Aston Villa v Bolton Wanderers Post-Match Thread

[KevinGage]

as per the name no wind up but as an unfortunate who had to suffer the ginger fool for nigh on 3 bloody years couldn't help but look on in amazement at the replies here, simply change the colour scheme and date and go back a year and it's almost exactly the same accusations levelled at him by the more discerning Blues fans.

Seriously I'm all for banter but imo no football fan deserves this guy in charge of their team so genuinely understand the pain and not here to pour petrol on the fire.

A couple of things, it's hard to say how you'd fare in the championship without knowing exactly what you've got to work with but my inclination is you'd piss it, however, if by some miracle he isn't sacked ( and remember we weren't going to sack him even after he'd took us down for the second time  ) then prepare for more miserable footy on the field even if you win the divison. The year he bought us back up was atrocious in terms of quality and should have dispelled any doubts then ( sadly it didn't for some of us ) when even with arguably the divisions strongest squad he still played defensive long ball fayre, as a Blues fan whose seen his fair share of promotions and relegations, that promotion under McLeish ranks down there with some of the poorest relegations, it's got sweet F.A to do with what he has at his disposal, it's in his DNA to be negative.

Saw the second half tonight, trust me, it wasn't even close to Blues against Fulham last season, a fair result in that game would have been 8 or 9 nil to the cottagers and Andy Johnson was grinning in disbelief at the shambolic nature of our side that day, you haven't got that low yet, you weren't good but you t least tried, we completely surrendered that day.

A lot of Blues fans currently think we might be better off not going up as it may force Carson to sell, in that vein, though it seems 99 per cent want ging out, what would you prefer given a straight choice of only two options, going down and ging out, or him keeping you up and satrting next season in charge ?

Welcome.

Are those the only two options?   How about amputating a limb?

[Des Little]

We'd do well to get 25k next year in the Championship

[olaftab]

A couple of things, it's hard to say how you'd fare in the championship without knowing exactly what you've got to work with but my

Don't worry mate we won't be in the championship.

[The Man With A Stick]

Day started great with my wife giving birth to our first child, and then at 9.30pm I log on to 'Score Centre' to see that pile of shit! TBH it's no longer worth getting worked up about it! The only way Villa stay up is if the teams below mess it up.

Congratulations to both of you.

[Nii Lamptey]

My predictions (assuming the sloth from Goonies is still in charge of our club tomorrow morning):

Villa  36 points + 1 = 37 points
Baggies [A] - L
Spurs [H] - L
Norwich [A] - D

QPR 34 points + 4 = 38 points
Chelsea [A] - D
Stoke [H] - W
Man City [A] - L

Wigan - 34 points + 7 = 41 points
Newcastle [H] - D
Blackburn [A] - W
Wolves [H] - W

Bolton - 33 points + 6 = 39 points
Sunderland [A] - D
Spurs [H] - D
Baggies [H] - W
Stoke [A] - D

Blackburn - 31 points +3 = 34 points
Spurs A - L
Wigan A - L
Chelsea A - W

Assuming I'm on the money with this (might have been a bit optimistic with the Villa draw), this would be my final table:

15 - Wigan -     41 points
16 - Bolton -     39 points
17 - QPR -         38 points
----------------------------------------
18 - Villa -          37 points
19 - Blackburn - 34 points
20 - Wolves - already gone

We've had it unless he's out before the Baggies game. Show some bollocks Lerner before it's too late - Come back Doug, all is forgiven**   

**Never thought I'd hear myself EVER saying that!

[steamer]

Sorry Pablo, I understand your feelings.
I disagree with your comments,considering the total Anti Mcfuckwit position most fans had from his appointment,he has had an easy ride.
Most gave him the benifit of the doubt, if you saw the same game as me at 85 mins, I doubt we would have scored with an extra 20 mins to play and the vocal support of the Heavenly choir.
The man is a decent human but out of his depth at Aston Villa.
The fans have every right to make a noise when every one is listening to make their point.
Sack him now and get the fans behind the team for the last three games.
This is a no win situation for him and Lerner, can you imagine the outcry with him in charge next season, be it Premier or championship when we start off with a couple of draws !

[Chris Harte]

Regarding the "Villa are ours, fuck off McLeish" chant, they started with about four minutes to go. And to be fair I joined in, out of pure frustration. I know it wasn't big or clever and it sure wouldn't have helped the team. But by then I felt the game was lost. I couldn't see us getting back into it. The momentum had gone.

The thing that surprised me was that the chants hadn't started sooner.

[jembob]

So tonight we see Mcleish for the hopelss loser he is. Unable to respond to a change in tactics by the other side. Unable to instill any form of confidence into his players. Unable to set up a team to play against one of the worst teams in the PL. Unable to influence the game or to provide any form of leadership.
Utterly, utterly devoid of any managerial skill whatsoever. The club deserve this after appointing the clown in the face of such opposition but for the life of me I don't know what Villa fans have done to deserve him.

[mrfuse]

Left early tonight and considering the score at the time that isn't something I expected.

But I'd have come to blows with half the ground had I stayed. I am no McLeish apologist. I think he's fucking useless. I was Lerner's biggest fan until this season; but he has fucked up big time.

That being said, having 90% of the ground singing 'FUCK MCLEISH' with 5 minutes of normal time to go had me totally aghast. Fucking idiocy of the highest order. You want to send a message to Randy, fine, do it on the whistle. During the game try to bear in mind that half our team are children, for whom Alex McLeish is their managerial introduction to senior football. However crap he is, he is their main motivation for the rest of tonight and our remaining games this season. That kind of negativity with time left, for us to score a potentially vital goal, made me fucking sick and wonder if hey, maybe the media are right, our fans are a bunch of wankers?

As for the game? Thought we played OK, again no lack of commitment though clearly a lack of cutting edge. 2 minutes of shitting ourselves has cost us here. And Carlos to give away the pen! Everyones favourite, my fucking favourite. What can you do?!

This post has me"totally Aghast" .......we played okay are you for real!

Dominated the game. Created little. Only looked in trouble for a 5 minute spell after we scored.

I'd say overall we weren't awful tonight. Certainly the better team on balance of play. Your view?

We are at home against a poor team that came to not get beaten how many times did we really test the keeper?
We only played okay in your eyes because we pumped the ball up to Heskey who to be fair did well!

When Heskey went off we still pumped the ball up to heskey nothing about tonights performance looked okay to me.

fair play to Bolton smash and grab whatever you want to call it at least they had a game plan that worked

[1_Pablo_Angel]

Yeah, the best time to made your thoughts known, as a collective crowd, is when the manager and players have walked off the pitch, and when the cameras have stopped rolling...hang on.

How about when the whistle goes? While all cameras are still on the pitch, but any negativity won't affect the result of the game?

Explain what's wrong with that? Or is logically flawed sarcasm all you have to defend that shit tonight.?

They've been booed off the pitch more times than I can remember this season.

Ideally, people would just stop buying tickets. I know it's not that popular, but attendances are already at around 32-33k every week, if they dropped to below 30,000, maybe it'd send a message.

There's been no prolonged, directed chanting at Mcleish post match that I've seen. I've missed about 5 home games this year though. A general boo when the whistle goes isn't the same as 30,000 people singing 'Fuck off Mcleish, the Villa is ours'  . Yet there's no reason why this couldn't be done at full time instead.

It simply cant help the players, during the game that's all that matters. I've lived darn sarf for most of my life, and some of Portsmouth's relegation escapology has been unbelievable to witness. (Not this season obviously). Point is it really does show the difference that a crowd can make to a football team, even a crap one. I also spent half an hour yesterday explaining to a Manchester United supporting nurse why Villa fans aren't all negative and definitely aren't fickle!!1

[Olof's Beard]

We did play ok tonight - about as well as we could expect from the XI we had out there for sixty minutes but when the team needed a leader at 2-1 down, the manager did absolutely nothing of note.  All shape was lost, young players who look like energetic puppies when they are on top, suddenly look like lost, erm, hedgehogs.  The worst thing is the manager (and board) can hide behind injuries and "the kids" when performance levels with them in the team have certainly been no worse than they were under the senior players.  We are not going down because of a good performance suckered by two minutes of madness or because we have players out.  When he had Darren Bent stood up front begging for a goal he decided to play full backs on the wing. He's awful and will revert to type for the last three games, try and grind out a couple of points and hope for the best.  He's hardly likely to come up with some sort of masterplan now.

This doesn't actually feel real.  I think there's always a lot of gallows humour amongst Villa fans and that has been the case recently but deep down I don't think any of us expected this to happen.  All we need is one pissing win!

Two Wembley appearances to this in two years.  It's absolutely sickening.

[Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air]

LERNER - PULL THE TRIGGER NOW AND AT LEAST GIVE US A FIGHTING CHANCE.

[Steve67]

Just got back from the game.  Shocking, clueless tactics.  Just heard the interview on SSN, the man remains as clueless as ever.  I'm pleased the Holte End turned on him tonight.  Taking Heskey off when he was getting joy out of their defenders to put Gabby on and then go long ball, replacing Herd and pushing the waste of space N'Zogbia into the middle, when he was fucking terrible all night was a joke.  I hate the man, I hate his inept managment of our football club.  The guy is an expert at taking clubs down and that's where we are heading.  What is it with second half performances? Awful.  I am so very angry with the man and Randy and Faulkner.

Those of you saying that the McLeish out chants don't help the players.  Don't talk shit.  They are fucking crap anyway and were 2-1 down before it started.

[1_Pablo_Angel]

I'm not sure we'd be better off sacking him now really. I'm really not. How capable is kMac at this level? The only real evidence is a dirty great 6 nil defeat at Newcastle.

[CJ]

I can't add anything that hasn't already been said. The reality is we're a poor team with an awful manager. That was a Championship team out there tonight and that's exactly where we're heading. The argument about injuries doesn't stack up -  this clown managed to accrue 15 points from the first 13 games when we had a full squad and a relatively easy start, and he's managed to stick to his career average of a point a game ever since.

And yes, I was among the 90% chanting 'fuck off McLeish, the Villa is ours' - with 5 minutes to go the frustration of an entire season was just too much to keep in any longer.