Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Match Threads & Player Ratings => Topic started by: Legion on October 25, 2013, 07:22:23 PM
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Could have gone either way. They have better players than us and it eventually told, particularly once Benteke had tired. We've had such a tough run of fixtures we've not had any opportunity to build up some confidence and form.
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Played better today but missed some great chances - defence looked woefully out of position at times and surprised gabby and Weimann stayed on when tonev provided better width - 4 home defeats in 5 and just above the bottom 3 - the early promise is fading - unless we sort our home form it will be a long hard winter ahead - again!
Disappointing day and it's happening far too often .
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Someone please tell me where Lambert is going with this, I don't get it anymore.
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4 great goalscoring chances and we took none of them.
That's what happens when you don't take your chances.
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Played better and midfield balance was better. However it's another really poor result at home and simply not good enough. Benteke was poor today, but probably reflected lack of match fitness. Baker just isn't a Premier League defender. My biggest concern is that we were well in the game when we went behind, but the changes Lambert makes frequently result in us losing any momentum or impetus. He doesn't seem to understand how to create pressure.
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Don't worry. Lambert's building something special.
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I've seen nothing to convince me that were in for nothing but a season of fighting relegation.Not acceptable. Our home form is an absolute joke and our manager is utterly unconvincing and is showing he does have favourites which is hampering our progress. Very unhappy with this result we appear to have made little progress Im afraid
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We could have come away with something today. Big Ben scores and it all changes.
That's nine games played and we have played the entire top six
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Is Lambert turning into MON?
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Have Everton Fans sing Ole Ole when passing it around comfortable winning 2-0 is quite the shitter
Home form is beyond woeful now
Lost the game due to them having the experience of Osman to come on.If thier is one thing that truly fucks me off with PL it's his instance you don't need experience based on us being crap with experienced players under Mcliesh.
Also we are surely the weakest team in the league their no physical strength in midfield at all.
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We sit back we lose, we attack we lose.
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Poor, that penalty was crucial for us... we go again!
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Could have been out of sight by half time, in the end their experience showed and they were miles away from us in the last 20-30 minutes. Gutted, but on another day we could have got something from it. We go again.
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Not sure how we lost that, they took their chances and that was that. I've had a quick look at the table, we may have actually moved up a place (?)
Looking at the bigger picture, I know these results are going to test people's patience but I feel we really have to stick at this. We looked very good at times today and the wins will come.
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As I said the midfield balance was working and we were creating chances, but as soon as we went behind Lambert changed it and we became totally toothless. That's the most worrying thing, his substitutions very rarely cause a positive change for the team.
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Against the top 6 teams, Gabbys, Weimanns, Westwoods touch, ability is not good enough.Too often the pass, lay off shot was badly executed, or the wrong choice.
Gabbys chance, at 1-0, straight at the goalie, Osman places his shot, thats the difference..
Maybe try Helenius instead of Weimann, who looked very short of confidence today.
Shame really, as until they scored, we were the better team.
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losing is shit, but we did have some great chances. I take heart with the fact that most of the games that we have lost we have actually matched the opposition.
I think despite the negativity, we are playing like a mid table team. Which most would say would be progress (if we finished there)
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Our home form is relegation form and the manager seems clueless how to address it. Blunt attack, weak midfield and a defence you can drive a bus through.
Gabby is little use at home where his pace isn't really a weapon, and Weimann is badly out of form. Benteke is either unfit or uninterested or both.
Getting fed up with lack of width, lack of creativity and lack of concentration at the back, and what looks like yet another year of struggle.
Losing patience with Lambert.
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Dreary, but predictable. We're building a real losing culture around the club, where we shrug our shoulders and say 'well, we lost because we aren't as good as our opponents.' We've got to get rid of that mindset because that lack of expectation will only see us underachieve. It's just not good enough, and if we keep on having poor seasons like the last three we're eventually going to bow out of this league. We have to expect better.
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Also Weimann and Gabby are contributing nowhere near enough. Gabby missed a great chance today, and they need to be told their level of performance is not good enough.
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Not sure how we lost that, they took their chances and that was that. I've had a quick look at the table, we may have actually moved up a place (?)
Looking at the bigger picture, I know these results are going to test people's patience but I feel we really have to stick at this. We looked very good at times today and the wins will come.
Not sure its the right time to say the wins will come , we have problems in defence , midfield and attack and quite frankly our home form is totally unacceptable .
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we've gone from being hopeless defensively and quite potent in attack to much better defensively and struggling to score goals. Three league games without a goal is really alarming. Today we played well and haven't come away with what we deserved. It's going to happen but until we can fix that we are going to slip down the table quickly. 15th and dropping, irrespective of who we've played is a concern.
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Dreary, but predictable. We're building a real losing culture around the club, where we shrug our shoulders and say 'well, we lost because we aren't as good as our opponents.' We've got to get rid of that mindset because that lack of expectation will only see us underachieve. It's just not good enough, and if we keep on having poor seasons like the last three we're eventually going to bow out of this league. We have to expect better.
A lot of good points here - we are now getting used to losing and its a worry.
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There are positives. The attacking intent in general was great, looked likely to score in the first half and a couple of decent chances in the second. Delph was very good. Benteke just not match fit or quite as sharp as normal, which may have made a difference. Don't think it was a penalty anyway, for what it's worth.
Yes we lost and faded towards the end but I honestly believe things are still (slowly) heading in the right direction. I'd rather watch that than a MON team.
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Not enough quality in the team. We can't carry on like this...
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losing is shit, but we did have some great chances. I take heart with the fact that most of the games that we have lost we have actually matched the opposition.
I think despite the negativity, we are playing like a mid table team. Which most would say would be progress (if we finished there)
Problem is we've looked pretty unconvincing against the shitter teams too.
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Garbage.
I've never rated this manager. I never will.
We've won 6/24 at home under him.
What the hell has Sylla done wrong?
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Both Everton and Liverpool will be pushing for top 4 finishes this season. We have lost at home to both in games we probably shouldn't have lost might well have won and in the end didn't deserve to get something out of because we failed to take our chances. Liverpool who are the better team offered nothing against us and got lucky with a piece of individual brilliance. Everton at least played and so did we. I see nothing to be upset about apart from the defeat. Oh and in 10 years time Westwood will BE Barry.
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That lack of creativity in midfield is really telling, as is our apparent unwillingness to keep the ball for decent spells and build more patiently. However, we won't know what this all means until December, as we have four games next month which could all be classified as winnable.
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Don't know what your problem with Baker is PW, Clark gets drawn to ball he should'nt have, and Lukaku scores.Baker is'nt the answer yet, but hes better than Clark who follows the ball.
The problems today , yet again were Gabby and Weimann.Not enough goal, not enough creativity, and poor touch and choiices.Too often we play the ball up front, and fail to hold onto it.Tonev was ok, made some good lay offs, but we need to give him a run.
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We're now saying 'they have better players than us' about Everton. When will be making that excuse up about Southampton, Smethwick, Stoke, Wet Spam? When we play them at home I guess?
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Garbage.
I've never rated this manager. I never will.
We've won 6/24 at home under him.
What the hell has Sylla done wrong?
I cannot understand why sylla is not in the team - i cannot understand why Weimann and gabby both play in home games out wide - neither are natural widemen and the balance of the team is not good.
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Lambert should have til Christmas to improve our home form or else he should get the bullet. The fans who have been so patient are being shortchanged massively
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Both Everton and Liverpool will be pushing for top 4 finishes this season. We have lost at home to both in games we probably shouldn't have lost might well have won and in the end didn't deserve to get something out of because we failed to take our chances. Liverpool who are the better team offered nothing against us and got lucky with a piece of individual brilliance. Everton at least played and so did we. I see nothing to be upset about apart from the defeat. Oh and in 10 years time Westwood will BE Barry.
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We were offered Barry at the end of the August and Mr Stubborn said no - twat! Surely the loan-deal offered was a no brainer? Pissed off with Lambert. Buy some experience in the January window or we're gonna be lucky to survive.
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Lambert should have til Christmas to improve our home form or else he should get the bullet. The fans who have been so patient are being shortchanged massively
This is complete lunacy.
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Don't know what your problem with Baker is PW, Clark gets drawn to ball he should'nt have, and Lukaku scores.Baker is'nt the answer yet, but hes better than Clark who follows the ball.
The problems today , yet again were Gabby and Weimann.Not enough goal, not enough creativity, and poor touch and choiices.Too often we play the ball up front, and fail to hold onto it.Tonev was ok, made some good lay offs, but we need to give him a run.
He's not better than Clark, his positional sense is appalling. Just watch the Lukaku chance in the first half that Guzan brilliantly saved.
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Both Everton and Liverpool will be pushing for top 4 finishes this season. We have lost at home to both in games we probably shouldn't have lost might well have won and in the end didn't deserve to get something out of because we failed to take our chances. Liverpool who are the better team offered nothing against us and got lucky with a piece of individual brilliance. Everton at least played and so did we. I see nothing to be upset about apart from the defeat. Oh and in 10 years time Westwood will BE Barry.
Not a cat in hells chance of everton pushing for a top 4 finish this season.
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Both Everton and Liverpool will be pushing for top 4 finishes this season. We have lost at home to both in games we probably shouldn't have lost might well have won and in the end didn't deserve to get something out of because we failed to take our chances. Liverpool who are the better team offered nothing against us and got lucky with a piece of individual brilliance. Everton at least played and so did we. I see nothing to be upset about apart from the defeat. Oh and in 10 years time Westwood will BE Barry.
All well and good but we've not looked great against the shitter teams either
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Today is the first time I have lost faith even through all the other losses.
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We were offered Barry at the end of the August and Mr Stubborn said no - twat! Surely the loan-deal offered was a no brainer? Pissed off with Lambert. Buy some experience in the January window or we're gonna be lucky to survive.
How do you know we were offered barry in August?
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Dreary, but predictable. We're building a real losing culture around the club, where we shrug our shoulders and say 'well, we lost because we aren't as good as our opponents.' We've got to get rid of that mindset because that lack of expectation will only see us underachieve. It's just not good enough, and if we keep on having poor seasons like the last three we're eventually going to bow out of this league. We have to expect better.
I can only talk for myself - I certainly want us to do better and win some trophies again. I think our best shot at that lies with stability and building up the club again, which is what we are doing at the moment. If we finish somewhere mid-table, comfortably off a relegation fight, that will do me for this season. Next season I would expect us to kick on and grow again. I never want Villa to lose but I can see where we are right now which helps me to put results like today into perspective.
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Both Everton and Liverpool will be pushing for top 4 finishes this season. We have lost at home to both in games we probably shouldn't have lost might well have won and in the end didn't deserve to get something out of because we failed to take our chances. Liverpool who are the better team offered nothing against us and got lucky with a piece of individual brilliance. Everton at least played and so did we. I see nothing to be upset about apart from the defeat. Oh and in 10 years time Westwood will BE Barry.
Not a cat in hells chance of everton pushing for a top 4 finish this season.
Appear to be third at the moment.
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5 home games, 1 lucky win. The continual failure, and the inability of the manager to do anything about it is getting boring now.
How teams must love coming to Villa park, we are such a soft touch at home.
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I can't see how anyone can think we played well, yes had chances but what the fuck was the formation? Where was Gabby actually playing, 4 forwards on the pitch very confused
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Against the top 6 teams, Gabbys, Weimanns, Westwoods touch, ability is not good enough.Too often the pass, lay off shot was badly executed, or the wrong choice.
Gabbys chance, at 1-0, straight at the goalie, Osman places his shot, thats the difference..
Maybe try Helenius instead of Weimann, who looked very short of confidence today.
Shame really, as until they scored, we were the better team.
Weimann was probably the best of our three forwards today though. His confidence is shat in front of goal as is Gabby's.
Immobile statues like Kozak or Helenius aren't the answer I'm afraid.
I think we are in trouble to be honest. What options do we have that can come in and change things? Okore and Nzogbia are injured. Sylla and Bennett are no better or worse than what we have out there. Zero goal threat from midfield isn't helping matters.
Spending that kind of money on Kozak considering the lack of width and guile in midfield is truly worrying. When we are struggling, Lambert re-enacts the Bradford tactics. Today Sylla should have come in and provided some legs in midfield at that stage. Or else push Bacuna forward and bring Lowton in who has a decent delivery. How can he not see that putting 4 forwards in when we are chasing the game completely fucks us? Everton's substitution in comparison changed the game.
I feared for us watching the City game believe it or not, Hull was truly atrocious. Last 2 games being beaten long before the end while not playing all that bad is worrying familiar
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Our results at home are far far too poor.
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Both Everton and Liverpool will be pushing for top 4 finishes this season. We have lost at home to both in games we probably shouldn't have lost might well have won and in the end didn't deserve to get something out of because we failed to take our chances. Liverpool who are the better team offered nothing against us and got lucky with a piece of individual brilliance. Everton at least played and so did we. I see nothing to be upset about apart from the defeat. Oh and in 10 years time Westwood will BE Barry.
Not a cat in hells chance of everton pushing for a top 4 finish this season.
Appear to be third at the moment.
By virtue of beating us. They won't stay there.
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We're now saying 'they have better players than us' about Everton. When will be making that excuse up about Southampton, Smethwick, Stoke, Wet Spam? When we play them at home I guess?
Well we have to have an excuse every week now it seems. Whether its 'they're better than us', 'we haven't played for 3 weeks so they were fitter', 'they've just come up so are harder to beat' etc etc. IMHO we played 'OK' today, we had some good moments but so did they. Once it went 1-0 and Gabby missed a relative sitter it was all over. Heads dropped, shape went and substitutions were ineffective
We've become a collection of excuse makers to cover the fact we aren't very good. This grand plan of Lambert's that some can see is one i'd love to see myself. But like others i'm trying and failing to see what it is.
I guess the only positive is a 25% home win ration under Lambert is better than a 24% one.
Depressed. UTV
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What was our possession stat today? Did we win?
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Both Everton and Liverpool will be pushing for top 4 finishes this season. We have lost at home to both in games we probably shouldn't have lost might well have won and in the end didn't deserve to get something out of because we failed to take our chances. Liverpool who are the better team offered nothing against us and got lucky with a piece of individual brilliance. Everton at least played and so did we. I see nothing to be upset about apart from the defeat. Oh and in 10 years time Westwood will BE Barry.
Not a cat in hells chance of everton pushing for a top 4 finish this season.
Appear to be third at the moment.
And if saints beat Fulham tonight they will be 3rd with as much chance of finishing top 4 as everton .
The top 6 will be arsenal, Chelsea, city, spurs , utd and Liverpool though maybe not in that order .
Everton will finish 7th at best .
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3 league games without a goal is not acceptable.
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Well i saw Lukakus goal PW, and even Houghton on the feed was saying where was Clark? You don't rate him, fair enough, i don't rate Clark for all the mistakes he keeps making.Baker brings aggression and commitment, not sure what Clark brings tbh.
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Its seriously looking like last season again
Need to pick up some points in the next 6 games .
Home form is unacceptable .
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Both Everton and Liverpool will be pushing for top 4 finishes this season. We have lost at home to both in games we probably shouldn't have lost might well have won and in the end didn't deserve to get something out of because we failed to take our chances. Liverpool who are the better team offered nothing against us and got lucky with a piece of individual brilliance. Everton at least played and so did we. I see nothing to be upset about apart from the defeat. Oh and in 10 years time Westwood will BE Barry.
Not a cat in hells chance of everton pushing for a top 4 finish this season.
Appear to be third at the moment.
And if saints beat Fulham tonight they will be 3rd with as much chance of finishing top 4 as everton .
The top 6 will be arsenal, Chelsea, city, spurs , utd and Liverpool though maybe not in that order .
Everton will finish 7th at best .
a bit of the Mark Lawrenson scholl of football punditry, perhaps?
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Well i saw Lukakus goal PW, and even Houghton on the feed was saying where was Clark? You don't rate him, fair enough, i don't rate Clark for all the mistakes he keeps making.Baker brings aggression and commitment, not sure what Clark brings tbh.
Clark has played well this year overall and we kept a couple of clean sheets with him in the team, something I don't think we've ever achieved with Baker in the team.
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Ratings time
Guzan 7
Bacuna 7
Vlaar 6
Baker 4
Luna 4
Westwood 6
Delph 7
Tonev 6
Weimann 5
Gabby 5
Benteke 4
Clark 5
Helenius 4
Barry was motm.
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Both Everton and Liverpool will be pushing for top 4 finishes this season. We have lost at home to both in games we probably shouldn't have lost might well have won and in the end didn't deserve to get something out of because we failed to take our chances. Liverpool who are the better team offered nothing against us and got lucky with a piece of individual brilliance. Everton at least played and so did we. I see nothing to be upset about apart from the defeat. Oh and in 10 years time Westwood will BE Barry.
Not a cat in hells chance of everton pushing for a top 4 finish this season.
Appear to be third at the moment.
And if saints beat Fulham tonight they will be 3rd with as much chance of finishing top 4 as everton .
The top 6 will be arsenal, Chelsea, city, spurs , utd and Liverpool though maybe not in that order .
Everton will finish 7th at best .
a bit of the Mark Lawrenson scholl of football punditry, perhaps?
No sir , but I don't believe everton are anywhere near as good as the 6 I've mentioned and a couple of injuries will screw them up - i don't think many on here would say everton will finish top 4 but if they do I will take my hat off to you mal :)
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Barry was motm.
I'd probably agree with that
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We're now saying 'they have better players than us' about Everton. When will be making that excuse up about Southampton, Smethwick, Stoke, Wet Spam? When we play them at home I guess?
Southampton have a very good squad ,which has set them back a few quid.
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Well, that's a real kick in the nuts for the confidence having at least played better at home.
We've now played Arsenal, Man City, Liverpool, Spurs, Chelsea & Everton...tough, but home form is appalling.
From now until the end of the year we have West Ham, Cardiff, West Brom, Sunderland, Saints, Fulham, Man Utd, Stoke, Palace and Swansea. Let's see how far we have come, if at all, after them.
Not pushing the panic button just yet, but last season after xmas, we were beating teams outside the top 6....now we have a chance to put a decent run together and build confidence.
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A club like Everton shouldn't be ahead of us, but they are, at present.
Due to a combination of factors.
It's pish, but these are not the games we can say should be a nailed on three points.
Depends what your expectations are/ were for this season. If you thought that Paul Lambert was in fact Ron Saunders MKII and that we'd cut a swathe through the division due to our end of season form last year, you're now seeing that that might have been a tad unrealistic.
If you were looking at small, but not insignificant progress, that's still on the table. We've now got a fair chunk of the worst home games out of the way. We should be able to claim at least 5/6 victories with the likes of Palarse, Cardiff, Hull, Olbiyun, Fulham, Stoke, Southampton, Swansea and Norwich all still to play.
6/7 home wins in total by the close of the campaign, and a continuation of our decent away form would see us improve on last years placing. That might not be enough for some, but our business in the summer didn't look like the sort to put us back in the running for Europe and so forth.
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It's plainly obvious that we need Lerner to put some money towards a couple of quality players, a creative midfielder and a wide forward. We desperately need quality and pressure on Gabby and Weimann.
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No Sylla again? The trio of Westwood, Delph & Sylla worked a treat at the end of last season....why has Lambert not played this formation at all so far?
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It's plainly obvious that we need Lerner to put some money towards a couple of quality players, a creative midfielder and a wide forward. We desperately need quality and pressure on Gabby and Weimann.
Lerner has put the money there - it's the manager who decides who to buy and how to spend it.
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Both Everton and Liverpool will be pushing for top 4 finishes this season. We have lost at home to both in games we probably shouldn't have lost might well have won and in the end didn't deserve to get something out of because we failed to take our chances. Liverpool who are the better team offered nothing against us and got lucky with a piece of individual brilliance. Everton at least played and so did we. I see nothing to be upset about apart from the defeat. Oh and in 10 years time Westwood will BE Barry.
Not a cat in hells chance of everton pushing for a top 4 finish this season.
Appear to be third at the moment.
And if saints beat Fulham tonight they will be 3rd with as much chance of finishing top 4 as everton .
The top 6 will be arsenal, Chelsea, city, spurs , utd and Liverpool though maybe not in that order .
Everton will finish 7th at best .
a bit of the Mark Lawrenson scholl of football punditry, perhaps?
No sir , but I don't believe everton are anywhere near as good as the 6 I've mentioned and a couple of injuries will screw them up - i don't think many on here would say everton will finish top 4 but if they do I will take my hat off to you mal;)
Was not what I said, Eastie. I said they would be pushing for top 4. Given I believe Arsenal will be Champions behind them one of Liverpool/Chelsea/Man City then Spurs/Manure/Everton and as usual there will be a chase for the 4th Champions league slot. Everton have two points more this season than they did last from 9 games. But that's what you said pretty much.
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With the exception of Bacuna I don't think anyone that's been signed has improved us at all
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It's plainly obvious that we need Lerner to put some money towards a couple of quality players, a creative midfielder and a wide forward. We desperately need quality and pressure on Gabby and Weimann.
Lerner has put the money there - it's the manager who decides who to buy and how to spend it.
Not exactly, we needed to boost the squad a lot in numbers so the money had to spread quite thin. We need another injection on a couple of players to improved the quality.
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Right now, as it stands, Aston Villa is a club in decline, we either get a serious cash injection from somewhere or we do a Wolves.
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I honestly thought the Man shitty game would be the turning point for home results
How wrong I was
I know we fluked it but I thought it might change us mentally but I would say Lambeert has not a clue how to do subs
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With the exception of Bacuna I don't think anyone that's been signed has improved us at all
Not obviously no, I think Okore would have.
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With the exception of Bacuna I don't think anyone that's been signed has improved us at all
agree - Luna's positioning again was awful . Okore would have been ok but the others . meh
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Right now, as it stands, Aston Villa is a club in decline, we either get a serious cash injection from somewhere or we do a Wolves.
That's true - it's been all downhill since 1897. If Lambert doesn't win a treble next year I'm not renewing.
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It's a cut n paste post-match post from me.
Same problems still unaddressed so hardly worth repeating.
Width non existent. Support from the midfield non existant.
The space allowed to Lukaku for their first should never happen in a game at this level, yet we seem to endeavor to present opportunities like it in every match.
Positives? Erm.....bright early 15 minutes in which we should have and desperately needed to score. We lost confidence when we didn't.
At last we have dropped one of the central midfield passengers, as suggested weeks ago, I dont think we looked any weaker in the centre of the park for it. Would still play Sylla over Westwood personally, although I thought he was ok today.
You could argue it's a fine line between victory and defeat because of the chances both sides created, but they looked the more composed side to me and deserved the win.
Martinez is a smarter manager than I gave him credit for, he bought well in the summer and organized his line up in a superior manner to Lambert.
How I wish we would stop taking punts of a million here and 2 million there when what we need is proven quality. I said to my pal that the introduction of Osman would turn the game in their favour - a very clever and under rated player, and exactly the kind of signing I would much rather we be making.
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Has Lambert ever made an effective substitution ? Apart from the forced substitution of Benteke with Kozak against Norwich
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Has Lambert ever made an effective substitution ? Apart from the forced substitution of Benteke with Kozak against Norwich
yes but for the opposition ;(
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With the exception of Bacuna I don't think anyone that's been signed has improved us at all
Not obviously no, I think Okore would have.
Okore looked the best signing before his injury.The rest haven't improved us Bacuna has done well but only playing as well as Lowton was last season.
But with our outlay what can you expect
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I think Lerner has pumped in more than enough cash and continues to do so.
I had kinda hoped Lambert would turn us into a Dortmund style high pressing, ultra attacking kind of side. So far, not so much.
Ah well.
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With the exception of Bacuna I don't think anyone that's been signed has improved us at all
Not obviously no, I think Okore would have.
Okore looked the best signing before his injury.The rest haven't improved us Bacuna has done well but only playing as well as Lowton was last season.
But with our outlay what can you expect
I think Bacuna is much better defensively than Lowton.
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Just got back. I had a nasty feeling when our third great chance went begging early on that this would end in tears. Everton didn't have to play well to win which is a worry. Second half we had more possession and plenty of corners but couldn't create. Only had one chance to gabby after they had scored but it came at him very quickly. I thought baker was doing fine against Lukaka until Luna went off but Lukaka then got more involved once baker moved to full back. The big worry for me is that we lose goals and games when we have done enough to get a point at least. gabby had a shocker I thought , touch bloody awful.
One things for sure, we can't play narrow at home and try and pass out way through teams with the players we have. And the corners! looked like we would never score, why can't we try and create something like they did for the second?
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Our problem is that we've lost the ability to create goals lately.
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Could have been out of sight by half time, in the end their experience showed and they were miles away from us in the last 20-30 minutes. Gutted, but on another day we could have got something from it. We go again.
Agreed, John. Our first half performance was the best we've played at home for a long time and we started out well in the second half too. I think the players lost a bit of patience when we couldn't find a way through and it showed in our passing. Saying that, regardless of how well we played for the first hour, as soon as we went behind we never looked the same team. We really fell apart and made a decent Everton side look far better than they actually are - and this was supposed to be them at full strength.
Questions do have to made at Lambert's tactics. Sides know what to expect from us and when we fail to take our chances opposing managers seem to have a knack of making the right changes whilst Lambert makes the wrong ones. Somebody mentioned "Bradford" and they're right. It's pure desperation throwing so many up front in the hope of getting a goal or two back. As we saw today, the midfield suffers and teams are allowed to dominate the midfield. It's all very playground and completely unacceptable.
I wish I was a betting man as I've now correctly predicted the last three results, not that I'm happy about it. I just wish we weren't so fucking predictable.
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oh well , whens the transfer window open .Its not far off
no more 1.5 million signings please .
Proven quality to come straight into team
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oh well , whens the transfer window open .Its not far off
no more 1.5 million signings please .
Proven quality to come straight into team
No chance
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Tactically Lambert has serious issues he needs to address when we go behind in games.
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Utterly fucked off with them now.
Another routine home defeat.
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should do what Coventry do and play all our home games away
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Of all the things I thought would hinder our progress this season, never in a million years did I think it'd be our forwards' finishing. A pox on all their houses. As soon as Gabby missed that one, I bet I wasn't alone in thinking, "this is only gonna finish one way, referee might as well blow up now". Beginning to wonder how professional footballers can reach so far in their careers that they get to play for my club whilst still having little-to-no concept of moving off the ball.
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With the exception of Bacuna I don't think anyone that's been signed has improved us at all
Not obviously no, I think Okore would have.
Okore looked the best signing before his injury.The rest haven't improved us Bacuna has done well but only playing as well as Lowton was last season.
But with our outlay what can you expect
Add the outlay together could that not have been put towards one quality midfielder? Yeah you could argue Okore would have improved the defence but he came got injured then got injured big time for this season we'll never know, do we have the worst home record in the league? If you ask me the formation is wank and until it's changed we won't improve. Seriously fucked off tonight
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Is Nzogbia supposed to be back some time in November or is it longer now?
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Tired of saying it but we cannot continue with gabby and Weimann out wide in home games -other managers will combat it and we end up getting beaten.
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I think whatever side you sit on whether we're good enough, improving or we're not, it's plain to see that our home record is atrocious and unacceptable.
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Is Nzogbia supposed to be back some time in November or is it longer now?
Last i heard it was long term as in months away - unless he has made rapid progress since then,
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Losing four out of five at home is frankly appalling, really felt that today could go either way though with the way we played. We created chances and i think we would have gone on to win had we scored the penalty. We have a chance to win some games from now on, it's tempting to post more angry things but i think we should try to stay positive.
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Is Nzogbia supposed to be back some time in November or is it longer now?
Last i heard it was long term as in months away - unless he has made rapid progress since then,
damn - we need him
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What worries me is that I don't think we could compete in the transfer market even if we tried. I don't mean the big guns but the rest, D'you think Wanyama would have left Celtic to go to us with what we offer? Unfortunately history means fuck all nowadays.
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Right now, as it stands, Aston Villa is a club in decline, we either get a serious cash injection from somewhere or we do a Wolves.
That's true - it's been all downhill since 1897. If Lambert doesn't win a treble next year I'm not renewing.
???, i Didnt mention 1897 or winning trebles, fact is we are not improving, we seem to be going backwards, our home form is appalling, if you think were moving forward, or even standing still, i`d be genuinley suprised.
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Lambert should have til Christmas to improve our home form or else he should get the bullet. The fans who have been so patient are being shortchanged massively
This is complete lunacy.
Not really.It is at the end of the day, a business
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Lambert should have til Christmas to improve our home form or else he should get the bullet. The fans who have been so patient are being shortchanged massively
This is complete lunacy.
Not really.It is at the end of the day, a business
Then you should feel free to take your custom elsewhere.
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We can't afford to miss penalties - he don't look anywhere near for to me either
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Played better and midfield balance was better. However it's another really poor result at home and simply not good enough. Benteke was poor today, but probably reflected lack of match fitness. Baker just isn't a Premier League defender. My biggest concern is that we were well in the game when we went behind, but the changes Lambert makes frequently result in us losing any momentum or impetus. He doesn't seem to understand how to create pressure.
Baker at centre back was outstanding today, he is a shit left back granted, but is easily a premier league defender.
Why Clark doesn't play left back is beyond me, he is much more accomplished in possession.
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I dont mind getting left behind by the horrid likes of Man City and chelsea
its when southamptons etc , start leaving you behind
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I dont mind getting left behind by the horrid likes of Man City and chelsea
its when southamptons etc , start leaving you behind
Exactly what I'm saying JP. It's all a bit shit isn't it? Plus you get to live by the sea.
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I don't think i'm gonna bother going to v.p for a few months it's just not worth the money being spent. Predictable football, poor tactics and going to see the same thing over and over really isn't for me.
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With the exception of Bacuna I don't think anyone that's been signed has improved us at all
Totally agree.
Bacuna is a slight upgrade on Lowton.
Luna is a similar shitness to Bennett. Both not good enough defensively to improve us.
Kozak is a massive downgrade on Benteke and i'd rather change the system than play the Czech Cascarino upfront.
Helenius and Tonev.... Tonev was ok today by all means but over the 9 games hasn't contributed anything and his shooting is as bad as Weimanns. Helenius, the only thing we know about him is he wears clean undies.
£20m+ to see Bacuna replace Lowton.....bargain.
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The performances aren't too bad but this is not acceptable now, 4/5 defeats at home, sort it out Lambert otherwise long term you'll be going the same way as TSM.
Probably the worst thing that happens to us is when we have a surprise win as we must be the only side who doesn't take the momentum from it and instead tailspins into decline.
Think about it, last season we beat Liverpool away and then had the infamous 15 goals of xmas. This season we beat Arsenal and followed it with 3 straight defeats.
We beat City and haven't even scored a goal since!!! 1 point from 9.
There is no other club like us
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On the way back both of the lads I went with said as soon as Benteke missed that penalty that was it basically. After about 8 mins!. As neither Weimann or Gabby are capable of scoring this season Benteke is our only hope and today the Everton central defenders had him in their pockets for most of the game
I havent got a clue how Lambert's going to pull this round. Whats more I think Lambert hasnt got many ideas either!
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You have got to take your chances. We had three, gilt edged ones, before Guzan had to do more than pick his nose. Goals change games and chances don't get any clear cut than the four we had today.
Gabby's chance was harder to miss; four/five yards out, bury it for crying out load.
Atrocious marking for both goals, but we had more than enough chances to win that game.
November is now very big for us. We wont play a top 7 side until mid-December. I think we have got it within us to beat a good few of these sides.
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Why Clark doesn't play left back is beyond me, he is much more accomplished in possession.
Does that really need answering ?. I take it you have seen him play at left back .. HE CAN'T PLAY THERE!
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Lambert should have til Christmas to improve our home form or else he should get the bullet. The fans who have been so patient are being shortchanged massively
This is complete lunacy.
Not really.It is at the end of the day, a business
Then you should feel free to take your custom elsewhere.
No thanks I'm just pointing out that if we're losing games and in the bottom 3 at Christmas with our Premier League status at risk,the club may consider a change,that's all.I don't rate Lambert but I will be delighted if we have an upturn in results,obviously
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I dont mind getting left behind by the horrid likes of Man City and chelsea
its when southamptons etc , start leaving you behind
Exactly what I'm saying JP. It's all a bit shit isn't it? Plus you get to live by the sea.
true and I know some hot birds that live down there - mind ones into S&M . she might hurt me ;)
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You have got to take your chances. We had three, gilt edged ones, before Guzan had to do more than pick his nose. Goals change games and chances don't get any clear cut than the four we had today.
Gabby's chance was harder to miss; four/five yards out, bury it for crying out load.
Atrocious marking for both goals, but we had more than enough chances to win that game.
November is now very big for us. We wont play a top 7 side until mid-December. I think we have got it within us to beat a good few of these sides.
I hope so ads, we really must score more goals and its a depressing evening again - even watching El Classico is not making me feel any better - i fear another long hard winter.
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I kept saying after the second went in 'I don't know how we've lost this.' I still don't. Everton were not two goals better than us, and we weren't two goal defeat bad.
I don't think we're anywhere near what we ought to be, but we are improving, despite two losses on the bounce. I thought overall, we played okay. Those goals were criminally easy to concede though.
My main concerns aren't about today's performance, rather they're about form - if away form deserts us or that bad patch has started early, we could be very much fucked.
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I don't fear the winter. Bring on the likes of Fulham, West Ham and Sunderland, Cardiff and West Brom. We will take more than ten points out of that lot.
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We are a big club with good support - it shouldn't be so easy for away teams to come to villa park and win - we should be making it a fortress and difficult place to visit .
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The most worying thing for me is that teams like Everton and Spurs re not having to play particularly well to easily beat us.
A long winter is ahead I'm afraid.
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We are a big club with good support - it shouldn't be so easy for away teams to come to villa park and win - we should be making it a fortress and difficult place to visit .
We're the new Fulham.Every clubs favourite Away day
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Suppose shouldn't be too unhappy we've got a new tunnel
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I too don't think the summer signings have - yet - improved us other than Bacuna, and that is marginal. We needed to buy better players than we had, but didn't.
Regardless of what the project is, losing four out of five home games is totally unacceptable.
It doesn't matter that we fluked past Man City, as the standard for the season isn't going to be that, it is going to be more like the other four games.
Four home games against Liverpool, Spurs, Everton and Newcastle in which we have taken no points, scored one goal and conceded eight.
Whether the manager is McLeish or Lambert, that is nothing like good enough.
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The home attendances are very good considering.
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Four out of those five were the top six, with bizzarely Newcastle being the poorest one of the lot.
We aren't good enough at home, but today for example, what more can Lambert do? Come on and take a penalty, finish Benteke and Andi's one on ones? Slot in Gabby's five yard sitter?
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I don't fear the winter. Bring on the likes of Fulham, West Ham and Sunderland, Cardiff and West Brom. We will take more than ten points out of that lot.
We'll need them as well, but our home form must be addressed. It's unacceptable to lose week after week and be told the lads put in a lot of 'effort'. No more excuses for our home form.
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The 4-2-4 formation Lambert resorts to needs to stop.
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The home attendances are very good considering.
Thankfully, I think that's because we are a bit unpredictable. Thank goodness for the win against Man City.
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Four out of those five were the top six, with bizzarely Newcastle being the poorest one of the lot.
We aren't good enough at home, but today for example, what more can Lambert do? Come on and take a penalty, finish Benteke and Andi's one on ones? Slot in Gabby's five yard sitter?
That's a fair point, but we were shit at home for almost the entirety of last season, too.
Forwards missing more chances than usual can explain the odd loss here and there but not our long run of poor home form.
I'd also point out that we didn't look too good at Hull either.
I look at the bench and I don't see better options than last year. I see more faces of the same sort if quality - uninspiring.
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I thought we played very well today for 65 minutes. If we'd taken only half the clear cut chances we created we'd have won the game. The injury to Luna was also significant as Baker, who was dealing with Lukaku comfortably was inexplicably switched to left back to accommodate Clark. Why didn't Lambert just bring Lowton on to replace Luna? Tonev also offered something different in midfield. Shame about the last 20 minutes.
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Our bench is piss poor
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Paul Lambert on Everton loss.
Boss Paul Lambert bemoaned the loss to Everton, pointing to three glorious missed chances in the first half.
Lambert was gutted to come in 0-0 at half-time after a dominant opening period but even more frustrated when the Toffees earned a 2-0 victory by the end of the game, following goals from Romelu Lukaku and Leon Osman.
But he refused to castigate his forwards, who he insists will be major players for him this term.
He said: "You have to take your chances. We should have been three-up.
"You don't take your chances, it puts pressure on you.
"But you can't be too harsh on the lads because they have done it since I have been here.
"The penalty save is terrific. I have just seen it back.
"With the second chance, Christian does the right thing trying to go across the goalkeeper but he's made another great save.
"Then the third one with Andi, the keeper has done really well again.
"The goalkeeper has had a really good game.
"But when you don't score when you're well on top? I thought we were well on top in the second half too but then we got caught. But I can't fault the lads for having a right good go.
"In the second half, we were on the ascendancy. I thought Gabby should have scored to make it 1-1. He had a good chance.
"The two goals were really poor.
"I thought we were on top in the second half. But these are big moments when you don't score. We had three fantastic chances.
"The goals will come. We are creating chances. That's the good thing. The lads will score.
"You can't be harsh on them because more times than not they will take their chances.
"I can't fault the lads for not giving it a go. We should have won that.
"I won't criticise them. They have given it everything they have got. On another day, they would have come in 3-0 up."
Lambert admits he's concerned about the home form but believes his team will turn the tables on the poor run in B6.
He added: "We seem to be doing it the wrong way around. We're winning away and finding it hard here. But you have to overcome it."
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Four out of those five were the top six, with bizzarely Newcastle being the poorest one of the lot.
We aren't good enough at home, but today for example, what more can Lambert do? Come on and take a penalty, finish Benteke and Andi's one on ones? Slot in Gabby's five yard sitter?
That's a fair point, but we were shit at home for almost the entirety of last season, too.
Forwards missing more chances than usual can explain the odd loss here and there but not our long run of poor home form.
I'd also point out that we didn't look too good at Hull either.
I look at the bench and I don't see better options than last year. I see more faces of the same sort if quality - uninspiring.
I agree and it's not just a quality issue it's a positional issue as well. We don't have the players in the positions we require to come on and make the difference. Emptying the midfield and chucking forwards on doesn't work, and that's been proven repeatedly.
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Paulie, I am not trying to explain away the long term issue (although playing nigh on all very good teams makes it tough) but today we actually played quite well, better than Everton and created three gilt edge chances that we should have took.
If we are woeful against Cardiff and Sunderland, then fair enough.
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Someone please tell me where Lambert is going with this, I don't get it anymore.
No, nor do I. Season after season of hard, mostly boring, grind, relegation fodder or mid table mediocrity. I'm hacked off with it right now and I'm not sure if I can see the point of it all any more
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A lot of fans for genuine reasons can only get to home games. How can the dreadful home form it be acceptable both a a football club and as a business?
I think the reasons lie in squad weaknesses but also the tactical incompetence of our current manager. It's not sustainable, it must improve soon or we might as well look for another manager.
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Can't be arsed to read the rest of the thread. I'm getting sick to the back teeth of coming away from VP with yet another defeat. Under Paul Lambert we've won just 6 home games and I'm starting to lose patience. Yes, Benteke could have put that penalty away (has anyone asked why Barry didn't take the penalty yet?), Weimann had a great chance, Gabby had an open goal in the second half, and if we'd gone in at half time 3-1 up no-one would have been surprised. But if your strikers don't take their chances you don't win games of football.
Some specifics - Weimann and Westwood are off form so why do they still get picked; why can't Sylla get a game; why play Gabby 'in the hole' when his only asset is his pace; why is every single one of our corners identical with identical outcomes - remind me how Everton's second was scored; how many times did we surrender possession through sloppy passes or throw ins.
I said last week that losing didn't hurt as much as it used to but I'm getting seriously pissed off with our home form. Fortress Villa Park - more like a Wendy House. We just have too many average players and a serious lack of quality
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I don't fear the winter. Bring on the likes of Fulham, West Ham and Sunderland, Cardiff and West Brom. We will take more than ten points out of that lot.
You are probably right but is that all there is to look forward to now? Is that what it has come to? I can't go on to the Villa Memories thread because I just get too depressed watching us playing exciting football, scoring goals, winning things or damned near so and just being somebody. Right now, I think we're a nobody to most fans around the country and I can't exactly blame them for thinking that
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I think we could have done with getting Barry in over the summer, I know this is with hindsight but we need an old head in the middle to replace Stan Petrov. Of course this goes against PL's policy but he showed his value today and it sounds like he wanted to come back to the Villa. Still think we will be ok.
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Clark is championship player at best. Other teams must see our defence and laugh.
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As I said the midfield balance was working and we were creating chances, but as soon as we went behind Lambert changed it and we became totally toothless. That's the most worrying thing, his substitutions very rarely cause a positive change for the team.
We had plenty of possession in Everton's final 3rd in the second half without creating much. Can't really see why you'd criticise Lambert on trying something different.
Also there were quite a few on here last week that wanted Helenius and Benteke up front.
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- Luna really is a terrible defender, I really think. His positioning is terrible
- Vlaar is looking good
- How about getting Lowton back in and have Bacuna as a right midfielder and Tonev on the left ? and then have Gabby and Benteke up front against West Ham. Meaning Weimann on the bench, he needs to be dropped/rested. Or Gabby on the left and then Sylla as an extra midfielder
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We did create 3 good chances first half but I sometimes wonder if Lambert is watching same game as everyone else?
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That lack of creativity in midfield is really telling, as is our apparent unwillingness to keep the ball for decent spells and build more patiently. However, we won't know what this all means until December, as we have four games next month which could all be classified as winnable.
I refuse to criticise either the attack or defence when the midfield is so woeful.
Westwood has contributed very little this season and Delph flatters to deceive. Neither creates chances or scores. Neither protects the defence well enough.
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- Luna really is a terrible defender, I really think. His positioning is terrible
- Vlaar is looking good
- How about getting Lowton back in and have Bacuna as a right midfielder and Tonev on the left ? and then have Gabby and Benteke up front against West Ham. Meaning Weimann on the bench, he needs to be dropped/rested. Or Gabby on the left and then Sylla as an extra midfielder
hey , you talk sense. you want to take Lamberts place ;)
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I don't fear the winter. Bring on the likes of Fulham, West Ham and Sunderland, Cardiff and West Brom. We will take more than ten points out of that lot.
We'll need them as well, but our home form must be addressed. It's unacceptable to lose week after week and be told the lads put in a lot of 'effort'. No more excuses for our home form.
Realistically that isn't going to happen i think 6/8 points is what we'll get.
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- Luna really is a terrible defender, I really think. His positioning is terrible
- Vlaar is looking good
- How about getting Lowton back in and have Bacuna as a right midfielder and Tonev on the left ? and then have Gabby and Benteke up front against West Ham. Meaning Weimann on the bench, he needs to be dropped/rested. Or Gabby on the left and then Sylla as an extra midfielder
I agree , sylla must come into the side - push bacuna and tonev both into wide midfield along with Delph and sylla and play 2 strikers , would try Kozak and benteke personally as gabby isn't prolific enough in front of goal - gabby and Weimann would be decent options to bring off the bench.
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- Luna really is a terrible defender, I really think. His positioning is terrible
- Vlaar is looking good
- How about getting Lowton back in and have Bacuna as a right midfielder and Tonev on the left ? and then have Gabby and Benteke up front against West Ham. Meaning Weimann on the bench, he needs to be dropped/rested. Or Gabby on the left and then Sylla as an extra midfielder
hey , you talk sense. you want to take Lamberts place ;)
Give him till Christmas first ;-) Then I will consider it !
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A tale of two strikers - Benteke is unfit and way off the pace . Lukaku - one chance - goal . House points for Vlaar , baker and Delph. A one legged, incontinent, epileptic with St. Vitus' dance bouncing on a trampoline has got more control than Gabby will ever have . Wiemann is anonymous , tonev is no better than Bowery and Westwood was measured against barry today - absolutely no comparison .
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As I said the midfield balance was working and we were creating chances, but as soon as we went behind Lambert changed it and we became totally toothless. That's the most worrying thing, his substitutions very rarely cause a positive change for the team.
We had plenty of possession in Everton's final 3rd in the second half without creating much. Can't really see why you'd criticise Lambert on trying something different.
Also there were quite a few on here last week that wanted Helenius and Benteke up front.
Because what he tried has failed repeatedly, if you don't have supply there's nothing the forwards can do.
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Four out of those five were the top six, with bizzarely Newcastle being the poorest one of the lot.
We aren't good enough at home, but today for example, what more can Lambert do? Come on and take a penalty, finish Benteke and Andi's one on ones? Slot in Gabby's five yard sitter?
He could try a different system, this 4-3-3 with the same players is shit. So is reverting to the 4-2-4 hoof when we are chasing.
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- Luna really is a terrible defender, I really think. His positioning is terrible
- Vlaar is looking good
- How about getting Lowton back in and have Bacuna as a right midfielder and Tonev on the left ? and then have Gabby and Benteke up front against West Ham. Meaning Weimann on the bench, he needs to be dropped/rested. Or Gabby on the left and then Sylla as an extra midfielder
hey , you talk sense. you want to take Lamberts place ;)
Give him till Christmas first ;-) Then I will consider it !
...and buy some bloody quality players - creative midfielder first
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Barry was motm.
I'd probably agree with that
Not our policy at the moment I know. But both Barry and Milner (probably) were available. With these two we'd expect to pushing the top 6.
Would that have been a more expensive option over (say) 3 years than the players we've bought in who are no better than those that scraped through last season.?
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On a different point, how shite were the Everton fans? Knit yoghurt for 70 minutes, oh we've scored? They are right on a par for shit fans for good numbers like their bobble hatted, Norwegian, day tripping neighbours.
No wonder their derbies are a sickening mutual masturbation, "sit by me 'ere lid in the wrong end with yer shert on" affair.
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Huge blunder turning down Barry in the Summer (if true)
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I think we need to put cut throat razors away for now. Everton have been very good this season yet we should have been 3-1 up going in at half time. From start of second to about 60th minute the ball never left their half. Possession and pressure from us and that yielded number of corners but sadly no end product. The first time they open our defence they scored. A real sucker punch and they are second in the table and we hover above relegation yet no one watching that match would have ranked the teams that way. This is a win to Eveton just like last season but no way it can be compared to that performance wise.
We do need to look at contribution of some regulars but for now let's not rip ourselves apart because luck deserted us today.
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Barry was motm.
I'd probably agree with that
Not our policy at the moment I know. But both Barry and Milner (probably) were available. With these two we'd expect to pushing the top 6.
Would that have been a more expensive option over (say) 3 years than the players we've bought in who are no better than those that scraped through last season.?
I agree, both quality experienced players which is not what lambert wants , I wonder if he has a problem with experienced players as he seems to stay well clear of them and those that were here were in the main quickly dispensed with.
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Should have been 3 up after 25 minutes.
Gabby's chance 2nd half was a bad end to a great move. Was he wearing skis today? Playing CB, Gabby and Weimmann today seems awesome on paper - today 2 of those 3 were shit and CB ain't fit.
Almost embarrassed with the ease they took their goals - defence for both was dire.
Hurts me when oppo fans take the piss, but we'd have done the same.
Fingers crossed for something better at WHam or I'm asking for me bus fare back! ;-)
UTV!
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As I said the midfield balance was working and we were creating chances, but as soon as we went behind Lambert changed it and we became totally toothless. That's the most worrying thing, his substitutions very rarely cause a positive change for the team.
We had plenty of possession in Everton's final 3rd in the second half without creating much. Can't really see why you'd criticise Lambert on trying something different.
Also there were quite a few on here last week that wanted Helenius and Benteke up front.
Because what he tried has failed repeatedly, if you don't have supply there's nothing the forwards can do.
[/quote
I agree - as I have said elsewhere the midfield is the real problem. But, in the context of the game and his options on the bench I couldn't really see he had any other choice.
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It is Lamberts lack of ability to change what is not working into something that does during a game that is most worrying, we seem to have the one answer, go behind which we constantly do, lump on another forward and those saying Andi needs resting, some of his runs were top class today his finishing poor, but that is something we have not seen from Gabby for a long long time, Gabby is the one that needs dropping and Luna we may see the best of him next season, but this season he is a joke and a target for opposition managers now.
Rethink the line up at home Mr. Lambert because the honeymoon period is coming to an end.
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- Luna really is a terrible defender, I really think. His positioning is terrible
- Vlaar is looking good
- How about getting Lowton back in and have Bacuna as a right midfielder and Tonev on the left ? and then have Gabby and Benteke up front against West Ham. Meaning Weimann on the bench, he needs to be dropped/rested. Or Gabby on the left and then Sylla as an extra midfielder
hey , you talk sense. you want to take Lamberts place ;)
Give him till Christmas first ;-) Then I will consider it !
...and buy some bloody quality players - creative midfielder first
Well, I was more thinking about some extra back up tall target men and lower league players...
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If we continue with these fucking corners I'm going to flying head butt Westwood from the upper north, then out pace the stewards and Glasgow kiss lambert for implementing these fucking ridiculous set pieces.
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I think we could have done with getting Barry in over the summer, I know this is with hindsight but we need an old head in the middle to replace Stan Petrov. Of course this goes against PL's policy but he showed his value today and it sounds like he wanted to come back to the Villa. Still think we will be ok.
I think it's more like we just won't pay the wages of players like Barry anymore. Sadly we're looking in the bargain basement these days and our one and only luxury is Benteke.
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On a different point, how shite were the Everton fans? Knit yoghurt for 70 minutes, oh we've scored? They are right on a par for shit fans for good numbers like their bobble hatted, Norwegian, day tripping neighbours.
No wonder their derbies are a sickening mutual masturbation, "sit by me 'ere lid in the wrong end with yer shert on" affair.
Never heard a peep out of them till late in the second half, then they resort to that tried and tested cliche, "your support is f#ckin shit" bollocks. Not impressed with their away support at all. Sickening that they went away with a win.
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On a different point, how shite were the Everton fans? Knit yoghurt for 70 minutes, oh we've scored? They are right on a par for shit fans for good numbers like their bobble hatted, Norwegian, day tripping neighbours.
No wonder their derbies are a sickening mutual masturbation, "sit by me 'ere lid in the wrong end with yer shert on" affair.
Quite right. The last thing football needs is for opposing fans to behave like mature adults and get along.
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I think we need to put cut throat razors away for now. Everton have been very good this season yet we should have been 3-1 up going in at half time. From start of second to about 60th minute the ball never left their half. Possession and pressure from us and that yielded number of corners but sadly no end product. The first time they open our defence they scored. A real sucker punch and they are second in the table and we hover above relegation yet no one watching that match would have ranked the teams that way. This is a win to Eveton just like last season but no way it can be compared to that performance wise.
We do need to look at contribution of some regulars but for now let's not rip ourselves apart because luck deserted us today.
But we seem to have sob stories for nearly every home game this season. When do you start to worry?
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Has Lambert done anything tactically in any game that has made any of you sit up and think yeah well done we've been set up perfectly today to counter that or expose that?
No fucking chance.
I don't see the love in for him and yeah I was one of the ones who wanted him out at the end of January last season, he's well out of his depth trying to turn this steaming juggernaut of shit around.
Replacing overpaid wankers with underpaid low league nice guys is like putting a blanket over the hole in your roof.
Summer spend will be based on the Benteke transfer money spread around another 6/7 players all nice guys who try hard but of limited quality from lower leagues. There could be a hidden gem in there worth a fortune again but realistically not. This is not a policy that's going to end up anywhere.
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I think we could have done with getting Barry in over the summer, I know this is with hindsight but we need an old head in the middle to replace Stan Petrov. Of course this goes against PL's policy but he showed his value today and it sounds like he wanted to come back to the Villa. Still think we will be ok.
I think it's more like we just won't pay the wages of players like Barry anymore. Sadly we're looking in the bargain basement these days and our one and only luxury is Benteke.
That is depressing. Considering he'll almost certainly be gone by the start of next season
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Both Everton and Liverpool will be pushing for top 4 finishes this season. We have lost at home to both in games we probably shouldn't have lost might well have won and in the end didn't deserve to get something out of because we failed to take our chances. Liverpool who are the better team offered nothing against us and got lucky with a piece of individual brilliance. Everton at least played and so did we. I see nothing to be upset about apart from the defeat. Oh and in 10 years time Westwood will BE Barry.
exactly this
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Both Everton and Liverpool will be pushing for top 4 finishes this season. We have lost at home to both in games we probably shouldn't have lost might well have won and in the end didn't deserve to get something out of because we failed to take our chances. Liverpool who are the better team offered nothing against us and got lucky with a piece of individual brilliance. Everton at least played and so did we. I see nothing to be upset about apart from the defeat. Oh and in 10 years time Westwood will BE Barry.
exactly this
Everton at best will push for a top 6 finish - they don't have the squad to push for top 4.
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I think we could have done with getting Barry in over the summer, I know this is with hindsight but we need an old head in the middle to replace Stan Petrov. Of course this goes against PL's policy but he showed his value today and it sounds like he wanted to come back to the Villa. Still think we will be ok.
I think it's more like we just won't pay the wages of players like Barry anymore. Sadly we're looking in the bargain basement these days and our one and only luxury is Benteke.
That is depressing. Considering he'll almost certainly be gone by the start of next season
We've spent £7m on his replacement already giving Kozak a season to bed in before we really need him next year.
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I think we need to put cut throat razors away for now. Everton have been very good this season yet we should have been 3-1 up going in at half time. From start of second to about 60th minute the ball never left their half. Possession and pressure from us and that yielded number of corners but sadly no end product. The first time they open our defence they scored. A real sucker punch and they are second in the table and we hover above relegation yet no one watching that match would have ranked the teams that way. This is a win to Eveton just like last season but no way it can be compared to that performance wise.
We do need to look at contribution of some regulars but for now let's not rip ourselves apart because luck deserted us today.
But we seem to have sob stories for nearly every home game this season. When do you start to worry?
I agree and not just this season but almost every one now. There's always some reason to be optimistic apparently but it never materialises. Yes, we might play a tad better against one opponent than we did last season, a tad worse against another if you want to get forensic about it. But looked at on a more macro level, we are going nowhere and I find it extremely sad, tedious and very boring
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Both Everton and Liverpool will be pushing for top 4 finishes this season. We have lost at home to both in games we probably shouldn't have lost might well have won and in the end didn't deserve to get something out of because we failed to take our chances. Liverpool who are the better team offered nothing against us and got lucky with a piece of individual brilliance. Everton at least played and so did we. I see nothing to be upset about apart from the defeat. Oh and in 10 years time Westwood will BE Barry.
exactly this
Deluded. Did you see Barry when he was the age Westwood is? He was on another level. Like comparing a 1st division player to a Premier league one, oh hang on that's basically what we're doing.
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I think we need to put cut throat razors away for now. Everton have been very good this season yet we should have been 3-1 up going in at half time. From start of second to about 60th minute the ball never left their half. Possession and pressure from us and that yielded number of corners but sadly no end product. The first time they open our defence they scored. A real sucker punch and they are second in the table and we hover above relegation yet no one watching that match would have ranked the teams that way. This is a win to Eveton just like last season but no way it can be compared to that performance wise.
We do need to look at contribution of some regulars but for now let's not rip ourselves apart because luck deserted us today.
But we seem to have sob stories for nearly every home game this season. When do you start to worry?
I agree and not just this season but almost every one now. There's always some reason to be optimistic apparently but it never materialises. Yes, we might play a tad better against one opponent than we did last season, a tad worse against another if you want to get forensic about it. But looked at on a more macro level, we are going nowhere and I find it extremely sad, tedious and very boring
Patience is wearing thin - I would see how the next 2 month pan out but if we find ourselves in the relegation zone at Xmas then I would be asking serious questions about the manager .
We cannot keep losing at home and it needs an improvement and fast .
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Aye. Barry looked like one of the best up and coming young players in the country when he made the breakthrough. At 18. There was a cheek to his game that only the better players have. Even playing at the back, his control and range of passing was sublime.
Westwood at 23 looks like a safe, unambitious midfielder who likes to play it simple. There's a role for that type of player too, but he's no Barry.
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Both Everton and Liverpool will be pushing for top 4 finishes this season. We have lost at home to both in games we probably shouldn't have lost might well have won and in the end didn't deserve to get something out of because we failed to take our chances. Liverpool who are the better team offered nothing against us and got lucky with a piece of individual brilliance. Everton at least played and so did we. I see nothing to be upset about apart from the defeat. Oh and in 10 years time Westwood will BE Barry.
exactly this
Deluded. Did you see Barry when he was the age Westwood is? He was on another level. Like comparing a 1st division player to a Premier league one, oh hang on that's basically what we're doing.
Westwood isn't Premier League class and I doubt he ever will be either. That's just my opinion, and comparing him to Barry is just plain laughable. Sometimes I wonder what Villa team others are watching.
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I think we need to put cut throat razors away for now. Everton have been very good this season yet we should have been 3-1 up going in at half time. From start of second to about 60th minute the ball never left their half. Possession and pressure from us and that yielded number of corners but sadly no end product. The first time they open our defence they scored. A real sucker punch and they are second in the table and we hover above relegation yet no one watching that match would have ranked the teams that way. This is a win to Eveton just like last season but no way it can be compared to that performance wise.
We do need to look at contribution of some regulars but for now let's not rip ourselves apart because luck deserted us today.
But we seem to have sob stories for nearly every home game this season. When do you start to worry?
I agree and not just this season but almost every one now. There's always some reason to be optimistic apparently but it never materialises. Yes, we might play a tad better against one opponent than we did last season, a tad worse against another if you want to get forensic about it. But looked at on a more macro level, we are going nowhere and I find it extremely sad, tedious and very boring
Agree Richard.I am really struggling to see any improvement.We have actually gone backwards since the end of last season in terms of form.Why Lambert doesn't play Sylla who was responsible for our upturn in form remains a question that only Lambert himself can answer.We have just failed to kick on.
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If we continue with these fucking corners I'm going to flying head butt Westwood from the upper north, then out pace the stewards and Glasgow kiss lambert for implementing these fucking ridiculous set pieces.
We should at least have some variation. Westwood is doing it from both sides. Why not let Tonev or Bacuna take some. Tonev had a good inswinging corner against Malaga wher Vlaar scored and surely Bacuna can take an inswinging one as well. Just as a variation.
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Both Everton and Liverpool will be pushing for top 4 finishes this season. We have lost at home to both in games we probably shouldn't have lost might well have won and in the end didn't deserve to get something out of because we failed to take our chances. Liverpool who are the better team offered nothing against us and got lucky with a piece of individual brilliance. Everton at least played and so did we. I see nothing to be upset about apart from the defeat. Oh and in 10 years time Westwood will BE Barry.
exactly this
Deluded. Did you see Barry when he was the age Westwood is? He was on another level. Like comparing a 1st division player to a Premier league one, oh hang on that's basically what we're doing.
Westwood isn't Premier League classy no I doubt he ever will be either. That's just my opinion, and comparing him to Barry is just plain laughable. Sometimes I wonder what Villa team others are watching.
The team we want them to be in our head that just needs a few breaks and 1 or 2 improvements. The reality when you've struggled for 3 years in a row is the majority are just not good enough otherwise we would have had the improvement.
Who really is good enough for a team that would finish 7-12th (the range of a say Swansea, Southampton, Everton etc)
Benteke for sure
Guzan
.......
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Lambert at Villa Park (league only): Win percentage 25% 1.12 goals per game
McLeish at Villa Park (league only): Win Percentage 21.1% 1.1 goals per game
Progress!
Only 10 home wins in 43. This was also the 8th time we've failed to score at home in a league game under Lambert.
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Southampton have conceded just 3 goals this season - decent teams are built from the back with a solid spine down the middle - we still concede far too many soft goals and miss too many sitters.
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I'm struggling to remember a Villa team as narrow as the one we have now. You can see them collectively squeezing in the further the ball gets up the pitch, and the very few occasions a player actually does finds himself on the wing the rest of the team abandons him and he loses possession.
Lambert's tactics are mind boggling, I just don't understand what he's up too.
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I like Lambert and hope and believe he will build something worthwhile at Villa
but I have to say we played one of the few teams today where I would gladly swap managers
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I think we could have done with getting Barry in over the summer, I know this is with hindsight but we need an old head in the middle to replace Stan Petrov. Of course this goes against PL's policy but he showed his value today and it sounds like he wanted to come back to the Villa. Still think we will be ok.
I think it's more like we just won't pay the wages of players like Barry anymore. Sadly we're looking in the bargain basement these days and our one and only luxury is Benteke.
I think it is pretty hard not to agree with that.
Lambert said in midweek he wanted to pair Lukaku with Benteke, but wages were the issue. Wages weren't the issue for Albion (notoriously tight) or Everton (similarly not flush), though. That makes you wonder.
Ultimately, we are shopping for cheap wages players from selling leagues these days. I am sure we pushed the boat out a bit to keep Benteke, but I do not expect us to suddenly change this policy.
The problem with that is that, unless you are a truly exceptional manager, of the top level, turning cheap, low wage players into a team who can not just survive, but do something in the Premier League is nigh on impossible.
I like the fact that we have been having a go, but there is a very thin line indeed between having a reduced wage bill and cheap signings and setting yourself up as a club which is taking a progressive approach and trying to grow something, and becoming a Wigan (prior to last season) club, bobbing along pointlessly.
Over the last few years, our expectations have been downscaled massively. We used to compete with clubs like Spurs and Everton, both of whom have squads way, way better than ours. We understand why we are in this position, and we have shown that we are willing to buy into the new approach we are taking, but the flip side of that is that we have to show progress, we have to show it is actually going somewhere.
I was underwhelmed by the "more of the same" nature of our signings in the summer, I didn't really see how just chucking more of the same at it was going to work, I wanted us to show a little more ambition. Not by signing 20m players, but by buying in the odd one or two more proven players, players of a slightly elevated quality to show we could push on.
I am certainly not going to start clamouring for the manager to get sacked, but I do look at what we have now, squad wise, and note that none of the summer's signings seem to have improved us much if at all (Okore apart, injury makes it hard to call on him), and several of last season's decent performers seem to have got worse.
I can't see how that is a situation which is going to improve us much, but am willing to be persuaded otherwise. It has to start happening soon, though. It's hard not to think that the poster who a couple of pages back pointed out "there always seems to be an excuse" has got a point.
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They took their chances, we didn't take ours. We were hardly clinical in front of goal. We could have been out of sight at half-time. An end-to-end game which would probably have been very enjoyable and exciting to watch for a neutral. I'd prefer a few ground-out wins at the moment.
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Southampton have conceded just 3 goals this season - decent teams are built from the back with a solid spine down the middle - we still concede far too many soft goals and miss too many sitters.
That's the most frustrating thing for me. I can understand the likes of Chelsea, Man City, Tottenham and even Everton being much better than us.
However, its when a team like Southampton appears to be light years ahead of us that it really starts to grate.
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I like Lambert and hope and believe he will build something worthwhile at Villa
but I have to say we played one of the few teams today where I would gladly swap managers
Marteniz has turned us down at least once and I think that says everything about the direction Randy Lerner is taking us.
He wants everything on the cheap.
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I like Lambert and hope and believe he will build something worthwhile at Villa
but I have to say we played one of the few teams today where I would gladly swap managers
Marteniz has turned us down at least once and I think that says everything about the direction Randy Lerner is taking us.
He wants everything on the cheap.
To be fair, Bill Kenwright seems allergic to spending money. I don't think that's got much to do with it, I think it was more about timing.
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I'm not sure why all the chances we missed in the first half meant we could have been out of sight. I seem to recall Everton having 3 great chances as well.
If anything, it could have been 3-3 at half time, but It certainly wasn't one way traffic.
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I like Lambert and hope and believe he will build something worthwhile at Villa
but I have to say we played one of the few teams today where I would gladly swap managers
Marteniz has turned us down at least once and I think that says everything about the direction Randy Lerner is taking us.
He wants everything on the cheap.
Even though we never actually spoke to him - he may have turned down the chance to speak to us but he was never offered the job.
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I like Lambert and hope and believe he will build something worthwhile at Villa
but I have to say we played one of the few teams today where I would gladly swap managers
Marteniz has turned us down at least once and I think that says everything about the direction Randy Lerner is taking us.
He wants everything on the cheap.
Even though we never actually spoke to him - he may have turned down the chance to speak to us but he was never offered the job.
He still turned us down.
"Roberto, do you want to talk to us about becoming our manager?"
"No."
He turned us down, didn't want to be considered for the job. The fact he wasn't offered it is neither here nor there.
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I like Lambert and hope and believe he will build something worthwhile at Villa
but I have to say we played one of the few teams today where I would gladly swap managers
Marteniz has turned us down at least once and I think that says everything about the direction Randy Lerner is taking us.
He wants everything on the cheap.
Even though we never actually spoke to him - he may have turned down the chance to speak to us but he was never offered the job.
He still turned us down.
"Roberto, do you want to talk to us about becoming our manager?"
"No."
He turned us down, didn't want to be considered for the job. The fact he wasn't offered it is neither here nor there.
And I'm pretty certain when we sounded him out he asked us what sort of money he'd be working with. Obviously a polite "thanks but no thanks" would be the reply.
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(http://cdn2.mocksession.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/TIM-HOWARD-PK-SAVE.gif)
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If you are manager of wigan and decide not to speak about managing aston villa then I'm glad he did say no - he may have had a good start at goodison but it won't last once injuries strike - the best 2 players are both loanees and the squad lacks strength -Martinez was relegated at wigan and is no great shakes in my view as a manager.
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I think we could have done with getting Barry in over the summer, I know this is with hindsight but we need an old head in the middle to replace Stan Petrov. Of course this goes against PL's policy but he showed his value today and it sounds like he wanted to come back to the Villa. Still think we will be ok.
I think it's more like we just won't pay the wages of players like Barry anymore. Sadly we're looking in the bargain basement these days and our one and only luxury is Benteke.
I think it is pretty hard not to agree with that.
Lambert said in midweek he wanted to pair Lukaku with Benteke, but wages were the issue. Wages weren't the issue for Albion (notoriously tight) or Everton (similarly not flush), though. That makes you wonder.
Ultimately, we are shopping for cheap wages players from selling leagues these days. I am sure we pushed the boat out a bit to keep Benteke, but I do not expect us to suddenly change this policy.
The problem with that is that, unless you are a truly exceptional manager, of the top level, turning cheap, low wage players into a team who can not just survive, but do something in the Premier League is nigh on impossible.
I like the fact that we have been having a go, but there is a very thin line indeed between having a reduced wage bill and cheap signings and setting yourself up as a club which is taking a progressive approach and trying to grow something, and becoming a Wigan (prior to last season) club, bobbing along pointlessly.
Over the last few years, our expectations have been downscaled massively. We used to compete with clubs like Spurs and Everton, both of whom have squads way, way better than ours. We understand why we are in this position, and we have shown that we are willing to buy into the new approach we are taking, but the flip side of that is that we have to show progress, we have to show it is actually going somewhere.
I was underwhelmed by the "more of the same" nature of our signings in the summer, I didn't really see how just chucking more of the same at it was going to work, I wanted us to show a little more ambition. Not by signing 20m players, but by buying in the odd one or two more proven players, players of a slightly elevated quality to show we could push on.
I am certainly not going to start clamouring for the manager to get sacked, but I do look at what we have now, squad wise, and note that none of the summer's signings seem to have improved us much if at all (Okore apart, injury makes it hard to call on him), and several of last season's decent performers seem to have got worse.
I can't see how that is a situation which is going to improve us much, but am willing to be persuaded otherwise. It has to start happening soon, though. It's hard not to think that the poster who a couple of pages back pointed out "there always seems to be an excuse" has got a point.
Good post, Paulie. Ultimately, if we continue to buy Championship standard players and pay them Championship wages then sooner or later we're going to find ourselves in the Championship. We need quality if we're going to compete in the Premier League.
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And I'm pretty certain when we sounded him out he asked us what sort of money he'd be working with. Obviously a polite "thanks but no thanks" would be the reply.
I doubt it got that far. He certainly wouldn't have been told how much money there would be to spend without interviewing for the job.
Like I said, Everton went years without spending money on a single player, Kenwright is far tighter with his money than Lerner.
Everton appointed him when he'd just got Wigan relegated, but had won the FA Cup for them. If we had approached him for our job a year later than we did, I think the reply would have been different.
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I think we could have done with getting Barry in over the summer, I know this is with hindsight but we need an old head in the middle to replace Stan Petrov. Of course this goes against PL's policy but he showed his value today and it sounds like he wanted to come back to the Villa. Still think we will be ok.
I think it's more like we just won't pay the wages of players like Barry anymore. Sadly we're looking in the bargain basement these days and our one and only luxury is Benteke.
I think it is pretty hard not to agree with that.
Lambert said in midweek he wanted to pair Lukaku with Benteke, but wages were the issue. Wages weren't the issue for Albion (notoriously tight) or Everton (similarly not flush), though. That makes you wonder.
Ultimately, we are shopping for cheap wages players from selling leagues these days. I am sure we pushed the boat out a bit to keep Benteke, but I do not expect us to suddenly change this policy.
The problem with that is that, unless you are a truly exceptional manager, of the top level, turning cheap, low wage players into a team who can not just survive, but do something in the Premier League is nigh on impossible.
I like the fact that we have been having a go, but there is a very thin line indeed between having a reduced wage bill and cheap signings and setting yourself up as a club which is taking a progressive approach and trying to grow something, and becoming a Wigan (prior to last season) club, bobbing along pointlessly.
Over the last few years, our expectations have been downscaled massively. We used to compete with clubs like Spurs and Everton, both of whom have squads way, way better than ours. We understand why we are in this position, and we have shown that we are willing to buy into the new approach we are taking, but the flip side of that is that we have to show progress, we have to show it is actually going somewhere.
I was underwhelmed by the "more of the same" nature of our signings in the summer, I didn't really see how just chucking more of the same at it was going to work, I wanted us to show a little more ambition. Not by signing 20m players, but by buying in the odd one or two more proven players, players of a slightly elevated quality to show we could push on.
I am certainly not going to start clamouring for the manager to get sacked, but I do look at what we have now, squad wise, and note that none of the summer's signings seem to have improved us much if at all (Okore apart, injury makes it hard to call on him), and several of last season's decent performers seem to have got worse.
I can't see how that is a situation which is going to improve us much, but am willing to be persuaded otherwise. It has to start happening soon, though. It's hard not to think that the poster who a couple of pages back pointed out "there always seems to be an excuse" has got a point.
Agree with all of that. The Albion story really depressed me this week. If ever we needed proof of where we're at in the world of football at the moment that was it. I'm no fan of Lambert but his hands are tied behind his back by the ever tight Randy Lerner. I know this might sound OTT, but I curse the day he ever took over the club.
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Git (http://www.101greatgoals.com/gvideos/gif-tim-howards-stunning-penalty-save-to-deny-christian-benteke/)
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If you are manager of wigan and decide not to speak about managing aston villa then I'm glad he did say no - he may have had a good start at goodison but it won't last once injuries strike - the best 2 players are both loanees and the squad lacks strength -Martinez was relegated at wigan and is no great shakes in my view as a manager.
Who are their best two players? Lukaku and Barry do you mean? Barry is a loanee in the final year of his Man City deal.
it isn't about who their best players are, it is about their squad. It has decent players throughout - the likes of Baines, Jagielka, Distin (even), Mirallas, Osman.
Their squad is way, way better than ours. How many players of ours do you think they'd want in their squad? Benteke? Then who?
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And I'm pretty certain when we sounded him out he asked us what sort of money he'd be working with. Obviously a polite "thanks but no thanks" would be the reply.
I doubt it got that far. He certainly wouldn't have been told how much money there would be to spend without interviewing for the job.
Like I said, Everton went years without spending money on a single player, Kenwright is far tighter with his money than Lerner.
Everton appointed him when he'd just got Wigan relegated, but had won the FA Cup for them. If we had approached him for our job a year later than we did, I think the reply would have been different.
We'll have to agree to disagree on that one then because I'm convinced Villa are still a big draw for ambitious managers, but ambitious managers need realistic budgets. Something Randy Lerner is simply not providing these days.
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I am loathe to put the blame on randy - he has put the money on the table - if we are blaming people then lambert must take far more blame - he decides on the players he wants , Kozak was not the priority and that £7m would have been far better off spent elsewhere.
Saunders , how much money has pal lambert spent in his 18 months at villa - certainly far more than a lot of clubs who are above us - randy has backed him - lambert has spent badly in some cases.
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But didn't Lambert suit the definition "ambitious manager" perfectly?
So how do you explain the fact he came?
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I am loathe to put the blame on randy - he has put the money on the table - if we are blaming people then lambert must take far more blame - he decides on the players he wants , Kozak was not the priority and that £7m would have been far better off spent elsewhere.
Within the wages framework we have....
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I am loathe to put the blame on randy - he has put the money on the table - if we are blaming people then lambert must take far more blame - he decides on the players he wants , Kozak was not the priority and that £7m would have been far better off spent elsewhere.
He decides on the players he wants with the budget he's provided with though
You're right about the £7m though. Just baffling.
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I am loathe to put the blame on randy - he has put the money on the table - if we are blaming people then lambert must take far more blame - he decides on the players he wants , Kozak was not the priority and that £7m would have been far better off spent elsewhere.
Within the wages framework we have....
The wages framework that has seen several players get big new contracts this summer - randy i believe is prepared to pay the wages for the right player as he has proved with benteke .
I believe lambert doesn't want experienced players - maybe he thinks they will question his authority or whatever but he is the one who is not interested in bringing in experience - not randy.
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But didn't Lambert suit the definition "ambitious manager" perfectly?
So how do you explain the fact he came?
Is he all that though? One season in the Prem doesn't prove he's that good. Prem league history is littered with one season wonders, and perhaps he thought he'd never get another chance at a club as big as Villa again?
It's all guesswork though.
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I believe lambert should certainly be given more time but I get angry when people talk about randy not backing him - he has spent plenty in the 18 months he has been here and the team hasn't really improved much .
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I am loathe to put the blame on randy - he has put the money on the table - if we are blaming people then lambert must take far more blame - he decides on the players he wants , Kozak was not the priority and that £7m would have been far better off spent elsewhere.
Within the wages framework we have....
The wages framework that has seen several players get big new contracts this summer - randy i believe is prepared to pay the wages for the right player as he has proved with benteke .
I believe lambert doesn't want experienced players - maybe he thinks they will question his authority or whatever but he is the one who is not interested in bringing in experience - not randy.
What big new contracts? I'd say only Benteke is on big money, the rest on a relative pittance.
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I believe lambert should certainly be given more time but I get angry when people talk about randy not backing him - he has spent plenty in the 18 months he has been here and the team hasn't really improved much .
In relative terms he spent absolute peanuts on fees, and more importantly - wages.
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But didn't Lambert suit the definition "ambitious manager" perfectly?
So how do you explain the fact he came?
Is he all that though? One season in the Prem doesn't prove he's that good. Prem league history is littered with one season wonders, and perhaps he thought he'd never get another chance at a club as big as Villa again?
It's all guesswork though.
Well he got Norwich into which into midtable in that season which is more than Martinez ever did and yet you rate him so highly.
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And I'm pretty certain when we sounded him out he asked us what sort of money he'd be working with. Obviously a polite "thanks but no thanks" would be the reply.
I doubt it got that far. He certainly wouldn't have been told how much money there would be to spend without interviewing for the job.
Like I said, Everton went years without spending money on a single player, Kenwright is far tighter with his money than Lerner.
Everton appointed him when he'd just got Wigan relegated, but had won the FA Cup for them. If we had approached him for our job a year later than we did, I think the reply would have been different.
We'll have to agree to disagree on that one then because I'm convinced Villa are still a big draw for ambitious managers, but ambitious managers need realistic budgets. Something Randy Lerner is simply not providing these days.
It's well documented that Lambert stated that there was more money available than he had actually spent.It's Lamberts belief that he can build a team with young, hungry players and not experienced ones it's the only way he knows, and no amount of Lerner bashing is going to change that I'm afraid. It's my belief that this is mostly Lamberts philosophy which Lerner is backing rightly or wrongly
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I am loathe to put the blame on randy - he has put the money on the table - if we are blaming people then lambert must take far more blame - he decides on the players he wants , Kozak was not the priority and that £7m would have been far better off spent elsewhere.
Within the wages framework we have....
The wages framework that has seen several players get big new contracts this summer
No, though. They got improved contracts. If you're Ashley Westwood coming from Crewe, or Weimann from the youth team, or Lowton from Sheffield United, it doesn't take much in wages to get you here in the first place, and there is lots of room to improve your contract without being on a "big" one.
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I believe lambert should certainly be given more time but I get angry when people talk about randy not backing him - he has spent plenty in the 18 months he has been here and the team hasn't really improved much .
In relative terms he spent absolute peanuts on fees, and more importantly - wages.
I would say he's spent close on £40m in his 18months here - how much have swansea spent?
I think its wrong for Lerner to carry the can when the manager has bought poorly at times , lerner has backed him .
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But didn't Lambert suit the definition "ambitious manager" perfectly?
So how do you explain the fact he came?
Is he all that though? One season in the Prem doesn't prove he's that good. Prem league history is littered with one season wonders, and perhaps he thought he'd never get another chance at a club as big as Villa again?
It's all guesswork though.
Whether he's a good manager or not is neither here nor there, though, the question was whether an ambitious manager would have come here in the financial circumstances, not whether they're actually any good.
If you look at Lambert's profile when he came here - young manager, did very well at Colchester, did very well indeed at Norwich, got them from League One to the PL and kept them there.
That's a textbook definition of "ambitious manager" to me.
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And I'm pretty certain when we sounded him out he asked us what sort of money he'd be working with. Obviously a polite "thanks but no thanks" would be the reply.
I doubt it got that far. He certainly wouldn't have been told how much money there would be to spend without interviewing for the job.
Like I said, Everton went years without spending money on a single player, Kenwright is far tighter with his money than Lerner.
Everton appointed him when he'd just got Wigan relegated, but had won the FA Cup for them. If we had approached him for our job a year later than we did, I think the reply would have been different.
We'll have to agree to disagree on that one then because I'm convinced Villa are still a big draw for ambitious managers, but ambitious managers need realistic budgets. Something Randy Lerner is simply not providing these days.
It's well documented that Lambert stated that there was more money available than he had actually spent.It's Lamberts belief that he can build a team with young, hungry players and not experienced ones it's the only way he knows, and no amount of Lerner bashing is going to change that I'm afraid. It's my belief that this is mostly Lamberts philosophy which Lerner is backing rightly or wrongly
I never fell for the "young and hungry" nonsense. We're in for these players because they're relatively cheap. Lukaku is young and hungry and Lambert wanted him on loan, but we couldn't afford his wages. That tells you the story.
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I had planned to write a big long post tonight but I won't.
The most depressing thing for me is just how far ahead of us, clubs we always competed with, are these days.
We bitch and moan about 'sky four' 'the modern game', 'the emergence of Man City' etc but Everton and Spurs have faced the same problems and have adapted accordingly. In fact, Spurs are now among the genuine title contenders whether we like it or not. It has also happened during what was supposed to be the bright new dawn for Aston Villa, the 'Lerner era'.
Clubs like ourselves, Everton and Spurs always had poor seasons/runs of seasons and would always bounce back stronger. There was a discernible 'cycle' to things.
I just don't see that with us now. Too many things are wrong at the club and have been for some time: home form, the boardroom, the pitch. The fundamentals aren't working. With home form like ours a team will always be looking over its shoulder at the trap door. With such a disjointed approach to manager selection/recruitment (Houllier to McLeish) you are more or less giving yourself a few lost years.
I'm rambling. The point is, where are we heading? What's the 'bounce back strategy'? What's been done to address our home form? Do we want to compete or happy to slog it out with the Fulhams of the league?
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I believe lambert should certainly be given more time but I get angry when people talk about randy not backing him - he has spent plenty in the 18 months he has been here and the team hasn't really improved much .
In relative terms he spent absolute peanuts on fees, and more importantly - wages.
I would say he's spent close on £40m in his 18months here - how much have swansea spent?
I think its wrong for Lerner to carry the can when the manager has bought poorly at times , lerner has backed him .
If the problem is the wage bill - which is what we have been told for years now - then it is not so much about the fact you go out and spend 40m, it is more about the fact that you're working within a strictly defined wage structure.
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Goals (http://www.101greatgoals.com/gvideos/aston-villa-0-everton-2-all-goals/)
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But didn't Lambert suit the definition "ambitious manager" perfectly?
So how do you explain the fact he came?
Is he all that though? One season in the Prem doesn't prove he's that good. Prem league history is littered with one season wonders, and perhaps he thought he'd never get another chance at a club as big as Villa again?
It's all guesswork though.
Whether he's a good manager or not is neither here nor there, though, the question was whether an ambitious manager would have come here in the financial circumstances, not whether they're actually any good.
If you look at Lambert's profile when he came here - young manager, did very well at Colchester, did very well indeed at Norwich, got them from League One to the PL and kept them there.
That's a textbook definition of "ambitious manager" to me.
Agreed , lambert fitted the bill and quit a team that had had great success under him to come here - he saw villa as a huge stepping stone and rightly so.
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I think we've turned into a pebble.
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We've now got a run of much easier games, in principle
I'll reserve judgment till Xmas
Sounds like we should have been two up against a very good Everton side. So we must be doing something right in the creative sense
Sky sports were raving over Delph when compared to Barkley
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We can spend all night arguing who is or isn't to blame but ultimately we must turn the corner and fast - the system at home is not working , gabby and andi are not effective out wide and we are too open to attack at home - lets hope this is addressed sooner rather than later .
Good evening all.
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Right well after digesting that...
Absolute shite to be honest. Another pretty limp attacking display. The intent was there. We created a few decent openings but not nearly enough all told. Certainly not enough for a game at home against a decent but not great opposition. 3 shots on target isn't good enough for a home game at all.
Once again Delph is the water carrier in midfield. Westwood was found wanting again. Delph as much as I love the guy though, needs more composure when it comes to a final pass or shot. I mean the whole team just have no middle ground. It's 0-100mph when we attack. There's nothing in between. There's nothing measured, nothing considered. It's blaze at the opposition and hope that a passing move comes off but more often than not because we've only got one player with anything close to being reasonable ball control (Benteke- was off the pace today- not fit enough IMO) it peters out.
I thought our centerbacks did okay for most of the game until the final third when Everton ripped us apart.
Tonev looked lively but his delivery is all over the pace. Occasionally a decent ball comes in but it's few and far.
Weimann continues to get a large quota of our better chances in each game, and fluff his lines. In all honesty, all that fuss over the summer about him potentially leaving and his payrise. I'm not sure he's as good as some think. I think he's a pretty average player to be honest.
The amount of times we ballsed up simple five yard passes??? Shocking.
The score line might be harsh but if you don't make chances and hit the target, you get what you deserve. Evertons midfield was far, far better. Players who can pass a ball, control a ball. They had an option like Osman on the bench. He's not great, but he's a very good player. He's been around and done it and is reliable.
We're largely a team that aren't good enough to be anything else other than lower-mid table. And if you remain in that area you run the risk of being sucked into a relegation battle.
We need new players. Probably 2-3 new midfielders. Delph aside and potentially Sylla, I think the rest are gash to be honest. Not prem class and it shows.
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The home form is very worrying but I will reserve judgment on that until after the next 4 home fixtures when on paper we have more winnable matches, the lack of goals through the team is a big concern, we have a non scoring midfield unit and with 1 league goal between Gabby and Wiemann after 9 matches it puts everything onto Benteke's shoulders, I am trying not to be too despondent but it's not much fun these days, god knows how season ticket holders must be feeling.
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But didn't Lambert suit the definition "ambitious manager" perfectly?
So how do you explain the fact he came?
Is he all that though? One season in the Prem doesn't prove he's that good. Prem league history is littered with one season wonders, and perhaps he thought he'd never get another chance at a club as big as Villa again?
It's all guesswork though.
Whether he's a good manager or not is neither here nor there, though, the question was whether an ambitious manager would have come here in the financial circumstances, not whether they're actually any good.
If you look at Lambert's profile when he came here - young manager, did very well at Colchester, did very well indeed at Norwich, got them from League One to the PL and kept them there.
That's a textbook definition of "ambitious manager" to me.
Perhaps you're right, but I don't think Lambert was our first choice. Others turned us down because of the tight budget offered by Lerner. If anything Lambert was probably brave or even daft to take the job with such restrictions.
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Got to say what a clever and inventive corner that was for their goal, caught us totally flat footed.
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Have we gone backwards in form since our good spell last year? Maybe in some senses.
But even in that good spell, what were our results against anyone in the top 5? Man U, Liverpool, Chelsea, arsenal and citeh
L L L L L
this season we've got 6 points from the same games with Man U yet to play.
I'll say it till I'm blue in the face. Our season will go a long way to being defined by November and December, just look at our fixtures:
West ham, Cardiff, west brom, Sunderland, Southampton, Fulham, Man U, stoke, palace, Swansea
I could easily see something like 19 points from those ten games. We'd be practically safe already
We've had the hardest opening fixture list I can ever remember. It's been absolutely ridiculous.
Now we've got a great run of games, and a practically fully fit squad.
We need to improve. We need to stop shipping so many bad goals. And our fwds need to start firing. We don't know that's going to happen but there's a decent chance. And it'd be foolish to write this season off until we've seen.
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Oh, and the stench of paralysis around the club these past few years has been horrific. Whole club needs a good kick up the arse.
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The home form is very worrying but I will reserve judgment on that until after the next 4 home fixtures when on paper we have more winnable matches, the lack of goals through the team is a big concern, we have a non scoring midfield unit and with 1 league goal between Gabby and Wiemann after 9 matches it puts everything onto Benteke's shoulders, I am trying not to be too despondent but it's not much fun these days, god knows how season ticket holders must be feeling.
Not great to be honest. I don't miss many but I haven't seen us win at home since Reading last year. I am so used to visiting fans having a great time at Villa Park, I've become numb.
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But we seem to have sob stories for nearly every home game this season. When do you start to worry?
But sob stories are better than straight forward we are crap and are based on some tangible hope. It shows a difference based on good fortune. Football is a very narrow chance game. Sometimes the whole flow of the match changes based on one event. This is what happened to us last week and this week. That's all.
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Am I right in saying that every result we have had this season is an improvement on equivalent games played in the last one?
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If we're comparing Lambert and Martinez then Martinez made a change in the 2nd half and won the game. I think he'll do well at Everton and could potentially get a bigger job after that.
Lambert very rarely makes these decisions and have them pay off. I just don't think he has the tactical nous at all. We're as big a job as he'll ever have. Whether he really is up to it remains to be seen. I appreciate he doesn't have a huge budget to work with, but he's had the option to sign more experienced players if needed and not done it. Every decent team going has experienced players. We signed 7 players in the summer for maybe 20 odd million. It's been suggested we had further funds to get a midfielder possibly. We should have just signed 3-4 better quality players, perhaps more proven.
I don't mind having players who might be good in 2016, but if we're in the Championship what good is that?
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Just home and once again to weary to wade through all the pages. The pages I have read seem to give more credit to Villa than those I sit amongst would give them. Our collective opinion in our bit of Holte Lower was that we were utter pants today. Yes we did miss chances in the first half and the Gabby sitter in the second half but so did Everton and a half time score of 3-3 could have easily happened.
With the small exceptions of Guzan and Delph we played like a team of Stephen Irelands - weak, chicken shit and unmotivated.
What Lambert is doing with two centre forwards on the bench is beyond me when we are crying out for width and midfield stability.
This manager is sinking like a stone in my estimation. Other than Benteke his signings have all failed to develop to premiership standard and his use and timing of substitutions is mystifying and inept.
We have become a point a game side just like we were under TSM. Next spring will see us trying to scrape 40 points together locked with Sunderland, Stoke, Norwich and Fulham to decide who does not go dwn with Palace. Gutted and well pissed off with them and the manager.
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Oh, and the stench of paralysis around the club these past few years has been horrific. Whole club needs a good kick up the arse.
But there's so much apathy at the club it's incredible. I've said it before, but if it had been Ellis in charge of this car crash he'd have been hung drawn and quartered by now.
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Just checked stats from last season and after 9 games we had 5 points, have I just made us all feel a teeny weeny bit better?
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Haven't read all the posts yet but just home from the game. We DID have the chances to put this out of sight but Benteke's lack of match fitness and Weimann's continuing poor form meant we didn't take them. apart from Bacuna I don't rate the Summer purchases and in the end the man for man superiority of the Everton squad told. I won't panic yet but for me the next month will tell us whether Lambert should be allowed to finish his project. Cardiff and Sunderland at home and Wet Spam and the Baggies away. Fail there and I think questions will need asking.
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Doubly, especially considering who we played then compared to now.
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It does Steve,but I feel we could be so much further ahead with better tactics,which is the frustrating bit.
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Just checked stats from last season and after 9 games we had 5 points, have I just made us all feel a teeny weeny bit better?
I'd rather compare to the tail end of last season where we seemed to be progressing. We looked decent in attack, but this season we seem to have regressed. Teams have worked us out somewhat. We don't look as effective going forward. Gabby and Weimann don't look like they could hit a barn door. Benteke has been rushed back too soon. Lack of a plan B is a worry. I know our home form is total shite and doesn't look like improving, but I don't think we'll be as effective away from home as we were last season (particularly 2nd half of the season).
We're not gonna have too many more games like Man City either. That was a once a season kind of game.
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Oh, and the stench of paralysis around the club these past few years has been horrific. Whole club needs a good kick up the arse.
But there's so much apathy at the club it's incredible. I've said it before, but if it had been Ellis in charge of this car crash he'd have been hung drawn and quartered by now.
Agreed. In fairness Ellis took action after bad seasons: 1991, 1995, (kind of 1998 too), 2003 and to be fair 2006 when he sold to Randy.
I am distinctly unimpressed with Randy's enthusiasm for the job of 'rectifying' bad villa seasons. Perhaps we hated Ellis so much we want to see the good in what Randy does even if we are drifting aimlessly and falling way behind clubs we generally always competed with.
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Oh, and the stench of paralysis around the club these past few years has been horrific. Whole club needs a good kick up the arse.
But there's so much apathy at the club it's incredible. I've said it before, but if it had been Ellis in charge of this car crash he'd have been hung drawn and quartered by now.
Our expectations have been sufficiently downgraded that some of us now regard ourselves as a club on a par with Fulham, West Ham, Norwich. The reason Man United fans have been booing their team today is because they won't accept mediocrity. We have.
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Just checked stats from last season and after 9 games we had 5 points, have I just made us all feel a teeny weeny bit better?
I'd rather compare to the tail end of last season where we seemed to be progressing. We looked decent in attack, but this season we seem to have regressed. Teams have worked us out somewhat. We don't look as effective going forward. Gabby and Weimann don't look like they could hit a barn door. Benteke has been rushed back too soon. Lack of a plan B is a worry. I know our home form is total shite and doesn't look like improving, but I don't think we'll be as effective away from home as we were last season (particularly 2nd half of the season).
We're not gonna have too many more games like Man City either. That was a once a season kind of game.
I am just trying to clutch at straw to make us feel better.
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If we're comparing Lambert and Martinez then Martinez made a change in the 2nd half and won the game. I think he'll do well at Everton and could potentially get a bigger job after that.
Lambert very rarely makes these decisions and have them pay off. I just don't think he has the tactical nous at all. We're as big a job as he'll ever have. Whether he really is up to it remains to be seen. I appreciate he doesn't have a huge budget to work with, but he's had the option to sign more experienced players if needed and not done it. Every decent team going has experienced players. We signed 7 players in the summer for maybe 20 odd million. It's been suggested we had further funds to get a midfielder possibly. We should have just signed 3-4 better quality players, perhaps more proven.
I don't mind having players who might be good in 2016, but if we're in the Championship what good is that?
Our bench has got to be one of the weakest in the league without a single proven premier league player .The only player we've got that could change things as an impact sub is on loan to Fulham.Piss poor state of affairs
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Who barely gets a touch of the ball and offers very little.
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How we didn't score today is beyond me. Benteke didn't look 100% but still would normally have had 2 goals in that first half.
These kind of defeats are just as depressing now though as our home form has been rank for so long, and something still isn't right when we play at home with our set-up.
What a joke their fans were, heard absolutely nothing from them for 70 mins then they get excited once ahead. Cardboard bloody cut outs, same at Woodison.
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I think randy realise to catch the top 6 now would take huge investment and is perhaps resigned to us being a midtable side - other clubs are spending similar or less than us and achieving that aim but we are underperforming and struggling around the bottoms 6 year on year.
I have long lowered my ambitions to a top 8 finish at best in the foreseeable future - the money spent at the club in the last 18 months should be enough to achieve mid table - its time now for lambert to deliver results on the pitch and guide us to the points we need - we do not want another relegation scrap.
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Who barely gets a touch of the ball and offers very little.
Apart from the odd goal here and there
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Just checked stats from last season and after 9 games we had 5 points, have I just made us all feel a teeny weeny bit better?
I'd rather compare to the tail end of last season where we seemed to be progressing. We looked decent in attack, but this season we seem to have regressed. Teams have worked us out somewhat. We don't look as effective going forward. Gabby and Weimann don't look like they could hit a barn door. Benteke has been rushed back too soon. Lack of a plan B is a worry. I know our home form is total shite and doesn't look like improving, but I don't think we'll be as effective away from home as we were last season (particularly 2nd half of the season).
We're not gonna have too many more games like Man City either. That was a once a season kind of game.
I am just trying to clutch at straw to make us feel better.
I gave up on straw clutching last week might so I admire you for hanging in there.
Next month is going to shape our season I feel. I worry about the West Ham game too because it's a game we could get bullied in. It won't be pretty but if back line gets put under too much pressure I'm not sure we'll cope. Just praying Benteke is fit and raring to go by then.
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Is Lambert turning into MON?
Kick-and-rush counter-attacking football, clear favoritism in his selection, no real tactical acumen...oh but he doesn't wear a tracksuit anymore, so I guess not.
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If we're comparing Lambert and Martinez then Martinez made a change in the 2nd half and won the game. I think he'll do well at Everton and could potentially get a bigger job after that.
Lambert very rarely makes these decisions and have them pay off. I just don't think he has the tactical nous at all. We're as big a job as he'll ever have. Whether he really is up to it remains to be seen. I appreciate he doesn't have a huge budget to work with, but he's had the option to sign more experienced players if needed and not done it. Every decent team going has experienced players. We signed 7 players in the summer for maybe 20 odd million. It's been suggested we had further funds to get a midfielder possibly. We should have just signed 3-4 better quality players, perhaps more proven.
I don't mind having players who might be good in 2016, but if we're in the Championship what good is that?
Our bench has got to be one of the weakest in the league without a single proven premier league player .The only player we've got that could change things as an impact sub is on loan to Fulham.Piss poor state of affairs
Why do you think this would work this season when it didn't work at all last season?
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Who barely gets a touch of the ball and offers very little.
Apart from the odd goal here and there
When his strengths are played to which we would not be able to offer as Lambert does not do width or wingers and prefers a narrow approach to goal. I also believe he has scored once this season for Fulham?
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I think randy realise to catch the top 6 now would take huge investment and is perhaps resigned to us being a midtable side - other clubs are spending similar or less than us and achieving that aim but we are underperforming and struggling around the bottoms 6 year on year.
I have long lowered my ambitions to a top 8 finish at best in the foreseeable future - the money spent at the club in the last 18 months should be enough to achieve mid table - its time now for lambert to deliver results on the pitch and guide us to the points we need - we do not want another relegation scrap.
It's frustrating when you look at Southampton who look a far more solid and impressive outfit than ourselves. Granted they're certainly not gonna stay in the top 6 but they look a decent side and they've made 2-3 genuinely quality additions. They basically come up from the Champ and overtaken us which isn't good.
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I think we've turned into a pebble.
That really made me laugh out loud
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Who barely gets a touch of the ball and offers very little.
Apart from the odd goal here and there
When his strengths are played to which we would not be able to offer as Lambert does not to width or wingers and prefers a narrow approach to goal. I also believe he has scored once this season for Fulham?
Twice
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Who barely gets a touch of the ball and offers very little.
Apart from the odd goal here and there
When his strengths are played to which we would not be able to offer as Lambert does not do width or wingers and prefers a narrow approach to goal. I also believe he has scored once this season for Fulham?
That's one more than Gabby, who seems almost immune from criticism at times
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I stand ccrrected. Thanks. I thought it was a solitary goal.
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If we're comparing Lambert and Martinez then Martinez made a change in the 2nd half and won the game. I think he'll do well at Everton and could potentially get a bigger job after that.
Lambert very rarely makes these decisions and have them pay off. I just don't think he has the tactical nous at all. We're as big a job as he'll ever have. Whether he really is up to it remains to be seen. I appreciate he doesn't have a huge budget to work with, but he's had the option to sign more experienced players if needed and not done it. Every decent team going has experienced players. We signed 7 players in the summer for maybe 20 odd million. It's been suggested we had further funds to get a midfielder possibly. We should have just signed 3-4 better quality players, perhaps more proven.
I don't mind having players who might be good in 2016, but if we're in the Championship what good is that?
Our bench has got to be one of the weakest in the league without a single proven premier league player .The only player we've got that could change things as an impact sub is on loan to Fulham.Piss poor state of affairs
Why do you think this would work this season when it didn't work at all last season?
Bents goals to minutes ratio last season wasn't actually entirely terrible.
But honestly, I wouldn't have him back. Just saying like. His pace has gone. Not having a proper pre-season probably didn't help but the injuries have taken their toll. That said, would I have put him on over Helenius? Perhaps.
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I stand ccrrected. Thanks. I thought it was a solitary goal.
Three in all competitions. ;)
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Sod off.
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Gabby or/and Weimann need dropping. Sylla needs to play and Lowton at right back to allow Bacuna to move upfield. Shake the complacency up.
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If we're comparing Lambert and Martinez then Martinez made a change in the 2nd half and won the game. I think he'll do well at Everton and could potentially get a bigger job after that.
Lambert very rarely makes these decisions and have them pay off. I just don't think he has the tactical nous at all. We're as big a job as he'll ever have. Whether he really is up to it remains to be seen. I appreciate he doesn't have a huge budget to work with, but he's had the option to sign more experienced players if needed and not done it. Every decent team going has experienced players. We signed 7 players in the summer for maybe 20 odd million. It's been suggested we had further funds to get a midfielder possibly. We should have just signed 3-4 better quality players, perhaps more proven.
I don't mind having players who might be good in 2016, but if we're in the Championship what good is that?
Our bench has got to be one of the weakest in the league without a single proven premier league player .The only player we've got that could change things as an impact sub is on loan to Fulham.Piss poor state of affairs
Why do you think this would work this season when it didn't work at all last season?
I vaguely remembering it working against West Brom at home when he came on as a sub and equalised but then he was promptly dropped so hard to judge how good an impact sub he would have been for us.Managed to score against Wigan too having not played for weeks
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Gabby or/and Weimann need dropping. Sylla needs to play and Lowton at right back to allow Bacuna to move upfield. Shake the complacency up.
I don't think it's complacency.
We just don't have too many good players
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Yes, we created chances, and should have been 3-2 up at half time (3-0 after 30 mins), but we were not playing well in my view. I knew we could not maintain the pressing game and that then we would lose or shape and they would score a couple. Maybe that is why PL prefers to concede the fist half at home. Who knows. All of the stats are ghastly, not only our well known home form, but Everton's recent pathetic away form.
What I do know is this: there will be a substantial fall in home attendances quite soon and somebody is going to have to deal with that.
P.S. There is a very good article in the latest fanzine by Trevor Fisher, where he very ably outlines PL's "project" and what is required from us, the fans. I don't see the fans turning against PL, as they are well aware of what he is trying to achieve: they will just begin to drift away.
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While I am in such a foul mood I will add that I think Ron Vlaar is a piss poor captain. Last week when he should have been in Dowd's face demanding even handedness he was nowhere to be seen. Today there was not one single senior pro who gave moral support to the rookie players when they made mistakes. A clear example was when Helenius came on and his first pass went straight to an Everton player and you could visibly watch him curl up and die. Once again they are playing like a group of players who met for the firswt time on the bus to the game. Correcting that is all about captaincy and leadership and we show neither.
Of course Vlaar makes a big thing of raising his arms to the crowd after the game and making gestures of apology. He did just the same after the horror show at Millwall and it cuts no ice with me.
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I'd like to see Guzan being made captain.
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Bent didnt want to stay as an impact sub. We need Big Time Charlie back asap..
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Its complacency knowing you will be picked.
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Bent didnt want to stay as an impact sub. We need Big Time Charlie back asap..
I think he'd have settled for being a sub due to Bentekes form. It was the fact Bowery was making the bench over him forced his hand somewhat
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I'd like to see Guzan being made captain.
Or Delph,I know he's young but he works tirelessly and is a good motivator
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Delph might possibly (hopefully) be one for the future.
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Gabby or/and Weimann need dropping. Sylla needs to play and Lowton at right back to allow Bacuna to move upfield. Shake the complacency up.
Agbonlahor yes. Definitely not Weimann. As I see it he is the only one trying to stick the damn ball in the net. Granted his shots have been high and wide in the last couple of games but who's done better?
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Gabby or/and Weimann need dropping. Sylla needs to play and Lowton at right back to allow Bacuna to move upfield. Shake the complacency up.
Agbonlahor yes. Definitely not Weimann. As I see it he is the only one trying to stick the damn ball in the net. Granted his shots have been high and wide in the last couple of games but who's done better?
Last couple of games? More like the whole calendar year!
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Gabby or/and Weimann need dropping. Sylla needs to play and Lowton at right back to allow Bacuna to move upfield. Shake the complacency up.
Agbonlahor yes. Definitely not Weimann. As I see it he is the only one trying to stick the damn ball in the net. Granted his shots have been high and wide in the last couple of games but who's done better?
Last couple of games? More like the whole calendar year!
Our last goalscorer.
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Is Lambert turning into MON?
Kick-and-rush counter-attacking football, clear favoritism in his selection, no real tactical acumen...oh but he doesn't wear a tracksuit anymore, so I guess not.
He doesn't wear a tracksuit any more, I'll give you that.
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Its complacency knowing you will be picked.
Exactly. Weimann, Gabby and Westwood know they are in the team come what may. None of them are worth their place on current form.
Could not understand trying to play Gabby in the 10 position. He doesn't have the skill neither, and to my mind most importantly, the work rate. I would have taken Weimann off instead of Tonev, put Gabby wide and put Helenius in the 10 position.
The other thing that baffles me is what exactly do they do at Bodymoor all week? During the game they seem not to know what each other is going to do as if they are total strangers. Also I do not believe they are as fit as they should be, or, if they are, then PL should be demanding much more effort from them especially by the way of movement off the ball and by getting closer to opponents and closing them down quicker.
This was a game that Everton did not win but we lost. If the momentum and effort had been continued throughout the second half then we should have won. Instead we dropped off and the work rate dropped thus allowing them back into the game and eventually by standing off them, allowed them to score.
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Just back home and incredibly pissed off. Nothing more to say.
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Enjoyed the first half. Once Everton scored felt like we imploded.
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I thought we played well until their goal. Then it was disappointing just how quickly heads fell
I also think Lambert deserves great credit for the role Tonev played today which as afar as I could tell was to keep Baines quiet.
After the roles BenArfa and Townsend have played in recent games it was important not to allow him free reign and Tonev did his job very well
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fredm your views are absolutely on the money, especially the bit about Lambert demanding more from them and trying to turn Gabby into some sort of poor man's Lampard was just a joke.
I am going to bed to dream that Doug is still in charge and the players and the manager and his incompetent staff are all bricking it that they will be given their cards on Monday morning.
All of this shit we are being served up comes from an absentee owner and nobody really being in charge.
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So are we going to get relegated again, Brian? Like you said last season and the season before?
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So are we going to get relegated again, Brian? Like you said last season and the season before?
I don't think..well actually i'm confident we won't get relegated but I'm not convinced were going to get any better (position wise)
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Bent didnt want to stay as an impact sub. We need Big Time Charlie back asap..
I think he'd have settled for being a sub due to Bentekes form. It was the fact Bowery was making the bench over him forced his hand somewhat
thats the problem , Lambert sometimes aint got a clue. And he needs to stop losing at home because its getting mighty depressing
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Who is Brian?
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Who is Brian?
He's a very naughty boy.
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So are we going to get relegated again, Brian? Like you said last season and the season before?
The fact that it was a real possibility for the last 3 seasons and now after a promising start, 2 points above the drop zone is very worrying, given the fact we can't buy a win at home
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Who is Brian?
Father of a tv genius ;)
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Who is Brian?
Brian Green a.k.a. Navin R Johnson
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Just home and once again to weary to wade through all the pages. The pages I have read seem to give more credit to Villa than those I sit amongst would give them. Our collective opinion in our bit of Holte Lower was that we were utter pants today. Yes we did miss chances in the first half and the Gabby sitter in the second half but so did Everton and a half time score of 3-3 could have easily happened.
You obviously travel a long way to watch home games and I do respect that very much however we were NOT utter pants today. I suggest may be those around you should try to give a little more support to the team but if they fail to recognise team's effort than I guess they are not going to do that.
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We've now got a run of much easier games, in principle
I'll reserve judgment till Xmas
Sounds like we should have been two up against a very good Everton side. So we must be doing something right in the creative sense
Sky sports were raving over Delph when compared to Barkley
Most sensible comment so far on this thread.
Without Barry, Everton would be struggling.
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Am I right in saying that every result we have had this season is an improvement on equivalent games played in the last one?
Yes that is fact that most people chose to ignore.
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Enjoyed the first half. Once Everton scored felt like we imploded.
This is correct and I also think Martinez made better subs than Lambert. Osman gave Everton more stability whereas Barklay was costing them possession.
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Sorry, but today is a tipping point for me. I'm very, very pissed off. How much longer should we put up with teams coming here and turning us over without so much as a whimper? We are a soft touch and the opposition know it. Villa
Park is no longer a place anyone fears...we're weak as piss and this HAS to stop. Sort it Lambert, sharpish.
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Am I right in saying that every result we have had this season is an improvement on equivalent games played in the last one?
Yes that is fact that most people chose to ignore.
Apart from todays result and Newcastle
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Who is Brian?
Brian Green a.k.a. Navin R Johnson
Is this fair to "out" posters like this?
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Am I right in saying that every result we have had this season is an improvement on equivalent games played in the last one?
Yes that is fact that most people chose to ignore.
Apart from todays result and Newcastle
So what? We were shit last season and are very close to being the same this season. Sorry, but it's not good enough. It just isn't.
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Am I right in saying that every result we have had this season is an improvement on equivalent games played in the last one?
Yes that is fact that most people chose to ignore.
Whilst the point is valid, a couple of the equivalent games from last season 0-8 against Chelsea and 0-4 against Spurs is very difficult to not improve on.
Obviously the Arsenal result was excellent, as was the Man City one (albeit pretty lucky).
As for the other games:
Liverpool - Depends whether you consider 0-1 to be better than 1-2
Everton - Depends whether you consider 0-2 to be better than 1-3
Newcastle - Exactly the same result as last season
Norwich - Depends whether you consider 1-0 to be better than 2-1
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Is Lambert turning into MON?
Kick-and-rush counter-attacking football, clear favoritism in his selection, no real tactical acumen...oh but he doesn't wear a tracksuit anymore, so I guess not.
A lot is made of Lamberts signings being 'young and hungry'. Or to put it another way, he likes them to be SELF motivated.
So are we therefore saying his man - management and motivational skills are lacking somewhat? For all his faults, O Neill never seemed to struggle to fire up his players, regardless of age or status.
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So what? We were shit last season and are very close to being the same this season. Sorry, but it's not good enough. It just isn't.
totally agree we will fight relegation again
was Lerner at the game if not why not.
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We've now got a run of much easier games, in principle
I'll reserve judgment till Xmas
Sounds like we should have been two up against a very good Everton side. So we must be doing something right in the creative sense
Sky sports were raving over Delph when compared to Barkley
Most sensible comment so far on this thread.
Without Barry, Everton would be struggling.
struggling . I dont think so . I wish we had him but they aint that bad .
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Who is Brian?
Brian Green a.k.a. Navin R Johnson
Is this fair to "out" posters like this?
No. I'm Brian...
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Some of the results might be marginally better but our ability to pass the ball is much worse and our attacking play is also worse than it was from Jan-May.
I'm not bothered about what we did this time last season because in the second half of the season it felt like we were making progresses but we've stagnated and gone backwards again. That's the problem. We were fully deserving against Arsenal and desperately unlucky against Chelsea. Signs looked promising but it's gone tits up since to be honest. The Man City game papered over a lot of cracks. That was the luckiest game we've had for a good while. We probably had 3 shots on goal and scored everyone and spent most of the game in our own half. These things even themselves out too, I'm sure will utterly dominate someone at some point and get robbed.
Tactically we're looking clueless again. I mean Lambo found a way that made us reasonably effective last season and has decided against doing that again. Both in terms of combining Sylla and Delph's running with Westwood in CM, and also we were more expansive in our attacking play, we used the flanks a lot more than we are now. Lamberts narrowed us again and is continually picking imbalanced sides. But that aside we also have a problem with some players not having the extra level to their game to kick on. Westwood hasn't had that extra level to turn him from a potentially good prem player, to a good prem player full stop. He looks out of his league at the moment. Our movement has gone to shite too.
We've played good opposition but we've looked wretched against Newcastle and Hull as well as large chunks of Norwich. A simple inability to find a team mate 5 yards away is shocking. No one seems capable of keeping the ball under control when they're running with it either. Most our team have the touch of a baby elephant. If we genuinely have any aspirations to be a passing side then we need to do some serious shopping in Jan.
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Who is Brian?
Brian Green a.k.a. Navin R Johnson
Is this fair to "out" posters like this?
No. I'm Brian...
You're a very naughty boy!
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Set pieces are still a joke.
I would love to know what goes on in training. At least we can see Westwood has taken over where Bannan left off with his appalling deliveries.
I don't think Lambert can spot a defender. He's signed Vlaar, Bennett, Lowton, Luna and Okore. 2 of them are pure shite and should never be at a Premier League club, 2 are very very average and 1 I reserve judgement on because of his injury. That's around £16m spent and the defense looks like a 1st division one, without the physical prescence.
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We've now got a run of much easier games, in principle
I'll reserve judgment till Xmas
Sounds like we should have been two up against a very good Everton side. So we must be doing something right in the creative sense
Sky sports were raving over Delph when compared to Barkley
Most sensible comment so far on this thread.
Without Barry, Everton would be struggling.
struggling . I dont think so . I wish we had him but they aint that bad .
They had a player like Osman on the bench to bring on and he turned the game. He'd walk into our side at the moment and be one of the first names in the 11. He's not exactly Maradona either.
We look like headless chickens. There's barely any composure among any of the players beside the big man who's always pretty cool but wasn't fit today. The difference with Everton was how well taken their goals were. A bit of consideration, a bit of composure and we're picking the ball out our net. We snatch at everything, rush everything. Just perenially fluff a shot or fuck up a final ball.
We might claim we're unlucky today, and 2-0 did probably flatter them, but we got 3 shots on target today, in a game at home. That's pathetic. There's no getting around that. We can claim 15 minutes of dominance in the second half but as soon as they scored it looked forgone. The very least you should expect as a professional football club, on your own ground against an opponent in the same league, is to be able to dominate a significant section of the game. We had the better of it for 15 minutes...woopty doo. First half was either end, a good game actually. Once they scored though, it was easy street. They might have made it worse too.
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Everton did an away smash and grab that we love doing. Should have won today had we took the chances. We are still miles better than last season.
But WFT was Baker doing on the wing?
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So what? We were shit last season and are very close to being the same this season. Sorry, but it's not good enough. It just isn't.
totally agree we will fight relegation again
was Lerner at the game if not why not.
Great post and thanks for warning us on relegation fight. By the way do you want Lerner to come and report to you in person?
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Watching it on motd, good save by Howard but he does go early, wtf is that beard?
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Eulogising about Barry on MOTD now. I know it was long debated on here but I can't help but think he would have made a massive difference to this side.
I like Lambert and what he's trying to do, but I do wonder whether we'd be better if randy could have convinced Martinez to come.
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Everton did an away smash and grab that we love doing. Should have won today had we took the chances. We are still miles better than last season.
But WFT was Baker doing on the wing?
I wouldn't call it a smash and grab really. First half was end to end. Second half we dominated for 15 minutes but they looked comfortable when they scored. 2-0 was harsh but I'm not sure with 3 shots on target we really deserved anything. Every home game we should be expecting a reasonable spell of dominating possession and territory. I thought by the end Everton were quite good value. Two very well taken goals (we're sorely lacking the composure shown for both) and they might have twisted the knife even further because we seemed to give in after Osman's goal.
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thought we played some good football today, there is light at the end of the tunnel, should have won today. delph, westwood, weiman, baker.and vlaar were superb.
we are building something special and we're not far off!
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thought we played some good football today, there is light at the end of the tunnel, should have won today. delph, westwood, weiman, baker.and vlaar were superb.
we are building something special and we're not far off!
Depends what you mean by special. If you mean lower mid table, then yes, we ain't far off
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thought we played some good football today, there is light at the end of the tunnel, should have won today. delph, westwood, weiman, baker.and vlaar were superb.
we are building something special and we're not far off!
Thank you Mrs Lambert and Paul is a lovely lad!
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was not a smash and grab with Everton today. The home game against Man City was ;)
Can we poach the Soton defence coach in
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thought we played some good football today, there is light at the end of the tunnel, should have won today. delph, westwood, weiman, baker.and vlaar were superb.
we are building something special and we're not far off!
Westwood , Baker and Weiman superb . Ill have what you are drinking ;)
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Weimann. Barn door. Banjo.
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I'm just getting bored with going - today was the best home performance this season and we lost again.
Our much lauded attack can't score, the midfield seems terrified to put the ball into the opposition area and the defence is apparently better because it only lets 2 goals in instead of 4.
We are, apparently, going to become Dortmund and power our way to victory with unstoppable forward strength but all I see is a bunch of also-rans with a decent keeper who can put the ball onto the head of a striker who will be gone at the end of the season who flicks on to no one in particular.
I know sod all about formations I just watch this crap week after week. Luckily the world believes the hype that the Premiership is great so money keeps pumping in so we just keep our heads out of the relegation guilliotine.
It just makes me sad to see us come to this.
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Just seen MOTD the role Barry plays is where Sylla should be played.As they showed having a player in that role helps the defence a great deal.
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Eulogising about Barry on MOTD now. I know it was long debated on here but I can't help but think he would have made a massive difference to this side.
I like Lambert and what he's trying to do, but I do wonder whether we'd be better if randy could have convinced Martinez to come.
I celebrated when we turned down Martinez, I never thought he was good enough for us.
Looking back I could have been wrong. Fairplay to the man, he is doing a good job with Everton.
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thought we played some good football today, there is light at the end of the tunnel, should have won today. delph, westwood, weiman, baker.and vlaar were superb.
we are building something special and we're not far off!
Wow. I'm all for optimism (because I'm unfortunately the opposite), but I really want whatever you're on. You can say we're 'building something' but to say 4 of those 5 were superb, you have to be on LSD.
I think I'm just jealous of your mind frame to be honest!
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Eulogising about Barry on MOTD now. I know it was long debated on here but I can't help but think he would have made a massive difference to this side.
I like Lambert and what he's trying to do, but I do wonder whether we'd be better if randy could have convinced Martinez to come.
I celebrated when we turned down Martinez, I never thought he was good enough for us.
Looking back I could have been wrong. Fairplay to the man, he is doing a good job with Everton.
Martinez has taken over an established top six side that the previous manager spent a decade building; he’s walked into a club that already has arguably the best left back in the country, a myriad of international defenders and midfielders, and whose only really weak area last season was up front – which he has remedied with the loan of one of the best striking prospects in Europe. In comparison, Lambert took over an utter shambles. Everything about our club stank when he came along; he’s pretty much had to take it all apart and start again. Did anybody really expect him to get everything right within a couple of years?
Face it, we’re going to have lots of spells like this one, and like the one last Christmas, where we’re not happy with what we’re seeing; we’ll also have ones like April and August, when we see progress being made and it starts to make some sense. That’s what happens when your team is full of young and inexperienced players; they’re inconsistent. That’s inconsistent, as opposed to dreadful, which is what the team Lambert inherited was; don’t anyone forget that, that team reeked of relegation. (And it had a lot of experience in it).
Unfortunately, that’s all pretty frustrating, but even more unfortunately, that’s just tough. That’s where we are at the moment. I think some people should start accepting that; it’s not settling for mediocrity, it’s accepting the reality. It’s not forever, it’s for now. We need some stability, we need to build some foundations, but it’s going to take time and patience. What’s the alternative? Sack Lambert and bring in Neil Warnock?
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Eulogising about Barry on MOTD now. I know it was long debated on here but I can't help but think he would have made a massive difference to this side.
I like Lambert and what he's trying to do, but I do wonder whether we'd be better if randy could have convinced Martinez to come.
I celebrated when we turned down Martinez, I never thought he was good enough for us.
Looking back I could have been wrong. Fairplay to the man, he is doing a good job with Everton.
Martinez has taken over an established top six side that the previous manager spent a decade building; he’s walked into a club that already has arguably the best left back in the country, a myriad of international defenders and midfielders, and whose only really weak area last season was up front – which he has remedied with the loan of one of the best striking prospects in Europe. In comparison, Lambert took over an utter shambles. Everything about our club stank when he came along; he’s pretty much had to take it all apart and start again. Did anybody really expect him to get everything right within a couple of years?
Face it, we’re going to have lots of spells like this one, and like the one last Christmas, where we’re not happy with what we’re seeing; we’ll also have ones like April and August, when we see progress being made and it starts to make some sense. That’s what happens when your team is full of young and inexperienced players; they’re inconsistent. That’s inconsistent, as opposed to dreadful, which is what the team Lambert inherited was; don’t anyone forget that, that team reeked of relegation. (And it had a lot of experience in it).
Unfortunately, that’s all pretty frustrating, but even more unfortunately, that’s just tough. That’s where we are at the moment. I think some people should start accepting that; it’s not settling for mediocrity, it’s accepting the reality. It’s not forever, it’s for now. We need some stability, we need to build some foundations, but it’s going to take time and patience. What’s the alternative? Sack Lambert and bring in Neil Warnock?
Good points, well made.
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Holloway's available 👍
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Holloway's available 👍
Bloody hell man, dont even joke about it. ;D
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Holloway's available 👍
Bloody hell man, dont even joke about it. ;D
Ha, awww actually I don't want to wake him. The poor bugger is awfully tired.
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Haven't seen the game or 'highlights' and don't know if I will. sounds like we should have been 2-3 up at half time and weren't and paid the price.
I wish we would start winning these games as I am getting sick of people asking me if I think Villa will avoid relegation this year. I want people to start talking it terms of what we might win and whether we will get into Europe. Sort it out Lambert.
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It seems to me that what it boils down to is we must endure week after week of games like that one yesterday, the Spurs game and the Hull game on the promise that Lambert will get it right. I respect the posters who point out that the club was in a mess when Lambert came but in all truth I see very little improvement in real terms on where we were when O'Neill flounced out.
Yes, I give you that we have tried to play a better, more fluent game but even that has been abandoned and hoofball rules again. We saw yesterday Benteke on the pitch and two target men centre forwards were on the bench. We come under pressure and the ball gets lumped forward. THAT is what is happening. It should not be happening and is nowhere in the master plan that we are encouraged to believe Lambert has. Even on BT Sport the other evening a summarizer being critical of an Italian game said of a piece of play "that was pure Guzan lumping it forward". THAT is how we are seen in football at this time.
To buy into the Lambert master plan where everything works out fine at some indeterminate point in the future you have take on board that Lambert is a shrewd and canny, insightful operator. He is well into his second season with us and I see no concrete evidence that he is any of those things.
The very core of our malaise is our absentee owner. Everton have an owner who is a poor man compared with Lerner but he is Everton through and through. He puts every penny he has on the line for the club he loves and it shows. We have an owner for whom our club is a sideshow, a hobby, an interest, left in the hands of others to run.
The owner has obviously, post MON, placed strict cash limits on what can and cannot be done with the simple directive to his board that losses are to be reduced and Premiership security achieved at an affordable cost. Aston Villa has become a business, nothing more, nothing less.
So, Lambert, given his modest bag of money is like a man playing roulette in a casino who covers the table with small bets in order to maximise his winning chances. That is not having a master plan. That is playing the percentages and that is precisely what we are getting by way of results. You finish up going skint. Believe me I have been there (ask Bob).
What lies down this road is not some claret and blue dawn when all the bargain buys start to surge up the table and into the CL. What lies down this road is collapsing attendances at games and our business oriented club executive become aware that the fans are not a crop to be harvested any more and Bent style signings are used to try to lure the crowds back.
This is nothing new at Villa Park. Trevor Ford was my ealiest experience of the same situation fifty or more years ago.
How can I sum up my deep unease?
Paul Lambert does not have a master plan. He is winging it.
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thought we played some good football today, there is light at the end of the tunnel, should have won today. delph, westwood, weiman, baker.and vlaar were superb.
we are building something special and we're not far off!
What kind of bizarre hallucinating drugs have you been taking? Seriously, you must be watching a different Villa team to the rest of us to think that.
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It seems to me that what it boils down to is we must endure week after week of games like that one yesterday, the Spurs game and the Hull game on the promise that Lambert will get it right. I respect the posters who point out that the club was in a mess when Lambert came but in all truth I see very little improvement in real terms on where we were when O'Neill flounced out.
Yes, I give you that we have tried to play a better, more fluent game but even that has been abandoned and hoofball rules again. We saw yesterday Benteke on the pitch and two target men centre forwards were on the bench. We come under pressure and the ball gets lumped forward. THAT is what is happening. It should not be happening and is nowhere in the master plan that we are encouraged to believe Lambert has. Even on BT Sport the other evening a summarizer being critical of an Italian game said of a piece of play "that was pure Guzan lumping it forward". THAT is how we are seen in football at this time.
To buy into the Lambert master plan where everything works out fine at some indeterminate point in the future you have take on board that Lambert is a shrewd and canny, insightful operator. He is well into his second season with us and I see no concrete evidence that he is any of those things.
The very core of our malaise is our absentee owner. Everton have an owner who is a poor man compared with Lerner but he is Everton through and through. He puts every penny he has on the line for the club he loves and it shows. We have an owner for whom our club is a sideshow, a hobby, an interest, left in the hands of others to run.
The owner has obviously, post MON, placed strict cash limits on what can and cannot be done with the simple directive to his board that losses are to be reduced and Premiership security achieved at an affordable cost. Aston Villa has become a business, nothing more, nothing less.
So, Lambert, given his modest bag of money is like a man playing roulette in a casino who covers the table with small bets in order to maximise his winning chances. That is not having a master plan. That is playing the percentages and that is precisely what we are getting by way of results. You finish up going skint. Believe me I have been there (ask Bob).
What lies down this road is not some claret and blue dawn when all the bargain buys start to surge up the table and into the CL. What lies down this road is collapsing attendances at games and our business oriented club executive become aware that the fans are not a crop to be harvested any more and Bent style signings are used to try to lure the crowds back.
This is nothing new at Villa Park. Trevor Ford was my ealiest experience of the same situation fifty or more years ago.
How can I sum up my deep unease?
Paul Lambert does not have a master plan. He is winging it.
Very good post that mr g!
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Would anyone take MON back ?
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He may be winging it but do we have a prayer? sorry player to rely on.
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A fit and sharp Benteke and we'd have had half a chance.
Some positives though, Baker looked pretty comfortable against Lukaku first half and moving him to LB enabled Everton to hit longer balls that were held up and to play in our defensive third more. Bachuna continued to look a threat, Tonev made some very good runs off the ball although there is still improvement needed when he actually got it. Finally Weimann showed glimpses of last year's form. In the debit column Benteke looked less than half fit and the substitutions both made us look less solid.
We'll play worse and win.
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Would anyone take MON back ?
Randy wouldn't and that's all that matters.
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If the first 60/65 mins of every game at home was as entertaining as yesterday we'd be full every week.
Delph and Westwood and Tonev very good up to that point. Should have been ahead.
Martinez changed the game with Osman coming on and we had nothing from the bench.
Maybe we could get Kagawa on loan if Moyes doesn't fancy him.....
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Just checked stats from last season and after 9 games we had 5 points, have I just made us all feel a teeny weeny bit better?
I'd rather compare to the tail end of last season where we seemed to be progressing. We looked decent in attack, but this season we seem to have regressed. Teams have worked us out somewhat. We don't look as effective going forward. Gabby and Weimann don't look like they could hit a barn door. Benteke has been rushed back too soon. Lack of a plan B is a worry. I know our home form is total shite and doesn't look like improving, but I don't think we'll be as effective away from home as we were last season (particularly 2nd half of the season).
We're not gonna have too many more games like Man City either. That was a once a season kind of game.
Was Arsenal once in a season as well? We have had the toughest start to the season we have had in over 20 years. We are a better side than the results so far suggest.
However after driving from the Isle of Wight via Leicester for today's game it only adds to the frustration of our extremely poor home form. The first 60 mins today were better but we cannot afford to miss those chances and still expect to win. On another day that result would have been very different.
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Until we start playing a pressing game at home to make up for our lack of quality,our home form will carry on being piss poor.
Mind you 4 managers haven't managed it!
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I haven't had chance to read the whole thread but for me it's a game that is easily summarised: we were the better team by far for an hour or so but squandered chances that should have given us a comfortable lead. We were then useless for the last 20 minutes.
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Looking at the Mcarthy challenge on Westwood, how is that not a straight Red? Very dangerous lunge
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Had the piss taken by Spuds fans last week, Everton fans this week.
I am not looking forward to next Saturday against Spam. We need a bloody good win and a bloody good performance.
Benteke needs to be rested, far from fully fit, and Gabby and Weimen need to step the fuck up and play much better.
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Looking at the Mcarthy challenge on Westwood, how is that not a straight Red? Very dangerous lunge
I just saw that on MOTD it was a red for me I didnt see how bad it was yesterday and im sure he caught someone else just afterwards as well
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Would like to see Sylla and Lowton start next week with Bacuna pushed forward to RM
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We can't miss chances like we did and expect to win games. It was frustrating because I thought we played some nice stuff in the first half. Also, i'm not sure what point was of throwing a 6ft striker on and taking off a winger.
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Just checked stats from last season and after 9 games we had 5 points, have I just made us all feel a teeny weeny bit better?
I'd rather compare to the tail end of last season where we seemed to be progressing. We looked decent in attack, but this season we seem to have regressed. Teams have worked us out somewhat. We don't look as effective going forward. Gabby and Weimann don't look like they could hit a barn door. Benteke has been rushed back too soon. Lack of a plan B is a worry. I know our home form is total shite and doesn't look like improving, but I don't think we'll be as effective away from home as we were last season (particularly 2nd half of the season).
We're not gonna have too many more games like Man City either. That was a once a season kind of game.
Was Arsenal once in a season as well? We have had the toughest start to the season we have had in over 20 years. We are a better side than the results so far suggest.
However after driving from the Isle of Wight via Leicester for today's game it only adds to the frustration of our extremely poor home form. The first 60 mins today were better but we cannot afford to miss those chances and still expect to win. On another day that result would have been very different.
No Arsenal was fully deserved.
Man City was by the grace of God. There was an element of fortune in all the goals, and that aside we barely tested Hart. We won the game in the space of 10 crazy minutes.
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Until we start playing a pressing game at home to make up for our lack of quality,our home form will carry on being piss poor.
Mind you 4 managers haven't managed it!
At the moment I'd take average home form, as we had under O Neill, over utterly piss poor.
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Until we start playing a pressing game at home to make up for our lack of quality,our home form will carry on being piss poor.
Mind you 4 managers haven't managed it!
Agree with this. The amount of time barry had on numerous occasions yesterday was worryingly familiar.
I think we need Sylla in there as he has a great engine on him and will help to press further up the pitch
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It seems to me that what it boils down to is we must endure week after week of games like that one yesterday, the Spurs game and the Hull game on the promise that Lambert will get it right. I respect the posters who point out that the club was in a mess when Lambert came but in all truth I see very little improvement in real terms on where we were when O'Neill flounced out.
Yes, I give you that we have tried to play a better, more fluent game but even that has been abandoned and hoofball rules again. We saw yesterday Benteke on the pitch and two target men centre forwards were on the bench. We come under pressure and the ball gets lumped forward. THAT is what is happening. It should not be happening and is nowhere in the master plan that we are encouraged to believe Lambert has. Even on BT Sport the other evening a summarizer being critical of an Italian game said of a piece of play "that was pure Guzan lumping it forward". THAT is how we are seen in football at this time.
To buy into the Lambert master plan where everything works out fine at some indeterminate point in the future you have take on board that Lambert is a shrewd and canny, insightful operator. He is well into his second season with us and I see no concrete evidence that he is any of those things.
The very core of our malaise is our absentee owner. Everton have an owner who is a poor man compared with Lerner but he is Everton through and through. He puts every penny he has on the line for the club he loves and it shows. We have an owner for whom our club is a sideshow, a hobby, an interest, left in the hands of others to run.
The owner has obviously, post MON, placed strict cash limits on what can and cannot be done with the simple directive to his board that losses are to be reduced and Premiership security achieved at an affordable cost. Aston Villa has become a business, nothing more, nothing less.
So, Lambert, given his modest bag of money is like a man playing roulette in a casino who covers the table with small bets in order to maximise his winning chances. That is not having a master plan. That is playing the percentages and that is precisely what we are getting by way of results. You finish up going skint. Believe me I have been there (ask Bob).
What lies down this road is not some claret and blue dawn when all the bargain buys start to surge up the table and into the CL. What lies down this road is collapsing attendances at games and our business oriented club executive become aware that the fans are not a crop to be harvested any more and Bent style signings are used to try to lure the crowds back.
This is nothing new at Villa Park. Trevor Ford was my ealiest experience of the same situation fifty or more years ago.
How can I sum up my deep unease?
Paul Lambert does not have a master plan. He is winging it.
Excellent post of which the majority I agree with.
One thing I struggle with though, is the criticism of Lerner for his absenteeism.
Ultimately of course, he carries full responsibility but...he has always been open in that he leaves the day to day (business) running of the club to intelligent people who should be, and I'm sure are, capable of carrying out their roles unsupervised.
If you are leveling your criticism of Lerner toward the performances on the pitch, I feel you are even further off the mark. That responsibility is the team managers alone. It has never been the remit of the chairman to select the line-up, suggest tactics or give a pre match pep talk. Dont forget we often lambasted a certain previous fellow for doing exactly that.
I promise you, if you were to ask any professional footballer what is going through their head as they walk onto the pitch at the start of an important game, the GPS coordinates of the club owner would be the last thing on their mind.
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Until we start playing a pressing game at home to make up for our lack of quality,our home form will carry on being piss poor.
Mind you 4 managers haven't managed it!
Agree with this. The amount of time barry had on numerous occasions yesterday was worryingly familiar.
I think we need Sylla in there as he has a great engine on him and will help to press further up the pitch
I think most people agree we look a much better midfield with sylla in there and results would suggest so too, I cannot see why lambert is not playing him to be honest .
Regarding the tackle on Westwood , yes it could have been a straight red but we have been lucky on 2 occasions when westwood himself could have been shown a straight red in recent games so I guess we can't complain too much .
I was surprised tonev came off for helenius and don't really see what lambert hoped to achieve with it as tonev looked one of our better players .
This 3 at home system with gabby and Weimann is not working - our next home game I would like to see bacuna and tonev in wide midfield roles alongside Delph and sylla with Lowton at right back
Neither gabby or Weimann are prolific enough in front of goal and I would like to see Kozak tried alongside benteke.
Guzan
Lowton. Vlaar. Clark. Luna
Bacuna. Sylla. Delph. Tonev
Benteke. Kozak
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I ,or anybody on the several Villa related forums cannot have any idea whether Randy Lerner remains interested or uninterested in the clubs fortunes. Why?, because he plays his cards very close to his chest and says nothing that might give the game away. Paul Faulkner and Lambert may have an idea but they are in very well paid jobs which is prefable to unemployment.
One things for sure we do not appear to be in any financial difficulties and we are in the top flight. Its only the end of October and things will improve because they have to. People on this forum have been suggesting that Weimann should be rested and I would agree but there is no one to come in. Bowery isnt good enough and Kozak hasnt shown he is up to the job in his first few games. At least with Weimann you are guaranteed he will have a go and thats better than nothing.
Cant figure Lambert out at all. He has had a fair ammount of time to sort out a style of play that suits the players but whatever that is its not working consistently or the players he has brought in on a small budget are not good enough. Benteke even when he gets match fit will have to do it all by himself and I think he will get rapidly tired of the physical effort this will entail.
Moyes could do it season after season on a small budget but its quite possible that our current manager isnt intelligent enough to cope.
Its all right playing the hard man but to gain respect you have to grind out results and we are failing to do this.
But we have to stick with him because there is nobody else of any decent standard available.
So we carry on as we are hoping things can only get better.
But will they?
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We can't miss chances like we did and expect to win games. It was frustrating because I thought we played some nice stuff in the first half. Also, i'm not sure what point was of throwing a 6ft striker on and taking off a winger.
Agree with you and I failed to understand the subbing. Tactically it made no sense. It appeared to be do something type of thing. Either Weimann or Gabby or both should have gone replaced by Sylla and Helenius. Hopefully Lambert is learning by making mistakes.
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Everton had Barkley, Osman and Pienaar, all 3 would walk into our team, and be ideal, we have nobody like that at the club.There are plenty of these kind of players about, Kagawa, De Bruyne, even Rosicky, may be gettable on loan in Jan, but we need at least 1 of these players asap.
I partly agree with your post Navin R, but i would say, that just with the purchase/loan of this kind of player, defeats like yday, and last sunday, could easily be turned into victories.
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We can't miss chances like we did and expect to win games. It was frustrating because I thought we played some nice stuff in the first half. Also, i'm not sure what point was of throwing a 6ft striker on and taking off a winger.
Agree with you and I failed to understand the subbing. Tactically it made no sense. It appeared to be do something type of thing. Either Weimann or Gabby or both should have gone replaced by Sylla and Helenius. Hopefully Lambert is learning by making mistakes.
This is one thing that does frustrate me about Lambert. His answer in trying to change a game is to just throw another striker on.
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One feature for me yesterday was when Delph moved further up the pitch and we started to drive into their box, he had one goal-bound shot blocked but then dropped back to the centre circle when the subs came on.
It always looks to me as if we are trying to retain some sort of tactical "shape" - then the tempo rises - we forget the "shape" and start to play better - then we remember the "shape" and go back to being predictable.
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May be that is the answer. Westwood and Sylla with Delph driving forward?
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We can't miss chances like we did and expect to win games. It was frustrating because I thought we played some nice stuff in the first half. Also, i'm not sure what point was of throwing a 6ft striker on and taking off a winger.
Agree with you and I failed to understand the subbing. Tactically it made no sense. It appeared to be do something type of thing. Either Weimann or Gabby or both should have gone replaced by Sylla and Helenius. Hopefully Lambert is learning by making mistakes.
Tactically it made no sense which is almost the Lambert mantra. I don't think he's learning from his mistakes at all, which is worrying. On the flipside, Martinez made a change which ended up contributing to them winning the game.
Honestly I struggle to get behind a manager who plays so narrowly. We have a game where he plays a winger (Tonev) who expands the pitch and we look better going forward than the previous two matches. Albeit we lack any composure still in the final third. But then what does he do? He brings on a 6ft5 striker. You could see the logic in that certainly. But who does he take off? The winger and Tonev departings taking any attacking width, and potentially of delivery from wide, with him.
This happens almost on a game to game basis. Utterly bone headed decision making, and that's when he has the gumption to even make a decision.
I'm struggling to see the light at the end of the tunnel here I'm afraid.
I'd be tempted to give some of our younger kids a go. Johnson might offer something. Grealish when he's fit. It's done Barkley no harm being put in. Our current squad are too predictable and lacking in even basic ball control. Our youth and reserve sides have been one of the best over the last couple of decades. I think we should be trying to bring more of our own 18-21 year olds into the side, rather than some of these questionnable signings that Lambert has made.
Do we really not have a young attacking mid who couldn't offer something? Or a young midfielder who can do everything Westwood does (like pass it five yards sideways) but better? I'd like to get some of that unpredictability in there and a few more of the home grown boys.
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I would like to see Grealish given a chance and maybe Carruthers too at some point this season - both seem to have the creative ability that the team is badly lacking.
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To comment on Everton;
That was the first time I had seen Ross Berkley, so my comments are not binding. I have been told by Everton supporting friends that he his better than Rooney. He played wide yesterday of the three behind Lukaku and to be honest, the only things of consequence he did was smash a twenty yarder, twenty yards wide and woefully over hit three crosses, being deservedly subbed.
On that basis he will fit right in for Ingerlund.
People have spoken about Barry. He is a good player, but his role yesterday was to lamp Benteke. Osman made the difference when he came on. We saw the ball less, he used it better than Berkley and he scored.
Barry would have made no difference to the result yesterday if he had been sitting in the two next to Delph. The system was fine, Andi and Sylla aside, the personell was fine, the chances we created were enough to win the game before half time.
The finishing from Benteke, Andi and Gabby was criminal.
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It's a good point regarding the positioning of our midfield.
There was a passage of play yesterday when Gabby picked the ball up and made for the left wing with it in order to create the space to get a cross in.
Nice idea, trouble was of course, that in amongst the Everton back four and retreating defensive midfielders, we only had Benteke in the box to aim at.
Naturally, the ball came in, we were outnumbered 6 to 1 and it was cleared with ease.
The point being, both Delph and Westwood were still standing in the centre circle, having failed to get forward to provide support to a promising attack.
Whether they have been told not to, lack the intelligence or will to, or are simply too knackered from chasing possession all afternoon I couldnt say. Your guess is as good as mine.
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I assume the new tunnel decoration will be finished this week, once they've added 'help yourself to three points' underneath 'this is Villa Park'.
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Agree on the midfield.
We mentioned loads of times that there was a huge gap between the strikers and the midfield with the midfield holding and not bombing on.
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In my view Delph needs to be in that space, with Sylla sitting in the two and Tonev where Andi is now. Andi needs to occupy space just beyond the touchline on those wooden benches.
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Some of the results might be marginally better but our ability to pass the ball is much worse and our attacking play is also worse than it was from Jan-May.
I'm not bothered about what we did this time last season because in the second half of the season it felt like we were making progresses but we've stagnated and gone backwards again. That's the problem. We were fully deserving against Arsenal and desperately unlucky against Chelsea. Signs looked promising but it's gone tits up since to be honest. The Man City game papered over a lot of cracks. .....
Most of us expected a steady upward curve from last season's form. The start of the season was great and probably raised expectations.
Now we are coming to realise most of last season's problems remain with the recent signings offering no significant improvement on what we already had. If we can match the form from Jan to end of last season we should be OK and looking toward a lower mid table finish.
Next summer will be massive for Lambert. Benteke will go and then it's white knuckle stuff - do you trust him to bring in the right replacements? After all if he he hadn't got lucky with Benteke he'd have gone by now.
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In my view Delph needs to be in that space, with Sylla sitting in the two and Tonev where Andi is now. Andi needs to occupy space just beyond the touchline on those wooden benches.
I like Weimann a lot but he needs leaving out for a few games. I couldn't work out where he was meant to be playing at times yesterday. I'd play Tonev, Gabby and Benteke has a front three with Delph, Sylla and Westwood in the middle.
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In my view Delph needs to be in that space, with Sylla sitting in the two and Tonev where Andi is now. Andi needs to occupy space just beyond the touchline on those wooden benches.
I like Weimann a lot but he needs leaving out for a few games. I couldn't work out where he was meant to be playing at times yesterday. I'd play Tonev, Gabby and Benteke has a front three with Delph, Sylla and Westwood in the middle.
Front three doesn't work at home for me - Kozak is no good as a target man on his own but may thrive alongside benteke.
Tonev and bacuna wide midfield with sylla and Delph in the middle .
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I expect someone to shoot me down here, but what the hell: he shouldn't have signed Kozak instead of another attacking midfielder. I know he wanted both, but we're clearly operating within a budget and £7m is a fat wad of that. It's been argued that he couldn't get the deal he wanted on an attacking midfielder, but if we didn't sign Kozak and pooled the £7m with the attacking midfielder money we could have surely signed a really top class playmaker. As it is, we have Kozak (who I do like) and no playmaker - ie, he opted for the backup bigman striker instead of a first XI player. I still support Lambert, but he's made a mistake.
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In my view Delph needs to be in that space, with Sylla sitting in the two and Tonev where Andi is now. Andi needs to occupy space just beyond the touchline on those wooden benches.
I like Weimann a lot but he needs leaving out for a few games. I couldn't work out where he was meant to be playing at times yesterday. I'd play Tonev, Gabby and Benteke has a front three with Delph, Sylla and Westwood in the middle.
Front three doesn't work at home for me - Kozak is no good as a target man on his own but may thrive alongside benteke.
Tonev and bacuna wide midfield with sylla and Delph in the middle .
It might work with a natural wideman in Tonev but I forgot to add that's what i'd play next week. At home the formation does need looking at.
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In my view Delph needs to be in that space, with Sylla sitting in the two and Tonev where Andi is now. Andi needs to occupy space just beyond the touchline on those wooden benches.
I like Weimann a lot but he needs leaving out for a few games. I couldn't work out where he was meant to be playing at times yesterday. I'd play Tonev, Gabby and Benteke has a front three with Delph, Sylla and Westwood in the middle.
Front three doesn't work at home for me - Kozak is no good as a target man on his own but may thrive alongside benteke.
Tonev and bacuna wide midfield with sylla and Delph in the middle .
It might work with a natural wideman in Tonev but I forgot to add that's what i'd play next week. At home the formation does need looking at.
I'd agree with that clampy for next week, the 4-3-3 does work in away games where teams come onto us more and we can counter attack at pace.
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Huge blunder turning down Barry in the Summer (if true)
I don't care how much he would improve us, I don't want to see that roly-poly shitcunt anywhere near a villa shirt.
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'shitcunt'. What a word.
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Barry would've been an excellent pick up, surely we could've got man.city to subsidise most of his wages like they did with Adebayor?
I think that's why Everton are doing really well, there's an excellent balance to their central midfield which we simply don't have.
That said McCarthy should've walked. I thought at the time it didn't look a clever challenge but being in the lower holte you can never be certain.
Would've given us a big break as I think it was 0-0 at that stage. We actually are pretty good at playing against 10 men, demolished Sunderland when Sess was sent off, were comfortable against Arsenal when they had a man sent off and also against Chelsea until Benteke walked, we really need to get that sort of break when we play one of these games I think.
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We picked up last season when Gabby came back and our front three were firing on all cylinders. At the moment Gabby and Weimann aren't playing well but they still carry more of a goal threat than the alternatives.
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Huge blunder turning down Barry in the Summer (if true)
I don't care how much he would improve us, I don't want to see that roly-poly shitcunt anywhere near a villa shirt.
Bizarre.
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In my view Delph needs to be in that space, with Sylla sitting in the two and Tonev where Andi is now. Andi needs to occupy space just beyond the touchline on those wooden benches.
I like Weimann a lot but he needs leaving out for a few games. I couldn't work out where he was meant to be playing at times yesterday. I'd play Tonev, Gabby and Benteke has a front three with Delph, Sylla and Westwood in the middle.
Front three doesn't work at home for me - Kozak is no good as a target man on his own but may thrive alongside benteke.
Tonev and bacuna wide midfield with sylla and Delph in the middle .
I like Weimann too. There were worse culprits in front of goal yesterday. I think he's a grafter who's trying hard to make things happen for us. That run to set up a great chance for Agbonlahor in the second half being an example.
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That said McCarthy should've walked. I thought at the time it didn't look a clever challenge but being in the lower holte you can never be certain.
Would've given us a big break as I think it was 0-0 at that stage. We actually are pretty good at playing against 10 men, demolished Sunderland when Sess was sent off, were comfortable against Arsenal when they had a man sent off and also against Chelsea until Benteke walked, we really need to get that sort of break when we play one of these games I think.
It nearly gave Ash a big break aswell.
Absolutely disgusting challenge. Hasn't McCarthy got form for dirty challenges?
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Huge blunder turning down Barry in the Summer (if true)
I don't care how much he would improve us, I don't want to see that roly-poly shitcunt anywhere near a villa shirt.
Bizarre.
I'm not sure to be honest. He's not quite the player he was and he's probably on ridiculous money for someone his age.
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That said McCarthy should've walked. I thought at the time it didn't look a clever challenge but being in the lower holte you can never be certain.
Would've given us a big break as I think it was 0-0 at that stage. We actually are pretty good at playing against 10 men, demolished Sunderland when Sess was sent off, were comfortable against Arsenal when they had a man sent off and also against Chelsea until Benteke walked, we really need to get that sort of break when we play one of these games I think.
It nearly gave Ash a big break aswell.
Absolutely disgusting challenge. Hasn't McCarthy got form for dirty challenges?
Was he the chap who nearly crippled that Newcastle player last season? Saw the tackle back this morning and it was horrendous.
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Just seen MOTD the role Barry plays is where Sylla should be played.As they showed having a player in that role helps the defence a great deal.
I did chuckle a bit when Savage was doing that analysis and said "passing and Gareth Barry don't really go together" what a mug he is.
I would've loved Martinez as manager here, amazed so many were turning their noses up at him just because he was fighting relegation every year at Wigan.
Still behind Lambert but these annual home defeats are hacking me off now.
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That said McCarthy should've walked. I thought at the time it didn't look a clever challenge but being in the lower holte you can never be certain.
Would've given us a big break as I think it was 0-0 at that stage. We actually are pretty good at playing against 10 men, demolished Sunderland when Sess was sent off, were comfortable against Arsenal when they had a man sent off and also against Chelsea until Benteke walked, we really need to get that sort of break when we play one of these games I think.
It nearly gave Ash a big break aswell.
Absolutely disgusting challenge. Hasn't McCarthy got form for dirty challenges?
Was he the chap who nearly crippled that Newcastle player last season? Saw the tackle back this morning and it was horrendous.
I think that was another mac - they had 3 a wigan last season and I think the lad against newcastle was on his debut.
Callum mcmanaman I believe .
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In my view Delph needs to be in that space, with Sylla sitting in the two and Tonev where Andi is now. Andi needs to occupy space just beyond the touchline on those wooden benches.
I like Weimann a lot but he needs leaving out for a few games. I couldn't work out where he was meant to be playing at times yesterday. I'd play Tonev, Gabby and Benteke has a front three with Delph, Sylla and Westwood in the middle.
Front three doesn't work at home for me - Kozak is no good as a target man on his own but may thrive alongside benteke.
Tonev and bacuna wide midfield with sylla and Delph in the middle .
It might work with a natural wideman in Tonev but I forgot to add that's what i'd play next week. At home the formation does need looking at.
Tonev ain't a natural wideman, his crossing was shocking yesterday. That said nice throughball for Benteke so looks better centrally.
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Huge blunder turning down Barry in the Summer (if true)
I don't care how much he would improve us, I don't want to see that roly-poly shitcunt anywhere near a villa shirt.
Bizarre.
I'm not sure to be honest. He's not quite the player he was and he's probably on ridiculous money for someone his age.
He's on £116k per week. Everton are signing him permanently in jan not sure on wage but he's probably taking a pay cut for a 3 or 4 year deal.
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Just seen the first goal again on Sky.
Initially I thought Clark was at fault for leaving Lukaku in space but on review, what the hell was Vlaar doing so far out of position over and ahead of our right back position. Incredibly poor.
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Huge blunder turning down Barry in the Summer (if true)
I don't care how much he would improve us, I don't want to see that roly-poly shitcunt anywhere near a villa shirt.
Bizarre.
I'm not sure to be honest. He's not quite the player he was and he's probably on ridiculous money for someone his age.
He's on £116k per week. Everton are signing him permanently in jan not sure on wage but he's probably taking a pay cut for a 3 or 4 year deal.
If he doesn't get the money he wants, I suppose he could always go crying to the Sunday papers.
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Huge blunder turning down Barry in the Summer (if true)
I don't care how much he would improve us, I don't want to see that roly-poly shitcunt anywhere near a villa shirt.
Bizarre.
I'm not sure to be honest. He's not quite the player he was and he's probably on ridiculous money for someone his age.
You're probably right, but he's still better than any of our midfielders even now. He'd walk back into out team and be our best player other than Benteke, in my opinion.
Sadly it's not gonna happen though.
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We already have Westwood, KEA and possibly Sylla who can all play the holding roles. We might have got a year or so out of Barry but it would be at the cost of stifling our current players' growth. Whilst he still has a lot to learn, I thought Westwood was excellent yesterday and has the potential to be a long-term solution to what Barry currently offers.
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How massively important is the month of November? Four games against sides we should be beating. We simply have to win at West Ham next week.
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We already have Westwood, KEA and possibly Sylla who can all play the holding roles. We might have got a year or so out of Barry but it would be at the cost of stifling our current players' growth. Whilst he still has a lot to learn, I thought Westwood was excellent yesterday and has the potential to be a long-term solution to what Barry currently offers.
What have you seen In Westwood that makes you think he could be the next Barry? His delivery is shit, he's possibly as slow as fat arse, can't pick a forward pass like Barry can, is much more light weight than Barry and doesn't offer anything in the final third.
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West Ham away is a tough one and we don't normally do well there.
I'd take a draw there and look to beat Cardiff and Sunderland at home.
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West Ham away is a tough one and we don't normally do well there.
I'd take a draw there and look to beat Cardiff and Sunderland at home.
A fair assessment and it would have us ahead of where we were same point last year. Weren't we on 18 points after 20 games last season?
Edit: and 23 points after 20 games in the TSM year. So November and December are the crucial months. You'd like to see us getting about 14-15 points minimum from the next 11 games to show that we are making progress at last. Our next 11 games actually look very promising. United are the only 'top' side we have in the next eleven. With teams like Palace, Fulham, Stoke, Sunderland twice and Swansea. Next eleven games are quite important actually.
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A draw away from home is a good result as long as you are winning at home.
Apart from at the Albion. Anything less than a five nil twatting of the Stripey shite or a last minute winner for us will not be acceptable.
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I expect someone to shoot me down here, but what the hell: he shouldn't have signed Kozak instead of another attacking midfielder. I know he wanted both, but we're clearly operating within a budget and £7m is a fat wad of that. It's been argued that he couldn't get the deal he wanted on an attacking midfielder, but if we didn't sign Kozak and pooled the £7m with the attacking midfielder money we could have surely signed a really top class playmaker. As it is, we have Kozak (who I do like) and no playmaker - ie, he opted for the backup bigman striker instead of a first XI player. I still support Lambert, but he's made a mistake.
I agree with you
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We picked up last season when Gabby came back and our front three were firing on all cylinders. At the moment Gabby and Weimann aren't playing well but they still carry more of a goal threat than the alternatives.
thats the thing thou . Lambert has not bought better quality than whta we had , and thats what he should have been doing , not more cheap squad fillers.
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Lambert has had to build a squad with £40 million. Only Luna and Bacuna have had a chance thus far, with Okre unfortunately being out for the year.
Whether Lambert intends to go back in January for his midfielder, I don't know, but he had to build a squad and within the budgetry constraints of the club. Next season will be different with a chance to spend £20 odd million on two or three players.
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Tim Howard made some excellent saves yesterday. Not bad for a bloke who wears his head upside down.
What is that beard all about eh ?
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Thought Delph, Bacuna, Vlaar and Guzan had a good game. The rest were below average and this is our problem. PL has gambled on unknown players and they will take time to adapt and progress with the speed and demands of the prem. I would like to see Delph behind the forwards as he has the pace and trickery to get in the box where he will be a threat. Everton were not that much better than us before that second goal and the pen and two chances have already been discussed .......
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As someone mentioned in the pub yesterday... we don't have a single player in the squad that has played Premiership football for anybody other than us. That lack of experience is really telling at times.
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Tim Howard made some excellent saves yesterday. Not bad for a bloke who wears his head upside down.
What is that beard all about eh ?
I like it. Bald blokes don't look right clean shaven
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Same as tou Mr Woo, i initially thought that Clark was at fault for the 1st goal but watch Westwood.He lets his man drift behind him, yet again.The goal is Westwoods fault.He can't play this defensive role, Sylla would'nt have been caught out.
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- Luna really is a terrible defender, I really think. His positioning is terrible
- Vlaar is looking good
- How about getting Lowton back in and have Bacuna as a right midfielder and Tonev on the left ? and then have Gabby and Benteke up front against West Ham. Meaning Weimann on the bench, he needs to be dropped/rested. Or Gabby on the left and then Sylla as an extra midfielder
I think something similar to your final bullet
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Tim Howard made some excellent saves yesterday. Not bad for a bloke who wears his head upside down.
What is that beard all about eh ?
He looked like one of those drawings we did as kids on those plastic things with iron filings and a magnet. Think they were called Woolly Willy (stop sniggering at the back)
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Change tactics at home Managers job, rely on away form and were in trouble again, in PL we have trusted but he has to accept where he has gone wrong and adapt very very quickly, said it once already but the honey moon period is coming to an end and fickle we are not, but we will not stand for being made look mugs every other week at Villa Park, the options should be there as that was what he has spent on options, if they are not forth coming he is to blame full stop. Come on Villa
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We fell apart badly towards the end, but we at least had some glimpses of what the back end of last season so enjoyable.
To be fair a lot of things went against us yesterday -the penalty miss(and others), Luna getting injured and the red card McCarthy should have got - but like the previous week we were distinctly second best in midfield against a team who were not all that good themselves.
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Tim Howard made some excellent saves yesterday. Not bad for a bloke who wears his head upside down.
What is that beard all about eh ?
I understand he has applied to join Toxteth Taliban and is preparing for the interview.
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Firstly, there's no point changing boss. We need to see it through. As for yesterday, I thought we were the better team until the goal. Should have had a couple early on and I thought Vlaar handled Lakaku very well and Delph proved he's the midfielder worth his salt. Tonev looked ok at times and perhaps needs a run. Midfield as a whole looks light though and Westwood is not anywhere near his form of a last season. I think Sylla's presence is required just to help us compete.
A few things swung it yesterday: the penalty of course, Luna going off changed the dynamic of our defence (Baker is no full back and Clark wasn't as aggressive as Baker had been at centre half). Everton hardly got out their half for the first 20 mins of the second half but goals change games and our inability to score from very good chances meant we were always vulnerable to the counter attack. Clark was slack for the first goal and I'm not sure how Barry found that much space for the second.
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Tim Howard made some excellent saves yesterday. Not bad for a bloke who wears his head upside down.
What is that beard all about eh ?
Who's Tim Howard? That was Hashim Amla in goal for Everton
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It's all down to quality of bench.
Last week spurs brought on Dembele, Defoe and Lennon - 3 players who would start for most premier league sides
Yesterday they brought on Osman - who would definitely start for us.
Years of inept purchases have left us short.
Until we ship the big wage earners like Given, Hutton etc who are no longer required it will continue
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It's all down to quality of bench.
Last week spurs brought on Dembele, Defoe and Lennon - 3 players who would start for most premier league sides
Yesterday they brought on Osman - who would definitely start for us.
Years of inept purchases have left us short.
Until we ship the big wage earners like Given, Hutton etc who are no longer required it will continue
It's partially that, but it's also the tactics that are adopted when the game needs to change.
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It's the quality of many of our first 11 that worries me, never mind the bench. Our buying policy has to change now. We need first 11, proven quality from here on in. Notably midfield. Last season we had one of the worst midfields in the top flight. Wigans was better and they went down. We haven't addressed that either. It's still one of the poorest in terms of ability and technique. Delph's a one man army at the moment. I'd like to see him get some quality to play with him in Jan.
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I think we'll see things more positively after the next few games, score a few goals, win a few games and hints wm look a bit rosier. The reality is we're a mid table team, with mid table players who will disappoint against better teams and be inconsistent against the others.
Just glad we got he wins against Arsenal and Man City otherwise the wait for points could have killed us before we started. I still think the fixture list has been our biggest problem this season, it's hard for new players to bed in when they only get a couple of touches.
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The really is only Man United who we could have played as well to compound how difficult our start has been. We've even had to go to a newly promoted side who defend very well, so much so, that Spurs needed a soft penalty to squeak past them and Everton the week previous had to have Barry try and break two of their players in half.
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The fact is after two decades of Sky money and the country's No1 rated academy our defenders aren't up to the upper levels of Premier League standard. We are currently a bottom six club but this is not representing yet our improvement from our summer purchases as the the fixture list has been unkind to us, so lets see where we are at Xmas.
It's a sad fact but in a 38 game season we need 40 points to stay up and 45 to show an improvement on last year. So we're at best only going to see another 10 wins or so and lose the majority of the rest.
Get used to it it's where we're at right now.
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I didn't see the game live so only have the extended highlights to go off from Sky so that may well colour what I say here but didn't we actually outplay them for the majority of the game? 2/3 times as many decent chances and a rare missed penalty so in my eyes this game could have easily gone the other way. I know Villa fans have a reputation for moaning but when you compare this game to the same fixture last season it feels like we have progressed quite a lot, in the space of one season I'm not sure if we can expect much more. Home results are a reason to worry, can't deny that, but we're playing better football, creating more chances and shipping less so all things are pointing towards an improved team and squad. I certainly won't be going into the next few games expecting to show relegation form as many on here are suggesting.
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From the MOTD highlights I saw,Everton had by far the better chances.
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Since when did MOTD show balanced highlights? Villa should have won and certainly not lost regardless of what highlights suggested.
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From the MOTD highlights I saw,Everton had by far the better chances.
I'm sorry but you're talking absolute bollocks.
We missed a penalty, two one-on-ones, and Gabby hit the keeper when unmarked 8 yards out.
For them, Brad made a great save from Lukaku's header and they worked two good goals which were both harder chances than any of the ones we spurned. Other than that what better chances did Everton have by far? I don't remember Brad making another save.
I didn't see the game live so only have the extended highlights to go off from Sky so that may well colour what I say here but didn't we actually outplay them for the majority of the game? 2/3 times as many decent chances and a rare missed penalty so in my eyes this game could have easily gone the other way. I know Villa fans have a reputation for moaning but when you compare this game to the same fixture last season it feels like we have progressed quite a lot, in the space of one season I'm not sure if we can expect much more. Home results are a reason to worry, can't deny that, but we're playing better football, creating more chances and shipping less so all things are pointing towards an improved team and squad. I certainly won't be going into the next few games expecting to show relegation form as many on here are suggesting.
Outplay is probably too strong a word but we were definitely the better team for the majority of the game. The Everton home game last season was disastrous - 3-0 down at half time, absolutely battered, and it could've been so much worse if Everton hadn't played the 2nd half at walking pace. The two games are not directly comparable to be fair - last season they had Fellaini, a fully fit Pienaar, a fully fit Osman, and Neville across the midfield from the 1st minute and absolutely destroyed us in the middle of the park because Lambert went 442 against them. On Saturday we had 3 central midfielders and their midfield wasn't as strong so we had the better of it.
But yes, you're right, it was a significant improvement, despite the result.