Aston Villa v Southampton Pre-Match Thread

[tomd2103]

Are Herd and Holman injured? 

[TheSandman]

5-0 win.

[TonyD]

There will be goals. 

[WALTERS WARRIORS]

There will be goals. 

Or there will be blood. Possibly Lamberts !!

[Risso]

Well let's hope the players haven't thrown in the towel like most of you lot have eh?

3-1 Villa.

Yes, the players have demonstrated time and time again what an amazing fighting spirit and strength of character they have. 

[not3bad]

Saturday's result will be important because, regardless of what's happening in the cup competitions, we need to build on the Swansea result when "the rot was stopped".  Lose on Saturday and we're in freefall.

[not3bad]

I bet he plays the same team.

Why?

[PaulTheVillan]

I bet he plays the same team.

Why?

Just got a feeling he will.

[Clampy]

Saturday's result will be important because, regardless of what's happening in the cup competitions, we need to build on the Swansea result when "the rot was stopped".

That's been the main problem. Just as we think we're getting somewhere with a good result (like Norwich and Liverpool away) a crap result comes along (like Cheslea, Wigan etc). It's very much like Houiller's season. One step forward, a bit of optimisim then 2 steps back and back to square one.

[richard moore]

Some of the comments on here are shocking I hope most of you stay on here getting all excited by the match thread and leave B6 to 30000 who give a shit.. Up the Villa.

If you think being a Villa fan means we automatically  have to predict we will win every week, this thread doesn't really have much point does it? We can just change it 'predicted number of goals by which we will win the game'? Or alternatively I can join a site full of pre-pubescent schoolkids who think their team automatically wins every week (mind you, considering most of them support Man Utd or Chelsea, I guess that's a given anyway)

[Boz]

Villa 1-3 Southampton.

I bet he plays the same team.

Sadly with the amount of players out, he probably won't have much choice in some areas. Who else can come in for either Clark or Baker? Or in for Bannan or Delph? He'll have to play players out of position if he wants to drop any of them. I do hope that Weimann isn't sacrificed out wide anymore though. He is our best player currently and should be playing in his natural position IMO.

I think a draw is the most likely, 1-1, as we can't score often enough to be confident about more than one, but I agree Weimann should not be playing wide, he should be on the end of crosses and knock downs from Benteke.

[Chrisupnorth]

5-0 win.

Don't see us keeping a clean sheet at the moment even if we played Guzan and Given at the same time!

[achilles]

5-0 win.

Don't see us keeping a clean sheet at the moment even if we played Guzan and Given at the same time!

.... and score 5 goals as well, bet he believes in fairies as well!

[eastie]

By James Nursey | 10/01/13 

When Paul Lambert join Aston Villa, the team was rebranded by the club as 'Lambert's Lions'.

But perhaps, with hindsight, 'Lambert's Lambs' might have been more appropriate.

For as encouraging as the FA Cup win over Ipswich was, when Villa showed character to come from behind, the defeat at Bradford was extremely worrying.

It is not yet a catastrophe as there's still the second leg to come.

But a two-legged semi-final defeat to miss out on Wembley to a League Two side would be agony for Villa.

I was at Valley Parade for the Mirror on Tuesday on what was a superb, noisy cup tie for us neutrals.

Villa actually started extremely impressively and I thought the 4-2-3-1 formation was well suited to finally bring the best out Villa's exciting attacking talent.

Having Christian Benteke playing ahead of an advanced three of Gabriel Agbonlahor on the left, Charles N'Zogbia in a free central role and the tireless Andreas Weimann on the right seems very dangerous to me.

But to pull off the formation successfully, you really need a decent defence and holding midfielder to provide solidity at the back.

Villa's new-look attacking line-up terrorised Bradford for the first 19 minutes... until the Bantams scored against the run of play.



Then all the confidence, belief and momentum in the Villa side seemed to evaporate immediately.

It was most alarming and this is what worried me most as someone who wants to see Lambert and Villa - like all Midland clubs - prosper.

The current Villa team clearly has to have more backbone and strength of character which Lambert must address this month.

After opening the scoring, Bradford might have then scored again quickly but for a goal-line clearance by Fabian Delph.

The second half followed a similar pattern with Lambert clearly restoring some belief in the break.

Villa started well after the re-start only to fall behind further and then go to pieces again.

Bradford could have gone 3-0 up when they hit the bar.

This all shows, in my opinion, that Villa's young side is clearly mentally fragile and vulnerable.

It is no doubt a reflection of the young make-up of Villa's team.

Bar Shay Given, N'Zogbia and Agbonlahor, the rest of the starters at Bradford were all 23 or under.

So if Villa are to avoid plunging further down the table after their Christmas thrashings by Chelsea, Spurs and Wigan, then more experience is clearly needed ASAP.

The side desperately require a leader which hopefully Ron Vlaar's return will provide and could be supplemented by perhaps another defender like Joleon Lescott or Michael Dawson.



I doubt there will be a new face in the starting line-up before Saturday's crunch game with Southampton.

I suspect Villa will have to go with what they have got for the vital clash against fellow strugglers Saints.

In the meantime, Lambert needs to use all his motivational and man-management skills to get Villa's players believing again.

Their morale must have taken a big blow at Bradford.

But with the second leg to come and 17 League games remaining, Villa's season can still be salvaged.

The team must man up now though and start proving to Lambert and the fans they can hack it otherwise it will be a horror show - perhaps entitled 'Silence of the Lambert Lambs'!

[David_Nab]

Good piece that.Everyone can see our issues ..can the board.

As for the game Soton have lost a CB and GK is dodgy.So we do have a slim chance of getting something.

I would put Herd in MF give the CB some more cover.Weimann and Benteke upfront with N'zog supporting.Hopefully Westwood is fit would help us immensely