Aston Villa v Chelsea Pre-Match Thread

[PaulWinch again]

I don't actually think of late Hutton has been too bad overall.

[Ron Manager]

I don't actually think of late Hutton has been too bad overall.

and neither do I and I think Heskey would do a better job at centre forward than Agbonlahor. Either way I expect Chelsea will win easily 2-0 and I expect Torres to score. Drogba (if he plays) will treat this game as one where he dosnt have to try to hard and probably be subbed after 60mins
.
As for us I cannot see how we can improve with the players that we have and the manager we have.

[PaulWinch again]

I'll disagree on Heskey, I think he was shot as a top player 5 years ago and shouldn't be anywhere near our squad. He also drags down the moral of the fans as well. Nothing personal against him at all, he's just nowhere near good enough.

[Brend'Watkins]

We will win and with our best display of the season.  3-1

[Rip Van We Go Again]

We will win and with our best display of the season.  3-1

Bit early in the day for Absinthe, Bren.

[PaulWinch again]

We will win and with our best display of the season.  3-1

I think this might have been written on December 31st 2011....

[Le Lapin]

A loss, and us getting dragged slowly closer to the dead zone. The way we are set up to play we won't getting much from the run-in of games. I have been supporting the club for 25 years and I just don't see that  the current crowd of players care about their club enough.  We just have to hope that the teams below us are like us ie. have players that don't have the stomach to fight for their club and fans. We might get something from Bolton or Martin O'Neills Sunderland and if we need points aginst Norwich to stay up we will get them hopefully it doesn't come to that......Lets get the party started....

[Brend'Watkins]

We will win and with our best display of the season.  3-1

Bit early in the day for Absinthe, Bren.

Hear me out on this, we were so truly f****** awful against Arsenal that I think they will put in the required effort and will collectively have good games.  We should start with Wiemann up top.  I'm also not bothered if Hutton and Petrov aren't available as Lichaj is a better full back and player than the former and Gardner deserves a start in any case.  Petrov was anonymous on Saturday and is no real loss in such form.  These players have all played plenty of games together, they know each other well, have energy and will take the game to Chelsea.  The crowd will get behind them too.

[pedro25]

It's not beyond the realms of impossibility, look at last yr v Man U with Hogg and Bannan in central midfield, and we totally murdered them for most of the game.

[Monty]

It's not beyond the realms of impossibility, look at last yr v Man U with Hogg and Bannan in central midfield, and we totally murdered them for most of the game.

The ethos of our manager then and that of our manager now could not be more different.

[pedro25]

Point taken, but we were pretty inept under GH too overall, I will never forget the passage of play at home v Wigan last season in which we gave away a corner via Dunne, after a number of pointless passes, without even being pressured for the ball.  Truly woeful.  It might be that if it wasn't for Gary Mac getting 2 big performances out of the players in the final 2 games then we would have finished somewhere similar to where we are now.

[Merv]

Maybe. Things now, points wise, aren't so very different from where we were a year ago under GH. Difference was, this was the time we had the majority, if not all, of our players fit and available again, and the team was starting to gel. We finished strongly.

Now we've got important players out, some for the rest of the season, the team is far from gelling and confidence is on the floor.

[johncvilla88]

Maybe we should try this

and hope it isn't disallowed. Then again we need to get a corner kick....

[JUAN PABLO]

Is Petrov out then ?

[villadelph]

Is Petrov out then ?

Seems like it.. he's "sick" but my guess is he's just allergic to all the bullshit.

we don't have a chance,
we don't have a chance,
we've already beat them,
but we don't have a chance.

we don't have a chance,
we don't have a chance,
let's be realistic,
we don't have a chance.

Good luck firing up the troops this time around McLeish, you clueless asshat.