Aston Villa v Southampton Post-Match Thread

[Des Little]

For a man whose family money has come from banking I find it mystifying that Randy Lerner cannot do the financial sums.   Give or take we have 20 weeks to save ourselves.   A million pounds a week would cost us less than we paid for Bent.  Surely for a million quid a week we could get in ten out of contract players who are capable of keeping us up?

The key is that we only need them for half a season, just enough to survive and let the core team recover from the trauma of the first half of the season then start again next August.   We don't need Givens and Heskeys on massive contracts, just a short term fix.

Great post and my thoughts exactly. It's as simple as this...how much will relegation cost us? £50m? Although no guarantee, would £20m on 2/3 decent players help us avoid this? Maybe

[Chipsticks]

If Vlaar was fit enough for the bench, why couldn't he start? It's not as if the defence has been playing well. They've been fucking shite.

I thought Clark and Baker we good today, competent at the very least.

I can see why he didn't play Vlaar as well, he literally only resumed training yesterday and we'd risk injuring him again by rushing him back. Not to mention the fact that Southampton have pacey forwards who would've run rings around an unfit Vlaar.

[silhillvilla]

It was an utter shambles defensively before the pen.

Yep all at sea and the retard Delph balloons the ball off Clarks shins
Numpty

[Gareth]

Thought Halsey was dire, creating situations when there weren't any, nit-picking throw ins and the farce when the player went down etc

However...

....in his defence the penalty, he was directly behind the cheat when he flung himself and he would have thought there was contact.

Time to stop digging out the ref and focus on the cheat who has wronged us, the ref and the game in general.

As for the team performance....we are frighteningly weak, we don't defend as a team & look like there is no organisation.

Very worried about survival in this league and seriously doubting PL....biggest 20 days for our great club since Sky invented football coming up...this squad will take us down!

[David_Nab]

No we don't defend as a team no organisation just seems to be alot of running around to close down which leaves gaps.

[Steve R]

Get a grip you bunch of tarts. Try looking at the game with a bit of objectively rather than an opportunity to air the usual rants.

Even in the first half where Southampton bullied and pushed us around and found space they barely threatened a goal. At half time we had 3 shots on target to their one. We contrived to be a goal down by virtue of hesitancy borne of low confidence and the kind of refereeing decision Halsey specialises in.

Second half we seemed to address the things that were going wrong. There was only one team in it for 45 minutes but again pressure led to players snatching at the kind of chances Southampton weren't close to creating.

It's a bery disappointing result, we are in a bad position. But it is not half as hopeless as some would make out. If we can build on the postive things we did today results will improve. If we can add a few players in crucial areas then better still. We have a big fight on our hands, but the position is far from hopeless.

The players need to get what happened over xmas out of their system. As at Swansea there are signs of it happening.

That's a very blinkered view of the match. We should have had a point but they had plenty of chances including hitting the post. And yes, we were at home. To Southampton. Do the maths, if you think we don't need points out of these games, you're going to get a huge surprise come May.

I don't see where I said that we don't need points from this or any other type of game.

Do the reading.

[onje_villa]

On another note, good to meet Legion before the game today! Hope you managed to sell a few...

[Lobsterboy]

The penalty wasn't one clearly but had it been Weimann who had been 'brought down' and Benteke subsequently put it away I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have been screaming for a ten game ban for the dive and would defo have taken the three points

That's football; we may not like diving but it is here to stay

We have a squad full of Championship standard players at best who seem to veer from one disaster to another with a manager who seems to offer nothing more than 'we go again' and a Chairman who wants Premier League football at Aldi prices

We appear doomed, have no fight, no backbone and no real style of football other than hoof it to Benteke.

I had resigned myself to a defeat before the game so I am relatively calm about it all but would think the next seven days, in terms of our transfer activity will not only define our season but possibly our next few seasons; over to you Randy and Lambo...

[BC54 VFC]

If Vlaar was fit enough for the bench, why couldn't he start? It's not as if the defence has been playing well. They've been fucking shite.

My wife has just said exactly the same thing; a good call bearing in mind how crap the present back four are. What's happened to Lowton these last two games I really don't know.

[john2710]

Yes 4-2-4 doesn't work or supply chances.

Like any walk of life, things are more effective when everyone knows their job & knows that everyone else is doing theirs. With the constant formation changes, selection changes added to the injury list, is it any wonder that these inexperienced players are running around like headless chickens.

Lambert started the season with the wrong formation / team selection against Everton & has continued to make fundamental errors since, particularly at home.

FFS pick a formation and stick to it.

With regard to Nigel Adkins comments about the penalty on MOTD, he should hang his head in shame.

[ktvillan]

For a man whose family money has come from banking I find it mystifying that Randy Lerner cannot do the financial sums.   Give or take we have 20 weeks to save ourselves.   A million pounds a week would cost us less than we paid for Bent.  Surely for a million quid a week we could get in ten out of contract players who are capable of keeping us up?

The key is that we only need them for half a season, just enough to survive and let the core team recover from the trauma of the first half of the season then start again next August.   We don't need Givens and Heskeys on massive contracts, just a short term fix.

Yup I just said on the Lambert thread,  Lerner appears to want to save 10m whilst risking a potential 100m + per year in future TV and PL revenue.  It's difficult to understand the logic, and it seems this particular acorn fell a long long way from the tree when it comes to financial acumen.

[Clampy]

I've not read the whole of this thread so apologies if this has already been brought up but was Halsey meant to be our ref today? I've never come across a ref being asked to ref the same team two league games in a row.

[timeoutbigbar]

Disappointed.  Everyone seems to have latched onto the Bannan as a scapegoat now.  The people sat near me were enthusiastically demanding he be taken off set pieces and that at every dead ball - 'this'll come to nothing' - when in fact several times it led to good chances.  When Bannan first broke through, he used to take some excellent set pieces, whipped in with real pace, I just think he needs to get back to doing that (much like Young did - but you're going to overhit a fair share that way).

Overall I don't think we deserved to lose.  In the second half we were the better team.  The problem though obviously is that this is Southampton at home.  If we lose this, where do the points come from?

[john2710]

I've not read the whole of this thread so apologies if this has already been brought up but was Halsey meant to be our ref today? I've never come across a ref being asked to ref the same team two leaague games in a row.

I think the ref should have been Chris Foy.

[j66acd]

Yes 4-2-4 doesn't work or supply chances.

4-2-4 was the formation I had on Fifa 96! Worked a treat for me. Mark Overmars on the right cutting in on his left foot!

You just have to laugh it's that bad!