Aston Villa v Manchester City Post-Match Thread

[PeterWithe]

My guess is that the team selection was trying to cram in as many tall players as possible to try to counter their threat at set pieces, they are one of the most powerful teams I have ever seen, but less so without the Toures and Balotelli.

Yet again it doesn't work though.

[PeterWithesShin]

I will also say I thought Heskey did ok considering where he played.

What pisses me off the most remains the slowness of our play so much of the time. 3 times in the first 10 mins or so, first Heskey and then Keane (twice) broke into space down the flanks. All 3 times the ball ended up nowhere near them and the chance of an attack vanished.

And our passing and off the ball movement. It's still shit.

[Goldie.7]

Wrong thread!

[taylorsworkrate]

Comment on the guardian thats pretty apt:

"What's the opposite of a breath of fresh air? That's what Villa are"

[WALTERS WARRIORS]

As people are saying his view is that if we'd have started more positively then we would have been ripped apart. Is that the ripped apart that Everton and Sunderland suffered Alex?

He seems to have convinced himself that AVFC cannot compete with the big boys because we don't have the means. I remember him saying something similar about Birmingham in relation to Villa on the day that we beat his Blues 5-1. It seems that this is his footballing truth.

Well, I'm glad that nobody has told Paul Lambert, David Moyes or Brendan Rodgers this because they clearly would all be in the bottom 6 by now on this reckoning

Money is important, evidently, but these three managers prove that if you have belief and a vision of how to play and a positive attitude to go with it then you can overcome financial disadvantages. Alex McLeish is stuck in a mental straightjacket that he will never get out of. He lacks the vision to take this club forward. Christ, he lacks the vision to even keep this club stood still. Let's end this failed appointment now before it leads to relegation, if not this year, then next.

Excellent post.

Everton and Sunderland worked there bollocks off to get a result. We have better players than them and in the short time we attempted to attack we nearly scored two (Cuellar-Bent) a tactical disaster ......

[Nev]

Amongst all the hand wringing (and I include myself) who is really suprised at the performance today? The Arsenal game at home was tremendous but went against everything AM believes in, thats what we saw this afternoon.

Decent man, terrible manager.

[JUAN PABLO]

we look just like small Heath from last year , playing the *big* teams and hoping for a 0-0 , why the f**k Lerner did not know this would happen.       we are identical to them

[timeoutbigbar]

I won't believe the players enjoy playing like that.  That was disrespectful to the history of the club.  As others have said, If we were going to lose, at least go down fighting.

[martyn ellis]

I chose not to make the 220 mile round trip today and watched on tv. Thank God I did because I would have been half way down the M1 by now gnashing my teeth in disbelief. Is it a coincidence that I felt the same sinking feeling as in previous games when I got the text with the team on it showing N'zogbia, Ireland and Bannan, all players that can actually pass the ball, all cosying up to each other on the bench. Shades of Spurs away, amongst others. It seems we have to get the cloggers on to stop the top teams playing - it doesn't work. Then he brings on the ball players and hey presto things take a turn for the better. Will he not learn! Have a go. Even if Everton hadn't beaten them recently, Moyes would have got all the accolades for having a real go and giving the fans something to shout about. It's not acceptable and it's disrespectful for fans who travel a long way week after week because they love the game of football and they love their club. I admire him to bits as a bloke, but today he let us into his thought processes and it wasn't pretty. Sky must dread it when the Villa are on.

[PeterWithesShin]

At least I sort of met DC5 and villajk when they visited Legion. Well I saw them and after they had gone Legion told me who they were.

[VillaAlways]

I just feel numb I knew we'd lost as soon as I saw the team sheet
The team look completely devoid of confidence which is hardly suprising as the manager has no belief in them
Still we've come back after similar shit performances and there's some winnable games coming up

[levico]

Make no mistake, if AM stays we can go down!

[Clampy]

When asked "should you have gone for it earlier" the response was "No, we would have been ripped apart!"

And maybe we would have. We contained them well enough but unfortunatley Alex forgot the one vital tactic of creating chances which we did'nt actually manage until the last 10 minutes, which for a home side is not good enough.

Oh and a special mention for Carlos, once again shunted out to yet another position other than he's own and he's not let us down.

[Villanation]

To be predicted, negative, hopeless football, I know Man City are short a few but didn't they make hard work of that, don't get me wrong they still looked a different class, but surprised.

As for Villa..............................

When does the real Aston Villa get back on his feet, or this hamstring going to drag on for months.

[KevinGage]

I've pretty much felt throughout the season that Big Eck would always do just enough to hang on to his job.  Whenever there was a bit of momentum and a groundswell against him, we'd snatch a result.

TBH, losing to Man Citeh today  AND the level of performance won't be enough to see him walk the plank either.  But poor results in some of our easier games coming up and the sides below us closing the gap might be.  To the extent that I wouldn't now be surprised if we have a new face in the dug out when MON's Sunderland come to town in April.