Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Match Threads & Player Ratings => Topic started by: PeterWithesShin on August 16, 2012, 04:33:32 PM
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Available Saturday evening.
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Well, that was shit. Very disappointing.
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Poor.
New forward options required ASAP.
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I reckon that will be the worst we play all season.
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I'm not sure what I expected today, but it wasn't this.
In 90 minutes, all of my optimism for the new season has faded. What a load of shit. It's like nothing has changed.
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same old, same old...
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Bollocks.
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Oh well serious work to be done in terms of transfers and tactics. However it's the first day and I shalln't despair quite yet.
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Dreadful.
Passed it efficiently for 30 minutes, spent the next 15 under the cosh. Conceded. Second half, stopped passing it totally.
No attacking threat, no urgency whatsoever, and no idea of what to do to get the ball to Darren Bent.
It is only our first game of the season, but really, the squad is nothing like strong enough. Lerner is going to have to put his hand in his pocket, because we saw our weaknesses made very plain today, against a shit promoted side.
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Same shit different season.
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That was completely pants. No penetration or threat at all - against West Ham ffs. Didn't seem any sense of urgency - even at the end passing back instead of pressing forward. Truth is we could have lost by more. Worrying
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Woeful and very worrying.
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Crap. I'm hoping it can only get better, but Randy has to get serious about investing in us - he's had his wake-up call but he's pressed the snooze button.
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Well no pressure of protecting our unbeaten record going in to xmas!
Anyway still lot of work to do and part of the learning process about the team for Paul Lambert.
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I'm not sure what I expected today, but it wasn't this.
In 90 minutes, all of my optimism for the new season has faded. What a load of shit. It's like nothing has changed.
This.
Utter gash.
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Disappointing. Knocked the ball around well in spells but more cutting edge definitely needed.
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From the limited updates I could access it sounded like I am better off staying where I am in the Canaries.
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Marvellous. It's like TSM never went away! Hang on, he didn't.
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Disappointing performance against a side that will have to scrap for every point this season. We made it too easy for them.
What the hell people see in Stephen Ireland, I just don't know.
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I reckon that will be the worst we play all season.
You'd hope so.
On that evidence, nothing has changed since last season.
You could easily have thought McCatpiss was still managing the side.
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Nash not here yet?
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You can see how he wants us to keep the ball and pass it around but there was just no movement off the ball to create space.
The three he has purchased look composed on the ball but we are in desperate need of some more quality.
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I thought we started quite nicely in the first 15 mins or so and had some neat play in the centre of the park without really creating any chances. Progressively got slower and deeper as the match went on. Very disappointed in the end. It really has to get better than that. Why did we not up the tempo in the second half? A lot of work to do before the transfer window closes....
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I had been looking forward to Match of the Day. :-(
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Dreadful.
Passed it efficiently for 30 minutes, spent the next 15 under the cosh. Conceded. Second half, stopped passing it totally.
No attacking threat, no urgency whatsoever, and no idea of what to do to get the ball to Darren Bent.
It is only our first game of the season, but really, the squad is nothing like strong enough. Lerner is going to have to put his hand in his pocket, because we saw our weaknesses made very plain today, against a shit promoted side.
We need at least 2, preferably 3 attacking options and a left back ASAP.
A big striker we can work off, Holt held Norwich together going forward, a creative wide man and personally I think someone with real pace like Matt Phillips.
Left back someone with an intent to get forward.
We looked a week under cooked, and I reckon will be significantly better next week.
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Lerner is going to have to put his hand in his pocket, because we saw our weaknesses made very plain today, against a shit promoted side.
Fingers crossed, but a lack of interest from him coupled with the austerity measures in place, it doesn't look good.
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Awful display. Once again we couldn't create a single chance for Bent. Would be interested to know our win percentage with Delph playing in central midfield, I can't remember us getting a point with him starting.
We need a left back, a winger and a striker/forward that can play close to Bent or we are going to struggle again this season. Lerner was there and hopefully he can see our obvious limitations.
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Looks very much that those slating Robbie Savage for predicting us to struggle were wrong to do so. That was piss poor indeed. Gary Gardner looks like another over hyped and over rated product of the academy, along with Bannan, Lichaj and several others. Nzogbia is a truly rubbish player and Vlaar looks like a clumsy oaf although he my settle given time. Very disappointed.
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Absolutely awful- shocked by how poor we look.
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Thought the defence looked reasonable, and of the new boys, Vlaar and El Ahmadi can be pleased with their first match. I though Holman was shite though, as were N'Zogbia and Delph. Did Bent actually touch the ball?
All in all, disappointing.
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I don't agree with all the negativity expressed on the match thread. Yes, we were weak in their half; yes, Bent had nothing all game; yes, some of the final passes were poor.
But from what I saw we will get a whole better: KEA and Vlaar got better through the game; Lowton, Baker and Delph played okay. Ireland fizzed in parts.
Holman will improve, IMO.
We let ourselves down and N'Zog particularly failed to give us a senior-player performance.
I hate playing newly-promoted sides in the first game, especially away.
I particularly dislike playing against Sam-sides - his teams are always set up to stop and bludgeon.
I am optimistic that after a slow start we will start to do rather well this season...
... on the back of one or two more signings.
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Well, its pretty difficult to make season long predictions or evaluate players, tactics and such after only one game.
So I'll just review today's performance.
It was really really poor. Nothing about us whatsoever going forward. Apart from the 1st 15 minutes ball retention not good enough and looked a bit ropey at the back at times.
West Ham will not have a game remotely as easy all season.
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I am better off staying where I am in the Canaries.
I bet something similar to that crossed Lambert's mind.
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Based on what I saw at Werder last week I am not surprised that we lost this one. The Dutch contingent will take time to adjust and the new players and formation will improve as we go on.
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Aside from the goal i thought the defense was good. The midfield was gash... nowhere... crap. And if the midfield is crap the forwards are are going to be starved, which they were.
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Thought the defence looked reasonable, and of the new boys, Vlaar and El Ahmadi can be pleased with their first match. I though Holman was shite though, as were N'Zogbia and Delph. Did Bent actually touch the ball?
All in all, disappointing.
I thought Vlaar looked like he needed to calm down a bit.
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Thought the defence looked reasonable, and of the new boys, Vlaar and El Ahmadi can be pleased with their first match. I though Holman was shite though, as were N'Zogbia and Delph. Did Bent actually touch the ball?
All in all, disappointing.
I thought Vlaar looked like he needed to calm down a bit.
He did, in the 2nd.
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Totally new system / method of play introduced and it will obviously take some time and a change of personnel for it to come to fruition. Some really encouraging signs - despite the defeat I know who I'd rather watch all season (thought West Ham were turgid - not surprisingly the new Bolton- no wonder their fans aren't happy). Lack of chances and pace a definite concern. I think we missed Gabby's pace and strength today.
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Well, its pretty difficult to make season long predictions or evaluate players, tactics and such after only one game.
So I'll just review today's performance.
It was really really poor. Nothing about us whatsoever going forward. Apart from the 1st 15 minutes ball retention not good enough and looked a bit ropey at the back at times.
West Ham will not have a game remotely as easy all season.
I wana bet they will against Norwich, QPR and Liverpool lol.
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Not really sure why everyone was expecting us to beat these. I must be one of the few that still thinks we are extremely lightweight and really not good enough. I do believe we will be playing much better football than before but still think we will struggle. Didn't expect much and got exactly that.
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Totally new system / method of play introduced and it will obviously take some time and a change of personnel for it to come to fruition. Some really encouraging signs - despite the defeat I know who I'd rather watch all season (thought West Ham were turgid - not surprisingly the new Bolton- no wonder their fans aren't happy). Lack of chances and pace a definite concern. I think we missed Gabby's pace and strength today.
Yes, I agree.
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We've won 1 of our last 17 league games. Quite a stat.
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Football continues to get less and less interesting and engaging.
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Well at least the transfer window is still open
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Awful display. Once again we couldn't create a single chance for Bent. Would be interested to know our win percentage with Delph playing in central midfield, I can't remember us getting a point with him starting.
He was playing at the start of last season when we went 9(?) unbeaten.
As for Bent, for £24m I expect a player who can scuff them in from 2 yards and play football.
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too many players that are probably not good enough for this level. A very poor West Ham side beat us without breaking stride. very worrying
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Not really sure why everyone was expecting us to beat these. I must be one of the few that still thinks we are extremely lightweight and really not good enough. I do believe we will be playing much better football than before but still think we will struggle. Didn't expect much and got exactly that.
To be honest, i don't think there's a single poster on here who thinks we have been anything like good enough for a long time.
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Oh dear. We have a terrible squad and some even worse individual players. Our £24m striker needs 6 games and our £10m star signing from last year needs a fukin rocket up his arse. This shambles is gonna take time and some money from our invisible chairman who is selling his assets. One big big fukin plus is Paul Lambert. Time and patience will be the key. This is a big ship to turn around but in Lambert we trust.
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We looked unfit and slow, and lacking in urgency, width, imagination and pace. There was some nice passing but with very little end product or penetration - reminded me of West Brazil under Tony Mowbray, and we know what happened to them.
Our movement off the ball dried up especially the last quarter hour which meant the passing game fell apart.
West Ham looked very ordinary but we barely troubled them.
Still it's early days, new players and old ones getting used to a new style, so I think we have to be patient. But it does look as if we need strengthening in several areas.
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Well.....that was a bit of a disappointment.
You could see plainly the shift in philosophy that Lambert has already instilled, and in fact our passing and retention was much improved, so that at least is a positive start. Add to that, Lowton ad El Ahmadi both looked good, and Vlaar too, although he'll need to just stay calm under pressure a little more. Holman looked a bit out of his depth, to be honest, and I can't see him being a first team regular, but you never know.
The need for a left-back is obvious, but it's the attacking options that need more thought; Bent is a brilliant finisher, but if we can't provide the service (and Holman and N'Zogbia can't, in my view), then perhaps it is worth buying, say, Kenwyne Jones to play up top as well. He can hold the ball up, let the attacking midfielders join in the attack more. We could also play a more effective 4-4-2, or at any rate with two strikers who complement each other.
Or, do we stick with the strikers we have, and spend on improving the attacking midfielders? Perhaps it's just wishful thinking to rely on Ireland to recapture the consistency of quality he showed at City. Will Albrighton and Bannan be good enough?
Either way, we need to bring in some new blood somewhere, or it will be another tough season, albeit a slightly more attractive one to watch. And maybe that's the best we should hope for, at this stage of Lambert's tenure.
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Cue panic. I thought the whole approach was much better and it just needs time to click. We were also up against one of the worst teams we could have had on the opening day, who were also awful apart from a 15 minute spell when we lost our heads.
Delph was very good, El Ahmadi showed composure, Vlaar and Clark looked like they could develop a partnership but certainly had a very poor 15 minutes, and Ireland was also promising. However, Zog looked like a rabbit in headlights, Holman looked lethargic and Bent did nothing and received nothing. Bannan needs to play, I think, and Zog needs a spell on the sidelines.
Work in progress, undoubtedly. But you can see the plan, the improvements which will benefit us long-term. By building their style carefully Swansea have ended up in a situation where they can lose their manager and keep the style going as well as they did today. Meanwhile, that manager finds that changing around a side (and changing it less than the job Lambo has) is not easy. Ozz said that he thinks it's the worst we'll play this season: I agree. Let's not panic.
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Calm down this is game 1. A bit of perspective please.
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I don't agree with all the negativity expressed on the match thread. Yes, we were weak in their half; yes, Bent had nothing all game; yes, some of the final passes were poor.
But from what I saw we will get a whole better: KEA and Vlaar got better through the game; Lowton, Baker and Delph played okay. Ireland fizzed in parts.
Holman will improve, IMO.
We let ourselves down and N'Zog particularly failed to give us a senior-player performance.
I hate playing newly-promoted sides in the first game, especially away.
I particularly dislike playing against Sam-sides - his teams are always set up to stop and bludgeon.
I am optimistic that after a slow start we will start to do rather well this season...
... on the back of one or two more signings.
I agree. The alternative doesn't bear thinking about.
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We're really lacking in quality. For me, looking at that display we're in need of 2-3(4) decent signings. We need a few reliable, experience players who've done it in the Prem.
Looking at the team, our only really reliable and experienced domestic players are Given and Bent. That aside we have a few foreign signings who need to bed in and youngsters, as well as the inconsistent and unreliable Ireland and N'Zogbia.
We lack even say a Nolan. Someone who's a midfield general and consistent. I mean he's hardly a world beater but he'll score 10+ for the Hammers this year and probably make a further 10 as well.
We could also do with a barnstorming midfielder. Someone who'll just drive forward and bring the team with him. Delph and El Ahmadi are tidy players, decent with the ball but they not the sort who'll make bursting runs and get us on the front foot.
For me we still need:
LB
CB (To compete with Clark)
CM
WINGER
STRIKER (target man or a Bergkamp type)
Playing without width isn't gonna work. Certainly not for us. We need some pace and we need to use it. If no one's going to support Bent from midfield then he needs a decent strike partner. So we need another experienced option to compete with Gab.
Ship out N'Zogbia. It's time to cut our losses.
In all honesty without that lot I think we could struggle. We'll struggle away from home in all honesty. The question will be how effective we'll be at home. If we still can't score goals at home we'll be in serious danger again.
That said, for me Lambert will get us playing better. He's the man for the task but it might take a few years. We could seriously do with outlaying 20 million because we've lost far too much quality in the last 2 seasons. Randy's playing a dangerous game.
If we have to go into too many games with a bench like today then I'm a worried man.
Still Liverpool got twatted today, so it's not too bad! Ha ha!
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frightening really today against another dire team. thankfully it happened with 2 weeks left of the transfer window. Given was decent. Lowton started ok but looked a league 1 player in the second half. Vlaar was muck in the first half, improved in the second a bit but brainless at time. Clark made some rash decision and I'd like to see him push forward with the ball a bit more. Baker was probably our best player but doesnt offer anything with the ball. El Ahmadi was excellent in the first half but died out of it in the second. Delph isnt good enough at this level. Nzogbia and Holman both diabolical. Ireland some decent flashes but he has no heart. Bent might aswell not have been playing. To make matters worse, the three lads that came on had zero impact. Gardner in particular had a shocking cameo.
I dont know what Lambert can do but we need a far better player next to El Ahmadi in midfield. I dont know is it worth considering trading Nzogbia already. First game of the season but he just looked as bad as he did consistently last season today. Ireland has plenty of talent but no heart. Never does he look to get beyond Bent or receive the ball in a place where he might get a kick. A highlights player really.
For a new manager, you expect some kind of impact but today was pretty much a continuation of last seasons shambles. New players needed fast.
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Too many average players and we still haven't replaced Petrov with a leader on the pitch. If you're going to play so narrow down the middle of the pitch, you might as well flog Darren Bent and strengthen the side with 2 or 3 players who are going give the opposition something to worry about.
Too nice and too easy to play against. We need some scary and vocal characters to get us going.
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Cue panic. I thought the whole approach was much better and it just needs time to click. We were also up against one of the worst teams we could have had on the opening day, who were also awful apart from a 15 minute spell when we lost our heads.
Delph was very good, El Ahmadi showed composure, Vlaar and Clark looked like they could develop a partnership but certainly had a very poor 15 minutes, and Ireland was also promising. However, Zog looked like a rabbit in headlights, Holman looked lethargic and Bent did nothing and received nothing. Bannan needs to play, I think, and Zog needs a spell on the sidelines.
Work in progress, undoubtedly. But you can see the plan, the improvements which will benefit us long-term. By building their style carefully Swansea have ended up in a situation where they can lose their manager and keep the style going as well as they did today. Meanwhile, that manager finds that changing around a side (and changing it less than the job Lambo has) is not easy. Ozz said that he thinks it's the worst we'll play this season: I agree. Let's not panic.
Totally agree with this. We will get better and those passes will create goals.
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Too many average players and we still haven't replaced Petrov with a leader on the pitch.
That is a great point. He always got too much stick from the blinkered fans, but we are a different and better team when he plays.
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I dont know is it worth considering trading Nzogbia already. First game of the season but he just looked as bad as he did consistently last season today
Have to say, I defended N'Zogbia last season, but I've seen nothing in the pre-season matches, or today, to suggest that he's improved at all. If someone offered us a decent whack for him this window, and we identified a replacement, I'd take it.
He's infuriating. He worked hard enough, but when he gets the ball, he just seems to have no idea what to do with it. I don't know if he thought going to Wigan he was a big fish in a small pool, and that gave him confidence to take players on and beat them, but with us he just looks totally clueless as to what to do with the ball when he's got it.
For me, the main reason we created nothing today was that Delph and KEA were doing their job in midfield, but Holman (who I thought did absolutely nothing and looked lost) and N'Zogbia offered nothing to us going forward.
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Let's not panic, it's one game.
I thought the first 30 minutes we were pretty decent. Patient in possession on the whole, and the passing and movement was excellent. However, as soon as they got closer to Delph and even more so to El Ahmedi we struggled. They both went deeper to retrieve the ball and therefore the space between Bent and our midfield was huge. Unfortunately we carried Holman and Ireland today who in the main were anonymous. N'Zogbia I thought looked bothered and did cause problems. The substitutions were ineffective if i'm honest, Gardner and Weimann in particular.
I think today will show that we still need to pick up a couple of players and I think we will see some in the coming week or so...
No panic chaps...
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Room for improvement
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Darren Bent isn't a skipper for me. We need someone in midfield who's going to kick a few arses.
Plus where's the urgency? Sometimes I wished we'd just bung it forward. We wasted our set pieces too much too. Then again, the delivery was piss poor when we actually did play it in the box.
Hate saying it too. We actually could have done with Heskey today. There, I said it. (Dons helmet, ducks for cover).
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Well that was like playing with 10 men. We cannot accommodate Bent IMO.
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Hmmmmmm.
Thought we would struggle at free kicks and corners, and so it proved.After an impressive 25 mins, we lost control of the game, lost a goal, and then never really looked like getting back into the game.
For me, Clark, GG and Bannan are going to struggle at this level, as is Lowton.Baker is not a LB, and he needs to get a midfielder to support Bent better.KLM started well, but faded greatly, Delph i thought showed enough today, what we wanted was a good winger to beat players wide, but N'Zog was playing behind Bent instead of playing wide.
Lowton sums up Villa to me.Hes ok, but not good enough quality at this level.
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Actually, although I don't know what role he plays in the dressing room and so on, I'm really not sure that Bent would be my choice as Captain, either.
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Allardyce is all about stopping the opposition and finding a (usually shite) goal from somewhere. It worked for him today. That's hardly a first, especially against us.
I am not overly downhearted. August to mid September is always silly season for results and performances.
I wouldn't agree that it's just more of the same old. The intent to play is there, we need to work on execution. It is going to take time.
Today should have been abut letting West Ham work at stopping us play, and clean up when the gaps appear late in the game. Conceding just before half time was the last thing we wanted.
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It's going to take time for Lambert's plan to start showing some return but saying that a sense of urgency doesn't need any planning. That was totally lacking today.
I thought Vlaar looked composed 2nd half.
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Plus where's the urgency?
Especially in the last few minutes. That free kick in stoppage time, we had nothing to lose, and didn't even get it in to the box. It was like they were settling for a 1-0 loss.
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Darren Bent isn't a skipper for me. We need someone in midfield who's going to kick a few arses.
Plus where's the urgency? Sometimes I wished we'd just bung it forward. We wasted our set pieces too much too. Then again, the delivery was piss poor when we actually did play it in the box.
Hate saying it too. We actually could have done with Heskey today. There, I said it. (Dons helmet, ducks for cover).
Look, this is a totally reactionary post. 'Just bung[ing] it forward' to Heskey is all we did last season. It hasn't clicked yet, but Lambert himself said yesterday it'll need time. The signs of improvement are there - we just need to be a little more patient.
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For me, the main reason we created nothing today was that Delph and KEA were doing their job in midfield, but Holman (who I thought did absolutely nothing and looked lost) and N'Zogbia offered nothing to us going forward.
We had Ireland (who worked hard) trying to thread almost impossible balls through to Bent...and that seemed to be it.
What concerned me most was that there seemed to be no Plan B when that clearly wasn't working. I guess the ineffectual nature of N'Zogbisa and Holman limited the Plan Bness, bur even so that was disappointing.
Defence looked OK, the centre of midfield was OK, and erm, um...
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Slightly disappointed and annoyed. No attacking threat going forward. No penetration with the ball. Didn't create chances in front of goal. The front line isolated with the supporting cast not providing or even at least being made available to get into good positions. We looked like we lacked togetherness not knowing what we should be doing as a team. Silly fouls given away. Looked too relaxed out there not playing like this is the opening game of the season. A lackluster performance against a team who are promoted and didn't look anything special out there but it just looked easy for them because we looked so poor, our own downfalls in the game is why we lost, we created our own problems in this game and we didn't know how to adapt or change. After 20 minutes in the first half we just shut off. Not encouraging to see your team start the season like that.
Blurgh.
One positive however, although it doesn't mean much when you've lost... passing retention and possession has already improved in just one game. Just look at the stats. Its only one game I know but it seems like Lambert wants us to pass the ball better and play the possession game - its encouraging if he wants us to play in that particular way but what we do with the ball needs to count... possession doesn't win you football games.
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Give them five games and if its still as bad as that second half today we really will have problems.
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Bit of an anti-climax, still could be worse. Could be liverpool, QPR, or Norwich.
Agreed.
Its still the first game of the season, heres hoping we can improve and also make so signings that our going to benefit this team because we do still need to make a couple more obvious signings.
Just got to think positive, put this game behind us and move on.
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What a let down that was.
Time to spend,spend,spend Mr Lerner. I really couldn't hack another season like the last two.
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I never expected any other result today. I did not expect to see us play particularly well today. Far too much damage has been done by the triple whammy of the manner of O'Neill's departure and the horrendous follow up to that blow by the appointment of a sick man and an incompetent man in quick succession. The team has to be rebuilt from the bottom up. Lambert is no miracle worker but at least he knows what he wants. If the players we have cannot deliver what he wants and what we want they have to be shipped out and replaced by players who can whether it is Darren Bent or Gary Gardner, Stephen Ireland or Charles N'Zogbia. The game today showed us where we are and the magnitude of the task ahead.
We have a manager who can turn things around but he must have the financila backing of the owner.
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In addition to the patience of both the board, and supporters.
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A disappointing result but I'm not wetting myself just yet. Once Hutton and Warnock finally toddle off and we get a couple of players in then we'll be fine.
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I'll also point out we unbeaten for about the first 6 games last year, so I'm not too despondent at this stage.
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Lamberts no mug,he'll soon realise what needs sorting out,who needs dropping,who needs bringing in. This season is gonna be a mixture of results and performances.especially when the team is packed with young players and players with no experience in England.
None of us obviously like losing,but we need to relax a little and let the guy get on with his job,i'm sure there will be 2 or 3 more additions before Sept which will help the manager a great deal.
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I'm not massively disappointed with the defeat. More the manner of it. West Ham won't get a much easier 3 points all season. We seemed incapable of upping the pace or our game in the second half and never really looked like creating a decent chance never mind scoring. I'd hoped to have seen the last of that. Hopefully a one off but that did disappoint me.
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I never expected any other result today. I did not expect to see us play particularly well today. Far too much damage has been done by the triple whammy of the manner of O'Neill's departure and the horrendous follow up to that blow by the appointment of a sick man and an incompetent man in quick succession. The team has to be rebuilt from the bottom up. Lambert is no miracle worker but at least he knows what he wants. If the players we have cannot deliver what he wants and what we want they have to be shipped out and replaced by players who can whether it is Darren Bent or Gary Gardner, Stephen Ireland or Charles N'Zogbia. The game today showed us where we are and the magnitude of the task ahead.
We have a manager who can turn things around but he must have the financila backing of the owner.
surely we can forget about O'Neill now and try and move on?
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Pretty much as I expected. You can't just throw a load of players together under a new manager and a different system and expect it all to click immediately. Those trying to draw sweeping conclusions on individuals or systems based on that are being hugely premature, in the same way a few others were after pre-season.
As the players get used to each other and the way they are being asked to play hopefully things will improve, having Gabby, Dunne and Albrighton available will also help but I think it's going to take time.
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I'm not massively disappointed with the defeat. More the manner of it. West Ham won't get a much easier 3 points all season. We seemed incapable of upping the pace or our game in the second half and never really looked like creating a decent chance never mind scoring. I'd hoped to have seen the last of that. Hopefully a one off but that did disappoint me.
Thing is, if there's a way to be crap, then the way we did it today was better as a platform. Last season we'd just get the ball, whack it brainlessly up top and lose it. Today we kept the ball and probed impotently - but at least we had the ball, a better long-term sign.
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I dont know is it worth considering trading Nzogbia already. First game of the season but he just looked as bad as he did consistently last season today
Have to say, I defended N'Zogbia last season, but I've seen nothing in the pre-season matches, or today, to suggest that he's improved at all. If someone offered us a decent whack for him this window, and we identified a replacement, I'd take it.
He's infuriating. He worked hard enough, but when he gets the ball, he just seems to have no idea what to do with it. I don't know if he thought going to Wigan he was a big fish in a small pool, and that gave him confidence to take players on and beat them, but with us he just looks totally clueless as to what to do with the ball when he's got it.
For me, the main reason we created nothing today was that Delph and KEA were doing their job in midfield, but Holman (who I thought did absolutely nothing and looked lost) and N'Zogbia offered nothing to us going forward.
N'Zogbia is up there with Curtis Davies as an appalling way to spend £10m
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I dont know is it worth considering trading Nzogbia already. First game of the season but he just looked as bad as he did consistently last season today
Have to say, I defended N'Zogbia last season, but I've seen nothing in the pre-season matches, or today, to suggest that he's improved at all. If someone offered us a decent whack for him this window, and we identified a replacement, I'd take it.
He's infuriating. He worked hard enough, but when he gets the ball, he just seems to have no idea what to do with it. I don't know if he thought going to Wigan he was a big fish in a small pool, and that gave him confidence to take players on and beat them, but with us he just looks totally clueless as to what to do with the ball when he's got it.
For me, the main reason we created nothing today was that Delph and KEA were doing their job in midfield, but Holman (who I thought did absolutely nothing and looked lost) and N'Zogbia offered nothing to us going forward.
N'Zogbia is up there with Curtis Davies as an appalling way to spend £10m
I agree, and I think Bannan has to play instead next week.
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I'm not massively disappointed with the defeat. More the manner of it. West Ham won't get a much easier 3 points all season. We seemed incapable of upping the pace or our game in the second half and never really looked like creating a decent chance never mind scoring. I'd hoped to have seen the last of that. Hopefully a one off but that did disappoint me.
Thing is, if there's a way to be crap, then the way we did it today was better as a platform. Last season we'd just get the ball, whack it brainlessly up top and lose it. Today we kept the ball and probed impotently - but at least we had the ball, a better long-term sign.
I think drawing any firm conclusions, good or bad, from one performance is futile.
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Lamberts no mug,he'll soon realise what needs sorting out,who needs dropping,who needs bringing in. This season is gonna be a mixture of results and performances.especially when the team is packed with young players and players with no experience in England
None of us obviously like losing,but we need to relax a little and let the guy get on with his job,i'm sure there will be 2 or 3 more additions before Sept which will help the manager a great deal.
If the board are not willing to spalsh big cash and are still worried about salaries, it doesnt matter who our manager is, based on the squad and fire power up front we wont be too much different to last year unfortunately
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I dont know is it worth considering trading Nzogbia already. First game of the season but he just looked as bad as he did consistently last season today
Have to say, I defended N'Zogbia last season, but I've seen nothing in the pre-season matches, or today, to suggest that he's improved at all. If someone offered us a decent whack for him this window, and we identified a replacement, I'd take it.
He's infuriating. He worked hard enough, but when he gets the ball, he just seems to have no idea what to do with it. I don't know if he thought going to Wigan he was a big fish in a small pool, and that gave him confidence to take players on and beat them, but with us he just looks totally clueless as to what to do with the ball when he's got it.
For me, the main reason we created nothing today was that Delph and KEA were doing their job in midfield, but Holman (who I thought did absolutely nothing and looked lost) and N'Zogbia offered nothing to us going forward.
N'Zogbia is up there with Curtis Davies as an appalling way to spend £10m
Kightly £1.5m already matched Nzogbia for his villa career. Should have told fat Whelan to fuck off.
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I'm not massively disappointed with the defeat. More the manner of it. West Ham won't get a much easier 3 points all season. We seemed incapable of upping the pace or our game in the second half and never really looked like creating a decent chance never mind scoring. I'd hoped to have seen the last of that. Hopefully a one off but that did disappoint me.
Thing is, if there's a way to be crap, then the way we did it today was better as a platform. Last season we'd just get the ball, whack it brainlessly up top and lose it. Today we kept the ball and probed impotently - but at least we had the ball, a better long-term sign.
My point was more about how we never looked like we were trying to up things and get an equaliser as the game wore on rather than passing it ok. I was happy with the opening 20 odd minutes even though it led nowhere. But once we were behind and especially the last 20 minutes or so we didn't seem to try anything different,. As Beelzebub said late in the game, it was as though we were defending a lead rather than trying to get back into it.
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I'm not massively disappointed with the defeat. More the manner of it. West Ham won't get a much easier 3 points all season. We seemed incapable of upping the pace or our game in the second half and never really looked like creating a decent chance never mind scoring. I'd hoped to have seen the last of that. Hopefully a one off but that did disappoint me.
Thing is, if there's a way to be crap, then the way we did it today was better as a platform. Last season we'd just get the ball, whack it brainlessly up top and lose it. Today we kept the ball and probed impotently - but at least we had the ball, a better long-term sign.
I think drawing any firm conclusions, good or bad, from one performance is futile.
If you're trying to deny that we're going for a more possession-based approach, then you haven't just not watched the games, you haven't heard anything Lambert or the players have said in pre-season. That is clearly the plan.
PWS, that's true, but we kept our calm and I'd rather they did that than lost their heads. It was losing their heads which lead to the awful 15 minute spell which, ultimately, was our downfall.
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I've just got in from work, aside from the match in general, (I'm getting the gist of how poor we were) Can someone please tell me how Lowton, Vlaar, and El Ahmadi got on?
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Lamberts no mug,he'll soon realise what needs sorting out,who needs dropping,who needs bringing in. This season is gonna be a mixture of results and performances.especially when the team is packed with young players and players with no experience in England
None of us obviously like losing,but we need to relax a little and let the guy get on with his job,i'm sure there will be 2 or 3 more additions before Sept which will help the manager a great deal.
If the board are not willing to spalsh big cash and are still worried about salaries, it doesnt matter who our manager is, based on the squad and fire power up front we wont be too much different to last year unfortunately
Well he got a lot out of an inferior squad to ours last season,so Im not shitting my pants just yet.
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I'm not massively disappointed with the defeat. More the manner of it. West Ham won't get a much easier 3 points all season. We seemed incapable of upping the pace or our game in the second half and never really looked like creating a decent chance never mind scoring. I'd hoped to have seen the last of that. Hopefully a one off but that did disappoint me.
Thing is, if there's a way to be crap, then the way we did it today was better as a platform. Last season we'd just get the ball, whack it brainlessly up top and lose it. Today we kept the ball and probed impotently - but at least we had the ball, a better long-term sign.
My point was more about how we never looked like we were trying to up things and get an equaliser as the game wore on rather than passing it ok. I was happy with the opening 20 odd minutes even though it led nowhere. But once we were behind and especially the last 20 minutes or so we didn't seem to try anything different,. As Beelzebub said late in the game, it was as though we were defending a lead rather than trying to get back into it.
I agree, you could clearly see what the plan was. Instead of hoofers like Dunne and Collins we had Vlaar and Clarke trying to play it out of defence. Ditto with Lowton instead of Hutton. The main problem is that N'Zogbia and Holman were so bad at doing the attacking side of things. Ireland started brightly but faded, meaning that Bent was majorly isolated. The trouble is, I just can't see a coherent attacking team in the players we have available.
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I've just got in from work, aside from the match in general, (I'm getting the gist of how poor we were) Can someone please tell me how Lowton, Vlaar, and El Ahmadi got on?
Lowton - did OK, lots of energy, final ball was quite often a bit rubbish, but didn't help by having a really poor winger in front of him.
Vlaar - for the first half was so so, in that he looked like a kid on too much Sunny D, but once he settled down second half he looked very composed and tough as old boots.
El Ahmadi - very neat and composed, easily our best midfielder today.
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I dont know is it worth considering trading Nzogbia already. First game of the season but he just looked as bad as he did consistently last season today
Have to say, I defended N'Zogbia last season, but I've seen nothing in the pre-season matches, or today, to suggest that he's improved at all. If someone offered us a decent whack for him this window, and we identified a replacement, I'd take it.
He's infuriating. He worked hard enough, but when he gets the ball, he just seems to have no idea what to do with it. I don't know if he thought going to Wigan he was a big fish in a small pool, and that gave him confidence to take players on and beat them, but with us he just looks totally clueless as to what to do with the ball when he's got it.
For me, the main reason we created nothing today was that Delph and KEA were doing their job in midfield, but Holman (who I thought did absolutely nothing and looked lost) and N'Zogbia offered nothing to us going forward.
N'Zogbia is up there with Curtis Davies as an appalling way to spend £10m
You're judging him based off playing under a manager who hates any sort of creativity or creative players and one game of the new season under a new manager, new style etc...
I've calmed down a little now and the posts above me are right, we can't just expect to change just like that over night into how we want to. We need to allow time for the team to gel and get used to play with each other in a new system under a new manager. Although a lot of fans have been sick of hearing the word "patience" over the last 2 seasons we really need to be. Put this game behind us now, and despite how bad we played at least look at how possession and passing retention has improved - its just what we do with the ball that should be looked at but that needs time to get where we want, it won't happen over night.
And its very early days yet but I'm going to watch Vlaar more closely. He could be a prominent leader of team from the back, who knows... but he does seem to have the attitude of someone we need in defence. We need a figurehead or leader like Laursen was for the team.
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Despite being a bit shaky in the first half, I really like the look of Vlaar for the long term.
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You cannot forget O'Neill like you cannot forget Doug Ellis or Ron Saunders. Martin O'Neill's departure and the manner of it completely bounced our board and our owner into an ill thought through replacement for him. When that chicken came home to roost an even worse thought through replacement was appointed. That administrative car crash is what eventually put Paul Lambert in the dug out today watching the dog's breakfast he has inherited.
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I haven't seen the game but this time last season, having watched us against Fulham, I knew exactly what was going to happen.
This time the future is a lot less certain and bearing in mind the most optimistic amongst us can't see beyond a mid table finish, we are going to play shit and loose games at times, and today was one of those times.
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I'm not massively disappointed with the defeat. More the manner of it. West Ham won't get a much easier 3 points all season. We seemed incapable of upping the pace or our game in the second half and never really looked like creating a decent chance never mind scoring. I'd hoped to have seen the last of that. Hopefully a one off but that did disappoint me.
Thing is, if there's a way to be crap, then the way we did it today was better as a platform. Last season we'd just get the ball, whack it brainlessly up top and lose it. Today we kept the ball and probed impotently - but at least we had the ball, a better long-term sign.
I think drawing any firm conclusions, good or bad, from one performance is futile.
If you're trying to deny that we're going for a more possession-based approach, then you haven't just not watched the games, you haven't heard anything Lambert or the players have said in pre-season. That is clearly the plan.
PWS, that's true, but we kept our calm and I'd rather they did that than lost their heads. It was losing their heads which lead to the awful 15 minute spell which, ultimately, was our downfall.
I think you've misunderstood my point.
The Baggies went down under Mowbray trying to play a possession based game, so that in itself isn't enough. We were very poor for long periods today and trying to claim that it is better or worse than anything else is a futile exercise. We have to wait and see how things develop and that applies to both sides of the debate.
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I'm disappointed by the result but I can see what the manager is trying to do. As always, it's early days for every club in the Premier League at this time of year and its far too early to reach any solid conclusions about anything. The manager was on about backing the young players and being patient this season and I think three more solid signings and plenty of patience will see us through to a good season.
I don't know why, but I feel as though if we reverted to three centre halves (like when GT had McGrath, Mountfield and Kent Nielsen at the back) we would be a lot more solid as a team.
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I'm not massively disappointed with the defeat. More the manner of it. West Ham won't get a much easier 3 points all season. We seemed incapable of upping the pace or our game in the second half and never really looked like creating a decent chance never mind scoring. I'd hoped to have seen the last of that. Hopefully a one off but that did disappoint me.
Thing is, if there's a way to be crap, then the way we did it today was better as a platform. Last season we'd just get the ball, whack it brainlessly up top and lose it. Today we kept the ball and probed impotently - but at least we had the ball, a better long-term sign.
I think drawing any firm conclusions, good or bad, from one performance is futile.
If you're trying to deny that we're going for a more possession-based approach, then you haven't just not watched the games, you haven't heard anything Lambert or the players have said in pre-season. That is clearly the plan.
PWS, that's true, but we kept our calm and I'd rather they did that than lost their heads. It was losing their heads which lead to the awful 15 minute spell which, ultimately, was our downfall.
I think you've misunderstood my point.
The Baggies went down under Mowbray trying to play a possession based game, so that in itself isn't enough. We were very poor for long periods today and trying to claim that it is better or worse than anything else is a futile exercise. We have to wait and see how things develop and that applies to both sides of the debate.
I see, fair enough, apologies. As for that specific point about Mowbray, he had previous for that sort of neat but ineffective football, whereas Lambert has previous for being effective and easy on the eye. For that reason alone, pretty much, I remain optimistic.
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Ah well, these things happen. I'd rather have lost 1-0 to West Ham and look forward to a season with Lambert in charge to drawing 0-0 with Fulham and having a season of McLeish to endure. Onwards and upwards.
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I'm not going to panic yet. We knocked it around nicely and it's clear how Lambert wants us to play. As others have said, we had simply no penetration when going forward and the only way we tried to get it to Bent was by putting a ball over the top, which was always blocked by the head of Collins or Tomkins.
We lost the physical battle in the middle of the park and we were worryingly short of wide options. N'Zogbia was frustrating again and I thought Holman struggled to make much of an impression before being subbed.
The goal was bizarre. I haven't seen a replay, but I'm going to assume it was clearly onside for the referee to over rule the linesman in the way that he did. Overall I thought it was a game that neither side deserved to win. We need to do better.
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Im far more worried by the performance today than by the result - we looked a very poor side today .
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Norwich look fucked without Lambert. We have have got ourselves a good manager.
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Agree with the point Chris - Liverpool had something like 88% possession at one point against the Boggies today... You have to do something with it!
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The main disappointment for me was the apparent lack of urgency, especially in the last 15 minutes when you would expect the losing side to give it a go. It is all very well having possession and passing the ball sweetly around but this needs to be done at a greater pace than we bothered to do.
Other disappointments for me was the full backs not getting forward enough into the space down the flanks. OK I appreciate Baker is not a genuine full back but I was under the impression that Lowton was more an attacking than defending full back.
The other point was how poor was Gary Gardner for his short stint? I think he needs a season long loan to see if he can make the transition up from youth football to league level.
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That was as bad as anything I saw last season tbh, woeful.
If Lowton is going to be our attacking fullback, he really needs to improve the quality of his crossing.
Bent once again feeding on scraps.
Very disappointed and we need to see much better against Everton.
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At this point I'm just terrified of people not giving Lambert a chance, as Liverpool are bound to do with Rodgers.
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Bloody hell ,a summers worth of optimism gone in 90 mins,but hopefully im being too hasty
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On a positive note, the live stream I watched it on which I had to find for myself and which I cant tell anybody about was complete shite so consequently I probably only saw half the game.
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Started brightly....worrying end. I thought we would have attacked more.
Was Holman trying too hard or something?
I'd get in another attacking player before the window cloes.
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I'm disappointed we never really posed a threat today we need to get somebody who can cross a ball in because if we don't we will struggle again Let's just hop PL will go out a buy a player or two before the window closes who can cross a ball from out wide.
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Didn't watch it, shame about the result. I'll watch MOTD and see. Stats wise it sounds like we played alright, but lacked any cutting edge. Hopefully Lambo can address that with a couple of new signings - and quite soon. A new striker would be lovely.
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For me its not a striker we need, never have in my opinion...its the flanks all day for me. We had one winger on the pitch today and N'Zog is hit or miss for me, mostly miss since he has joined. Albrighton I kinda feel the same about so the need of a supply line from out wide is a must as it was plain to see we didnt have any outlet on either side.
Dyer, Sinclair will never come to Villa at this present time, we don't have the funds...but maybe Phillips from Blackpool etc could be worth a punt.
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Good atmosphere at the game. We tried to pass it for 30 minutes. Got undone by a classic Allardyce style of play. Didn't appear to have a plan B.
Too slow in the middle, too many sideways passes. Not enough incision.
But Nigel Kennedy was wearing a hi-viz jacket, so not all doom and tragedy.
(http://www.logicalcreative.co.uk/temp/nige.jpeg)
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Trouble is I don't think we can expect gamechanging signings in the next fortnight as no one is relieving us of our flops. Let's pray that MON helps us out in the coming days.
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Didn't watch it, shame about the result. I'll watch MOTD and see. Stats wise it sounds like we played alright, but lacked any cutting edge. Hopefully Lambo can address that with a couple of new signings - and quite soon. A new striker would be lovely.
You & we will watch MOTD to see 90 seconds of highlights as the last game shown, badly edited by a Man U supporting BBC contract editor wanting to nip home early for a kebab, movie, beer and BJ. The only conclusions we will be able to draw reflect licence fee funded Salford-based dossers and not Villa's performance.
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We are third from last on match of the day, reading game and Arsenal game are last.
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Bloody hell the BBC bashing has started early this season. After their coverage of the Olympics I can't say I'm too bothered about what they do on MOTD but then again I very rarely watch it.
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In fairness this match deserves to be on near the end of MOTD.
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Why do people watch MOTD? It's fucking shite and it has unbearable people on that show.
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That was very poor, as bad as anything we saw last season. We may have tried to pass it but it's not hard to record great stats when most of the passes are 10yards and on the edge of your own box. Thought the midfield were too deep, offered no support to Bent & lacked penetration. Much to ponder and improve, but that wasn't pretty. Thought the subs didn't add up and we looked completely shapeless and lacked urgency. There comes a stage when you have to be direct when you're losing with 10mins to go. We were still fannying in injury time.
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Why do people watch MOTD? It's fucking shite and it has unbearable people on that show.
Because some people don't want to give money to Sky so it's the easiest way to watch highlights of the days games?
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Why do people watch MOTD? It's fucking shite and it has unbearable people on that show.
Because some people don't want to give money to Sky so it's the easiest way to watch highlights of the days games?
Nail on the head.
Plus, I actually like Lineker, Shearer, and Hanson.
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I'm sure that Lambert will have taken that in. He knows this isn't a magic wand situation where he just shows up and everything is wonderful. There's work to be done over a period of time. Our weakness up front remains the same. If we can't get it to Bent then we struggle to create chances in other ways. That's why need a forward that offers us something different. Who isn't afraid to run at players and shoot even if sometimes it doesn't make sense. For me a Defoe/Sturridge type player if not Defoe/Sturridge that offers something totally different.
It won't be built in a day, but we need to improve and I have faith we will improve. The first day of the season has never proved anything, other than reconfirming that we have a ways to go. I hope that we use up whatever budget has been assigned for the summer because we will need it.
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Why do people watch MOTD? It's fucking shite and it has unbearable people on that show.
Because some people don't want to give money to Sky so it's the easiest way to watch highlights of the days games?
Nail on the head.
Plus, I actually like Lineker, Shearer, and Hanson.
I can take them or leave them, it's easy if you don't take them seriously. Not having Sky means you adapt to what MOTD serves up.
And not having Sky means I can bitch about them destroying the game and have a clear conscience as i'm not giving them my money.
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Two words. Mark Lawrenson. I rest my case.
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I don't mind MOTD or the pundits, or has the summer watered down my feelings of them?
Actually I tell a lie, when we lose I hate MOTD and tend not too watch it if that happens.
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Why do people watch MOTD? It's fucking shite and it has unbearable people on that show.
Because some people don't want to give money to Sky so it's the easiest way to watch highlights of the days games?
Plus, I actually like Lineker, Shearer, and Hanson.
What is this I don't even...
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I don't mind MOTD or the pundits, or has the summer watered down my feelings of them?
Actually I tell a lie, when we lose I hate MOTD and tend not too watch it if that happens.
I don't usually watch it when we lose,so I virtually had a year off from it last season.
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Ah well, these things happen. I'd rather have lost 1-0 to West Ham and look forward to a season with Lambert in charge to drawing 0-0 with Fulham and having a season of McLeish to endure. Onwards and upwards.
But the performance was very bit as bad as the one at Fulham last year. If we want to avoid a relegation battle Lerner has to invest in far better players than the bargain basement ones he's bought so far this season. Also our youth team graduates like Clark, Bannan and co are simply not up to PL standard. Lerner's never ending cutbacks are going to cost us our PL status at this rate.
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Well, that was chuffing hot !!
I hate this weather, bring on February.
As for the game, I suggest that those of you that have already received the first issue of H&V for the season just read Mr Woodhall's mini-report from the Forest game. It sums up perfectly today's game as well. Loads of possession, nice passing at times but no one to stamp their authority on proceedings.
I don't like how narrow Villa are playing. Ireland, Fab and KEA were almost bumping into each other at times. When you add in Zog and Brett criss-crossing, it was far too crowded in the middle. This lead to most of the passes intended to Bent were very straight and thus overhit or easily cut out. Zog and Brett's positioning also meant that Lowton and Baker were often left exposed.
I know that its only one game but based on today, Mr Savage could be right.
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You cannot forget O'Neill like you cannot forget Doug Ellis or Ron Saunders. Martin O'Neill's departure and the manner of it completely bounced our board and our owner into an ill thought through replacement for him. When that chicken came home to roost an even worse thought through replacement was appointed. That administrative car crash is what eventually put Paul Lambert in the dug out today watching the dog's breakfast he has inherited.
agreed but old news though now i'm afraid, we've had ample time to recover, the Barcodes got relegated and finished in a top 5 spot in a shorter period of time. MON should have no bearing whatsoever on us any more - shouldn't have last season either. It's not MON's fault our Boardroom lacked any sort of plan for moving the club forward. We've a decent young Manager but a squad that is currently in the bottom 8 of Premiership squads. If we finnish 10th we'll have done well with the current squad.
If we get a half decent offer for N'Zog or Ireland we should take it as neither will take us forward, they're either not good enough or not interested enough - probably the latter. We've needed to replace both for a while.
Another season where our squad is underprepared. That's down to Randy I'm afraid.
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Defiantly needs players ..the bench today was very inexperienced offering very little when we needed to change things.Felt the system was working ok for 30 mins but Holman and N'zogbia were so ineffective we just sat deeper and deeper and there was no one running from midfield with the ball.
N'zogbia well he has had long enough and he still looks nothing like a £10 mil winger.Holman will need to improve but it's his first game and he took a wack in the week so maybe effected him.Felt also we physically couldn't handle West Ham as the game wore on.We really need some strength in midfield.
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dissapointed with the result but not the performance, wasnt perfect no where near but we did try and play some football.
disagree strongly with all those on here saying we were no different from last season, we played more passing football in the first 30 minuets than in the whole of last season put together.
we had 66% of possesion so how is that like anything last season ? your talking absolute bollocks
Given threw the ball out instead of hoofing it more today than i've seen any Villa goalie do in the last 5 seasons,
we were at least trying to work it through midfield, Ok it didnt work all the time but you could see the plan was there.
we were to narrow and tight, but hey we were playing Allardyces anti football,
WH played no football today, they had that spell after 30 mins when they scored through a series of free kicks and corners, thats there style so far do's to them , but its not football, at least we were trying to play a passing game.
i have never seen a team change the style of play so much from one season to another, its not going to happen over night, but i saw some good signs out there today,
back 4 were good and solid, better than the hoofers and cloggers of last season,
midfield were industrious and passed the ball well at times, better than anything i saw last season, Ok we were powder puff up front but that will come as the team gells together
i was luke warm toward Lambert when we appointed him, but i liked what i saw today,
not the final result but the way we were set up and the way we tried to play, i'm not easily pleased i hated everthing about last season, but today bore absolutly no resemberlance to that at all, apart from the result
the future is bright, the future is Day Glow
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West Ham away on the first day of the season was never going to be a good start to the season with a new management team and an under strength squad in transition...I was hoping at best for a draw knowing we are going to struggle to score goals with the current players, so to lose 1-0 isnt as bad as some ppl are making it out to be. In terms of performance...its almost as if the season has started too early for us and I'm sure we'll improve with more games and a few more much needed signings. If we dont make a few more decent signings to improve our goalscoring chances then it could be a long few months till the January transfer window.
edit: havent seen any of the game, but if we had 66% possession away from home then that doesnt sound like such a bad performance to me and we just need a cutting edge upfront to turn the possession into goals. If you compare that to last season where we were dominated in terms of possession then its only the shots on goal and chances created stats that we need to improve.
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If we were to go out and splash cash, our marketplace would be the one QPR have been shopping in. We aren't the most disappointed supporters tonight.
Our least effective players today were largely the ones we spent most on.
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Sky have it as 69.2% 1st half and 65.5% second half. BBC have it as 51% for the whole game. I wonder which is right and why they are so far apart? And they have different opinions of shot on and off target.
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No idea why they are so far apart.
But on viewing the game today it definitely was in the 60%+ in terms of possession. West Ham only had the ball for 5 second spells before hoofing it back to Given or Vlaar.
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Think its going to take time for everyone to settle down this season, hey it could be worse we could support QPR !!
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i took the 66% of SSN
when the match report came up and the interviews with the managers the stats appear opposite
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Well, that was chuffing hot !!
I hate this weather, bring on February.
As for the game, I suggest that those of you that have already received the first issue of H&V for the season just read Mr Woodhall's mini-report from the Forest game. It sums up perfectly today's game as well. Loads of possession, nice passing at times but no one to stamp their authority on proceedings.
I don't like how narrow Villa are playing. Ireland, Fab and KEA were almost bumping into each other at times. When you add in Zog and Brett criss-crossing, it was far too crowded in the middle. This lead to most of the passes intended to Bent were very straight and thus overhit or easily cut out. Zog and Brett's positioning also meant that Lowton and Baker were often left exposed.
I know that its only one game but based on today, Mr Savage could be right.
Based on today Liverpool, QPR and Norwich are completely fucked. I'll wager good coin on us and Liverpool being ahead of West Ham and the stripey's come the end of the season. Today wasn't good and it shows that there's much to do. I'm just glad Lambert is here and not TSM because we may as well pack our bags for the Championship if he was.
Lambert will get it right. It just won't happen immediately.
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We started out brightly but petered out - I thought our support reflected this too.
My thoughts on a few items for Mr Lambert to chew on:
We lacked physical presence in midfield today - KEA, Delph, Holman, Zog Ireland all seemed more frail than WHam's, more so as the game went on.
We lacked a cutting edge with our forward passing - plenty of pretty passing across the pitch and in our own half. We didn't get any runners behind their defence.
We lacked width and our crossing was awful. I saw that Motson on the BBC site said we had 10 crosses and not once did they reach a Villa player.
Collins looked very good and I was sad to hear boos for him. He was a limited player but generally gave everything in a Villa shirt.
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Paul Lambert was pleased with some of the football on display against West Ham - but stressed that his side must turn possession into chances in the coming weeks and months ahead.
Lambert was delighted with the quality on show, especially in the opening half-hour, but felt his team lacked a cutting edge in the final third.
He said: "I thought we started the game really well and I thought for 30 minutes we were excellent.
"But you can have all the ball you want but you've got to score.
"Some of the play, I was really happy with and some, like anything, you're not. But I can't fault the lads for effort. Their effort was excellent.
"We tried, but there wasn't much in the game.
"I thought we looked bright but we've got to turn our possession into chances.
"If we can just get a finishing touch on that then we'll be ok."
West Ham's winning goal was a controversial one, referee Mike Dean overruling his linesman's offside decision following Kevin Nolan's clinical finish.
But Lambert had no complaints after seeing a replay on the final whistle.
He continued: "I wasn't sure at the time but I've seen it on the tape and it's come off one of our lads so the referee's called it right.
"In terms of our lads reacting, the thing is it's the blink of an eye. So I can't fault them.
"They're young. We played a young team but their effort I can't fault.
"There will be mistakes like everybody else.
"There were a lot of positives to take out of it. You pick yourself up and you go again."
Lambert is confident his team will "grow together" as they bed in.
He added: "There's no hiding place. You have to win together and you have to lose together.
"I'm not one for a blame culture. If we lose, we lose together. If we win, then we win together."
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I do wonder if Darren Bent is too nice a bloke to be captain? I'd be happier if it as the concrete one to get in the players faces when needed. I'd rather Bent just concentrated on scoring goals ad not much else.
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Well a couple years ago I'm sure we stuffed the Hammers on the opening day 3-0 and look how that season turned out. We have a lot to do and I'm sure PL knows it and is working on improving it.
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I do wonder if Darren Bent is too nice a bloke to be captain? I'd be happier if it as the concrete one to get in the players faces when needed. I'd rather Bent just concentrated on scoring goals ad not much else.
I wouldn't have him as captain. I've never been a big fan of strikers as captains anyway. And certainly not one when we play like we did today who is involved so little in the game. I think Vlaar is the future captain.
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I do wonder if Darren Bent is too nice a bloke to be captain? I'd be happier if it as the concrete one to get in the players faces when needed. I'd rather Bent just concentrated on scoring goals ad not much else.
Clark seemed to be the defender doing the most motivational gestures.
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I do wonder if Darren Bent is too nice a bloke to be captain? I'd be happier if it as the concrete one to get in the players faces when needed. I'd rather Bent just concentrated on scoring goals ad not much else.
Clark seemed to be the defender doing the most motivational gestures.
I think long term he will be the captain of the club. He is maturing quite nicely and getting better as a player. Vlaar, I hope will be a very positive influence on him.
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I like what Lambert's said there and sees what we saw today.
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West Ham were more than happy for Villa to dominate possession. One up front, especially Bent was never going to be effective. They stifled the supply line, which was hopeful through balls from Ireland and there was no alternative plan. Jaaskelainen may as well have stayed on holiday.
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I like what Lambert's said there and sees what we saw today.
Unlike TSM I don't think Lambert is oblivious to the obvious. TSM was in permanent denial. Lambert will have seen what he needs and things to work on. Hopefully Faulkner learned from last year and backs the manager to get what he needs in the next two weeks.
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West Ham were more than happy for Villa to dominate possession. One up front, especially Bent was never going to be effective. They stifled the supply line, which was hopeful through balls from Ireland and there was no alternative plan. Jaaskelainen may as well have stayed on holiday.
Our lack of shots on goal is one thing we simply have to change and improve on. I don't have the stats but over the past two years I'd bet we have been amongst the lowest shots on targets of any team in the top two divisions.
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It is Lerner who needs to do the backing, ultimately.
I like Lambert a lot, and think he's a good appointment, but the squad is nothing like strong enough. If you take out Given and Bent, not many neutrals would look at our squad with envy.
I just hope Randy isn't thinking we don't need to strengthen.
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This squad may very well develop in time, but we need to bring in some experienced and accomplished players in the next two windows to compliment and help it grow. There's a lot of talent there but they need help from some more mature heads. Not having Stan is a big blow, so we could do with some additional leaders.
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Not seen the game, but from reports it seems that Lambert is more than fully aware of the need for the team to be more potent. I am sure there will be a few more signings and we will improve. Lets give it a while while the team adapt to the new style and new players. I recall Villa being at home to ManCity first home game of the season in 1977/78 in midweek after opening game away. We had Ken McNaught having replaced Chris Nicholl and Jimmy Rimmer in goal. McNaught in particular looked awful, it does take time for new players to gel in sometimes, and the present players have to get used to passing the ball after the last idiot in charge
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Yes quite. No need to panic. Just work to do and holes to fill. Everton seem to start every season in relegation form and they recover just fine. We need to give everyone time to get this right.
This season is about making sure seasons like the last never, ever happen again, and creating a solid base for sustained comptetiveness and success.
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I do wonder if Darren Bent is too nice a bloke to be captain? I'd be happier if it as the concrete one to get in the players faces when needed. I'd rather Bent just concentrated on scoring goals ad not much else.
Clark seemed to be the defender doing the most motivational gestures.
I think long term he will be the captain of the club. He is maturing quite nicely and getting better as a player. Vlaar, I hope will be a very positive influence on him.
Really? I thought Clark was a one-man disaster area for about 10 minutes leading up to the goal. i didn't see anything to prove he should be playing in the first-team at centre-half. I'd sooner have Baker there.
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I do wonder if Darren Bent is too nice a bloke to be captain? I'd be happier if it as the concrete one to get in the players faces when needed. I'd rather Bent just concentrated on scoring goals ad not much else.
Clark seemed to be the defender doing the most motivational gestures.
I think long term he will be the captain of the club. He is maturing quite nicely and getting better as a player. Vlaar, I hope will be a very positive influence on him.
Really? I thought Clark was a one-man disaster area for about 10 minutes leading up to the goal. i didn't see anything to prove he should be playing in the first-team at centre-half. I'd sooner have Baker there.
He's developing. He needs to be a better player before captain I agree.
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I do wonder if Darren Bent is too nice a bloke to be captain? I'd be happier if it as the concrete one to get in the players faces when needed. I'd rather Bent just concentrated on scoring goals ad not much else.
Clark seemed to be the defender doing the most motivational gestures.
I think long term he will be the captain of the club. He is maturing quite nicely and getting better as a player. Vlaar, I hope will be a very positive influence on him.
Really? I thought Clark was a one-man disaster area for about 10 minutes leading up to the goal. i didn't see anything to prove he should be playing in the first-team at centre-half. I'd sooner have Baker there.
He's developing. He needs to be a better player before captain I agree.
he was still a lot better than the two twats playing there last season,
i didnt see any big pressure we couldnt deal with from West Ham, they scored a spiffy goal, but we cleared almost everthing else with ease, cant remember us being pinned back much
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I thought that the defence was pretty much solid and given came off his line a few times to claim a couple of hoofs. But, I disagree that he looked better than Dunne and Collins. I thought he was as poor as I think he usually is.
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I recall that 1977 game against Man City Luton villan. It was Damon's first game. I too remember thinking that Ken McNaught was overweight and slow and that Jimmy Rimmer could not kick straight. First impressions are often very misleading.
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It was the fence that did for us that night.
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I recall that 1977 game against Man City Luton villan. It was Damon's first game. I too remember thinking that Ken McNaught was overweight and slow and that Jimmy Rimmer could not kick straight. First impressions are often very misleading.
Ken McNaught had awful start, Bilbao night brought him on a lot, peeing down if I am correct?,
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Just saw the last 20 minutes of each half so missed the good play at the start. Like most of you guys sort of feeling a but.....meh about the whole thing. There wasn't a huge desire to get things going but I think Lambert is a realist and knew this wasn't going to be turned around in 2 and a half months.
One thing I didn't like, was Vlaar knocking the ball over his head twice when he was facing the keeper. I've seen some good defenders making a fool of strikers but generally always facing the direction of play so they see what's going on. First time he did it I thought it was pretty cool, second time a few minutes later, I knew it was coming. If I spotted he'd do it, you can bet some semi decent striker or midfielder will too. Don't want the Concrete honeymoon to end because he ships a goal or two by trying to fanny about.
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Well if MOTD highlights have taught me anything it's that we had possession once, and it was a Vlaar shot. Thanks BBC.
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Well if MOTD highlights have taught me anything it's that we had possession once, and it was a Vlaar shot. Thanks BBC.
Made us look a lot better than the comments on here did though.
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They're hardly likely to show us passing it well if nothing happens at the end of it.
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They're hardly likely to show us passing it well if nothing happens at the end of it.
We had more shots than West Ham. And more on target.
They showed one.
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Fair enough.
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What happened to the Concrete One's head?
He must be well 'ard,and well named then, if he played on all bandaged up with concussion!
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First time I've been to West Ham for a while, when did they change the away section to the other end? I felt a right prat at the home turnstile with a Villa ticket!
It's a crying shame what they've done to that ground, it used to be one of my favourites, tight to the pitch and a cracking atmosphere. They've ripped the heart out of it - nothing to lose by moving to the Olympic Stadium now.
As for the game, very disappointing but it'll take time to adjust to another new style of play. Keep the faith.
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Just give him a chance to change the styles
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Alladyce is a piss poor winner (and a shit loser).
Exposing us? Definite penalty? Black Heath tosser.
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Playing friendlies doesn't givean accurate picture of where we're at after this game Lambert if he is the manager we hope he is will be much clearer as to what had to be done. One thing that stuck in my mind throughout the game was if you can't find a way to give Bent good service then you might as well sell him, we played so narrow there was never any room for him, not once in the whole game do i remember an attack down either wing. We have to give Lambert time and Lerner has to give Lambert financial backing, if no new players come in before the start of the season we will be relegated.
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Good post Robbo. I agree, we had no width, we didn't get behind West Ham and get in any crosses. Bent must have been very frustrated with today, no support at all. That was very frustrating to watch.
Charles N'Zog was totally ineffective, as was Holman (although I will give Holman more time as he may have still been carrying a knock).
If I was Lerner I would give Lambert money to sign a winger who can beat players and deliver a cross. Maybe Phillips from Blackpool? We desperately need someone creative.
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I've not seen any of the highlights yet. I always thought we'd lose this. Still disappointed obviously. It sounds like we were decent in possession but largely ineffective. We'll have more games like this as we try to adjust. We MUST give Lambert time.
One tactical point: I've been convinced for a while that you either need to play someone up front with bent who can receive the ball back to goal, or you need to be excellent in possession and creativity behind him so that he can literally only contribute with penetrative runs. The latter route is very hard for a club not spending money, especially in England where the game lends itself to playing off the front man so much. But lambert I clearly a clever guy. I think he'll work it out
We could be Liverpool or QPR fans too!
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Playing friendlies doesn't givean accurate picture of where we're at after this game Lambert if he is the manager we hope he is will be much clearer as to what had to be done. One thing that stuck in my mind throughout the game was if you can't find a way to give Bent good service then you might as well sell him, we played so narrow there was never any room for him, not once in the whole game do i remember an attack down either wing. We have to give Lambert time and Lerner has to give Lambert financial backing, if no new players come in before the start of the season we will be relegated.
We're down already then;-)
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As this season begins to unfold I still have nagging doubts about the younger players in which we have invested so much faith and hope.
The younger players did not get us surging up the table last season, the harsh reality is that they were less bad than the overpaid senior players and just about dodged the relegation bullet.
What Paul Lambert must do, and I am totally sure he is doing it, to see just how good Herd and Baker and Clark and Lichaj and Gardner and Bannan and Albrighton and Weimann are and if they are potential Sids or Littles to nurture them and if they are potential Luke and Stefan Moores they have to go and we have to buy players of adequate quality to win regularly in the Premiership.
These next few weeks are make or break time for the team and for the fans.
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That was utter rubbish. Lerner is ruining our club. In the last two years he's made one cock-up after another. His intentions were clear when we sold Young and Downing. Very little of the £35M was reinvested and we're seeing the results of that now. You never hear a word of his ambitions for the club or his down right ignorance towards the fans. Look at how we're now perceived in the media - Savage isn't the only one who's tipped us for relegation - the club is in tail spin towards the Championship having been on the fringe of the top four 2 years ago. Relegation this season would be a disaster with the new £3 billion SKY deal starting next year which dwarfs the current revenue. If he doesn't allow PL to sign anymore players before 31st August, in my opinion were down. Any new signings need to be quality not bargain basement aquisitions, but I can't see that happening.
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We need a winger and a striker minimum, Lambert must know this, and I guarantee we have in Paul Lambert the best guy possible to pull this club out of the nosedive we have all witnessed over the last two years.
What we have to do as fans (and he constantly refers to this) is get behind this young side and support them through this period.
Some of my fellow fans embarrass me with their constant desire to moan and this goes back to MON's days.
SUPPORT YOUR TEAM !
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For fucks sake, some people on here haven't got a clue, it's one game we are not going down.
Paul Lambert lost 15 games last season where we only lost 14, so let's all relax abit, I think we all said we'd rather have a few more losses instead of draws for a few more wins.
We have to accept we are a midtable team now.
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I really don't think any of our young players are good enough at this level. The club are desperately hoping we will produce a production line of talent but in reality you are lucky if you get one or two per decade,
The squad looks desperately thin to me. Minimum requirement is a left back, a central midfield leader to replace Petrov and a striker to give us more options up front.
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We need a winger and a striker minimum, Lambert must know this, and I guarantee we have in Paul Lambert the best guy possible to pull this club out of the nosedive we have all witnessed over the last two years.
What we have to do as fans (and he constantly refers to this) is get behind this young side and support them through this period.
Some of my fellow fans embarrass me with their constant desire to moan and this goes back to MON's days.
SUPPORT YOUR TEAM !
We're Aston Villa. We moan when we want.
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People do like a good whinge. Did anyone expect Lamber to have turned it around in a couple of months. We've a pretty poor squad overall and don't seem to have much cash.
Luckily, there are quite a bit of pretty average sides in the league too. I'll be worried if we're still looking like this after 6 games.
I do expect us to lose against Everton next week for the first time in ages though.
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We need a winger and a striker minimum, Lambert must know this, and I guarantee we have in Paul Lambert the best guy possible to pull this club out of the nosedive we have all witnessed over the last two years.
What we have to do as fans (and he constantly refers to this) is get behind this young side and support them through this period.
Some of my fellow fans embarrass me with their constant desire to moan and this goes back to MON's days.
SUPPORT YOUR TEAM !
It's this sort of blind faith that nearly got us relegated last season.
We are relying on unproven youngsters, not good enough youngsters and players who have been poor for the last few seasons. And Darren Bent.
I stated in the pre season prediction thread that our squad is one of the worst in the league and when I saw the starting XI yesterday I thought to myself "is that really all we have got".
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I really don't think any of our young players are good enough at this level. The club are desperately hoping we will produce a production line of talent but in reality you are lucky if you get one or two per decade,
The squad looks desperately thin to me. Minimum requirement is a left back, a central midfield leader to replace Petrov and a striker to give us more options up front.
Agree with this, many have believed the young players coming through will be good enough when with all clubs not many make the grade from juniors to seniors. It would be interesting to see the survival rate as a percentage.
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I really don't think any of our young players are good enough at this level. The club are desperately hoping we will produce a production line of talent but in reality you are lucky if you get one or two per decade,
The squad looks desperately thin to me. Minimum requirement is a left back, a central midfield leader to replace Petrov and a striker to give us more options up front.
yet are worse performer yesterday and for the whole of last season was the one who cost the most,
i'd take all the youngsters we have rather than the overvalued and overpayed likes of N'zog, Warnock, Hutton, there must be 20 mill we payed out there, thats without even adding the ultra experienced Heskey who thank goodness has gone now
all this 'we need experience' stuff, we have it, its sits on the bench or cant get a game most times because its shit
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Some of my fellow fans embarrass me with their constant desire to moan and this goes back to MON's days.
SUPPORT YOUR TEAM !
Is there anybody who isn't supporting the team? Post match threads are reactionary and supporters often air their frustrations and disappointment after a result like this.
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We need a winger and a striker minimum, Lambert must know this, and I guarantee we have in Paul Lambert the best guy possible to pull this club out of the nosedive we have all witnessed over the last two years.
What we have to do as fans (and he constantly refers to this) is get behind this young side and support them through this period.
Some of my fellow fans embarrass me with their constant desire to moan and this goes back to MON's days.
SUPPORT YOUR TEAM !
It's this sort of blind faith that nearly got us relegated last season.
We are relying on unproven youngsters, not good enough youngsters and players who have been poor for the last few seasons. And Darren Bent.
I stated in the pre season prediction thread that our squad is one of the worst in the league and when I saw the starting XI yesterday I thought to myself "is that really all we have got".
i realise football is all about opinions,
but my opinion is the exact opposite of this
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Some of my fellow fans embarrass me with their constant desire to moan and this goes back to MON's days.
SUPPORT YOUR TEAM !
Is there anybody who isn't supporting the team? Post match threads are reactionary and supporters often air their frustrations and disappointment after a result like this.
I think it's quite fair that we support the team fully at the game, though can vent frustrations on here.
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I think the formation will be changed about a bit over the next few weeks to be fair. Lambert changed it week to week at Norwich. Lets not get too down.
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For fucks sake, some people on here haven't got a clue, it's one game we are not going down.
Paul Lambert lost 15 games last season where we only lost 14, so let's all relax abit, I think we all said we'd rather have a few more losses instead of draws for a few more wins.
We have to accept we are a midtable team now.
We won't be a midtable team if there aren't at a minimum 3-4 decent quality new players brought in. We will be going down as leaving aside the lack of quality in the squad there is a distinct lack of leadership and fight in the team. We have inherited the dreadful trait from last season in that if we concede first we disintegrate into a rabble. Do people honestly think Gabby after two shite
disinterested seasons is going to improve us much?
Paul Lambert surely wouldn't have moved to Villa unless there was some level of funding available so yesterday might well be a welcome wake up call to him and particularly the board. To think the majority of the forum were turning up their noses at Grant Holt coming in. He is the kind of character we need in the team. Robbie Keane even too. Players who won't accept losing to piss poor teams like West Ham.
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West Ham were more than happy for Villa to dominate possession. One up front, especially Bent was never going to be effective. They stifled the supply line, which was hopeful through balls from Ireland and there was no alternative plan. Jaaskelainen may as well have stayed on holiday.
Our lack of shots on goal is one thing we simply have to change and improve on. I don't have the stats but over the past two years I'd bet we have been amongst the lowest shots on targets of any team in the top two divisions.
Well, yesterday we apparently had 13 to WHU's 8; however, most of ours were from distance.
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MOTD highlights (http://www.101greatgoals.com/gvideos/west-ham-1-aston-villa-0-motd/)
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I think the formation will be changed about a bit over the next few weeks to be fair. Lambert changed it week to week at Norwich. Lets not get too down.
The view I was left with after watching the game was that one of the teams on display has got lots of development scope; the other will be pretty much the same in 6 months' time. I thought the Spammers were very one-dimensional; WYSIWYG. And of course it worked against a side that is still finding its identity.
With the one or two additions that I think will come this month, we'll improve and - whilst not winning anything of note this season - do okay by the end of the season.
I suspect some of our kids may well get moved on but 2 or 3 may develop into useful EPL players.
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For fucks sake, some people on here haven't got a clue, it's one game we are not going down.
Paul Lambert lost 15 games last season where we only lost 14, so let's all relax abit, I think we all said we'd rather have a few more losses instead of draws for a few more wins.
We have to accept we are a midtable team now.
We won't be a midtable team if there aren't at a minimum 3-4 decent quality new players brought in. We will be going down as leaving aside the lack of quality in the squad there is a distinct lack of leadership and fight in the team. We have inherited the dreadful trait from last season in that if we concede first we disintegrate into a rabble. Do people honestly think Gabby after two shite
disinterested seasons is going to improve us much?
Paul Lambert surely wouldn't have moved to Villa unless there was some level of funding available so yesterday might well be a welcome wake up call to him and particularly the board. To think the majority of the forum were turning up their noses at Grant Holt coming in. He is the kind of character we need in the team. Robbie Keane even too. Players who won't accept losing to piss poor teams like West Ham.
we were in trouble last year because of the manager,
we wont be in trouble this year because of the manager
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I have no doubt that Lambert will get much more out of our senior players once things begin to settle down. But, I stand by my big concern that the squad is supplemented by too many home grown players, none of whom have demonstrated to me that they have a long term future at this level.
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For fucks sake, some people on here haven't got a clue, it's one game we are not going down.
Paul Lambert lost 15 games last season where we only lost 14, so let's all relax abit, I think we all said we'd rather have a few more losses instead of draws for a few more wins.
We have to accept we are a midtable team now.
We won't be a midtable team if there aren't at a minimum 3-4 decent quality new players brought in. We will be going down as leaving aside the lack of quality in the squad there is a distinct lack of leadership and fight in the team. We have inherited the dreadful trait from last season in that if we concede first we disintegrate into a rabble. Do people honestly think Gabby after two shite
disinterested seasons is going to improve us much?
Paul Lambert surely wouldn't have moved to Villa unless there was some level of funding available so yesterday might well be a welcome wake up call to him and particularly the board. To think the majority of the forum were turning up their noses at Grant Holt coming in. He is the kind of character we need in the team. Robbie Keane even too. Players who won't accept losing to piss poor teams like West Ham.
we were in trouble last year because of the manager,
we wont be in trouble this year because of the manager
and the season before last, we were in trouble because of the manager too I guess?
Paul Lambert is a good manager but the old saying you cant shine shit comes to mind.
We have a lot of players in our squad that arent up to even solid midtable EPL standard. Id safely say Given, El Ahmedi and Bent are but the rest?
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Woke up this morning full of the joys of life, then I read this thread and now I'm listening to Leonard Cohen and looking longingly at the carving knife.
Doomed we're all doomed I tell ye.
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One further point to emphasis the challenge facing Lambert - this squad has won one of their last 17 league games.
He somehow has to instill some confidence into them and quickly
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I think we would all have accepted that an opening day defeat away from home was a distinct possibility. I genuinely expected there to be some positives to take though.
As i think has been mentioned already, i think this 'emporer's new clothes' thing we have about our academy players is the problem... the fact is that we don't have a squad of players capable of being competitive at this level.
The chronic lack of investment over the last couple of years is very telling, did it matter who the manager was(does anybody even remember?) at Leeds and Sheffield Wednesday when they fell away and got relegated. We have that feel about us now.
God i'm being a miserablist, im probably just talking hungover nonesense!
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N'Zogbia has blamed the previous manager for his crap performances last season. Nowhere to hide now, Charles.
Still not convinced by Bent, 'lack of service' or otherwise.
A good home win under our belt will do the world of good.
Roll on Saturday.
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It's going to take PL some time to clean up the mess left by those before him.
I've actually just read the last H&V from last season - We would have been mightily relieved then knowing we'd be in a position now where we have a good manager and some decent new signings.
I'm sure Paul knows where we need to strengthen.
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It amazes me how little stick Lerner gets on these forums. He's the one who's appointed the managers in the last two years which has caused this situation. PL is a step in the right direction but he needs substantial funds to work with - how about the £35M in your back pocket Randy from the Young and Downing sales? What happened to the Proud History, Bright Future slogan and the master 5 year plan?
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It amazes me how little stick Lerner gets on these forums. He's the one who's appointed the managers in the last two years which has caused this situation. PL is a step in the right direction but he needs substantial funds to work with - how about the £35M in your back pocket Randy from the Young and Downing sales? What happened to the Proud History, Bright Future slogan and the master 5 year plan?
All this has been said and more, ad nauseum.
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Lerner made several well documented and costly mistakes. But it's not fair to criticise him for a lack of investment. He's massively subsidised a club attempting to punch above its economic weight and we've since been taking pretty severe steps to remedy that. As a strategy, I think it's eminently criticisable. But it's not just to criticise a lack of investment.
We get similar crowds and have had similar / less success than a club like Everton, who essentially need to make a net £5m per year profit on transfers every season.
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Economics in football appear to be a confusing thing nowadays... spending money eventually does guarantee success as Man City have proved, but even with 500 million or whatever it is that they have spent, they barely won the premier league. Footballing success maybe, but will they ever balance the books from it?
What level of investment is required to earn a releative degree of success- ie top six, as under MON- and what financial rewards are there for this? The money that he spent to achieve a more respectable level of (ultimate) failure just cannot be justified in a business sense. It seems that the best strategy is to survive in the PL with the least expenditure possible- attempting anything more is just not realistic.
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Plus, I actually like Lineker, Shearer, and Hanson.
Fair enough with Lineker and Shearer, but Hanson have done nothing of note since 'Mmm bop.'
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What I saw was a promising start with Ireland in particular getting on the ball and trying to probe. Holman and N'Zogbia got into some promising positions but failed at the decisive moment while Bent made some good runs but wasn't found. However, that petered out and West Ham built momentum through cheap freekicks which ultimtely was our downfall. By this time, the ball wasn't reaching Holman, N'Zogbia or Bent and Ireland, El and Delph were 30 yards from our goal. This was the pattern for the remainder of the game and the subs did nothing to change that.
Whilst the stats might show 60% possession and more shots than WHU, the reality is we kept possession very deep in our own half where WHU were happy not to pressure us and get players into position. As for the shots, two efforts from range courtesy of Ireland and Vlaar were the only notable efforts while WHU had two cleared off the line in addition to their goal so the stats can be twisted into making things look better than they were. I wonder what the possession stats were in the opposition half? In any case, afer the second half I would suggest the BBC's 51% was probably closer to the truth.
However, I'm prepared to see what develops. If Delph/El are going to sit deep and protect the defence then it's essential that Holman, N'Zogbia and Ireland push on to support Bent. We looked a bit too rigid and when you see Ireland of Man City days he bust a gut to get into the box. We need to get players forward. Lambert stated, "Villa fans shouldn't have to wait 40 mins for a meaningful shot." Yet, that's exactly what happened yesterday so there's plenty to be done to increase the confidence so that players push on and of course, some work in the transfer market.
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Think I must have watched a different game compared to most of the comments I have read!!
As bad as anything last season? Really? People clearly have very short memories.
I thought we looked like the 'home' side in the game. Seeing us actually want the ball and want to keep it and pass was a refreshing change. With a couple of tweaks/new additions we won't be far off being a half decent side. Rome was not built in a day and we all know this rebuild is going to take at least another 2 transfer windows. However, I thought he initial signs give us more hope and optimism for the future.
Was nice to see Delph in the side, a few times he looked to burst through the middle and pose a threat. Hope he can stay injury free and put a run of games together.
I hope west ham go down, what a horrible horrible footballing side. I thought they were a sack of shit and can't even think of anyone stand out from them.
If that game was played middle of season and not opening day I'm sure we would have won.
Hope we can add a couple of players over the next two weeks and push on.
Overall, I'm optimistic
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What I saw was a promising start with Ireland in particular getting on the ball and trying to probe. Holman and N'Zogbia got into some promising positions but failed at the decisive moment while Bent made some good runs but wasn't found. However, that petered out and West Ham built momentum through cheap freekicks which ultimtely was our downfall. By this time, the ball wasn't reaching Holman, N'Zogbia or Bent and Ireland, El and Delph were 30 yards from our goal. This was the pattern for the remainder of the game and the subs did nothing to change that.
Whilst the stats might show 60% possession and more shots than WHU, the reality is we kept possession very deep in our own half where WHU were happy not to pressure us and get players into position. As for the shots, two efforts from range courtesy of Ireland and Vlaar were the only notable efforts while WHU had two cleared off the line in addition to their goal so the stats can be twisted into making things look better than they were. I wonder what the possession stats were in the opposition half? In any case, afer the second half I would suggest the BBC's 51% was probably closer to the truth.
However, I'm prepared to see what develops. If Delph/El are going to sit deep and protect the defence then it's essential that Holman, N'Zogbia and Ireland push on to support Bent. We looked a bit too rigid and when you see Ireland of Man City days he bust a gut to get into the box. We need to get players forward. Lambert stated, "Villa fans shouldn't have to wait 40 mins for a meaningful shot." Yet, that's exactly what happened yesterday so there's plenty to be done to increase the confidence so that players push on and of course, some work in the transfer market.
True, Lee; it also requires the FB to get forward and leave the CB and the 2 deep MF to defend. Yesterday, Lowton only really got forward in the second half and Baker didn't really at all. We lacked width and penetration in part because we didn't use the FB properly.
In addition, Charles was crap and Holman (who I think will come good) didn't get off to a good start.
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I agree with Vinnie and Lee (nice rhyme to that). Comparing it to last season is totally erroneous. We passed the ball around nicely yesterday but the openings didn't come. In other games, with better form, when the players are more used to each other, the openings will come.
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So some or many on here are not happy with 60% possession. Are you the same people who were not happy with 30% in most games last year?
The key to success for any team is to keep the ball. It looks as though we are going to able to do that however we will have better tests than a team coached by fat Sam. Next step is what to do and how to exploit the ball retention. This will come. I predict that we will finish higher than the two teams who won 5-0 yesterday.
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So some or many on here are not happy with 60% possession. Are you the same people who were not happy with 30% in most games last year?
The key to success for any team is to keep the ball. It looks as though we are going to able to do that however we will have better tests than a team coached by fat Sam. Next step is what to do and how to exploit the ball retention. This will come. I predict that we will finish higher than the two teams who won 5-0 yesterday.
The possession is something we've all been crying out for. We just need to make use of it. My concern is outside of supplying Bent we don't have forwards who create things for themselves. Look at Fulham or even the Tesco bags and see how they versatility up front. They have choices whereas our forwards are quite similar. Makes us quite predictable and easier to plan for.
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Gabby does when he's on form tho I agree he's not 'creative'
CNZ should do in theory
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So some or many on here are not happy with 60% possession. Are you the same people who were not happy with 30% in most games last year?
The key to success for any team is to keep the ball. It looks as though we are going to able to do that however we will have better tests than a team coached by fat Sam. Next step is what to do and how to exploit the ball retention. This will come. I predict that we will finish higher than the two teams who won 5-0 yesterday.
The possession is something we've all been crying out for. We just need to make use of it. My concern is outside of supplying Bent we don't have forwards who create things for themselves. Look at Fulham or even the Tesco bags and see how they versatility up front. They have choices whereas our forwards are quite similar. Makes us quite predictable and easier to plan for.
You're right, which brings us back to the Lambert approach last season of switching the Norwich gameplay during a match. We just need the variety of players; maybe a large Centre Forward is going to be brought in before the end of August, along with a nippy LB.
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Just as a suggestion I wonder if BB could be used as an out and out winger ? Ever since we lost Milner we have had nobody prepared to drive forward and take the game to the opposition, somebody determined to play the game in our opponents' half of the pitch. That is where possession is important. BB is quick he is aggressive he is committed and he has grit, a quality N'Zogbia has a complete deficiency of. Ireland when he was Ireland was a constant penalty box intruder but his mind set of maybe I will if I feel like it is folly at Premiership level. If we are going to persist with the luxury of carrying an out and out goal hanger we have to have others who are less cotton wool wrapped breaking their balls to get wide and get forward.
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Bannan doesn't have the pace or one-on-one running ability to be an out-and-out winger. I still think we should play him ahead of N'Zogbia though.
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Bannan doesn't have the pace or one-on-one running ability to be an out-and-out winger. I still think we should play him ahead of N'Zogbia though.
we'd create more and be more inventive. At times watching N'Zogbia it's hard to believe he's made it to this level.
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Bannan doesn't have the pace or one-on-one running ability to be an out-and-out winger. I still think we should play him ahead of N'Zogbia though.
we'd create more and be more inventive. At times watching N'Zogbia it's hard to believe he's made it to this level.
I like our approach and I think it suits Bannan. On the ball, the players interchange, move in relation to each other and seem to basically have total freedom of movement; off the ball, we press quickly then drop into a shape where each player seems to go to the position nearest to him, rather than any 'set' position for them - the shape is more important than the literal personnel from KEA forward. Frankly, it is an approach that could have been designed for Bannan.
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So some or many on here are not happy with 60% possession. Are you the same people who were not happy with 30% in most games last year?
The key to success for any team is to keep the ball. It looks as though we are going to able to do that however we will have better tests than a team coached by fat Sam. Next step is what to do and how to exploit the ball retention. This will come. I predict that we will finish higher than the two teams who won 5-0 yesterday.
The possession is something we've all been crying out for. We just need to make use of it. My concern is outside of supplying Bent we don't have forwards who create things for themselves. Look at Fulham or even the Tesco bags and see how they versatility up front. They have choices whereas our forwards are quite similar. Makes us quite predictable and easier to plan for.
We have a classic dichotomy here. Bent is our problem he is also our solution. I am glad I don't have to fix this however the man paid a few millions a year will I am sure of that even if that is no Bent in the future.
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N'zogbia has had long enough in my view to get his act together. Watching the game over here on tv yesterday it would appear that he still has the" Head down and run into trouble" style. His awareness of his fellow team mates positions on the pitch is virtually non existent and in my view only he is a total waste of money and should be moved on.
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Back in the day out and out pace was not considered as important as acceleration. The classic case was Kevin Keegan who was never going to win a long race for the ball but over fifteen strides he was very fast from a standing start. Players with that quality were referred to as "nippy" a term which has long fallen out of serious use in player evaluation. The ability to get in front of a player was considered more important than long foot races for the ball down the touchline. I feel intuitively that there is a damn good footballer somewhere in BB we just have to find the right way to use him.
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I agree with you Brian, but I feel that tiny burst of pace would be better used in attacking midfield, where he can find little pockets of space and start to pull opposition defenders out of position.
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The main conundrum is Bent...if we dont play to his strengths and provide him with service then we might as well sell him as he's just a waste of space otherwise. We need to compliment him with a couple of wingers, a big hold up guy to play alongside him...or both. Bent is never going to be that striker who can control the ball, look up and hit a powerful shot into the top corner from outside the box, so unless we play to his strengths which is playing the ball over the shoulder of the last defender or into the box, then we're going tp have many games where he hardly touches the ball let alone have any shots on goal.
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You are probably right bert. I was only musing. He does have a mini burst of pace but he always seems to want to use it sideways or obliquely then having used it to be fifteen yards somewhere else on the pitch make a pass he could have made from the original place he was. At least with a touchline to limit him he would have to either go forwards or backwards. Bit like having a greyhound in trap 1.
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The main conundrum is Bent...if we dont play to his strengths and provide him with service then we might as well sell him as he's just a waste of space otherwise. We need to compliment him with a couple of wingers, a big hold up guy to play alongside him...or both. Bent is never going to be that striker who can control the ball, look up and hit a powerful shot into the top corner from outside the box, so unless we play to his strengths which is playing the ball over the shoulder of the last defender or into the box, then we're going tp have many games where he hardly touches the ball let alone have any shots on goal.
Very well put.
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Haha, very true Brian, but I actually think he'd suit the way we play now, with freedom of movement. He always looked like the only one wanting to make things happen last season, hopefully with like-minded players around him this season he could actually succeed!
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It amazes me how little stick Lerner gets on these forums. He's the one who's appointed the managers in the last two years which has caused this situation. PL is a step in the right direction but he needs substantial funds to work with - how about the £35M in your back pocket Randy from the Young and Downing sales? What happened to the Proud History, Bright Future slogan and the master 5 year plan?
All this has been said and more, ad nauseum.
In the last three sets of accounts Randy has - through loans admittedly - pumped in over 130m into the club to cover the losses we make. He’s made mistakes but to say he’s pocketed the Downing/young money is a tad harsh.
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You are probably right bert. I was only musing. He does have a mini burst of pace but he always seems to want to use it sideways or obliquely then having used it to be fifteen yards somewhere else on the pitch make a pass he could have made from the original place he was. At least with a touchline to limit him he would have to either go forwards or backwards. Bit like having a greyhound in trap 1.
I'd like to see Carruthers play the wide role: from the little I've seen of him, he seems to have the turn of pace, the skills and the tenacity to deliver from wide.
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You are probably right bert. I was only musing. He does have a mini burst of pace but he always seems to want to use it sideways or obliquely then having used it to be fifteen yards somewhere else on the pitch make a pass he could have made from the original place he was. At least with a touchline to limit him he would have to either go forwards or backwards. Bit like having a greyhound in trap 1.
I'd like to see Carruthers play the wide role: from the little I've seen of him, he seems to have the turn of pace, the skills and the tenacity to deliver from wide.
Good idea. Bannan in for N'Zogbia looks obvious to me, but Carruthers as an impact sub for Holman certainly makes sense.
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The main conundrum is Bent...if we dont play to his strengths and provide him with service then we might as well sell him as he's just a waste of space otherwise. We need to compliment him with a couple of wingers, a big hold up guy to play alongside him...or both. Bent is never going to be that striker who can control the ball, look up and hit a powerful shot into the top corner from outside the box, so unless we play to his strengths which is playing the ball over the shoulder of the last defender or into the box, then we're going tp have many games where he hardly touches the ball let alone have any shots on goal.
You've captured the Bent problem exactly, but if we play two wingers and a big guy alongside, we suffer the problem we had with MON: we become soft through central MF.
I think that out-and-out wingers on each side is a luxury we cannot afford: the conundrum for me is who plays in the middle and who plays up front! (sorry about the statement of the bleedin' obvious).
Bent will deliver for us if we have a dynamic attacking midfielder 'in the hole': Ireland could be that player but - as Brian says - he's a bit too in-and-out; GG could play there but his development seems to have slowed at the moment; Johnson might be the man but lacks experience; Holman might be that player once he's got the pace of the EPL sussed.
Width has to come from the FB, IMO; and from the striker's movement.
I can see Gabby playing much better than Bent in the set-up we saw yesterday.
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Another problem that yesterday exposed was that without Gabby we're very one paced which tends to make us very easy to defend against, particularly when the passing from midfield becomes predictable as it did after a bright opening.
As I keep saying it's going to take time; both in terms of the players getting used to the managers ideas and he in turn getting to understand the strengths of those at his disposal.
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Paul Lambert is a good manager but the old saying you cant shine shit comes to mind.
That's true but I wish someone at Villa would roll it in glitter before the Everton game.
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Haha, very true Brian, but I actually think he'd suit the way we play now, with freedom of movement. He always looked like the only one wanting to make things happen last season, hopefully with like-minded players around him this season he could actually succeed!
Some of his link up play last season with Ireland was excellent.
Just about the only two players in the team on the same wavelength, could read each others give and go's.
Not sure how we'd shoe-horn both into the starting line up on a regular basis, but it's something we should definitely look at. Start with intelligent players who want to get on the ball and build from there would be my wish.
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Some of his link up play last season with Ireland was excellent.
Just about the only two players in the team on the same wavelength, could read each others give and go's.
Not sure how we'd shoe-horn both into the starting line up on a regular basis, but it's something we should definitely look at. Start with intelligent players who want to get on the ball and build from there would be my wish.
I'd get him in ahead of N'Zogbia. Looking at the role Zog was asked to play - not an out-and-out winger, as Lambert doesn't particularly like that, but an attacking midfielder switching and interchanging - I think it's better suited to Bannan, and would allow him to link up with Ireland, like you say.
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I agree with some of the things said about Bannan
I was annoyed when McLeish shunned him out the team halfway through the season because despite how poor we were we didn't have that creative spark in midfield who looks to have a "football brain". He can read situations and how they would develop, we need thst fast forward thinking in our team. He can also be quite versatile flowing in from midfield out wide and vice versa.
We will see what Lambert does with him though but I'm sure he wants to prove he's good enough to play for us.
I still feel we need a midfield leader like Milner and Petrov was for the team - its all about figuring out what we need and where to use it to get the best from the team.
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Watched the game on the net yesterday and we did look very limp in the last third. I said before Ireland is a tid footballer but can he deliver the killer pass? We are incredibly reliant on him doing this. N'zog has been a massive disappointment for me and I was chuffed when we signed him. Bannan in on Saturday for me.
Left back is a worry as the only time we pushed forward from a wide position was with Lowton pushing forward. The new signings looked ok and it will take time for things to settle down. PL can only really judge what he has in real matches and yesterday will I'm sure have given him food for thought.
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Another problem that yesterday exposed was that without Gabby we're very one paced which tends to make us very easy to defend against, particularly when the passing from midfield becomes predictable as it did after a bright opening.
As I keep saying it's going to take time; both in terms of the players getting used to the managers ideas and he in turn getting to understand the strengths of those at his disposal.
Been saying the same for ages Chris. We might be the slowest team in the league and especially in midfield and defence. Even with Gabby, he's only one player. When we had Ash and Downing with Gabby, and Barry quickly knocking the ball into wide areas we could break with speed. We struggle now with that and it does make us vunerable in all three phases of the game.
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The main conundrum is Bent...if we dont play to his strengths and provide him with service then we might as well sell him as he's just a waste of space otherwise. We need to compliment him with a couple of wingers, a big hold up guy to play alongside him...or both. Bent is never going to be that striker who can control the ball, look up and hit a powerful shot into the top corner from outside the box, so unless we play to his strengths which is playing the ball over the shoulder of the last defender or into the box, then we're going tp have many games where he hardly touches the ball let alone have any shots on goal.
You've captured the Bent problem exactly, but if we play two wingers and a big guy alongside, we suffer the problem we had with MON: we become soft through central MF.
I think that out-and-out wingers on each side is a luxury we cannot afford: the conundrum for me is who plays in the middle and who plays up front! (sorry about the statement of the bleedin' obvious).
Bent will deliver for us if we have a dynamic attacking midfielder 'in the hole': Ireland could be that player but - as Brian says - he's a bit too in-and-out; GG could play there but his development seems to have slowed at the moment; Johnson might be the man but lacks experience; Holman might be that player once he's got the pace of the EPL sussed.
Width has to come from the FB, IMO; and from the striker's movement.
I can see Gabby playing much better than Bent in the set-up we saw yesterday.
The solution is a combination of both otherwise you have no plan B if either the man in the hole or the fullbacks are unable to push forward. Personally I would deploy a winger over a target man to work with Bent...an attack minded player that can switch flanks during the game, look for weaknesses and disrupt the oppostions defence, whilst providing service to Bent in and around the box. To compliment this when we push forward, you have the man in the hole behind Bent and fullbacks providing support. The only alternative with a target man upfront is someone like Carroll holding the ball up and providing flick ons which is hit and miss at the best of times and doesnt really fit with Lamberts footballing philosophy.
For me, having a player like Adam Johnson on the ball can frighten the living daylights out of any opposition fullback and makes them less likely to push forward...or if they do, they will expose space to be exploited at the back. Arguably Albrighton or N'Zogbia could do this role but neither player seems to be as confident, skillful or capable as Johnson who can beat a man, deliver a dangerous ball into the box or test the keeper with a powerful shot from range.
On a side note...Adam Johnson hasnt even made the bench today for Citeh, so spending £10-15m on him could easily be justified if it brings us goals and provides an outlet relieving pressure on the back four. Bring in a LB on the back of the sales of Hutton and Warnock and we should be good to go till January when we can decide if we need anoher striker.
edit: this would work in a 4231 with the 2 defensive midfielders protecting the back 4 and distributing the ball, Ireland playing centrally behind Bent, with 2 players from Holman, Albrighton and N'Zog providing width or coming inside...ideally one of those players would be Adam Johnson if we're in for him.
Based on yesterdays starting XI...
Given
Lowton Vlaar Clark Baker
KEA Delph
Holman Ireland Johnson
Bent
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Does anyone thing Clark will be switched to left back when Dunne returns?
If money is tight (and that seems to be the case) I think he'll get an extended run there.
Not many sides play with two attacking fullbacks, so -for balance- I reckon whoever plays on the left will be more defensive minded. Clark is more of a footballer too. Might lack a bit of pace, but could be more comfortable in the role than Cuellar was at RB, for example.
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I think Pubehead will get Johnson at the SoL.
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Does anyone thing Clark will be switched to left back when Dunne returns?
If money is tight (and that seems to be the case) I think he'll get an extended run there.
Not many sides play with two attacking fullbacks, so -for balance- I reckon whoever plays on the left will be more defensive minded. Clark is more of a footballer too. Might lack a bit of pace, but could be more comfortable in the role than Cuellar was at RB, for example.
Too slow Kev. It will be like that game when Barry played LB against Reading and the winger (Little I think) tore him a new one time after time. That's the game that the ginger ninja scored twice.
I'd sooner he keeps developing at CB and we bought a pacy LB that came cover behind the CB's as needed but can also join the attack and add width.
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I was buzzing on the way down on way back it felt like last season all over again. Not pressing the panic buttonyet but were going to have to up our game. Football was better but it just wasn't goin anywhere, didn't have that quality in the final 3rd very disappointing
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I know a lot of people keep saying we're lacking a winger, and we did, but we've got Albrighton to come back yet. And to a lesser extent Gabby as well.
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Just back from game / London
That was thoroughly shit
As bad as anything McLeish served up
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Just back from game / London
That was thoroughly shit
As bad as anything McLeish served up
Agree, no better than the last game against Norwich.
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Just back from game / London
That was thoroughly shit
As bad as anything McLeish served up
Agree, no better than the last game against Norwich.
It was just as shit but its going to take time, a lot of time probably.
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There will be more games like that - possession and no penetration - as we adjust to an entirely new style.
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Does anyone thing Clark will be switched to left back when Dunne returns?
Depends how much you read into Lambert saying he is a centre half.
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Just back from game / London
That was thoroughly shit
As bad as anything McLeish served up
With more or less the same group of players should we expect anything else, especially while the style of play settles. Under Houllier we were changing to a similar style and it was beginning to deliver results.
As much as we lacked penetration, in no way was it as soul destroying as watching any team inspired by TSM. We may not finish much higher in the table but the football will NEVER be as dire as what we had to endure last season.
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It might have been as bad as Norwich, but I seriously doubt it will be when the manager's had a whole season in the job.
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Bannan doesn't have the pace or one-on-one running ability to be an out-and-out winger. I still think we should play him ahead of N'Zogbia though.
I wouēd have Hutton ahead of NŹogbia.
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It might have been as bad as Norwich, but I seriously doubt it will be when the manager's had a whole season in the job.
Bingo.
Yes, it was piss poor in many ways, but fuck me, what kind of transition does anyone expect in 90 minutes of competitive football, and having made minimal additions to the squad?
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It might have been as bad as Norwich, but I seriously doubt it will be when the manager's had a whole season in the job.
Bingo.
Yes, it was piss poor in many ways, but fuck me, what kind of transition does anyone expect in 90 minutes of competitive football, and having made minimal additions to the squad?
What worried me was the people in the 'season expectations' thread hoping for a top 8 finish.
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hottest day of the year. away end in direct sunlight and no water or soft drinks at half time. shambles.
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Yes, it was piss poor in many ways, but fuck me, what kind of transition does anyone expect in 90 minutes of competitive football, and having made minimal additions to the squad?
Some decent additions to the squad? Otherwise we are going to be in for more of the same, a new manager isn't going to just fix us.
Look at Southampton today, gave it a really good go and played some really good football. I fear we are not even on their level - yet.
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Does anyone thing Clark will be switched to left back when Dunne returns?
I am hoping Dunne will not return other than as back up CB.
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Yes, it was piss poor in many ways, but fuck me, what kind of transition does anyone expect in 90 minutes of competitive football, and having made minimal additions to the squad?
Some decent additions to the squad? Otherwise we are going to be in for more of the same, a new manager isn't going to just fix us.
Look at Southampton today, gave it a really good go and played some really good football. I fear we are not even on their level - yet.
Southampton played with the energy and desire afforded to newly promoted players given a national audience against the champions. They were great today, but before we kick ourselves in the nuts, let's just see where they are in a few months. I'll put money on us being above them as they run out steam. The have been many promoted teams that have started well and faded very badly.
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It takes time.
Our improvement will come over time, it was disappointing but I'm not concerned with the result, or even how badly we played at times. We knocked the ball around for what, a total of thirty to forty minutes all up, in the style Lambert wants us to play and hasn't even finalised his squad yet. I'd imagine in what, a few months he'll have us playing his 'plan A' style game for a full 90 minutes if necessary. So in effect I think we're almost half way there with the cattle we've got. He'll strengthen the squad it seems (with him being outspoken about the Defoe and Jones offerings) and even then be an even better team. The time to worry comes when at Christmas we are sitting in the bottom three, with no options on the park, no creativity, no goals and conceding a stack of them...but that aint gonna happen. Knowing this it makes me feel as if I have a much greater football intelligence than the likes of wannabe, sensationalist pundit/ponse Robbie "fucking" Savage, but then again that's not a difficult achievement is it? Take it from another former midfielder by the name of Paul Lambert, paraphrasing that: Savage is full of shit.
On the Holman side of things, he didn't even make the full 90 minutes a few days ago for Australian friendly against Scotland. Hobbling off in the second half, so I'm surprised he even got to start let alone come off the bench.
I'm still cautiously optimistic, yet excited about this new era. Soton and the Norwich of last year were able to exceed what we've done after one game because the've been with their respective managers for long enough for everything to click into gear. Be patient my children.
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Long term the above is true one would hope but in terms of performance it was no better than Norwich IMO and this is a post match thread.
I was not impressed by tippy tappy footy when the full backs don't push on and we don't create chances for our only decent striker. Don't forget I wasn't paying £39 to see a warm up game where we practice our future 'style' this was the first game of the season and the team wasn't ready/capable of beating an at best average West Ham side.
Of course I can see where PL is trying to get to and hopefully the end result will be a great style of footy with results to match. Just get there soon please.
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With only three first team players out on Saturday, you only had to look a the bench to see how woefully thin the squad is. We need at least three in before the end of the month, otherwise I fear for us over a long season. I hope the board back him.
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Well I was pleasantly surprised that we came away with the points in that game. I thought it had draw written all over it beforehand, and in truth there was little in that match that stood one side above the other. The first half was probably one of the most boring halves of football I've watched in some time.
Still I guess positives for us, it's an opening day win and hopefully the start of some momentum. We've got a run of "easy" games through the early autumn with a run of "hard" games come October/November so points on the board is important. Allardyce hasn't changed much from what worked well last year with the team happy to sit back and wait for chances in set pieces. Quite fitting then that it was Nolan that got the goal.
Disappointed in Villa for you lot. You can see what Lambert is trying to do getting the team to retain possession and build through the middle but it didn't work for a number of reasons. You don't seem to have any creative midfield players, either a skilful man in the middle with an eye for a pass or pacey wingers who can beat a full back and charge into the box. Darren Bent - arguably your best player - was a spectator. You'd have been better off doing a Barca and going 4-6-0.
Also, Bent as captain? Seems a strange one to me, he's never struck me as captain material. Although I don't like to see strikers as captains, should be a defender or a defensive midfielder for me, someone who is going to be in the middle of the park most of the time amongst the action so he can marshal the troops if need be.
Still, early days and there's a long way to go so no need for doom and gloom yet. The only reason I fear for you lot at present, is I remember how bad West Ham were in 09/10 under Zola. We stayed up with a poor team and a poor points total by virtue of there being three teams worse than us. However we failed to improve the next season and paid for it. Villa last year reminded me of us in 09/10. You don't seem to have improved yet, but I hope you do.
Although not too much of course. ;)
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We played good possession football, passed it around and only lost 1-0.
West Ham were promoted and have momentum of winning games, whereas we've just landed our 4th manager in 3 years who is trying to change the style of play again
It will take time but the evidence is there to see, the revolution has started.
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Cheers, Sendo - fair and measured as usual.
Agree with you totally about Bent as acting captain - doesn't make sense to me either.
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MOTD highlights (http://www.101greatgoals.com/gvideos/west-ham-1-aston-villa-0-motd/)
Cheers for that, Legion, hadn't seen that site before. They even had highlights of (my German team) Duisburg's flukey away win in the German Cup on Saturday. I'd been struggling to find a highlights site for Duisburg since they closed their PayTV offering earlier this year.
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We played good possession football, passed it around and only lost 1-0.
West Ham were promoted and have momentum of winning games, whereas we've just landed our 4th manager in 3 years who is trying to change the style of play again
It will take time but the evidence is there to see, the revolution has started.
Sense.
This thread can now be closed.
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Also, Bent as captain? Seems a strange one to me, he's never struck me as captain material. Although I don't like to see strikers as captains, should be a defender or a defensive midfielder for me, someone who is going to be in the middle of the park most of the time amongst the action so he can marshal the troops if need be.
Yup, that surprised me, as well.
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Also, Bent as captain? Seems a strange one to me, he's never struck me as captain material. Although I don't like to see strikers as captains, should be a defender or a defensive midfielder for me, someone who is going to be in the middle of the park most of the time amongst the action so he can marshal the troops if need be.
Yup, that surprised me, as well.
And me. I said on the match thread, I don't know how much of a leader he is in the changing room or at training and so on, but he never strikes me as a captain on the pitch. But then, who else would we choose?
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at the moment I can not see any captain material , that is what is worrying . I suppose it will be Dunne when hes back but I could see it eventually being Vlaar.
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Also, Bent as captain? Seems a strange one to me, he's never struck me as captain material. Although I don't like to see strikers as captains, should be a defender or a defensive midfielder for me, someone who is going to be in the middle of the park most of the time amongst the action so he can marshal the troops if need be.
Yup, that surprised me, as well.
And me. I said on the match thread, I don't know how much of a leader he is in the changing room or at training and so on, but he never strikes me as a captain on the pitch. But then, who else would we choose?
It doesn't help that he's the most isolated, least involved player on the pitch. I could see the idea if you have a player like Rooney, who is always dropping deep and popping up all over the pitch, but making Bent captain is like making the triangle the lead instrument in an orchestra.
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One big difference between us and them was Diame . Thought he looked great
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With only three first team players out on Saturday, you only had to look a the bench to see how woefully thin the squad is. We need at least three in before the end of the month, otherwise I fear for us over a long season. I hope the board back him.
Looking at the squad it is imperative that we replace the two players dropped by Lambert with two who will be regular starters. That must happen before 31st. Do not necessarily have to be direct replacements but must increase the strength of the squad.
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Just back from game / London
That was thoroughly shit
As bad as anything McLeish served up
did you not see us away at Spurs last season ?
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Also, Bent as captain? Seems a strange one to me, he's never struck me as captain material. Although I don't like to see strikers as captains, should be a defender or a defensive midfielder for me, someone who is going to be in the middle of the park most of the time amongst the action so he can marshal the troops if need be.
Yup, that surprised me, as well.
And me. I said on the match thread, I don't know how much of a leader he is in the changing room or at training and so on, but he never strikes me as a captain on the pitch. But then, who else would we choose?
It doesn't help that he's the most isolated, least involved player on the pitch. I could see the idea if you have a player like Rooney, who is always dropping deep and popping up all over the pitch, but making Bent captain is like making the triangle the lead instrument in an orchestra.
I was bass triangle in a band once.
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It might have been as bad as Norwich, but I seriously doubt it will be when the manager's had a whole season in the job.
Bingo.
Yes, it was piss poor in many ways, but fuck me, what kind of transition does anyone expect in 90 minutes of competitive football, and having made minimal additions to the squad?
What worried me was the people in the 'season expectations' thread hoping for a top 8 finish.
after seeing us on saturday, i'm more hopefull of a top 8 finish than i was before
i've waited a very long time to see a Villa side looking to keep possession and try and play some decent football, it didnt come of but we will only improve, Lambert will work on making us better but at least he will work from a good foundation of the way he wants us to play
West Ham in my opinion will be in a relegtion scrap, and we will be top half
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I think it's all been said about Saturday really. I'm not panicking, it's just one game and the transfer window is still open.
Can't help thinking though that as things stand we resemble a decent Championship side and as good as Lambert is, he will struggle with that. I'm not saying we are likely relegation fodder but Robbie Savage may have a bit of a point. I think it is all down to whether Randy is prepared to fork out for some real quality over the next two weeks. I suspect not but hey ho, at least we're not Portsmouth.
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It may be worth bearing in mind that that moron Savage tipped us for top ten last season.
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It might have been as bad as Norwich, but I seriously doubt it will be when the manager's had a whole season in the job.
Bingo.
Yes, it was piss poor in many ways, but fuck me, what kind of transition does anyone expect in 90 minutes of competitive football, and having made minimal additions to the squad?
What worried me was the people in the 'season expectations' thread hoping for a top 8 finish.
after seeing us on saturday, i'm more hopefull of a top 8 finish than i was before
i've waited a very long time to see a Villa side looking to keep possession and try and play some decent football, it didnt come of but we will only improve, Lambert will work on making us better but at least he will work from a good foundation of the way he wants us to play
West Ham in my opinion will be in a relegtion scrap, and we will be top half
This exactly. We had 65% possession on Saturday, we just lacked penetration. In many ways it was a typical opening day 0-0 but they grabbed a scrappy goal. The difference was one team kept the ball and passed it on the deck, the other punted it 50 yards at every opportunity. It wasn't perfect by any means, but the crowd need to stay with him while he implements it and we will be fine.
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Naughton and Charlie Adam would do me. I know Adam would be on big wages but his fee would be relatively modest, and it'd still only leave us with two established, experienced CM's so Bannan and Delph would still get time on the pitch.
I agree we lack pace, but I'd rather persevere with N'Zog and get Gabby and marc back firing first.
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we were attempting a new patient, short passing philosophy, which simply lacked attacking drive. Too many of their passes were sideways or backwards, stunted as they were by two rigid lines of defence. West Ham's long ball strategy avoided the congested midfield area anyway, and the slightness of Villa's midfield meant that despite Lambert's team winning most of the headers, the second ball was almost always won by West Ham. Stilted and unconfident, but probably not the best place to try the new system. You can read a full tactical analysis of the game if you like, here: http://www.thechalkboard.org.uk/#!westhamvilla/c24gb
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You'd hope a lot of it is transitional, and take some comfort from the fact that we are now trying to play decent football. Which makes the McLeish era even more bizarre given that it put the process started by Houllier back 2 years and involved us probably turning over, at great cost, more unsuitable players like Hutton.
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Think about under Houllier; there were some absolutely shocking games (Sunderland at home springs to mind) and I think a lot of it came down to the fact he was trying to completely reverse our style of play from a counter attacking side to one that keeps possession. By the end of the season though i think there were promising signs that things were getting there.
Lambert has a bigger job, as last season we weren't a counter attacking side. We were a defensive non-attacking side. We have to expect some poor games (Although yesterday wasn't anything like that Sunderland at home horror show.) We weren't impressive by any stretch of the imagination and we didn't create many chances but we did keep possession well and looking at the stats we had more shots. The shots may be misleading though as I think most were long range efforts.
Facing a newly promoted side away from home is always a tough start to a season. I reckon we will finish this season much stronger than we start it as the players get used to playing Lambert's style of play and he gets his own players in. I'm not going to get too worried just yet.
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Having calmed down after the disappointment of losing to a poor West Ham team on Saturday, I can appreciate what Lambert is trying to do and also how the heat must have played a part. That said, the one thing missing in our play was any sense of urgency. Yes, we passed it around nicely but we also allowed West Ham the time to get all 11 players behind the ball. Add to that we tried to play almost everything through the middle, an area that was completely congested.
I'm still not convinced N'Zogbia deserves a starting place, he's produced next to nothing since he's arrived. Maybe he prefers to have more space in front of him, something we never had in a very static formation but time and patience is quickly running out with him. We can criticise Bent like many did last season with Gabby but when you're fed nothing, it's difficult to make a telling contribution. The game was summed up for me by Lowton waiting to receive a square pass on the half way line when there was acres of space for him to move into and receive the ball. We were far, far too slow.
Hopefully against Everton the players will speed it up a level or three, Everton won't be defending in numbers and space will be available to exploit. We're far better than Saturday's performance and a win will give our confidence to the new system a much needed boost. Even on Saturday with 15 minutes left to play, I got the feeling a goal would have changed the team and allowed them the freedom to express themselves to go on and win the game.
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I'd rather play 3 in midfield against Everton. Then a front 3 with Bent in the middle and Ireland and Holman/N'Zog either side. Ireland a free role. We just lacked some extra presence in midfield. If Herds fit yet, I'd put him in to mop up and allow a bit more freedom for KEA to play, and Delph to use his pace to burst forward.
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Agree Supertom, Herd gives us some steel in midfield and as you said "allow a bit more freedom for KEA to play". The last thing we want to do with such a talented player is restrict him to sitting in front of the back four.