.
decent performance. only losing by two is nothing to be ashamed of. We've lost Gareth, James, Ashley and Stuart yet we are still comfortably mid-table. credit to McLeish where it is due. Not ideal, but not too bad
Struggling to understand much of this post..."decent performance". Really? If that was a "decent performance" then it just shows how low some of our expectations have fallen. "comfortably mid-table". Really? A quick glance at the table shows we are 3 points above 15th place...is that really "comfortable"?
Fortunately for us, there are at least 3 teams who we will finish above but there is no getting away from the fact that if it wasnt for those teams then what we are seeing on the pitch is the standard of team that should be in a battle for relegation. The league table still papers over some seriously large cracks, but with a few more defeats to come against Arsenal and Stoke the reality could start to look a little more harsh.
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Mediocre players producing mediocre football on the instructions of a mediocre manager.
MEH.
That never reached the heady heights of mediocre.
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I'm not on the sauce or the crack. I'm on planet reality.
OK, I'll bite. You point out what was decent about that performance? Forgetting the minor point point we lost 2-0 at home.
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Left with ten minutes to go. Back in the pub trying to warm up. Utter shit again. I won't be using my ticket on Wednesday.
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We seem to play the same way against the top six under McLeish:
1. Concede shit goal or goals early doors
2. Show some fight for 20-25 minutes
3. Play out drab insipid second half with little or no chances but plenty of huff and puff
4. Manager comes out and praises effort and promises to work on dog shit set piece defending
I thought we might have got a point today but with no Gabby and Bent I really could not see where the goals were going to come from and we all know we have sod all chance of keeping a clean sheet!
Poor performance yes but some mitigation with the players he had available (Given, Jenas, Herd, Agbonlahor and Bent all would have improved that team) and not sure we need to be sacking the manager on the back of a result/performance like this
Oh and at least Downing didn't score...
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I'm not on the sauce or the crack. I'm on planet reality.
It should have been 6 or 7, we were terrible.
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We're not going down. We're not getting Europa League.
Welcome to mid-table, lads!
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Mediocre players producing mediocre football on the instructions of a mediocre manager.
MEH.
That never reached the heady heights of mediocre.
What I would do to be mediocre.. We are terrible.
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Left with ten minutes to go. Back in the pub trying to warm up. Utter shit again. I won't be using my ticket on Wednesday.
Give it to Stan Collymore for his cause against depression. Then he can give it to someone donating for his cause...
wait! on second thought! Don't do that!
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We combine a number of awful factors. We are terribly fragile, have no spirit and play horrible horrible football.
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No urgency, no movement off the ball, no passion........all in all pretty shit.
Holy shit, I forgot to put this in my previous post. We are terrible at movement off the ball. Delph, Petrov, Delf, and N'Zogbia just standing around.. it was a joke.
It actually made me laugh out loud in the second half. Bannan had the ball in midfield, and Petrov, Albrighton and Delfouneso were standing about 10 yards from him, each marked, but kind of bouncing on their heels, as if they were at the end of a bungee rope. None of them actually moved into space.
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Guess if you add Given, Gabby, Bent and Herd into the side it will improve things. Even then its a bit of a stretch as Bent has been pants this season and Herd despite his best efforts is fairly limited. Above all else we need serious investment in the side. MON's players needs replacing not with the Alan Hutton's of this world but with proper footballers. The likes of Bannan, Fonz, Albrighton will only be useful in a side that is on top with loads of possession. Even then they are likely to only be back up players.
We are just like Everton now. No money = no ambition.
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We may as well not bother turning up to play one of the top 6 sides. It's pathetic and frankly McLeish is a disgrace. The sooner he's gone, the better, he's just utterly clueless.
I could buy the excuse of not having enough quality players, but I just can't buy the sheer lack of organisation, the inability to do the basics, the lack of effort, and the lack of cohesion. The players aren't giving their all and it's down to this numpty in charge.
Randy, fuck off!
Fuckner, fuck off!
McLeish, fuck off!
pardon my French.
This is as pathetic as I can remember in my 21 years of supporting this club, and I include the O Leary era in that.
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Nice Troll-age VFL. Or perhaps you're just offering the alternative viewpoint. From where I was sat it was inept, gutless, clueless, witless garbage. But you're right - only another minus two in the against column.
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We may as well not bother turning up to play one of the top 6 sides. It's pathetic and frankly McLeish is a disgrace. The sooner he's gone, the better, he's just utterly clueless.
I could buy the excuse of not having enough quality players, but I just can't buy the sheer lack of organisation, the inability to do the basics, the lack of effort, and the lack of cohesion. The players aren't giving their all and it's down to this numpty in charge.
Randy, fuck off!
Fuckner, fuck off!
McLeish, fuck off!
pardon my French.
This is as pathetic as I can remember in my 21 years of supporting this club, and I include the O Leary era in that.
the club is falling apart.
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Seem to be on my own here.......look at the teamsheets. Did you expect anything else? We lost, but only by two.
We beat the team last week, just as we should have.... Ok, a win today would have been a bonus, but the important thing was we beat Bolton.
ok, when we start to consistently lose to the bottom six teams, then there maybe something to worry about. As for now, McLeish has done a very good job of keeping us clear of the likes of Wigan and Bolton etc
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How long do we have to put up with this crap?
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Im sure that McCleish will come out with threats to the press that players will be dropped if performances dont improve,but itll be the same useless bunch on Wednesday. How Collins hasnt been dropped is beyond me,and Cuellar will be sold for peanuts in Jan so that McCleish will bring in another crappy signing.
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Dont feed the troll.
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n zog was good today.....
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Seem to be on my own here.......look at the teamsheets. Did you expect anything else? We lost, but only by two.
We beat the team last week, just as we should have.... Ok, a win today would have been a bonus, but the important thing was we beat Bolton.
ok, when we start to consistently lose to the bottom six teams, then there maybe something to worry about. As for now, McLeish has done a very good job of keeping us clear of the likes of Wigan and Bolton etc
Have fun being 2nd place for your entire life with that attitude. Randy Lerner has become accustomed to losing. I don't want to be an alsoran, I want to win. We're a big club with the ambition to be irrelevant.
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No urgency, no movement off the ball, no passion........all in all pretty shit.
Holy shit, I forgot to put this in my previous post. We are terrible at movement off the ball. Delph, Petrov, Delf, and N'Zogbia just standing around.. it was a joke.
It actually made me laugh out loud in the second half. Bannan had the ball in midfield, and Petrov, Albrighton and Delfouneso were standing about 10 yards from him, each marked, but kind of bouncing on their heels, as if they were at the end of a bungee rope. None of them actually moved into space.
It was very sad to see :-(
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Seem to be on my own here.......look at the teamsheets. Did you expect anything else? We lost, but only by two.
We beat the team last week, just as we should have.... Ok, a win today would have been a bonus, but the important thing was we beat Bolton.
ok, when we start to consistently lose to the bottom six teams, then there maybe something to worry about. As for now, McLeish has done a very good job of keeping us clear of the likes of Wigan and Bolton etc
You should re-look at that last sentence and hang your head in shame.
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decent performance. only losing by two is nothing to be ashamed of. We've lost Gareth, James, Ashley and Stuart yet we are still comfortably mid-table. credit to McLeish where it is due. Not ideal, but not too bad
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long time reader, occasional poster. just got back. left early for only the 2nd time(1st was in 1986 i think, arsenal at home) couldn,t bring myself to support them any longer, utter rubbish, absoloutly no positives to take. not going to arsenal, can't be arsed anymore. surely this cant be allowed to continue?
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Seem to be on my own here.......look at the teamsheets. Did you expect anything else? We lost, but only by two.
We beat the team last week, just as we should have.... Ok, a win today would have been a bonus, but the important thing was we beat Bolton.
ok, when we start to consistently lose to the bottom six teams, then there maybe something to worry about. As for now, McLeish has done a very good job of keeping us clear of the likes of Wigan and Bolton etc
I do agree that some people are over-egging the pudding here somewhat. We at least tried to be a bit more adventurous today and I don't think that it is reasonable to expect us to win with the injuries we had today but I don't think our performance was decent. More like, in line with what I was expecting which wasn't much at all. I am disappointed in how badly we defended.
As Chipsticks says, we are not going to be relegated and we won't achieve anything of note this season (and in light of the constraints around him it would be unreasonable to expect more than that from McLeish) and this is something we've got to face up to.
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Seem to be on my own here.......look at the teamsheets. Did you expect anything else? We lost, but only by two.
We beat the team last week, just as we should have.... Ok, a win today would have been a bonus, but the important thing was we beat Bolton.
ok, when we start to consistently lose to the bottom six teams, then there maybe something to worry about. As for now, McLeish has done a very good job of keeping us clear of the likes of Wigan and Bolton etc
I do agree that some people are over-egging the pudding here somewhat. We at least tried to be a bit more adventurous today and I don't think that it is reasonable to expect us to win with the injuries we had today but I don't think our performance was decent. More like, in line with what I was expecting which wasn't much at all. I am disappointed in how badly we defended.
As Chipsticks says, we are not going to be relegated and we won't achieve anything of note this season (and in light of the constraints around him it would be unreasonable to expect more than that from McLeish) and this is something we've got to face up to.
You mean we shouldn't expect our own players to pass to a each other? We can't even string three passes together! McLeish is a "defensive" manager that was supposed to plug up the holes in the back.. and they are HORRID. Our problems are only getting worse. As long as the fans aren't behind McLeish, and quite frankly they never will be and never should be for that matter, we're not going anywhere. Terrible appointment. Why would you take a piss on your supporters like that Randy?
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That was really awful to watch . We are bad . We are embarrassing to our great name and our great fans.
I couldn't wait for the game to finish , liverpool are average but we wasnt going to score until at least Christmas 2013.
Please explain BALL RETENTION to our players .
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F**king inept performance. Did we even create one meaningful chance in the entire game? We have fallen so far in the last 18mths, it is sad to see.
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Reality is transient and football is no different. A couple of seasons ago, I was livid when we lost to Stoke and blew our chance to cement a top four place. This year, it's a new reality. McLeish is not to blame even if many people on here want to make him a scapegoat.
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We're now closer to 18th than we are sixth. I can't see us being higher than 15th by January with the fixtures we have.
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Reality is transient and football is no different. A couple of seasons ago, I was livid when we lost to Stoke and blew our chance to cement a top four place. This year, it's a new reality. McLeish is not to blame even if many people on here want to make him a scapegoat.
How has McLeish made our squad better. As far as I'm concerned, if a team is going in the wrong direction it is the fault of the manager. He cannot coordinate a sufficient offense that will create a competitive team in this league. The players are clueless, and it is the role of the manager to supply them with instruction.
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Would we have created more with Ashley, , Milner , downing ?
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Yes
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The amount of times we needlessly gave the ball away was shocking, Delph, Collins and Bannan being the prime examples, i'm lost for words really, we're just not a good team at all.
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Nice to know we've nailed defending set pieces.
For a supposed masterclass defensive coach, McLeish is even failing at that badly. Why oh why do we have to have Dunne and especially Collins every bleeding game when they keep on giving away free headers from corners?!
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Reality is transient and football is no different. A couple of seasons ago, I was livid when we lost to Stoke and blew our chance to cement a top four place. This year, it's a new reality. McLeish is not to blame even if many people on here want to make him a scapegoat.
Okay I have bitten, but please explain this to me? I have always thought that the manager gets paid to motivate, organise and get the best he can out of the players at his disposal, which he is blantantly failing to do so! Exactly, in your opinion, is McLeish supposed to do... anything at all?
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Totally inept. Can only be one person to blame and that is McLeish, please take him away in your sack Santa!!
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No Gabby, no party.
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exactly. No gabby, no party. No bent, no party. No Gareth, no James, no Ashley, No Stuart, no party
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Exactly, get rid of your best players , and fill in with mediocre replacements , you expect crsp
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That was awful. I've tried to give McLeish a chance, but the players out there today just had no ideas what so ever. I really worry about what instructions (if any) he's giving them.
The amount of times we gave the ball away today was shocking.
Petrov was the only player out there today who looked like he cares.
Delfouneso was better than I thought he'd be, at least when he gets the ball he heads straight for goal.
Heskey should have done better with his header early on.
I can't stand to even look at some of our players mostly Collins & Heskey.
I just don't feel any connection with the club at the moment.
Randy, why did you ignore us?
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I thought Albrighton was our best player, created two good chances, one for heskey, one for the Fonz. They both missed aside from that we were utter Fuckin shite.
Fuck you mcshit you clueless fuck
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The stone cold reality is that right now we are just not very good. We tried a couple of things, especially in the 2nd half, but when you're putting out a a team of whom at least 50% are Championship footballers at best, you're not going to get very far. Even if we ship out the deadwood the reality is that the kids just ain't that great and as things stand, I'm not convinced many coaches could polish a turd and we're a turd of a team.
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Aston Villa Football Club - FOR SALE
Would be nice to hear.
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The stone cold reality is that right now we are just not very good. We tried a couple of things, especially in the 2nd half, but when you're putting out a a team of whom at least 50% are Championship footballers at best, you're not going to get very far. Even if we ship out the deadwood the reality is that the kids just ain't that great and as things stand, I'm not convinced many coaches could polish a turd and we're a turd of a team.
At least you've come to terms with your depression. I'm still in the "I'll kill anything if it moves" stage.
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It seems incredible that a team that had so much of the ball in second half (us) could actually contrive to do absolutely fuck all with it.
Suarez was tearing us a new arsehole today, and should have had a hatrick.
0-2 flatters us...fuck, 0-5 would have flattered us.
Mcleish out.
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It was Grant that said to mcshit we need to make an attacking change, can he not see it himself?
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doesn't matter who said what. They are a team. Teamwork...
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Pants.
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Woeful. I can only hope we have some spare shekels in the window, next month. Otherwise Enda Stevens has a big job to do! Look forward to his arrival!
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He won't change and we won't sack him. Brace yourself lads..
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Reality is transient and football is no different. A couple of seasons ago, I was livid when we lost to Stoke and blew our chance to cement a top four place. This year, it's a new reality. McLeish is not to blame even if many people on here want to make him a scapegoat.
So er OK, who do you put it down to for the poor movement, poor passing, poor drive, poor tactics? Doug?
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I don't understand the comments that half the players aren't good enough, or they're kids, or that we're missing Young, Downing, Milner, Barry, Southgate, Yorke and Cowans...
Look at the way the newly promoted teams pass and defend like Swansea, show bottle and determination like Norwich and QPR. Even Wigan gave Chelsea a game last night. It's as if we're feeling sorry for ourselves that we're not a top six club anymore so will roll over to all of them. The one thing I thought McLeish would have over Houlier is organisation. And maybe even a bit of fucking bottle and conviction. He's failed on those without mentioning the fact that he's offered little to our attacking play apart from Gabby's resurgence.
Embarassing, inept and just very sad more than anything.
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absolute shite would have been more entertained if Id gone christmas shopping I left early so i could watch some decent football
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That was truly fucking terrible. i don't think I've ever seen a game in which one side gave the ball away so constantly.
We really a very poor side indeed, and with a run of difficult fixtures still to come, we are going to be down the arse end of the table pretty quickly.
I can't believe what is happening to this club. The owner and his sidekick must be truly, truly fucking clueless to have conspired to produce this mess.
Sell your best players, don't replace them, appoint a manager nobody wants and who has a reputation for negative football and relegations. It is all so depressingly predictable.
The aspiration, the lifeblood, the ambition and the happiness has been sucked out of the club, and it is your fucking fault, Lerner.
If he's sat the other side of the Atlantic somehow pleased with the way things are going (I'm assuming he checks our results every now and then), then he's even more clueless than I'd thought him to be, and is leading us on a downward curve at a rate of knots.
Absolutely pathetic.
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All we need now is for randy to buy the team some small heaths shirts then his job is done >:(
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Any time would struggle with the loss of their two first choice forwards, but the sad truth is that they probably wouldn't have made much difference. I really do not want to see Heskey in a Villa shirt ever again, and his final game for the club cannot come quickly enough. This season we're going to rely on being better than Wigan, Blackburn and Bolton for our fun.
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That was truly fucking terrible. i don't think I've ever seen a game in which one side gave the ball away so constantly.
We really a very poor side indeed, and with a run of difficult fixtures still to come, we are going to be down the arse end of the table pretty quickly.
I can't believe what is happening to this club. The owner and his sidekick must be truly, truly fucking clueless to have conspired to produce this mess.
Sell your best players, don't replace them, appoint a manager nobody wants and who has a reputation for negative football and relegations. It is all so depressingly predictable.
The aspiration, the lifeblood, the ambition and the happiness has been sucked out of the club, and it is your fucking fault, Lerner.
If he's sat the other side of the Atlantic somehow pleased with the way things are going (I'm assuming he checks our results every now and then), then he's even more clueless than I'd thought him to be, and is leading us on a downward curve at a rate of knots.
Absolutely pathetic.
As ever, perfectly summed up. It really wasn't hard to see the end result of the combination of a disinterested Lerner and a poor manager like McLeish, but this is pretty bloody awful.
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Our young players are sadly not good enough.
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He had the chance to bring in Clark and Carlos. He had the chance the play Weimann over Heskey. I see nothing on our manager that is positive. Please don't let him near the transfer market in Jan. Let's hope he has gone by then. We might not see Bent in a Villa shirt again I fear.
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Any time would struggle with the loss of their two first choice forwards, but the sad truth is that they probably wouldn't have made much difference. I really do not want to see Heskey in a Villa shirt ever again, and his final game for the club cannot come quickly enough. This season we're going to rely on being better than Wigan, Blackburn and Bolton for our fun.
The presence of Bent and Gabby would have made zero difference today.
It was just a masterclass in giving the ball away, from start to finish.
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Another terrible performance.
I don't know how long McLeish will be our manager for but while he is in charge we are only headed in one direction. Given the terrible atmosphere and the fact that I can't even be bothered to go on Wednesday when I have a season ticket suggests the club shouldn't be too surprised when we struggle to get 28,000 at Villa Park come Feb/March.
I can't think of a single reason to be optimistic except the knowledge that one day, even if it takes 5 years to happen, neither McLeish nor Heskey will be paid employees of AVFC.
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That was shit. Why do I bother freezing my bollocks off at VP to watch this crap? Inept, gutless and clueless. The only saving grace is that it could and probably should have been 6 or more.
2-0 down at home and you don't bother bringing a striker on until there's 10 minutes left? Fuck off.
And what the fuck do they do at Bodymoor Heath? It sure as fuck isn't practicing defending set pieces or movement off the ball.
Royally fucked off right now with how embarrassing we are to watch.
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I did enjoy the Heskey shuffle though!
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I don't like saying this as he's a young player who I'd like to see do well, but Delph is rapidly approaching "another waste of money by O'Neill" territory.
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I don't like saying this as he's a young player who I'd like to see do well, but Delph is rapidly approaching "another waste of money by O'Neill" territory.
I'm starting to wonder myself.
He still has that horrific tendency to go in wildly two-footed, too.
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I don't like saying this as he's a young player who I'd like to see do well, but Delph is rapidly approaching "another waste of money by O'Neill" territory.
He really does look poor. Doesn't pass or tackle very well. Not ideal from a midfielder. I lost count of the amount of times he gave the ball away today.
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I've never rated delph and I don't know what the fuss was all about
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What is Randy's contact information, I need to tell him something. His mail address has to be public information, no?
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Were the ironic cheers(when we strung more than two passes together) coming from the holte or the Liverpool fans?
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We have two top class young players in Gary Gardner and ciaran Clark- please lets see these 2 given a good run in the team- albrightons hit and miss but bannan and the fonz along with Delph aren't going to cut it at this level in my opinion.
The club is in a shambolic state and mr Lerner must accept a huge slice of the blame for our current situation.
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I told myself after beating Bolton that maybe we would start to get some consistency going... Obviously not it seems.
Yes, you can make the argument that having two if your best players out doesn't help, but that doesn't mean the rest of the team has to give up. Other players need to step up.
Very disappointed and sad. We look far worse than last season and that's really saying something.
What happened to McLeish bringing stability to the team? A grand total of 4 fucking league wins and a defence that still looks woeful.
What frustrates me even more is that joke of a manager's tactics worked for those knuckle draggers.
Randy Lerner and Alex McLeish pls go. You're both embarrassing the club we support. You're both sucking the life out of our club.
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The worst thing about losing to Spurs ,Man U and now Liverpool is that they didn't even have to play well !!
The games have been on TV and every pundit has slated us for how we played.Right now Kean and Coyle seem to be taking all the flack but we the run of games we have coming up I expect the media backlash against Mcliesh to really start.We are looking at 3 very losable games and then a giant killing in the cup...depressing times.
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Well yet again my youngest wouldn't go despite having a ST and tbf U can't blame him. I think he knows something we don't. To be fair in the first half there were flashes from N'zpg. We did miss Gabby today whatever anyone says. Still can't defend set pieces and look as threatening as a goldfish on our own. The Fonz won't ever make it IMO and nor will Albrighton. We lack quality players and a quality manager.
I really hope Randy is looking to sell because we are only heading one way.
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35,000 people turned up today knowing that we were going to be abysmal and we were. Clueless, pointless and shameful.
The worst thing for me was that at certain points of the game, most people around us were just laughing at our sheer ineptitude. Liverpool are a really mediocre outfit who's game plan seem to be 'belt it up to Suarez and see what he can do'. They didn't need to even try in the second half such was our lack of organisation or ambtion. It even seems that the Liverpool fans are sorry for us.
Our team performances are becomming a laughing stock and it is the fault of McLeish. Say what you like about players taking responsibility for their own performance, but the sad fact is that they clearly don't want to play for this manager and seem to be as frustrated as the fans.
The sooner Mcleish fucks off, the better. It can't come quick enough for me.
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I did enjoy the Heskey shuffle though!
The only glimmer of enterrtainment in a game full of absolute rubbish.
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James Collins is where villa is as a club and represents everything that is wrong with the club. How many fukin times did he have the ball today, and to think he wants a new contract.
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Thanks for the support Darren.
https://twitter.com/#!/hoops_yido/status/148415265212866561/photo/1
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Thanks for the support Darren. What an absolute ass.
https://twitter.com/#!/hoops_yido/status/148415265212866561/photo/1
That's a little bit disappointing
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Thanks for the support Darren.
https://twitter.com/#!/hoops_yido/status/148415265212866561/photo/1
That's a little bit disappointing
I had to edit my original post because it was pointed out that this picture could have been taken weeks ago, but with his absence today who knows. Really disappointed in him if thats the case.
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James Collins is where villa is as a club and represents everything that is wrong with the club. How many fukin times did he have the ball today, and to think he wants a new contract.
According to some Sunday papers, both Newcastle and Sunderland want him, so perhaps we will get a few bob back for him and if another club is interested, perhaps Collins is now working his ticket. O'Neill brought him to Villa so maybe Collins would like to work with him again. If it gives Clark an opportunity it could be a blessing.
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it doesn´t make any sense to pick single players out of this "team" if there is no inspiration in the mitfield, no propper attacking and a wobbly defence.
there is a big lack of inspiration or creativity, no self convidence and -on top of it all- a clueless manager and a apathetic board.
it´s not easy to be thrilled with the villa when you´re far away like I am but now it´s absolutely harsh to watch this brainless shit.
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What's that Twitter thing about?
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I've never rated delph and I don't know what the fuss was all about
He is the type of player whose reputation gets better the less he plays.
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35,000 people turned up today knowing that we were going to be abysmal and we were. Clueless, pointless and shameful.
The worst thing for me was that at certain points of the game, most people around us were just laughing at our sheer ineptitude.
Pretty much our experience today as well. In the Trinity loads of people stayed under the concourse drinking and having a laugh instead of watching the seond half.
When Heskey so badly underhit a pass 2nd half he had to run after it so it ended up as a pass to himself I knew we were in big trouble.
Thought Bellamy showed some of the spirit that we are missing.
I even lost the will to boo Weasel-boy after 70 minutes...
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That was truly fucking terrible. i don't think I've ever seen a game in which one side gave the ball away so constantly.
We really a very poor side indeed, and with a run of difficult fixtures still to come, we are going to be down the arse end of the table pretty quickly.
I can't believe what is happening to this club. The owner and his sidekick must be truly, truly fucking clueless to have conspired to produce this mess.
Sell your best players, don't replace them, appoint a manager nobody wants and who has a reputation for negative football and relegations. It is all so depressingly predictable.
The aspiration, the lifeblood, the ambition and the happiness has been sucked out of the club, and it is your fucking fault, Lerner.
If he's sat the other side of the Atlantic somehow pleased with the way things are going (I'm assuming he checks our results every now and then), then he's even more clueless than I'd thought him to be, and is leading us on a downward curve at a rate of knots.
Absolutely pathetic.
As ever, perfectly summed up. It really wasn't hard to see the end result of the combination of a disinterested Lerner and a poor manager like McLeish, but this is pretty bloody awful.
It is utterly appalling on every level. Also those defending Dunne as a class premier league centre half should have watched him today, atrocious.
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Cannot access twitter,what has bent done?
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decent performance. only losing by two is nothing to be ashamed of. We've lost Gareth, James, Ashley and Stuart yet we are still comfortably mid-table. credit to McLeish where it is due. Not ideal, but not too bad
said the spokesman for the Ostrich Method party!
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What's that Twitter thing about?
I don't Twit either so what's the score?
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Darren Bent was pictured shopping today in Cambridge, not at Villa Park.
So someone has said.
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Seem to be on my own here.......look at the teamsheets. Did you expect anything else? We lost, but only by two.
We beat the team last week, just as we should have.... Ok, a win today would have been a bonus, but the important thing was we beat Bolton.
ok, when we start to consistently lose to the bottom six teams, then there maybe something to worry about. As for now, McLeish has done a very good job of keeping us clear of the likes of Wigan and Bolton etc
Is this the limit of our ambition FFS ::)
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Cannot access twitter,what has bent done?
There's a picture of him supposedly out shopping today rather than being at the game.
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If he's injured then he probably thought fuck watching that shit
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Cannot access twitter,what has bent done?
There's a picture of him supposedly out shopping today rather than being at the game.
To be fair to him he's had the opportunity to stand and watch the ineptitude going on all around him this season, can't blame him for not wanting to watch it if he doesn't have to.
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I thought bent was supposedly unfit with a hip injury- if shopping it would seem rather strange but then again everything at villa these days is disappointing.
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Cannot access twitter,what has bent done?
There's a picture of him supposedly out shopping today rather than being at the game.
To be fair to him he's had the opportunity to stand and watch the ineptitude going on all around him this season, can't blame him for not wanting to watch it if he doesn't have to.
That's a good point, Chris.
Also, there have been plenty of games this season in which Bent did play, but was so isolated and unbothered, he may as well have gone shopping instead.
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I thought bent was supposedly unfit with a hip injury- if shopping it would seem rather strange but then again everything at villa these days is disappointing.
If you can stand up.. get on the damn pitch.
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I thought bent was supposedly unfit with a hip injury- if shopping it would seem rather strange but then again everything at villa these days is disappointing.
If you can stand up.. get on the damn pitch.
We can count out Emile then.
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I thought bent was supposedly unfit with a hip injury- if shopping it would seem rather strange but then again everything at villa these days is disappointing.
If you can stand up.. get on the damn pitch.
We can count out Emile then.
Emile might as well carry a pillow with him for the amount of times he just falls over and has a nap.
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Didn't think we were overly appalling today. I've seen far worse this season at VP. The ollays as we're stringing more than one pass together are funny but it does show we're not expecting much down at villa park these days.
Dune wasn't that bad today either i felt. Fonz and N'Zogbia also had good games. Showing glimpses of what they can do. We gave away a goal that was unlucky in the brad saved well first but it went straight into the path of Bellamy and one which was sloppy defending.
It wasn't a great day at the office but it certainly wasn't the worst either.
"we don't want McLiesh" chants started at te end of the match too in the holte.
After today though I feel Heskey should start a school of excellents. As that was pure magic. Who knew he had it in him??
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There have been many dark days in my time supporting the club but the McNeill,turner,venglos and o Leary eras never left me feeling so low as recent weeks- I think we are heading towards dark dark times.
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Will we even touch the ball against Arsenal? I can't even begin to think about the team McLeish is going to put out there. 6-1-2-1 formation?
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We really need to change the manager. Regardless of if he deserves the sack or not, what's coming is inevitable. The club is uninspired, it's like watching a car crash in slow motion.
Lose midweek and it'll get a lot worse.
Imagine how positive everyone would be if McLeish was sacked tomorrow and replaced with Hughes? I know it's not gonna happen, but we'd be galvanised and have a sense of optimism going into the New Year. And that's Mark bloody Hughes.
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Will we even touch the ball against Arsenal? I can't even begin to think about the team McLeish is going to put out there. 6-1-2-1 formation?
I can't see the Arse being as charitable as L-pool, they sat back 2nd half, Arse will keep coming at us...
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I'm not on the sauce or the crack. I'm on planet reality.
OK, I'll bite. You point out what was decent about that performance? Forgetting the minor point point we lost 2-0 at home.
i've seen Villa perform really well and still lose, but today wasnt one of those times
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I doubt Lerner views this appalling mess in nearly the same way we do. I just saw a load of Americans patting themselves on the back this week for a job well done in Iraq ffs! Let's never speak to him again in the same way he never speaks with us until he gets the message and walks away from Soccerball. Shame the club with bungled attempts to procure a new manager and then finally recruit McShit - well done fuckwits.
Many of you will remember Yorke's last game for us away at Everton when he secured his transfer by purposefully putting in zero effort and playing like a total wanker. He was still head and shoulders above Delfounso today - fact.
Dunne and Collins; omg. Martin Laursen, a huge talent who played with total effort and conviction regardless who we were playing must be turning in his hypothetical grave. Alan Hutton? Think I'm gonna cry now.
As for the midfield I have seen more talent in a female rugby team.
Suck it up boys, we've been through all this shit before many times.
:'(
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Well that was absolutely fucking awful - and the second half in particular was some of the worst football I have ever seen played by Villa. And anyone who says losing 2-0 isn't that bad needs their head examining - Suarez should have had a hat-trick but decided to do a Ronny Rosenthal for one, and his chip over Guzan which hit the post was frankly sublime. If we'd come off that losing 5 or 6 nil we couldn't have complained.
The abuse of Downing was entertaining for a bit but by half time most people by me couldn't even be bothered with that. Comedy defending again, inability to string passes together, lack of passion, lack of teamwork, total lack of movement so players get caught in possession as every one else is stood still with a Liverpool player marking him. Totally inept. The only person who showed any real movement was Weimann - he made 3 runs off the ball but instead of playing him through the ball was played sideways/backwards/given away. Absolutely shocking.
The second half was so bad we were laughing in the Upper Holte - then the 'olays' started, then the cheers when we got past the half way line, and manic vitriol when the lowest of the low happened when 2 of our players actually managed to tackle each other to give the ball away yet again and Hutton made yet another precision pass to them.
Thank fuck Bolton, Blackburn and Wigan are worse than us - and fingers crossed that Blackburn don't sack Kean and get a decent manager in to rescue them. Our position in mid-table is misleading - let's see where we are come January.
I am now firmly in the 'McLeish has to go' camp.
And it took me a fucking hour to get from King Edwards to the expressway. I am not happy
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Will we even touch the ball against Arsenal? I can't even begin to think about the team McLeish is going to put out there. 6-1-2-1 formation?
Thats the most disappointing thing about the villa currently the better teams dont have to have play well to beat us, if a team plays really well fair enough but none of them have. We could have got at both Man united and Liverpool God help us against Arsenal Van persie will tear us a new one
I can't see the Arse being as charitable as L-pool, they sat back 2nd half, Arse will keep coming at us...
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We really need to change the manager. Regardless of if he deserves the sack or not, what's coming is inevitable. The club is uninspired, it's like watching a car crash in slow motion.
Lose midweek and it'll get a lot worse.
Imagine how positive everyone would be if McLeish was sacked tomorrow and replaced with Hughes? I know it's not gonna happen, but we'd be galvanised and have a sense of optimism going into the New Year. And that's Mark bloody Hughes.
Couldn't agree more. How could you appoint a man that will be incapable of creating a good relationship with his fan base? It baffles me.
HOW IS THAT GOOD FOR THE CLUB?
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There's always someone worse off than yourself.
Try spending all bastard day with a great chunk fallen out of a filling so every bastard bloody breath of cold air hits the nerve.
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i believe Wigan had more than 50% of the posesion yesterday against Chelsea, yes Chelsea !
they came away with a point. what i'm trying to say is just because you lack expensive quality players doent mean you cant keep the ball and sometimes come away with a result, its the mindset and the way you want the game to be played
now Wigan are pretty crap, if Martinez can keep them up again he will have worked another miracle with them.
i know they are in a relegation battle, being in the bottom 3 confirms that, but at least there is something there that you can see happening every now and again
he would have been the man for us, a bit better player to work with and possibly buy, and a different football philosophy for us fans to watch.
if only
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"It's difficult to get consistent when you're coming up against some of the giants every other game."
Seriously, how defeatist is McLeish? Liverpool have already lost 4 away games this season and Norwich and Swansea got a point at Anfield. If he openly states that he expects to lose these games it is no wonder the players look devoid of belief or confidence in them.
Get out of our club you gutless, uninspiring, disgraceful excuse for a manager.
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"It's difficult to get consistent when you're coming up against some of the giants every other game."
Seriously, how defeatist is McLeish? Liverpool have already lost 4 away games this season and Norwich and Swansea got a point at Anfield. If he openly states that he expects to lose these games it is no wonder the players look devoid of belief or confidence in them.
Get out of our club you gutless, uninspiring, disgraceful excuse for a manager.
That's barrell being scraped.
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Just watched Arsenal v City. If Arsenal come at us like that then we're in for a hiding.
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We must not let Randy's authority supersede our general will. We, the fans, are this football club and we must make sacrifices in order to change it as we see fit.
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"It's difficult to get consistent when you're coming up against some of the giants every other game."
Seriously, how defeatist is McLeish? Liverpool have already lost 4 away games this season and Norwich and Swansea got a point at Anfield. If he openly states that he expects to lose these games it is no wonder the players look devoid of belief or confidence in them.
Get out of our club you gutless, uninspiring, disgraceful excuse for a manager.
We are perfectly consistent, consistently terrible. Terrible attitude from the manager as well, what a surprise.
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We were pathetic. I am apathetic.
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Has anyone heard anything about a Petrov-N'Zogbia post match bust-up?
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Has anyone heard anything about a Petrov-N'Zogbia post match bust-up?
Did they throw punches at each other and hit a Liverpool player instead?
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I thought it was pathetic but I must have watched a different game to the people slagging Delfouneso off. I think he'll be a very decent player if he plays in a team that offers him support and supply. I think he linked up well with play generally and there were a few positive signs between him and Zog, who sadly didn't have the best game. Bannan was good and needs to start (I know last time he started he wasn't great but he needs a run of games). Petrov was Petrov. Albrighton was ok until he went to the left. I really want Delph to work but am less convinced now - he is still young though and can learn, as opposed to his older team mates.
The back four were appalling. I don't know what Dunne and Collins were discussing just after halftime but it clearly wasn't how to improve their shit defending. Hutton is crap and Warnock is similar to Hutton.
McLeish hasn't got them orgainsed, doesn't know his best team (even allowing for the injuries and suspensions) and seems to accept we will lose games like this before we start. He needs to F.O.
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Tetchy press conference I gather. Even fatso Green on the radio has said that McCleish is under some pressure now. We'll be in the bottom three in Jan.
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I actually thought Hutton had a decent game today compared to most.
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We are a very ineffective team. Today like last home game we were inept and clueless past the half way line.
N'Zombia ...FFS ...is he there to play wide or is he there to get in everyone's way playing an inside forward role?
The lack of movement in midfield and upfront when we have possession is unreal.
The way we mess up the final or nearly final ball is unbelievably incompetent.
The defence ...well the defence that managed to concede 2 gaols from first two corners...pathetic.
This is a very depressing time for us all.
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I actually thought Hutton had a decent game today compared to most.
Whatever it is you're on I want some ;)
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We won't be bottom in January because there are at least three teams worse than us. Just.
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It's becoming a real chore to watch us. I've zero enthusiasm for the Arsenal game.
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It's becoming a real chore to watch us. I've zero enthusiasm for the Arsenal game.
I'm deep into negative numbers.
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I actually thought Hutton had a decent game today compared to most.
Yep youre right,he was average today which is an improvement,Warnock was his usual crapness.
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Will we even touch the ball against Arsenal? I can't even begin to think about the team McLeish is going to put out there. 6-1-2-1 formation?
I think we'll play an 11-0-0 formation - we won't even bother with Guzan - just the 11 tallest blokes we have side by side on the goal line
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It's becoming a real chore to watch us. I've zero enthusiasm for the Arsenal game.
I'm deep into negative numbers.
I don't even think I'm going to bother.
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There's always someone worse off than yourself.
Try spending all bastard day with a great chunk fallen out of a filling so every bastard bloody breath of cold air hits the nerve.
We did. We watched the Villa. A great bastard filling has fallen out of this club and every match is a blast of cold air hitting a nerve. WE have no teeth, the defence is gummed up with uncertainty, the attack (eh?) is in need of dentures and the midfield is full of novacaine, so tea dribbles out. When it takes a sip.
The manager needs a drill to wake him up to the fact that he simply cannot do this job. Imagine HIM as your dentist. Then you will thank God for small mercy Dave.
He would have taken your canine teeth out. That is what he has done to us. As for wisdom teeth. He don't have any.
Another toothless display. Oh, and hope you get better. Forgive the analogy.
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How?
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/EnglishPride2004/AVFC.jpg)
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Big 'Eck in Big Trouble (http://www.101greatgoals.com/big-eck-in-big-trouble-as-toothless-villa-lose-2-nil-at-home-to-liverpool/124568/)
So-called 'highlights' of today's pantomime.
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i thought our second half subs worked exactly how McCleish wanted them too, putting on an extra midfielder sured it up and we managed to hold on to our two nil defeat, job done good effort lads!
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We won't be bottom in January because there are at least three teams worse than us. Just.
I watched the Wigan game yesterday and they were very good. :(
I watched Barcelona this morning and, well, it was Football. Brilliant Football. Then I watched us.....
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Because Dunne and then Hutton let him go.
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[ Invalid YouTube link ]
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He is washing hands in that interview - trying to claim that was a good try? Thankfully the interviewer slowly points out the obvious to him. But he knows he is in problems when "i can't do anything about it".
You pathetic man - take responsibility
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I was having an xmas lunch so mercifully watched the last 10 minutes alone. I saw Liverpool playing well within themselves and still looking much more like scoring. Our passing was incredibly laboured. I thought Bannan looked poor actually, kept on giving the ball away with passes that were never on.
We're a poor, poor side. We should be ok, but there is at least a chance we'll get sucked into a scrap at the bottom.
I'm really not convinced about our kids. Perhaps it's playing so many of them at once that's the problem? I thought Delfouneso actually looked ok in the bits I saw.
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Big 'Eck in Big Trouble (http://www.101greatgoals.com/big-eck-in-big-trouble-as-toothless-villa-lose-2-nil-at-home-to-liverpool/124568/)
So-called 'highlights' of today's pantomime.
Watched the interview - 2 things, felt he was distancing himself from the players "nothing i can do" comments which can't be good for morale. Secondly what's all this consistency bullshit - we have had the easiest start to a season that I can remember (only played Man City in the first 11 or so games) - so if we can't build consistency, while playing the also rans of the league, when can we before we play the "Giants"
The guys a Ginger ****** - fuck off!
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"There's not a lot I can do"
There you go, may as well not have a manager. Says it all.
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There were some muted 'McLeish out' chants in the Holte today. Think they'll build if we put in a similar performance against Arsenal on Wednesday.
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I swear that seems so similar to his interview after the Spurs game when the Blues went down,he seemed so devoid of ideas and pretty pathetic,i was chuckling to myself in May,closer to tears now.
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"There's not a lot I can do"
There you go, may as well not have a manager. Says it all.
Do you think Lerner may have asked him that question during the interview: "What can you do ALex?" - "there's not a lot I can do Randy"
Excellent then the jobs yours.
BTW he's not even an honest prick - because he can do stuff- namely set team up to play negative uninspiring football - and get teams relegated, so he does have at least 2 strings to his bow"
Tosser.
Do the honourable thing now and that goes for you too Lerner and Faulkner
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'The giants of the game' ??
What the fuck is he on about ?
It was Liverpool, not fucking Barcelona, and regardless of who it was we should NEVER approach a game thinking we can't win it.
He needs to fuck right off, out of our club
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Can't stand the way he blames the players and as someone said distances himself from responsibility. I do not like this man.
Heard a chant: " it's like watching Birmingham". Was that us?
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We seem to be getting the worst of both worlds, Houlliers players lack of fight and tendancy to concede regularly from set pieces and McLeish's teams hesitancy to cross the half way line.
A real shite sandwich.
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'The giants of the game' ??
What the fuck is he on about ?
It was Liverpool, not fucking Barcelona, and regardless of who it was we should NEVER approach a game thinking we can't win it.
He needs to fuck right off, out of our club
Houllier quite rightly got slaughtered for saying similar things last year,least he use to manage the fuckers.
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I'd rather have "They're an honest bunch of lads" O'Leary in charge than this limp-dicked, hand-washing excuse for a manager.
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The giants of the game who we finished above 2 seasons ago.Leave now Mcleish
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Let's not fool ourselves that we will be safe because there are 3 worse teams, the gap can soon close and Wigan are showing fight and passion and Blackburn if they reappoint mark hughes will soon overtake us- we are in deep shit and I fear the owner doesn't realise what a total mess hes made of things.
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It's true. He thinks we are Wigan. Not a possible or historical or even expected or current "Giant". He just does not understand Aston Villa. He ain't for us. Get rid.
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Well said Eastie. Hearing Pool fans chanting 'going down' is not comfortable.
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I was all for giving MacLeish a clean slate and a real chance but I have been shocked and appalled at the dreadful style of negative football and believe that action needs to be taken quickly.
Last winter randy dug deep to save our skin by getting bent to the club,please this time dig deep,hold up your hands and admit your mistake randy, pay off this loser and appoint mark Hughes!
If not relegation could cost far far more !
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The defence today boy where they poor I couldn't believe what I was seeing the marking was pathetic please can we stop conceding goals from set pieces let's hope something happens soon he needs to sort them out and remind them that they are professional footballers not park players.
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We really stink.
Nothing further to add.
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Inept doesn't get anywhere near to describing today's performance.
I'm watching the Arse in the comfort of my living room, no joy at VP these days.
'What the fuck is going on' is indeed how I feel.
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Last winter randy dug deep to save our skin by getting bent to the club,please this time dig deep,hold up your hands and admit your mistake randy, pay off this loser and appoint mark Hughes!
If not relegation could cost far far more !
Why not give McLeish some money instead of chucking more away in compensation?
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After 63 mins my 8 year old son said " can we go Dad?" and I said "why mate?".
He said " because I am bored" and he was right.
When I was 8 I couldn't wait to go the match - 2 years ago when he was 6
he couldnt wait to go either .
In 2 years football has changed - and we are the club that has suffered most.
We are in the eye of the storm - and it hurts.
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Last winter randy dug deep to save our skin by getting bent to the club,please this time dig deep,hold up your hands and admit your mistake randy, pay off this loser and appoint mark Hughes!
If not relegation could cost far far more !
Why not give McLeish some money instead of chucking more away in compensation?
Because when Randy realises he's made a mistake he'll have to pay the compensation anyway, on top of the money he's given. I was all for giving Mcleish a chance but we are really awful on every level and it isn't going to work.
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I intended to watch it on TV, but have to admit that I fell asleep for large parts of the match.
From what I saw it wasn't as bad as Man U or Spurs. We made some hapless attempts trying to attack, but there was no real belief that we could get something out of the match. I had hoped that the win (and flashes of decent football) against Bolton could be a turning point. But it was back to square one.
To be fair, we no longer have the players to match a largely mediocre Liverpool side. But as mentioned in the match thread, we played Man U at home last season with half a team consisting of unproven kids, and still managed to go into the game believing that we could win (and almost did), so there is obviously something wrong the players' confidence/motivation at the moment.
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Because regardless of how he spends it, he's forever going to be the same dour, negative manager.
That's the problem. At least you knew Houllier wanted to try to get us passing the ball, even if he failed to do so.
There aren't any illusions with this guy. I don't give a flying one he managed them, but I do worry about his piss poor top flight record and negativity, and we are seeing both.
He's not the one mostly to blame, though, that is our utterly clueless owner and friendly poodle who manoeuvred us into this absurd position.
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Last winter randy dug deep to save our skin by getting bent to the club,please this time dig deep,hold up your hands and admit your mistake randy, pay off this loser and appoint mark Hughes!
If not relegation could cost far far more !
Why not give McLeish some money instead of chucking more away in compensation?
Because I've seen enough to tell me that he is not the man for the job,his negative brand of football and lack of inspiration is not what this club needs- he will not turn it around and has lost the fans if not the players, time to show some balls and admit it was mistake and rectify things before its too late.
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Last winter randy dug deep to save our skin by getting bent to the club,please this time dig deep,hold up your hands and admit your mistake randy, pay off this loser and appoint mark Hughes!
If not relegation could cost far far more !
Why not give McLeish some money instead of chucking more away in compensation?
Good money after bad.
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Last winter randy dug deep to save our skin by getting bent to the club,please this time dig deep,hold up your hands and admit your mistake randy, pay off this loser and appoint mark Hughes!
If not relegation could cost far far more !
Why not give McLeish some money instead of chucking more away in compensation?
Would you trust or want him spending your money?
Given good keeper if an obvious choice.N'zogbia has been poor at best.
Hutton was always a poor player.
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Last winter randy dug deep to save our skin by getting bent to the club,please this time dig deep,hold up your hands and admit your mistake randy, pay off this loser and appoint mark Hughes!
If not relegation could cost far far more !
Why not give McLeish some money instead of chucking more away in compensation?
why, why ?
Wach that post match interview for starters.
He is out of his depth and totally clueless.
I wouldn't give him the steam off my piss, nevermind any money, other than his compo.
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Last winter randy dug deep to save our skin by getting bent to the club,please this time dig deep,hold up your hands and admit your mistake randy, pay off this loser and appoint mark Hughes!
If not relegation could cost far far more !
Why not give McLeish some money instead of chucking more away in compensation?
Would you trust or want him spending your money?
Given good keeper if an obvious short term choice.N'zogbia has been poor at best.
Hutton was always a poor player.
He has also managed to blunt one of the most prolific strikers in the league.
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What t f does he do with them in training? No movement off the ball so even when we had possession there was no way forward. Defence crap notwithstanding another brave display from Dunne. Can't defend a corner. Can't create and can't score. It is honestly rubbish. No plan. No strategy. Yet he blames the players?
Oh, and welcome back Marc A. I know a cross will come when you have the ball. Well done.
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Just got home and my son still has another seventy odd miles to go. I will give you both of our views, I think we have earned the right to comment.
We are totally leaderless on the pitch. Not one single player wants to give any support or encouragement to his team mates. They clearly do not understand what the manager tells them or they cannot do what he tells them. Every team over the years had had its player who hates to lose and who will go around the field trying to put some fire and backbone into the others. We have no Allan Evans, no Peter Withe, no Paul Merson, no Kevin Richardson, no Andy Townsend, no John Gidman, no Vic Crowe - just a bunch of blokes who seem to hate each other.
That is my son's view.
I have come to the conclusion that our players are just not good enough. Without the three good players we have - Given, Bent and Gabby, we are a second rate team. We can scratch a result against other poor teams but against better players we are woefully exposed.
I think we have deluded ourselves - to ease the pain of losing Cahill, Barry, Milner, Young and Downing - that our youngsters are much better than they really are. The only one I think can make the grade is Clark and he never gets a game. Bannan, Delfouesno, Albrighton, Herd, Weimann and the rest are not going to drive us into the top six of the Premiership and will more likely see us drop into the bottom six. Hutton and Warnock are not Premiership quality and neither is Collins. Dunne could be but gives the impression he hates the club and cannot wait to move on. Delph has failed to live up to early expectations and desperately needs a steadying influence which is not there. See "leadership" above. Jenas and Ireland were financial black holes waiting to be fallen into. Guzan reminds me of Burridge and those of you who remember Budgie will know exactly what I mean. Heskey was finished as a Premiership force before we bought him.
Add to the players who are not good enough add a manager who is not good enough, and I am too weary to join in troll games about the man, and the reason why days like today and Spurs and Man U and Bolton in the cup are happening becomes blindingly obvious.
In all departments, including the board, we are not good enough.
Turning to McLeish's interview, it was no more than public hand washing. His "giants" comment was as offensive to the fans as anything uttered by Houllier, but the little phrase which I picked up on was early in his string of excuses when he said "the fans tell you to do this and to do that..." he is clearly assuming the defend yourself at all times stance as far as the fans are concerned and I think we shall look back on today's game and see it as the day the fan's patience with him ran out. One more display like that today and he is going to wonder what hit him.
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There were players out there who could not control the ball, keep possession, pass it or shoot on target. Furthermore, they didn't seem to care about it. We need an injection of skill and determination on the field. Now that Hughes is being touted as the new Messiah, how would he get on with no financial backing and a squad that knows their jobs are safe owing to no new players coming in? McLeish has been hung out to dry and some cowardly players are not backing him.
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Spot on with all that Brian, well said. The McLeish interview was terrible, full of excuses and not taking responsibility.
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The second half was so bad we were laughing in the Upper Holte - then the 'olays' started, then the cheers when we got past the half way line, and manic vitriol when the lowest of the low happened when 2 of our players actually managed to tackle each other to give the ball away yet again and Hutton made yet another precision pass to them.
Yes. At one point I thought we might get a rendition of this from just over a year ago:
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Just got home and my son still has another seventy odd miles to go. I will give you both of our views, I think we have earned the right to comment.
We are totally leaderless on the pitch. Not one single player wants to give any support or encouragement to his team mates. They clearly do not understand what the manager tells them or they cannot do what he tells them. Every team over the years had had its player who hates to lose and who will go around the field trying to put some fire and backbone into the others. We have no Allan Evans, no Peter Withe, no Paul Merson, no Kevin Richardson, no Andy Townsend, no John Gidman, no Vic Crowe - just a bunch of blokes who seem to hate each other.
That is my son's view.
I have come to the conclusion that our players are just not good enough. Without the three good players we have - Given, Bent and Gabby, we are a second rate team. We can scratch a result against other poor teams but against better players we are woefully exposed.
I think we have deluded ourselves - to ease the pain of losing Cahill, Barry, Milner, Young and Downing - that our youngsters are much better than they really are. The only one I think can make the grade is Clark and he never gets a game. Bannan, Delfouesno, Albrighton, Herd, Weimann and the rest are not going to drive us into the top six of the Premiership and will more likely see us drop into the bottom six. Hutton and Warnock are not Premiership quality and neither is Collins. Dunne could be but gives the impression he hates the club and cannot wait to move on. Delph has failed to live up to early expectations and desperately needs a steadying influence which is not there. See "leadership" above. Jenas and Ireland were financial black holes waiting to be fallen into. Guzan reminds me of Burridge and those of you who remember Budgie will know exactly what I mean. Heskey was finished as a Premiership force before we bought him.
Add to the players who are not good enough add a manager who is not good enough, and I am too weary to join in troll games about the man, and the reason why days like today and Spurs and Man U and Bolton in the cup are happening becomes blindingly obvious.
In all departments, including the board, we are not good enough.
Turning to McLeish's interview, it was no more than public hand washing. His "giants" comment was as offensive to the fans as anything uttered by Houllier, but the little phrase which I picked up on was early in his string of excuses when he said "the fans tell you to do this and to do that..." he is clearly assuming the defend yourself at all times stance as far as the fans are concerned and I think we shall look back on today's game and see it as the day the fan's patience with him ran out. One more display like that today and he is going to wonder what hit him.
Great post, Brian. Spot on.
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There were players out there who could not control the ball, keep possession, pass it or shoot on target. Furthermore, they didn't seem to care about it. We need an injection of skill and determination on the field. Now that Hughes is being touted as the new Messiah, how would he get on with no financial backing and a squad that knows their jobs are safe owing to no new players coming in? McLeish has been hung out to dry and some cowardly players are not backing him.
I'm absolutely certain that Hughes would do a better job than McLeish, just as I was certain that McLeish would come in and play horrible, negative football. He's a truly awful, awful manager, and we're just abysmal to watch.
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The second half was so bad we were laughing in the Upper Holte - then the 'olays' started, then the cheers when we got past the half way line, and manic vitriol when the lowest of the low happened when 2 of our players actually managed to tackle each other to give the ball away yet again and Hutton made yet another precision pass to them.
Yes. At one point I thought we might get a rendition of this from just over a year ago:
"Let's pretend we've had a shot!" might be more appropriate at times.
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Just got home and my son still has another seventy odd miles to go. I will give you both of our views, I think we have earned the right to comment.
We are totally leaderless on the pitch. Not one single player wants to give any support or encouragement to his team mates. They clearly do not understand what the manager tells them or they cannot do what he tells them. Every team over the years had had its player who hates to lose and who will go around the field trying to put some fire and backbone into the others. We have no Allan Evans, no Peter Withe, no Paul Merson, no Kevin Richardson, no Andy Townsend, no John Gidman, no Vic Crowe - just a bunch of blokes who seem to hate each other.
That is my son's view.
I have come to the conclusion that our players are just not good enough. Without the three good players we have - Given, Bent and Gabby, we are a second rate team. We can scratch a result against other poor teams but against better players we are woefully exposed.
I think we have deluded ourselves - to ease the pain of losing Cahill, Barry, Milner, Young and Downing - that our youngsters are much better than they really are. The only one I think can make the grade is Clark and he never gets a game. Bannan, Delfouesno, Albrighton, Herd, Weimann and the rest are not going to drive us into the top six of the Premiership and will more likely see us drop into the bottom six. Hutton and Warnock are not Premiership quality and neither is Collins. Dunne could be but gives the impression he hates the club and cannot wait to move on. Delph has failed to live up to early expectations and desperately needs a steadying influence which is not there. See "leadership" above. Jenas and Ireland were financial black holes waiting to be fallen into. Guzan reminds me of Burridge and those of you who remember Budgie will know exactly what I mean. Heskey was finished as a Premiership force before we bought him.
Add to the players who are not good enough add a manager who is not good enough, and I am too weary to join in troll games about the man, and the reason why days like today and Spurs and Man U and Bolton in the cup are happening becomes blindingly obvious.
In all departments, including the board, we are not good enough.
Turning to McLeish's interview, it was no more than public hand washing. His "giants" comment was as offensive to the fans as anything uttered by Houllier, but the little phrase which I picked up on was early in his string of excuses when he said "the fans tell you to do this and to do that..." he is clearly assuming the defend yourself at all times stance as far as the fans are concerned and I think we shall look back on today's game and see it as the day the fan's patience with him ran out. One more display like that today and he is going to wonder what hit him.
Absolutely spot on, and fantastically put, Brian.
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Just got home and my son still has another seventy odd miles to go. I will give you both of our views, I think we have earned the right to comment.
We are totally leaderless on the pitch. Not one single player wants to give any support or encouragement to his team mates. They clearly do not understand what the manager tells them or they cannot do what he tells them. Every team over the years had had its player who hates to lose and who will go around the field trying to put some fire and backbone into the others. We have no Allan Evans, no Peter Withe, no Paul Merson, no Kevin Richardson, no Andy Townsend, no John Gidman, no Vic Crowe - just a bunch of blokes who seem to hate each other.
That is my son's view.
I have come to the conclusion that our players are just not good enough. Without the three good players we have - Given, Bent and Gabby, we are a second rate team. We can scratch a result against other poor teams but against better players we are woefully exposed.
I think we have deluded ourselves - to ease the pain of losing Cahill, Barry, Milner, Young and Downing - that our youngsters are much better than they really are. The only one I think can make the grade is Clark and he never gets a game. Bannan, Delfouesno, Albrighton, Herd, Weimann and the rest are not going to drive us into the top six of the Premiership and will more likely see us drop into the bottom six. Hutton and Warnock are not Premiership quality and neither is Collins. Dunne could be but gives the impression he hates the club and cannot wait to move on. Delph has failed to live up to early expectations and desperately needs a steadying influence which is not there. See "leadership" above. Jenas and Ireland were financial black holes waiting to be fallen into. Guzan reminds me of Burridge and those of you who remember Budgie will know exactly what I mean. Heskey was finished as a Premiership force before we bought him.
Add to the players who are not good enough add a manager who is not good enough, and I am too weary to join in troll games about the man, and the reason why days like today and Spurs and Man U and Bolton in the cup are happening becomes blindingly obvious.
In all departments, including the board, we are not good enough.
Turning to McLeish's interview, it was no more than public hand washing. His "giants" comment was as offensive to the fans as anything uttered by Houllier, but the little phrase which I picked up on was early in his string of excuses when he said "the fans tell you to do this and to do that..." he is clearly assuming the defend yourself at all times stance as far as the fans are concerned and I think we shall look back on today's game and see it as the day the fan's patience with him ran out. One more display like that today and he is going to wonder what hit him.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v436/EnglishPride2004/clapping.gif)
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Brian, can I re-post that on our FB page?
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There were players out there who could not control the ball, keep possession, pass it or shoot on target. Furthermore, they didn't seem to care about it. We need an injection of skill and determination on the field. Now that Hughes is being touted as the new Messiah, how would he get on with no financial backing and a squad that knows their jobs are safe owing to no new players coming in? McLeish has been hung out to dry and some cowardly players are not backing him.
I definitely agree that there is an element of that. The players managed to play a big part in getting rid of Houllier and now think they hold all the power. They know Aston Villa in its current situation will not achieve anything or be relegated so have realised that they can get away with coasting and going through the motions for a big check every week without any fear of being shown the door or forced to work hard. If they are forced to work they know they can wander around sulking or throwing coaches across tables and see off another manager. I genuinely think that Lerner will neither be persuaded to back McLeish nor sack him as he realises the same thing as the players. That is that we can coast around in midtable with the minimum effort from all concerned.
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Brian, can I re-post that on our FB page?
Send it to the marketing dept. Will need a long fucking scarf though!
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They are actively monitoring the 'Hot Topics' thread. Don't think they could do much with that though.
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Changing the manager will make little or no difference.
We're stuck with this kind of shite so long as we carry on hacking and slashing at the wage bill with no real plan to improve the team.
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We're stuck with this kind of shite so long as we carry on hacking and slashing at the wage bill with no real plan to improve the team.
Why are we hacking and slashing at the wage bill? Theres more chance of snowballs in hell than of us ever qualifying for Europe so FFP is not a priority
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We're stuck with this kind of shite so long as we carry on hacking and slashing at the wage bill with no real plan to improve the team.
Why are we hacking and slashing at the wage bill? Theres more chance of snowballs in hell than of us ever qualifying for Europe so FFP is not a priority
I suspect it has more to do with Randy cutting his losses than attempts to keep in line with UEFA rules. See the summer transfer window.
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Guzan - 7 no fault for the goals and some good saves
Hutton - 4 pile of shite and doesnt care
Collins -5 may care, but pile of shite and not better than Cuellar or Clark
Dunne 5 Poor with second goal, but at least seemed to care a tad
Warnock 4 - He does not give a toss about our club. Needed to give Downing an ealry kick instead of laying off him so much
Albrighton 5- disappointed, but little quality service
Petrov 6 - Battled, but nothing else
Delph 4 - awful
N Zogbia 4 - shite attitude and would galdly smack him
Heskey 2 - FFS, why
Fonz 5- first half battled well, head went down after tough header
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Just got home and my son still has another seventy odd miles to go. I will give you both of our views, I think we have earned the right to comment.
We are totally leaderless on the pitch. Not one single player wants to give any support or encouragement to his team mates. They clearly do not understand what the manager tells them or they cannot do what he tells them. Every team over the years had had its player who hates to lose and who will go around the field trying to put some fire and backbone into the others. We have no Allan Evans, no Peter Withe, no Paul Merson, no Kevin Richardson, no Andy Townsend, no John Gidman, no Vic Crowe - just a bunch of blokes who seem to hate each other.
That is my son's view.
I have come to the conclusion that our players are just not good enough. Without the three good players we have - Given, Bent and Gabby, we are a second rate team. We can scratch a result against other poor teams but against better players we are woefully exposed.
I think we have deluded ourselves - to ease the pain of losing Cahill, Barry, Milner, Young and Downing - that our youngsters are much better than they really are. The only one I think can make the grade is Clark and he never gets a game. Bannan, Delfouesno, Albrighton, Herd, Weimann and the rest are not going to drive us into the top six of the Premiership and will more likely see us drop into the bottom six. Hutton and Warnock are not Premiership quality and neither is Collins. Dunne could be but gives the impression he hates the club and cannot wait to move on. Delph has failed to live up to early expectations and desperately needs a steadying influence which is not there. See "leadership" above. Jenas and Ireland were financial black holes waiting to be fallen into. Guzan reminds me of Burridge and those of you who remember Budgie will know exactly what I mean. Heskey was finished as a Premiership force before we bought him.
Add to the players who are not good enough add a manager who is not good enough, and I am too weary to join in troll games about the man, and the reason why days like today and Spurs and Man U and Bolton in the cup are happening becomes blindingly obvious.
In all departments, including the board, we are not good enough.
Turning to McLeish's interview, it was no more than public hand washing. His "giants" comment was as offensive to the fans as anything uttered by Houllier, but the little phrase which I picked up on was early in his string of excuses when he said "the fans tell you to do this and to do that..." he is clearly assuming the defend yourself at all times stance as far as the fans are concerned and I think we shall look back on today's game and see it as the day the fan's patience with him ran out. One more display like that today and he is going to wonder what hit him.
Just posted this on legions facebook page and I think it applies here as well.
"Too many people seem willing to blame the players, the problem is if you watch them they are playing to a 'pattern'; when we defend the whole process seems to be stay on your feet and defend space. That automatically means we only win the ball back when they make mistakes. As the better sides don't make as many mistakes we don't get much ball.
On top of that all the good sides play a harrying game in defence, but because our training revolves around defending space we're not used to playing against sides who don't do the same and we take a while to get up to speed with things.
I think a number of our players would look much better after a pre-season with a decent coaching team, I certainly won't write off any of delph, albrighton, fonz or bannan until we start playing a style that suits them."
I think that sums it up really, he can say as many times as he likes that the players aren't doing what he tells them but we are playing a very different style to how we have under the last 2 managers (and are worlds away from the style of the reserves and youth). The style he's trying to use works well if you have a squad that are big and strong and have a defensive unit that doesn't make mistakes, as much as I hate to admit it that's what blues had (until the players went on holiday early after winning the cup, which was clearly the managers fault).
With our current back 4 we're always good for a couple of howlers every game, if you concede a goal or 2 due to those the whole game plan goes to pot.
To sum up our training ground work is obviously a farce and needs to be completely scrapped and restarted. Once this is done we need to replace the entire defence with players not so likely to make stupid mistakes and we need bring Makoun back and get him in and build the midfield around him. He is the right type of player he just needed time to settle, with a decent manager I think he'd have had a great season this year.
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We're stuck with this kind of shite so long as we carry on hacking and slashing at the wage bill with no real plan to improve the team.
Why are we hacking and slashing at the wage bill? Theres more chance of snowballs in hell than of us ever qualifying for Europe so FFP is not a priority
Because we can't afford it?
I haven't got a problem with that, but it would be nice to think along with that we would adopt new policies of recruitment, say only signing young players making a step up.
And then you see Alan Hutton rock up for £4m, and in that one move you think that the club, from the very top down, haven't got a clue and are running the club by the same tired old percieved wisdom that's been ditched long ago by the best clubs.
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Just got home and my son still has another seventy odd miles to go. I will give you both of our views, I think we have earned the right to comment.
We are totally leaderless on the pitch. Not one single player wants to give any support or encouragement to his team mates. They clearly do not understand what the manager tells them or they cannot do what he tells them. Every team over the years had had its player who hates to lose and who will go around the field trying to put some fire and backbone into the others. We have no Allan Evans, no Peter Withe, no Paul Merson, no Kevin Richardson, no Andy Townsend, no John Gidman, no Vic Crowe - just a bunch of blokes who seem to hate each other.
That is my son's view.
I have come to the conclusion that our players are just not good enough. Without the three good players we have - Given, Bent and Gabby, we are a second rate team. We can scratch a result against other poor teams but against better players we are woefully exposed.
I think we have deluded ourselves - to ease the pain of losing Cahill, Barry, Milner, Young and Downing - that our youngsters are much better than they really are. The only one I think can make the grade is Clark and he never gets a game. Bannan, Delfouesno, Albrighton, Herd, Weimann and the rest are not going to drive us into the top six of the Premiership and will more likely see us drop into the bottom six. Hutton and Warnock are not Premiership quality and neither is Collins. Dunne could be but gives the impression he hates the club and cannot wait to move on. Delph has failed to live up to early expectations and desperately needs a steadying influence which is not there. See "leadership" above. Jenas and Ireland were financial black holes waiting to be fallen into. Guzan reminds me of Burridge and those of you who remember Budgie will know exactly what I mean. Heskey was finished as a Premiership force before we bought him.
Add to the players who are not good enough add a manager who is not good enough, and I am too weary to join in troll games about the man, and the reason why days like today and Spurs and Man U and Bolton in the cup are happening becomes blindingly obvious.
In all departments, including the board, we are not good enough.
Turning to McLeish's interview, it was no more than public hand washing. His "giants" comment was as offensive to the fans as anything uttered by Houllier, but the little phrase which I picked up on was early in his string of excuses when he said "the fans tell you to do this and to do that..." he is clearly assuming the defend yourself at all times stance as far as the fans are concerned and I think we shall look back on today's game and see it as the day the fan's patience with him ran out. One more display like that today and he is going to wonder what hit him.
Just posted this on legions facebook page and I think it applies here as well.
"Too many people seem willing to blame the players, the problem is if you watch them they are playing to a 'pattern'; when we defend the whole process seems to be stay on your feet and defend space. That automatically means we only win the ball back when they make mistakes. As the better sides don't make as many mistakes we don't get much ball.
On top of that all the good sides play a harrying game in defence, but because our training revolves around defending space we're not used to playing against sides who don't do the same and we take a while to get up to speed with things.
I think a number of our players would look much better after a pre-season with a decent coaching team, I certainly won't write off any of delph, albrighton, fonz or bannan until we start playing a style that suits them."
I think that sums it up really, he can say as many times as he likes that the players aren't doing what he tells them but we are playing a very different style to how we have under the last 2 managers (and are worlds away from the style of the reserves and youth). The style he's trying to use works well if you have a squad that are big and strong and have a defensive unit that doesn't make mistakes, as much as I hate to admit it that's what blues had (until the players went on holiday early after winning the cup, which was clearly the managers fault).
With our current back 4 we're always good for a couple of howlers every game, if you concede a goal or 2 due to those the whole game plan goes to pot.
To sum up our training ground work is obviously a farce and needs to be completely scrapped and restarted. Once this is done we need to replace the entire defence with players not so likely to make stupid mistakes and we need bring Makoun back and get him in and build the midfield around him. He is the right type of player he just needed time to settle, with a decent manager I think he'd have had a great season this year.
Paul, I can't disagree with that.
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We're stuck with this kind of shite so long as we carry on hacking and slashing at the wage bill with no real plan to improve the team.
Spot on Lee. Other clubs have to have a wage budget. But at the end of the day they have had ways to do it - Newcastle the prime example. Had Houllier still been here I think the squad, wage bill and ethos would be very very different.
Why are we hacking and slashing at the wage bill? Theres more chance of snowballs in hell than of us ever qualifying for Europe so FFP is not a priority
Because we can't afford it?
I haven't got a problem with that, but it would be nice to think along with that we would adopt new policies of recruitment, say only signing young players making a step up.
And then you see Alan Hutton rock up for £4m, and in that one move you think that the club, from the very top down, haven't got a clue and are running the club by the same tired old percieved wisdom that's been ditched long ago by the best clubs.
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He put the right team out in the circumstances, so there was'nt a problem there. The first half (apart from the very dodgy defending for their goals) i did'nt think we were that bad. The second half however was bloody shocking.
I don't mind McCleish at all, he seems a decent enough chap. I don't care where he came from but it just ain't working. They say the table never lies, but in our case, it does.
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"Giants of the game" - a team that's not won the league for 20 years and who we've beaten and finished above regularly in the past few years.
"Nothing I can do" well how about refusing to accept the £20k plus a week you're being paid.
"Fans tell me to do this and that" well 2-0 down at home and you take off a striker... not the greatest tactical switch ever made...
Please go.
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It's a pretty sad state of affairs that we're shit and yet we've not been out of the top 10 all season. What does that say about the EPL? (Not that this will be true in 2 weeks time mind!)
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Brian Green, I have been following the club since 1970 and know what you mean. The goalie is better than Burridge IMHO, good shot stopper but dreading when he faces Stoke. Full backs are poor, Warnock dont give a toss. Dunne is a good defender, but he dont care, Collins does care but is shit. I had hopes on Delph, but lets be honest, he is not stepping up. N'Zogbia has talent, but was a disgrace today IMHO. Heskey was not even worth taling about. Useless bunch of twats
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I agree with you Paul one hundred percent. Players like Bannan, Delph and Albrighton could be coached into being much more effective players but it takes time and effort and massive coaching expertise. You are spot on when you point out the capacity the top Spanish teams have to win back the ball when they have lost it. When they have the ball they ping it with pin point accuracy and perfect weight. Such is their technique that they invariably retain possession but if they lose it they harry and chase and scramble for the ball until they get it back. What our midfield was doing today was exactly what England did against Spain, they did not pass the ball sufficiently accurately or with exact weight so they lost possession. When trying to win the ball back our players do not have the fitness, the build or the technique to worry their opponents into a mistake. Nor, probably most importantly, do they have the confidence.
After that "it's the players' fault" interview with McLeish it is most unlikely that they will ever try anything other than safety first football.
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Delph looked scared stiff, playing with fear. Albrighton wasnt like last season, looked as if he was scared. I admire Petrov, but lets be honest, he is not a top player, and as for the French lad, I have had him in my dream team all season and he is my weak link
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Guzan 6 - couple of decent saves
Hutton 5 - I actually think he put a fair amount of effort in, he's just a poor footballer that can't defend and can't attack.
Collins 3 - If we lose Clark because we've stuck by this lump i'll be almightly pissed off, atleast he did'nt hoof it much today, although his passing was still awful.
Dunne 5 - I'm probably alone here but thought he played Ok and he's a good defender, must play Clark with him though.
Warnock 2 - fucking hell! stood off Downing far to much, should've twatted the ****** early on, distribution is attrocious.
Albrighton 6 - never stopped trying
Petrov 5 - needs to be playing further forward.
Delph 2 - I think he's the worst midfielder at the club, must've passed straight to a Scouse player 12 times, playing 2 divisions above his natural level.
N Zogbia 4 - when you get the ball lift your head up ffs, actually looked dangerous at times but then would just run into 2 defenders instead of playing the pass, infuriating!
Heskey 10 - simply for the step overs.
Delfouneso 5 - thought when he got on the ball and ran at them he looked dangerous, did'nt do it enough though
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Sack McLeish. Give Heskey, Cuellar and Beye have free transfers in the Summer. Send Jenas go back to Spurs.
Warnock, Dunne and Collins will only have 1 year left so they'll be easier to shift.
Get a younger manager who can build and grow with us, ideally someone who's been at top clubs and therefore will have contacts to get us a bit of experience in. Lambert fulfils this criteria for me.
Start playing dirty. Don't let Spurs bend the rules and get the likes of Hoilett and Diame on frees while we fund it by signing Jenas and Hutton.
Start from scratch.
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Guzan 6 - couple of decent saves
Hutton 5 - I actually think he put a fair amount of effort in, he's just a poor footballer that can't defend and can't attack.
Collins 3 - If we lose Clark because we've stuck by this lump i'll be almightly pissed off, atleast he did'nt hoof it much today, although his passing was still awful.
Dunne 5 - I'm probably alone here but thought he played Ok and he's a good defender, must play Clark with him though.
Warnock 2 - fucking hell! stood off Downing far to much, should've twatted the c*** early on, distribution is attrocious.
Albrighton 6 - never stopped trying
Petrov 5 - needs to be playing further forward.
Delph 2 - I think he's the worst midfielder at the club, must've passed straight to a Scouse player 12 times, playing 2 divisions above his natural level.
N Zogbia 4 - when you get the ball lift your head up ffs, actually looked dangerous at times but then would just run into 2 defenders instead of playing the pass, infuriating!
Heskey 10 - simply for the step overs.
Delfouneso 5 - thought when he got on the ball and ran at them he looked dangerous, did'nt do it enough though
Bannan 1 - Clearly believes his own hype, your not the Scottish fucking Xavi or whatever else the media label you as, stop trying to play Hollywood passes.
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I don't have anything new to say, but like lots of others am royally pissed off.
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Whilst i don't think McLeish is the answer, i'm not sure who is.
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Delph is unfortunately looking like a case study in the perils of buying from the lower divisions rather than going out and getting a much cheaper foreign equivalent of equal ability.
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I had hoped we would show some desire. I hoped we'd send Judas home with a few questions to ponder.
I have avoided posting until now because I feared what I might type in this rage.
Most of my life I remember supporting a club who tried to compete with the best. We often failed but at least we tried. This crap is soul destroying.
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Brilliant stuff Brian - eloquently stating what a lot of us think.
paul_e: sorry mate, I don't see any pattern at all! Unless it's Bannan, Delph, Zog and Hutton all getting in each other's way and none of them having any idea what to do with the horrible round thing that nobody seems to want! I agree with everything else you say.
Was (still am??) prepard to give AM a chance but his post-match interview was embarrassing; alienating the fans, the players and distancing himself from the very thing he is paid to do. He also called them "this bunch". What the fuck does that mean? Very little obviously.
I feared he would make us a boring defensive team.
Unfortunately, we're not that good.
Today summed up when Dunny ventured forward, got as far as he could, and not one Villa player offered him a thing and he ended up chipping it into space behind their defence, arms raised in resignation.
Think I'll start on the Christmas booze now!
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Delph is unfortunately looking like a case study in the perils of buying from the lower divisions rather than going out and getting a much cheaper foreign equivalent of equal ability.
Do you mean like Grant Holt
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The Mcleish interview clearly showed he does not have a clue what to do,i think it showed a man who knows he is out of his depth. The only player that we really missed today was Gabby, we have isolated Bent all season and the only other one missing is a young kid learning his craft. I hate to say this but when we were still two down half way through the second half in the murky depths of my brain i was thinking would it benefit us in the long run for Liverpool to put another five past us. A seven nil home defeat would have made even Randy a little nervous about the future but two nil doesnt have the same impact.
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My fear is the longer it goes and the more the criticism of his tactics grows, the more defensive of his style AM will become. To the point where every game against every opposition will be damage limitation.
There are very clearly players that have sold the club out. They cannot do the simple things properly, or they simply refuse to despite what the manager and coaches have instructed. We have 7 or 8 players that have decided their future lies elsewhere and are simply picking up a cheque every week. There is also the "rotten apple" syndrome to consider and my concern is that it might negatively influence some of the good characters and/or younger impressionable players.
I realize that AM's Rome won't be built in a day and he's also been dealt a shit hand by th club financially. But he's going to help himself by deciding to discard some of those problems as quickly as possible. I'd sooner see us trying to win with players who want to play than those who don't. McLeish's hands are somewhat tied but he still has a chance to do something about it. He has some tough decisions to make in the next few weeks or the season could nosedive very quickly.
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I don't like saying this as he's a young player who I'd like to see do well, but Delph is rapidly approaching "another waste of money by O'Neill" territory.
Would be useful if he could control the ball & his range of passing is shocking
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i believe Wigan had more than 50% of the posesion yesterday against Chelsea, yes Chelsea !
they came away with a point. what i'm trying to say is just because you lack expensive quality players doent mean you cant keep the ball and sometimes come away with a result, its the mindset and the way you want the game to be played
now Wigan are pretty crap, if Martinez can keep them up again he will have worked another miracle with them.
i know they are in a relegation battle, being in the bottom 3 confirms that, but at least there is something there that you can see happening every now and again
he would have been the man for us, a bit better player to work with and possibly buy, and a different football philosophy for us fans to watch.
if only
I agree - every year they lose their best players and the fact they aren't relegated Derby-style is an achievement. He must be shrewd and looked at working for the buffoon Faulkner and thought - No Ta, I'll wait until I have at least 1 relegation under my belt and play dire turgid football. As I said at the time a punt, but a progressive punt - like Turner but with Top Flight experience. May not have worked but we would be no worse off and at least we would be worth watching.
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Sick of seeing us throw in the towel before the game has started. We are a shambles.
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If McNegative picks that same back four on Wednesday he should be sacked on the spot!!!
- Collins is beginning to catch Zat as the most inept centre half of the last 20-25 years, he is always stood gawping at the goalscorer....
- Warnock, normally I'm slating him for going off his feet all the time, today he is up against a winger all know is scared of being challenged yet he is allowed to roam without trying to tackle him.
- Delph, way out of his depth, poor control and tackling is impetuous and dangerous
- N'Zogbia, you might be the king of dribble but you must also be the king of no end product
So, so frustrated by the garbage played
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After 63 mins my 8 year old son said " can we go Dad?" and I said "why mate?".
He said " because I am bored" and he was right.
When I was 8 I couldn't wait to go the match - 2 years ago when he was 6
he couldnt wait to go either .
In 2 years football has changed - and we are the club that has suffered most.
We are in the eye of the storm - and it hurts.
This is a good post. It's hard to get your head around just how different the club is today. Christmas 2009 now seems light years away. Just two years ago we were going to Old Trafford and coming home with three points. We were contenders. We were dynamic, explosive, exciting and Villa Park was packed to the rafters regardless of the opposition.
What a turnaround, and the worst thing is nobody with any authority seems to care. It's hurtful beyond belief.
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Just got home and my son still has another seventy odd miles to go. I will give you both of our views, I think we have earned the right to comment.
We are totally leaderless on the pitch. Not one single player wants to give any support or encouragement to his team mates. They clearly do not understand what the manager tells them or they cannot do what he tells them. Every team over the years had had its player who hates to lose and who will go around the field trying to put some fire and backbone into the others. We have no Allan Evans, no Peter Withe, no Paul Merson, no Kevin Richardson, no Andy Townsend, no John Gidman, no Vic Crowe - just a bunch of blokes who seem to hate each other.
That is my son's view.
I have come to the conclusion that our players are just not good enough. Without the three good players we have - Given, Bent and Gabby, we are a second rate team. We can scratch a result against other poor teams but against better players we are woefully exposed.
I think we have deluded ourselves - to ease the pain of losing Cahill, Barry, Milner, Young and Downing - that our youngsters are much better than they really are. The only one I think can make the grade is Clark and he never gets a game. Bannan, Delfouesno, Albrighton, Herd, Weimann and the rest are not going to drive us into the top six of the Premiership and will more likely see us drop into the bottom six. Hutton and Warnock are not Premiership quality and neither is Collins. Dunne could be but gives the impression he hates the club and cannot wait to move on. Delph has failed to live up to early expectations and desperately needs a steadying influence which is not there. See "leadership" above. Jenas and Ireland were financial black holes waiting to be fallen into. Guzan reminds me of Burridge and those of you who remember Budgie will know exactly what I mean. Heskey was finished as a Premiership force before we bought him.
Add to the players who are not good enough add a manager who is not good enough, and I am too weary to join in troll games about the man, and the reason why days like today and Spurs and Man U and Bolton in the cup are happening becomes blindingly obvious.
In all departments, including the board, we are not good enough.
Turning to McLeish's interview, it was no more than public hand washing. His "giants" comment was as offensive to the fans as anything uttered by Houllier, but the little phrase which I picked up on was early in his string of excuses when he said "the fans tell you to do this and to do that..." he is clearly assuming the defend yourself at all times stance as far as the fans are concerned and I think we shall look back on today's game and see it as the day the fan's patience with him ran out. One more display like that today and he is going to wonder what hit him.
Just got back. I was wondering whether to write anything, but Brian's said it all. By coincidence, I've made a similar point about the young players in a piece for the next H&V: with the exception of Clark and perhaps Herd, they're not PL standard.
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I couldn't believe my eyes at how shit we were today. The amount of times a Villa player gave the ball straight to a Liverpool player when under no pressure was highly embarrasing - school kids could pass better than that! What is wrong with the training and tactics? 40k per week some of these useless twats are earning for that garbage! Fuck off Lerner - you are a complete joke appointing McLeish. Sell up and let's have someone in who'll invest in the team and appoint a decent Manager - you haven't got a clue!!
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After 63 mins my 8 year old son said " can we go Dad?" and I said "why mate?".
He said " because I am bored" and he was right.
When I was 8 I couldn't wait to go the match - 2 years ago when he was 6
he couldnt wait to go either .
In 2 years football has changed - and we are the club that has suffered most.
We are in the eye of the storm - and it hurts.
This is a good post. It's hard to get your head around just how different the club is today. Christmas 2009 now seems light years away. Just two years ago we were going to Old Trafford and coming home with three points. We were contenders. We were dynamic, explosive, exciting and Villa Park was packed to the rafters regardless of the opposition.
What a turnaround, and the worst thing is nobody with any authority seems to care. It's hurtful beyond belief.
Precisely the M'ON era wasn't perfect but at least we were feared, now we're a laughing stock. Also when an 8 year old has lost his enthusiasm for it, it shows what a dire state we have fallen into.
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I dont disagree with Lerner reigning in things, but appointing that red nosed ginga scottish blue nose is a joke
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The Mcleish interview clearly showed he does not have a clue what to do,i think it showed a man who knows he is out of his depth. The only player that we really missed today was Gabby, we have isolated Bent all season and the only other one missing is a young kid learning his craft. I hate to say this but when we were still two down half way through the second half in the murky depths of my brain i was thinking would it benefit us in the long run for Liverpool to put another five past us. A seven nil home defeat would have made even Randy a little nervous about the future but two nil doesnt have the same impact.
I had the same guilty thought. I thought after the second goal that it would turn into a rout and would surely mark the end for him. Towards the end of the second half I couldn't understand why we didn't atleast try route one and get the ball in the box. As clueless as we were at times last season, there were games when we tried to salvage something by sending Collins up and banging a few balls in. Today of course instead, we get them passing it back and forth on the half way line before giving it away cheaply.
Over the years I've watched people fail at work. The pattern is normally the same - start off saying all the right things. Spend a few months huffing and puffing and talking a good game. Get very defensive when questioned about activity. Retreat into full denial of any issues and start blaming everybody else. At this stage it becomes clear to everybody that dismissal is imminent and that ususally arrives to put both parties out of their misery at a point where the boss and employer lose respect for each other. I suspect that Mcleish still has some time to hang on but many more interviews like today's will lose any respect anybody still had for him.
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I think our young players will come good with the right management. Maybe not Delph.
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I actually felt sorry for Delph today.At least he tried to be positive.Quite a few times he did some good things , got in some good positions, but because of lack of movement around him , he got caught with the ball/gave the ball away.I did'nt even realise Petrov was on the pitch in the first 20 mins in the 2nd half.......a disgraceful performance of a lack of leadership from the captain.
McL has to take responsibility for the constant negative comments he keeps making."Giants of the game", and saying we are the underdogs before the game , are completely unacceptable from a manager of AVFC.
People complain about Huttons tackling, we need a few more who can do that, we need a few Bellamys.Dunne, Warnock, Heskey, Petrov, Collins, don't give a fuck about AVFC, McL shouild get rid now, or go himself.
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I left about 5 minutes from the end, who got our man of the match? I'm curious..
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I actually felt sorry for Delph today.At least he tried to be positive.Quite a few times he did some good things , got in some good positions, but because of lack of movement around him , he got caught with the ball/gave the ball away.I did'nt even realise Petrov was on the pitch in the first 20 mins in the 2nd half.......a disgraceful performance of a lack of leadership from the captain.
McL has to take responsibility for the constant negative comments he keeps making."Giants of the game", and saying we are the underdogs before the game , are completely unacceptable from a manager of AVFC.
Agree with you on the other players, but not Petrov. Delph was awful today by the way
People complain about Huttons tackling, we need a few more who can do that, we need a few Bellamys.Dunne, Warnock, Heskey, Petrov, Collins, don't give a fuck about AVFC, McL shouild get rid now, or go himself.
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As soon as I saw the line up I knew we had lost, its a terrible feeling when you just know your beloved club have no chance before a ball is kicked, to save further humiliation and pain we may as well agree to give Arsenal the 3 points now, I have seen a lot of bad times down the Villa since first going down in 1966 and have seen the club in worse situations position wise yet this period seems much worse, it feels like a very slow painful death, feeling very despondent tonight, somebody say something to give me some hope.
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I feel very sorry for Delph at the minute, he's not playing all that well because his confidence is shot and the more he plays badly the more the fans get on his back. There's definitely talent in there and every now and then you see a glimpse of it (he played one great pass today, think it was to put nzogbia free down the left of the box) but he's so subdued most of the time that he might as well not be there.
I remember watching him for leeds and he was box-to-box and constantly on the go looking for the ball but for us he seems to sit in the centre circle and do very little. The odd time he starts to run around is when he plays well but he seems scared to do it
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I agree that Delph has been poor, mostly, this season, but at the end of last season when we were actually quite decent (compared to what we are now anyway) he looked promising. It's too early to write him off, but he doesn't seem to thrive in a struggling team. That may be his undoing at Villa, but that doesn't mean that he's devoid of talent.
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Awful, I'm very pissed off with the whole thing... manager, owner and players
We need some hands on management from the owner, not the arms length shambles ownership he is currently doing.
Lerner you need to get a grip while you still have some goodwill and time left
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I know the manager is an easy target due to the 'strategy' that he likes to employ but once the players step onto the pitch, surely, they will have to take some responsibility regarding whether or not they can physically pass a ball adequately? And again, it would be nice to see some of them acting as if the situation we're in actually affects them. We're not asking to beat all and sundry 3-0 but I think we're more than entitled to see some desire and fight from each and every player in our shirt.
We really seemed to miss Herd today.
Today was the only occasion so far that I've been happy about seeing Hutton's name on the team sheet as I had an inkling he may just kick Downing's vital organs out. Again, he disappointed.
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I couldn't believe my eyes at how shit we were today. The amount of times a Villa player gave the ball straight to a Liverpool player when under no pressure was highly embarrasing - school kids could pass better than that! What is wrong with the training and tactics? 40k per week some of these useless twats are earning for that garbage! Fuck off Lerner - you are a complete joke appointing McLeish. Sell up and let's have someone in who'll invest in the team and appoint a decent Manager - you haven't got a clue!!
AGREED!!!
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Just got in after a session.. needed it!! Collins Warnock Hutton Petrov and Heskey were garbage today no leadership at all. Were shit at the basics. Im worried sick! Toronto Villa im thinking the same. Who you thinking of?
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Too many good posts to reply to. Brian - great great post. Add Ian Taylor, Staunton and Spink to those who didn't like to lose. Ooo Eck's interview a disgrace. Strange though I never thought Craig Bellamy could be surpassed as the most punchable face in football - however Charlie Adam does surpasses him.
Houllier's team would never come back from a goal down. However until the first goal we were never beaten. Unlike now.
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That said not sure how many Premiership or European Cups Liverpool won under Houllier's stewardship though. (Zero) Watching MOTD2 with Liverpool sychophants - apparently we made Jordan Henderson look good. At least bindippers can console themselves in being real title contenders again. Under Houllier they won team of the year???? Beeb are so pro Liverpool it is embarrasing
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They've never been any different - remember the nausiating 'Liverpool in Europe' programmes we had to endure.
The fact they beat us 2-0 is not a pointer to any Title credentials - just that they've beaten a shit, defeatist side who give up before a ball is kicked.
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Average Liverpool team strolls to victory at shit Villa team.
Meh indeed.
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Darren Bent was out shopping today! Apologising on twitter.
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The writing was on the wall when the young manager of Wigan Athletic, yes that's Wigan Athletic, didn't think there was enough of the "bright future" to go with the "proud history" bit and turned us down over the summer. To compete in the PL (that's compete, s not just tread water and hope there are a few teams worse than us) you need to (a) stop shipping out your best players, season by season and (b) employ a manager who at least organises the resources he has and plays positively. McLeish is a convenient fall guy for all that is bad about us at the moment. He is always only, given his history across the city, a couple of defeats away from calls for the sack. Nevertheless he is ultra-cautious, while seemingly unable to get us to do the basics - either defend or be a threat at set-pieces (O'Neil's great strength). For me the worst, almost criminal illustration of why we are staring at the abyss was a free kick late on, 2-0 behind, and we only had three men in their box. Staggering. We tried to play a passing game today. But not one of them could pass. Inept. Bannan and Delph are way out of their depth at this level. Downing showed them all how to do it. And we booed him. But can you really blame him for leaving?
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Same awful defense that regularly concedes silly goals on set pieces. Absolute lack of consistency upfront. And we simply didn't have a midfield, that should be the engine of the team (apart from the good will of Albrighton).
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A lot of the problem is confidence as there does not seem to be a system. Combine that with low quality players. Delph -Hutton-Warnnock
Were terrible. Control, vision and passing were disgraceful at this level. What's even more worrying is we don't look much better with two England internationals. Bent & Gabby !!
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Excellent post Brian. And this time I have to disagree with Frank as I think that not only Clark, but Albrighton, Herd, Bannan and Gary Gardner are exciting prospects and could become good players, of full P.L. standards, if we had a manager that is able to work with the youngsters and to help them to grow.
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Excellent post Brian. And this time I have to disagree with Frank as I think that not only Clark, but Albrighton, Herd, Bannan and Gary Gardner are exciting prospects and could become good players, of full P.L. standards, if we had a manager that is able to work with the youngsters and to help them to grow.
You could be right in suggesting that it's not the youngsters that are at fault but AM for not using them properly, but whichever way you look at it they haven't impressed this season, with the exception of Herd. Delfouneso is never going to make it at the top level, I fear, and demonstrated that again today. Inexplicably, Clark isn't being given a chance. Albrighton has had one good game; it seems to me that defences have got him worked out. Bannan has been poor and has lost the ability or confidence to produce the defence-splitting pass (or any sort of pass for that matter). Weimann didn't have enough time to show anything today. Gardner's been sent to Coventry.
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We played the game as though pool had won before we even stepped on the pitch.
We were abject from start to finish.
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We were awful today could easily have been 6 I can't believe how bad we are. The thing is I knew before I left what it was going to be like and I know exactly what to expect on Wednesday night.
The lack of movement and passing was horrendous we are shockingly bad. I remember reading an article by Wenger a few years ago where he was talking about how Arsenal play and when anyone player has the ball they play so that he should always have 3 options where he can make a pass. You watch our lot and there is literally no options it's pathetic at times.
The saddest thing for me is the fans just seem to have accepted this as our fate. There were people around me today laughing and joking at the performance, it just hurts seeing what we have become.
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After a shit day I went the pub to cheer myself up. For my troubles some twat decided, for no reason, to punch me. I am now covered in blood and have a broken nose. What a brilliant day.
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After a shit day I went the pub to cheer myself up. For my troubles some twat decided, for no reason, to punch me. I am now covered in blood and have a broken nose. What a brilliant day.
That is utterly shit and completely uncalled for. There really are some total wankers out there. Best wishes on your recovery cd.
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As someone said there is no connection between the club and the fans, I think this is common throughout football but up until this summer the fans still were 100% behind the team. Under Houllier there were many issues but we still had hope, at the moment and for the foreseeable future we are in big, big trouble, I just hope Lerner gets the message and very quickly.
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Shit mate, hope you at least have enough witnesses to get the thuggy ****** done.
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After a shit day I went the pub to cheer myself up. For my troubles some twat decided, for no reason, to punch me. I am now covered in blood and have a broken nose. What a brilliant day.
That is utterly shit and completely uncalled for. There really are some total wankers out there. Best wishes on your recovery cd.
Cheers mate. I think I will be ok my nose is fairly straight so hopefully I won't further damage my already poor looks! I think the landlord knows the person who did it. I have given my details to the police and hopefully they will get the bastard and I will get some compensation off the twat.
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Where do you start? We can all see the problems.
The defence - AM needs to bin the balls-up brothers and Warnock for a start, None of this "they were good 2 years ago" arse, if he doesn't give them their P45's he'll be getting his i'm afraid.
Delpth is just useless, people on here are suffering from curtis davies sydrome - i.e. the more expensive a player is, the less they want to admit he's shit.
Heskey - god almighty. Joe Royle made an interesting point when talking about Carroll ironically. When you go to head the ball you time your run so you can attack the ball and get some power on it, not just stand there and watch the ball bounce of your noggin at 4 miles an hour. Seems to have forgotten even the basics now
AM- Even with the unlucky injuries, if he's not deliberately writing off the likes of MAN U, Liverpool, spurs as unwinnable games, then he's doing a very good impression of it.
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Anybody with tickets changed their mind about the trip to Bristol I will gladly take them off your hands. :). Up the Villa.
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Very difficult to disagree with Green junior or senior sadly.
Which is alarming, because if they're right one new managerial appointment alone won't solve our ills.
Our lack of movement when in possession has been a bugbear of Paulie, Monts and myself (and no doubt plenty of other Villa fans) for a while now, probably dating back even prior to MON. But seeing as the the majority of the squad are still made up of O'Neill signings, his fingerprints are all over that particular weakness. I don't blame him for all our current woes though. The situation has been allowed to drift, pretty much since his departure.
No real leadership. On or off the pitch.
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My worry is that if we get rid of Oo Eck then we will end up with one of Fergie's other acolytes be it Bruce, McClaren or Keane and not Hughes such is the Leadership which we are wholly bereft of.
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The calibre of managers we approached in the summer; McLaren, Martinez and McLeish, indicate that we had one specific idea in mind- get a guy in who won't expect too much in the way of a transfer budget and won't be making waves if he isn't given the resources to compete at the top end of the table.
If they now decide to move away from that policy, then great. But I wouldn't automatically assume that Hughes would take the job now, even if we offer it. I get the impression he left Fulham on the understanding he'd walk into the Villa job. I'm pretty sure he won't have appreciated being snubbed and left out on a limb.
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Lack of movement is a disgrace and one of the main reasons I think our ball retention and passing is so poor. You could see bannan trying to force something and create going forward, passes were frequently cut off as a result. None of our players want the ball, almost all to a man they are hiding on the pitch and/or frightened and inhibited.
They're better than this turgid shit. Either the manager has them set up in the worst possible way or they are not playing for him or the club.
We'll survive this season, it's next year I really worry about. Big decisions and big changes needed.
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Its just all about money and RL backing the manager though isn't it ?
IMO we could get rid of the Chuckle Brothers, play Clarke and buy a £10million centre half. Buy a £15m pound midfielder and indulge AM in his desire for a upmarket Zigic. I don't know who is available and at what price that's the Managers job but a £30-£40million investment in Jan (which we got in more or less in the summer by my maths and anyway are you rich or what Randy)) would see us safely into the single digit positions again. But if RL doesn't give him the tools to do the job we just have to accept our fate. We won't go down but we'll flirt with it again at some point this season and we'll just need to get into the 30something points as soon as we can.
I think we as fans have been great so far, most understand AM's position and how his hands are tied. The defeats have been against teams we 'should' lose to (except the Albion fluke) and so we've taken it on the chin, but a loss to Swansea might see things change.
Of course there is no doubt the footy is by and large shite but since when has that mattered to most of us as long as we win.
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Lack of movement is a disgrace and one of the main reasons I think our ball retention and passing is so poor. You could see bannan trying to force something and create going forward, passes were frequently cut off as a result. None of our players want the ball, almost all to a man they are hiding on the pitch and/or frightened and inhibited.
They're better than this turgid shit. Either the manager has them set up in the worst possible way or they are not playing for him or the club.
We'll survive this season, it's next year I really worry about. Big decisions and big changes needed.
That's a confidence thing - and a real issue for young players looking for support and leadership. Unfortunately that side lacks leaders - too many not prepared to stand up and take responsibility. Only Petrov shows any of those qualities and he ended up being worn down by the malaise.
The reason the lack of movement was more stark yesterday was that they actually tried to play the ball to feet instead of the awful hoofball we've been subjected to in recent weeks. It is painful trying to watch someone try to pass the ball to a team mate who doesn't want it - misplaced passes are often a result of that lack of movement.
Sad to say aswell, I don't believe any of the young players are going to end up saving Lerner the fortune he anticipates. Only Clark looks good enough to me and he can't get a game - Herd, maybe. Bannan, Delfounso, Delph, Albrighton - I think they'll find their level in the chanpionship.
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Been looking for words to try to sum up yesterdays horror show. Here's a few I found in a thesaurus:
abominable,amiss,atrocious, awful,bad news,beastly,blah*, bottom out,bummer,careless, cheap,cheesy*,crappy*,cruddy, crummy,defective,deficient, diddly,dissatisfactory,downer, dreadful,erroneous,fallacious, faulty,garbage,godawful,grody, gross*,grungy,icky,imperfect, inadequate,incorrect,inferior, junky,lousy*,not good,off,poor, raunchy*,rough,sad,slipshod, stinking,substandard,synthetic, the pits,unacceptable, unsatisfactory
But I think Fucking Shite sums it up best now.
Also just been thinking if this level of abject crap continues how long will it be before Randy overtakes deadly Doug in the hall of hate. Is Randy a closet bluenose?
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After a shit day I went the pub to cheer myself up. For my troubles some twat decided, for no reason, to punch me. I am now covered in blood and have a broken nose. What a brilliant day.
That is utterly shit and completely uncalled for. There really are some total wankers out there. Best wishes on your recovery cd.
Cheers mate. I think I will be ok my nose is fairly straight so hopefully I won't further damage my already poor looks! I think the landlord knows the person who did it. I have given my details to the police and hopefully they will get the bastard and I will get some compensation off the twat.
Very sorry to hear this, Chris. Hope you're ok
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"Too many people seem willing to blame the players
So who else do you blame when they can't manage a 10 yard pass? Or when they react slowly at a corner? Or when they hide and don't want the ball?
We were very poor yesterday but it wasn't down to tactics or the formation. It's convenient to blame the manager because that then gives the false hope that change him and everything in the garden will be rosy but it's football, not chess, and players have to take responsibility for their own performances. If I go into work and fuck up I get the blame, not my boss.
As Nick says, a lot of it is down to confidence and that comes from within. We're also not strong enough as a squad to cope with 5 players being out, that's not an excuse but after a decent performance last week to then lose a further 3 players was the last thing we needed.
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Jeff Randall in the Telegraph today is commenting on the Euro crisis and made a comment that also relates to our manager and his post patch comments:
When fantasy masquerades as action, the end is nigh.
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I thought we were fairly decent in the first half, other than ridiculous goals from set pieces. Again. But we passed it reasonably well and created a few chances. I certainly don't think Liverpool were two goals better than us at half time.
And then we just fell apart. I don't know how it was they didn't score another couple, but there were so many mis-placed passes I couldn't work out if it was embarassing or actually funny - probably both! I won't say we lacked attacking intent, but we did lack any real impetusor drive. Good player though he is, Petrov isn't that kind of captain to drag his team back into a game by giving out a few tirades on the pitch. And that's what I'm coming to see from AM's Villa:- a strangely passionless side.
We'll still float around mid-table for the rest of the season as we have enough decent players to do so, but everyone at the club seems to be in cruise mode, from the chairman down, as the bar is being set too low with a mid table finish. Say what you like about him, but under MON we we always striving to do better. That's what we need right now.
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My brother summed it up when he started singing
"we may be shit but we're better than this."
It's such a ball ache at the moment. I don't enjoy going down to VP. Its a chore, an inconvenience. It was the most depressing train journey to the match too. Not only knowing where I'm going but on the train journey finding out we were without Bent and Herd. You knew it was going to be defeatist and negative. I'm bored
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Why wasn't Stephen Ireland on the bench today?
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Ill apparently. Matt Kendrick tweeted
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We were really poor and I have been trying to think of something positive to cheer me up for for my trip home to England for xmas.
1. I thought Petrov did a decent job of encouraging and cajoling teammates in the first half and NZog showed more flair and desire than I have seen for a while.
2. Bent and Gabby will return
3. There are at least 3 worse teams than us
After that I am struggling. We made Jordan Henderson look good for God;s sake.
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Why wasn't Stephen Ireland on the bench today?
He would have fitted perfectly into the side yesterday. Insipid, half arsed shoulder shrugging disinterest steered by a cowardly, sloping shouldered excuse for a manager.
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I thought we were fairly decent in the first half, other than ridiculous goals from set pieces. Again. But we passed it reasonably well and created a few chances. I certainly don't think Liverpool were two goals better than us at half time.
And then we just fell apart. I don't know how it was they didn't score another couple, but there were so many mis-placed passes I couldn't work out if it was embarassing or actually funny - probably both! I won't say we lacked attacking intent, but we did lack any real impetusor drive. Good player though he is, Petrov isn't that kind of captain to drag his team back into a game by giving out a few tirades on the pitch. And that's what I'm coming to see from AM's Villa:- a strangely passionless side.
We'll still float around mid-table for the rest of the season as we have enough decent players to do so, but everyone at the club seems to be in cruise mode, from the chairman down, as the bar is being set too low with a mid table finish. Say what you like about him, but under MON we we always striving to do better. That's what we need right now.
Sorry mate, but our passing was simply atrocious - the amount of passes straight to a Liverpool player or into touch was a joke! These guys are earning 40-50k a week to 'play' like that! A disgrace. Root and branch change is needed I'm afraid.
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Everyone is to blame.
The chairman for making a baffling appointment which sapped the goodwill from the support, for appointing the clueless Faulkner, and also for slamming on the spending brakes so rapidly.
The manager for almost half a season of shit, negative anti-football dross, which is frankly an embarassment to Aston Villa.
The players, many of whom are clearly not bothered and/or not good enough.
Someone at the top needs to get a grip of this pretty quickly, because it is going to continue to get worse for a while yet.
Another thing I'm worried about, this "there are three teams worse than us" makes us sound a bit like Newcastle fans in the year they went down
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I think that's the main problem at the moment villafirst. The decision making from Delph, banan and albrighton was pretty poor. Delphs first thought always seems to be to slide tackle. You can forgive it somewhat when it is the kids making the wrong decisions with which pass to make, as that will come with experience, but when it's the simple stuff your patients does wear thin.
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41 quid, froze my bollocks off to watch a bunch of miillionaires struggle to even go through the motions. Very little movement, as soon as a player releases the ball he stands still and the receiving player is left with few options. First half wasn't too bad despite conceding twice, but the second half was as abject a performance as I've seen from a Villa team in my 45 years of watching. Really really woeful, and you know it's bad when your own crowd are giving you ironic cheers when you manage to string three passes together, and chant "what the fucking hell was that" at an attempted attack that ends in an aimless hoof. We are an embarrassment at the moment.
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There are more than 3 teams worse than us.
We appear intimidated against the top sides but we'll pick up enough points elsewhere to bobble along in mid table.
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Can't the club get anything right. Bent is paid millions and has tons of free time for shopping. The least he could do is be in Trinity to watch the match. Rudderless.
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Everyone is to blame.
The chairman for making a baffling appointment which sapped the goodwill from the support, for appointing the clueless Faulkner, and also for slamming on the spending brakes so rapidly.
The manager for almost half a season of shit, negative anti-football dross, which is frankly an embarassment to Aston Villa.
The players, many of whom are clearly not bothered and/or not good enough.
Someone at the top needs to get a grip of this pretty quickly, because it is going to continue to get worse for a while yet.
Another thing I'm worried about, this "there are three teams worse than us" makes us sound a bit like Newcastle fans in the year they went down
Spot on paulie.
If I thought it was just the manager, I could at least have the hope that were he to be removed we'd be ok.
Instead, we seem to have engineered ourselves the perfect storm of having a shit board, shit players on great money, and a shit manager who's about as popular as, well, as popular as a ginger bluenose.
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I thought we were fairly decent in the first half, other than ridiculous goals from set pieces. Again. But we passed it reasonably well and created a few chances. I certainly don't think Liverpool were two goals better than us at half time.
And then we just fell apart. I don't know how it was they didn't score another couple, but there were so many mis-placed passes I couldn't work out if it was embarassing or actually funny - probably both! I won't say we lacked attacking intent, but we did lack any real impetusor drive. Good player though he is, Petrov isn't that kind of captain to drag his team back into a game by giving out a few tirades on the pitch. And that's what I'm coming to see from AM's Villa:- a strangely passionless side.
We'll still float around mid-table for the rest of the season as we have enough decent players to do so, but everyone at the club seems to be in cruise mode, from the chairman down, as the bar is being set too low with a mid table finish. Say what you like about him, but under MON we we always striving to do better. That's what we need right now.
Sorry mate, but our passing was simply atrocious - the amount of passes straight to a Liverpool player or into touch was a joke! These guys are earning 40-50k a week to 'play' like that! A disgrace. Root and branch change is needed I'm afraid.
I fully agree and that's what I said in the post you quoted in fact. I guess you're therefore disagreeing with my comment about it being better in the first half? Fair enough if you are - it's just an opinion!
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I could talk about the performance more but won't. I did however watch highlights of Sunderland knocking the ball around and having a go at Spurs this morning. Hmm.
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I did enjoy the Heskey shuffle though!
he got £50,000 for that
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I could talk about the performance more but won't. I did however watch highlights of Sunderland knocking the ball around and having a go at Spurs this morning. Hmm.
Stoke beat them and Sunderland give them a game, but they're out of our league, there's no point trying.
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If I thought it was just the manager, I could at least have the hope that were he to be removed we'd be ok.
That is the scary thing
If we appointed a new manager tomorrow, I dread to think who they'd choose.
Randy's main criteria seem to be good talker and PL experience, so it'd probably be Gary Neville.
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Haven't seen too much football this season but the English game must be in dire trouble if there really are 3 teams worse than Villa. From the little i've seen of Wigan they don't appear to be worse than Villa when it comes to passing a ball to a team mate and movement off the ball, there are far too many championship at best players in the Villa side, a Leeds supporting mate always asks me 'what the fuck have Villa done to Delph?'.
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If I thought it was just the manager, I could at least have the hope that were he to be removed we'd be ok.
That is the scary thing
If we appointed a new manager tomorrow, I dread to think who they'd choose.
Randy's main criteria seem to be good talker and PL experience, so it'd probably be Gary Neville.
I'd fucking take that, right now.
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If they sack the manager we would end up with someone stupid like Joe Royal.
Fuck knows where we go from here.
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I managed to miss the first 15 minutes but unfortunately not the next 30. I realised at half time there were better things to do than make myself miserible, so I switched it off and forgot all about the result. It didn't cheer me up though, what would having watched that gutless attempt at football. Absolutely clueless.
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After a shit day I went the pub to cheer myself up. For my troubles some twat decided, for no reason, to punch me. I am now covered in blood and have a broken nose. What a brilliant day.
That is utterly shit and completely uncalled for. There really are some total wankers out there. Best wishes on your recovery cd.
Cheers mate. I think I will be ok my nose is fairly straight so hopefully I won't further damage my already poor looks! I think the landlord knows the person who did it. I have given my details to the police and hopefully they will get the bastard and I will get some compensation off the twat.
Very sorry to hear this, Chris. Hope you're ok
Cheers Frank. Yeah don't think it is as bad as first feared, maybe just badly swollen rather than broken.
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I think with a new manager and a new set up Delph would return to and exeed his Leeds promise.
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I'm getting so angry with the lack of nous, effort and tactics (apart from giving the ball to the other team and then not closing them down), that I just can't seem to summon up the strength to be bothered.
I don't think I've ever felt this way about Villa, watching us is like having a vasectomy (painful, uncomfortable, while asking yourself, why the fuck am I putting myself through this?).
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I think with a new manager and a new set up Delph would return to and exeed his Leeds promise.
Regardless of who managed us is not going to have any bearing on how Delph attempts to control a ball or if on the occasion he might manage that how he then passes that ball to one of his own players.
He's simply not good enough and never was. Two divisions below is about his level.
We've been conned.