Things I've heard on here this season

[Damo70]

All I'm saying is people shouldn't be afraid to be forthright in their views or we'd have nothing to srgue or take the piss about.

Again, apologies to the easily offended.

I agree and disagree with that.

I think you have a perfect right to say that.

[sonlyme]

There can be no retribution without attribution - Sir Ronald Saunders - 1979

In the spirit of message board mockery - I offer you this pearl of wisdom - from the enduring Risso - when talking of PL's £20million summer transfer spend.

"Lambert gambled it all on lots of very average players though, when he'd probably have been better buying two or three very good players"

I am so glad it wasn't me.

Please - feel free to browse the dustier corners of the site - there are gems aplenty just waiting to be mined.

I'm off now to delete all my previous posts.

UTV

[paul_e]

I don't think that one is particularly fair in all honesty, we may well have been in a better place in the league if we'd done just that, and then used this coming window to bring in the youthful players to bulk up the squad.

I'm personally very much in favour of the Lambert approach but I don't think our current position can be used to say that he's got it perfect, there may have been other ways to achieve his long term goals that could've seen less short term alarm than we've seen at times.

The things that are more deserving of ridicule are where a player has been written of as a load of crap having played 4-5 games.

[Steve R]

....
Listening to Lambert's post match interview on Saturday night, I'd imagine that apart from Glasgow born, Barry Bannan, not a single Villa player understands a word he says.

.....

There was a great shot in the Liverpool game when KEA was about to come on. Lambert was giving him lengthy instructions as he waited on the touchline. The expression on the player's face suggested that not all was sinking in.

[onje_villa]

There are a few things I reckon we would do well to remember. The first is just how wretched we were last season. Not just in terms of points on the board, but the way we went about things on the pitch. I can remember the last relegation season (although not the third division one), and recall how desperately poor we were that year, and am not going to say last year was "worse" - clearly, we stayed up, which is a bit of a decider, but I can't remember ever feeling as frequently embarassed as a Villa fan as last year.

We were frequently thoroughly embarassing to watch. We looked like a club going one way, and one way only.  I also don't want to start another MON ruck, but I think he had certain habits and ways of playing drummed into the players when he was here. To an extent, it obviously worked for him, but in terms of looking to the future, it is a style with next to no longevity, as were a great number of the players he bought.

Houllier tried to change it, and looked like he was getting results near the end, then fate intervened. McLeish set us back further.

All of that is not going to change inside one season. Anyone who thinks Lambert should have been under pressure for his job is welcome to their opinion, but really, I find it a bizarre opinion to have.

I doubt there is a single person on this board who hasn't vented or felt pissed off at the way the season has been so far (for the large part), but I can also think of barely anyone who hasn't been able to see green shoots of recovery in the way we've played thus far - it seems that obvious.

Personally, if I were Lerner, I would give Lambert three years and decent funding to turn this club around and get it established back on the way to where it belongs. I'd even stick with him if he were to get us relegated this season.

We need continuity, and a defining ethos / way of doing things at the club, and it has to be something forward thinking, based on modern football, and it needs to be built on a solid base of good, dependable players, and a manager who knows what he's doing. I think we have got that manager now, we need to back him.

I do, though, think we are still going to have a lot of low moments before the end of this season. We just need to be prepared for them. This is a young side, probably still far too short on experience, the acquisition of a Petrov style player in January would be the sort of thing to help (I don't mean necessarily his style of player, but that type of experienced pesonality).

When I see stuff like "ha ha, see, how WRONG were you lot!111!!!" on the basis of two decent results, I do wonder if people are starting to get carried away and are going to be disappointed that we don't carry on climbing the table, sweeping away all opposition.

That's probably not going to happen, to react like that strikes me as much a case of failing to see the bigger picture as the people who can't see any signs of improvement in the way we've played since the start of the season.

We need to get behind the team and manager, but we also need to be realistic, and understand, we've got a long, long way to go yet. It's good we've started to show more signs of being on the right route.

Reading RAWK yesterday, I was chuckling at the delusion of some of their fans, who seem to think they should be competing with Man City, oblivious to how much things have changed and how their club's aspirations have changed as a result.

There is a certain similarity between Liverpool's position and ours (something which a few journalists touched on at the weekend). Like Liverpool, the decline of this club is not going to be turned around by anybody in the space of a season, and almost certainly not two seasons, either. We're carrying out a fundamental rebuilt of the club, it will need time and support. Just as an iffy first half of the season is not reason to pack it all in and give up, a couple of decent results is not the sign of anything being resolved just yet.

Give it time.

Great post Paulie!

[mike]

Bit early for major rethink when we're a mighty three points above the relegation Places. Yes I'm really pleased and a lot more positive than I have been, but being one result away from the drop zone hardly justifies a whole thread about how stupid anyone was to have any doubts or worries about this season.

[Legion]

Well said, Mr. Nuts.

[Rip Van We Go Again]

I think one of the worst things i've ever seen on here was a minority of morons who said that being relegated 'wouldn't be so bad' and that 'at least it would be more competitive than the premier League.'

To my way of thinking, you are not an Aston Villa supporter if that is your mindset.
Certainly fits the Spineless bill to a tee.

[danlanza]

I think one of the worst things i've ever seen on here was a minority of morons who said that being relegated 'wouldn't be so bad' and that 'at least it would be more competitive than the premier League.'

To my way of thinking, you are not an Aston Villa supporter if that is your mindset.
Certainly fits the Spineless bill to a tee.

This. 100%.

[Percy McCarthy]

Maybe it was my age, maybe it was because it was so inevitable for so long, maybe it was because there was no internet to articulate our thoughts and obsess over what it meant. But when we went down in '87, I thought 'Right, it's happened, let's just get on with it', and I think a lot of people felt the same.

And that was five years after winning the European Cup (which was something else I never realised the importance of at the time).

[Steve R]

As long as they are not trolling I don't mind what people say. Do we really want to be licking each other's arses all the time?

Post match threads can be a bit tiresome, but I guess even there people are just venting their spleen in the immediate aftermath of a game.

It would be a sad world if people were discouraged from talking bollocks about football.

[damon loves JT]

The only opinions stupider than yours are mine.

[Rip Van We Go Again]

Maybe it was my age, maybe it was because it was so inevitable for so long, maybe it was because there was no internet to articulate our thoughts and obsess over what it meant. But when we went down in '87, I thought 'Right, it's happened, let's just get on with it', and I think a lot of people felt the same.

And that was five years after winning the European Cup (which was something else I never realised the importance of at the time).

Absolutely and fair enough, but i'm sure you weren't thinking
'It won't be so bad if we go down, at least we'll be more competitive.'

[Rip Van We Go Again]

Do we really want to be licking each other's arses all the time?

Some do and there's a sexual peccadilloes section being set up as we speak.
I'll bring the bidet.

[Percy McCarthy]

Fletch: No, I bet I wasn't. Then again, I absolutely acknowledge it's different these days, but it probably did us a favour when you look back now.

Saying that, a club with our record in the top flight should never have to contemplate playing at a lower level.