PS Mr Lerner

[DBTW]

Ok, Brighton was a bad example admittedly.

Last night we had 11 players start the game who have international caps, most of them full internationals.

It's not as though Houllier went out and played a team of inexperienced youngsters who looked like cats in the headlights. They did ok, and will continue to get better gaining from the experience.

A certain "famous" person on this board said at the start of this season that it bares great resemblance to 1979, where we had to blood youngsters, struggled and narrowly avoided relegation. 18 months on, these youngsters, still averaging 23 years of age, had enough first team experience to be able to contribute to the proudest day in our history.

We will get better, everything is going in the right direction.

All of you saying we wont get relegated, why wont we?

[Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air]

Mr Lerner / General Krulak

The previous manager's decision to give up on the UEFA Cup when we were still in it was the most disgraceful management decision ever taken at our football club in my 40 odd years as a supporter. I cannot believe that when his successor was appointed one of his first instructions was never ever to subject Villa supporters to such a disrespectful act again.

Our manager's team selection tonight was a disgrace to Aston Villa and to a competition that has a history as proud as ours. The fans who went to Manchester full of expectation after Saturday deserve at the very least an official apology – although I would say a full refund would be a more appropriate gesture by the club (deducted from the manager's wages).

The word PROUD was banded about freely by our marketing people a few years ago. There's no pride in throwing in the towell.
A big wedge was driven between the club and supporters tonight, and it will take more than a win at Bolton on Saturday to repair it.

John Gregory "lost" a lot of fans by his negative tactics at the 2000 cup final, Martin O'Neill "lost" the support of a many fans after Moscow, and Gerard Houllier has possibly scored his own goal tonight.

I wouldn't blame any player with a hunger for winning things in the game wanting to leave Villa after tonight. Good luck to Gareth Barry and James Milner for the rest of the competition, good luck to Ashley Young wherever he goes next season.

Excellent post

And just how many of you "proud" fans would be at the away game v Brighton next season?

I would and probably a load more. Im not saying I want it, but if we then went down to what was the old 3rd division I would probably be at every away game again.

[TimTheVillain]

Aa soon as I saw the team sheet last night the inevitability of what was about to happen was obvious, and this turned into reality very quickly.

I spent most of the game talking to fellow Villains about GH - how changing a winning team isn't good ; how much the FA Cup means to the fans; how outraged we all were that GH had truly fucked up.

At Liverpool and Citeh, we've had to spend the last half hour taking the piss out of our team / club to remain sane .... last night was all sorts of adjectives - none of them positive.

[Can Gana Be Bettered!?!?]

In fact, why should I bother with a season ticket to watch Houlliers boring shit football.

Oh now, I'm as pissed off as the next bloke, but "boring" football?
One of the reasons I'm pissed off tonight is that we were starting to play some excellent football with a team that was starting to gel and understand Hotlips' way of playing.

The only time I've seen us play anything resembling excellent football in recent weeks is against Blackburn who are a gutless shambles.

Best we have played this season = West Ham and Blackburn - says it all really

What about Man Utd? 2nd half against Arsenal. We've played well in many games. It takes time to get the players to pass a ball after 4 seasons of playing a different way. Nobody has any patience.

[pauliewalnuts]

DBTW, do you really think our best players are not capable of three games in eight days after a two week break followed by another two week break?
Okay so their might have been injuries last night, I reckon there's even more chance of injuries against those purveyors of the beautiful game in Horwich myself.

The "avoiding injuries" argument is also weakened by the ludicrous decision to throw on Walker, Young and Downing when we were three nil down with less than 20 minutes left, and to all intents and purposes, dead and buried.

I'd also suggest that, whilst resting players for a league match might have the ultimate aim of making us perform better in that match, the net effect to players morale of a sound beating like last night, and of pathetically rolling over like that, probably cancels it out.

As Frank said very eloquently on the General's thread, defeat we can put up with, defeatism is a totally different thing.

[Can Gana Be Bettered!?!?]

All of you saying we wont get relegated, why wont we?

Because we are better than every team below us and we're also better than some of those above us. That's why.

[DBTW]

All of you saying we wont get relegated, why wont we?

Who are going to be fighting tooth and nail to stay in the league too, no game is easy, and we are too close for comfort.

Because we are better than every team below us and we're also better than some of those above us. That's why.

[pauliewalnuts]

Was this a clue?

The beauty of manager Houllier's approach to football is his rotational policy, meaning not one fan will be able to guess the team as Villa head to Eastlands.

http://www.avfc.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10265~2304598,00.html

[jonzy85]

Ok, Brighton was a bad example admittedly.

Last night we had 11 players start the game who have international caps, most of them full internationals.

It's not as though Houllier went out and played a team of inexperienced youngsters who looked like cats in the headlights. They did ok, and will continue to get better gaining from the experience.

A certain "famous" person on this board said at the start of this season that it bares great resemblance to 1979, where we had to blood youngsters, struggled and narrowly avoided relegation. 18 months on, these youngsters, still averaging 23 years of age, had enough first team experience to be able to contribute to the proudest day in our history.

We will get better, everything is going in the right direction.

All of you saying we wont get relegated, why wont we?

Chris Herd, Ciaran Clark, Fabian Delph, Nathan Delfouneso, Barry Bannan total full international caps = 3

Not to mention them playing out of position. And they did look like rabbits in the headlights in the first half.

We wont get relegated because we have too many good players, some of whom were on the bench today, others unavailable, others on the pitch but clearly struggled to adapt the sweeping, nonsensical changes made by the manager. Also, there are quite a number of poor teams below us who are struggling worse than we are.

If anything, Houllier should have rested players v Blackburn for last night. I'm not saying that would have been a good thing to do, but given a choice I would have rather seen a full strength team out last night.

[DBTW]

We wont get relegated .............

That's what you keep saying, the reality is.....we might.

[jonzy85]

Ok...........it is very unlikely we will get relegated. Just like it is very unlikely we will get a European spot.

6 points behind Liverpool and 5 ahead of West Ham.

Wait....maybe Houllier rested the players for our push for Europe???

[Can Gana Be Bettered!?!?]

We wont get relegated .............

That's what you keep saying, the reality is.....we might.

We could qualify for Europe

The reality is.....we might.

[Rip Van We Go Again]

Was this a clue?

The beauty of manager Houllier's approach to football is his rotational policy, meaning not one fan will be able to guess the team as Villa head to Eastlands.

http://www.avfc.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10265~2304598,00.html

I said to my good friend John before the game.

'He'll make 3 changes, Gabby for Bent, Petrov for Pires and Delph for Baker.'

I couldn't have been more wrong.

[oldtimernow]

There is a gulf between us and the top4 clubs in terms of resources which will only increase year on year, as money makes money in the set up of football as it is now.It either changes to become a more level playing field or it will become more and more like the SPL where only the top 2 compete, save for the odd cup result.

[Can Gana Be Bettered!?!?]

Ok...........it is very unlikely we will get relegated. Just like it is very unlikely we will get a European spot.

6 points behind Liverpool and 5 ahead of West Ham.

Wait....maybe Houllier rested the players for our push for Europe???

I actually did think that at one point last night as I'm totally convinced GH knows we won't get relegated. Does he have belief in finishing 6th?

We've as good a chance as any of the other clubs. None of the teams up to 6th are any better than us really.