Aston Villa v Sunderland Post-Match Thread

[Nastylee]

5 year plan? We're back to year 1, no different to when DOL left despite what has happened since.

[Mr Diggles]

HOOOOOOOOOOOOOFFFFFFFFF!!!  I thought MON left in August?

Or maybe that was a Houllier impression of a MON performance. The players deserve some of the blame - Petrov, Gabby, Downing were all awful, and the distribution from Collins and Dunne was, as ever, atrocious. Heskey was excellent (his sending off and fuck up for the goal aside).

THe manager also deserves some of the blame - no changes when it clearly wasn't working (it was crying out for Bannan and Albrighton, even at half time). Also why use the same tactics as the away game from Sunday - we're at home you know.

Also Lerner and MON deserve some of the blame more generally, for letting the team get to the state where we have no decent technical senior midfielders who can thread passes and let play flow.

Its just depressing now, I still can't see Villa getting relegated this year, but something needs to change or improve very quickly.

[Rigadon]

It really was depressing tonight.  The atmosphere was heavy with defeatism.  It would be a MASSIVE gamble for Lerner to stick with Houllier right at the moment and one that might very well result in us going down.  Can't believe I've typed that but that's the way it most certainly feels.

[Irish villain]

Paulie's comment about us being in decline struck a raw nerve with me.... Where are we going? Five year plan? What five year plan/?This is a mess.

Again, the five year plan is a myth.

apologies, have a few drinks in me.

[mr woo]

Upstairs are clueless. Thats part of the problem. No leadership at the top, just a philanthropic mute american soccer fan, his YTS trainee and an army General who disappears from message boards when the going gets tough.

Bloody hell Adam, that's a bit harsh!

We whinged for years at an interfering chairman, now you're having a go at one who leaves his manager to his own devices.

Accuse the board of making a poor appointment, but the performance of the playing staff is the responsibilty of the manager alone.

[Legion]

Paulie's comment about us being in decline struck a raw nerve with me.... Where are we going? Five year plan? What five year plan/?This is a mess.

Calling Dave Woodhall to the 5 year plan myth thread, calling Dave Woodhall. Bing Bong.

See my previous post.

[Legion]

Paulie's comment about us being in decline struck a raw nerve with me.... Where are we going? Five year plan? What five year plan/?This is a mess.

Again, the five year plan is a myth.

apologies, have a few drinks in me.

Will do.

[TopDeck113]

Upstairs are clueless. Thats part of the problem. No leadership at the top, just a philanthropic mute american soccer fan, his YTS trainee and an army General who disappears from message boards when the going gets tough.

I'm rapidly reaching the same conclusion.

Whatever is now said about MON, the relative success he brought meant that the credentials of the new regime in the boardroom were never really questioned.

I've repeated this previously, but I always said the time to judge Randy as an owner was after he'd had to make a managerial appointment and/or the club had a rough patch.  So far that judgement is not good.

I also said at the time that Krulak announced that he wasn't any longer going to communicate on fans' sites, that having done so in the good times, bowing out now was not good PR.

At present it is not hard to reach the conclusion that we are rudderless both on and off the pitch.

[Risso]

The General mentioned a five year plan lots of times.  But anyhow, even if it doesn't exist surely the intention wasn't to be in the bottom three in the fifth year, formal plan or not.

[SoccerHQ]

Sitting there tonight, we looked in many senses like a club in decline. Vast swathes of empty seats, no atmosphere or spirit in the crowd, the team going through the motions but really not caring either, the manager sat impassively watching the game pass by us, the whole place has a horrible feeling of malaise. For those of you who watched on the telly or on the internet, it is difficult to properly convey just how wretched an experience that was.

It was like we'd been transported back in a time machine to the decaying days of 05/06. Things got better then, they had to as another year of Ellis and O'dreary and we'd have been relegated then.

Is it fear to say Houllier is the French Venglos?

[WALTERS WARRIORS]

I am seriously hurting. But to get rid of Houllier now would be suicide. By the time he was replaced we would of lost another window. And who is to say the players would want to play for him ?? We have got to buy quality. And quickly. This is now about serious funding ................

[avfc_1874]

I don't even know where to start with that.

I'm losing patience with Houllier but it's clear there are players who aren't good enough.

[Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air]

I can take rubbish performances and individual players playing crap, but that is not what happened tonight. Individual players did not play badly as such, some such as Downing were totally ineffective because they were never given service.

1) The team was set up firstly to try and avoid defeat.
2) Gabby was played wide and Ashley Young in the middle, it was obvious after 20 minutes this was not working but we persisted with it. Indeed our first shot on target was in the 2nd half when for the first and about only  time  Ashley found himself wide with the ball.
3) When Heskey was sent off, nothing was done apart from Gabby being forced by circumstance into the middle. No fresh legs to assist with the fact it was 10 against 11.
4) Again nothing was done when Sunderland scored. We eventually made substitutions far far too late in a desperate attempt to save the game. We finished up with a formation with Ashley Young at right  back and Richard Dunne at centre forward !

Tonights game was not lost by the players on the pitch , it was lost by decisions (or rather lack of them) off the pitch.

We are now in the relegation zone and we have to find a way out of it. I believe the existing players have enough ability to get the necessary wins and points to survive. However without organisation this will not happen. On tonights evidence Houllier is incapable of doing this and should be sacked immediately or I am afraid next season we are condemned to playing at the likes of Doncaster or Swansea.

[midnite]

I thought young was quite selfish today. And I'm one of his biggest fans. Don't want the guy to go anywhere. A couple of times in the second half he could of made some runs on the overlap but instead chose to stay inside cuz he wanted to be the goal scorer. Gabby has been moved out wide to accommadate young playing more central and it's not working. Young needs to play for the team not himself.

There was so much arguing and people kicking off with each other in the upper holte and that made me more mad than anything else. I don't want to see villa fans kicking off with each other. And houllier has created this atmosphere and I hate him for it!!!

[The Situation]

Upstairs are clueless. Thats part of the problem. No leadership at the top, just a philanthropic mute american soccer fan, his YTS trainee and an army General who disappears from message boards when the going gets tough.

Bloody hell Adam, that's a bit harsh!

We whinged for years at an interfering chairman, now you're having a go at one who leaves his manager to his own devices.

Accuse the board of making a poor appointment, but the performance of the playing staff is the responsibilty of the manager alone.

In all fairness though... there are certain times when you want the owner to keep his mouth shut and not interfere but there are also times were you want to see strong leadership from the owner.

There is nothing coming out from the top, we need to know what on earth is going on, just something.