Millwall v Aston Villa Post-Match Thread

[The Left Side]

We did not dominate, we just hoped we would do OK but like the Bradford game we did not show any bottle, and I was really looking forward to this season.

[brian green]

There really has to be an end to this "get behind the lads" and "get behind the kids" and "get behind the manager" nonsense.  The players and the manager and the support staff are all professionals.   They are not children.   They are not part timers.   They are not amateurs or volunteers giving up their free time to make it possible for some young men to enjoy a game of football.  They are professionals and they are very well paid.   They live in fabulous homes, they drive fabulous cars, the have exciting lifestyles of travel, glamour, money and celebrity.

The fans, like me and my sons, squeeze our income, make sacrifices, infuriate our spouses, manipulate our work commitments, travel hundreds and thousands of miles at our own expense, endure fatigue and sleep deprivation, get ripped off  (bottle of warm beer 500ml at £3.60 at Millwall last night), get treated like aliens intent on destroying the planet (ditto Millwall last night), endure uneducated mumbling of meaningless cliches or total silence when we need information, get snarled at by coppers with hate in their eyes while the opposition fans throw bottles at our players on the pitch, endure ridicule and mockery from other so called football watchers (I will not call them fans because they are not) and give up the chances to do other more rewarding and pleasurable things with our lives -ALL OF THIS in order to support the lifestyle of a goalkeeper on more money for a week than most of the supporters earn in two years, who cannot even keep goal kicks in the field of play and whose answer to repeatedly kicking the ball into touch and conceding possession is to hold up the palms of his hands and then proceed to do the same thing five minutes later.   And players who clearly do not care if we lose, who lack fight, who lack technique, who lack self discipline, who lack composure, who lack mental strength, who lack love of their club, who lack team spirit, who lack pride, who will not communicate with each other, who will not or cannot be coached into the elimination of glaring errors in their individual and collective organization on the field, with a manager who makes Alex McLeish looks competent - all of whom as I write this are yawning and stretching themselves and wondering how they are going to spend some money today and which nightclubs they are going to grace tonight.

You ask me to "get behind" that stinking mess?

Anybody who does "get behind" the disgraceful shambles which is Aston Villa FC, and not demand a complete and total reality check from the very top of the club down, is, in my opinion as culpable and as guilty and as weak minded as the owner, the CEO, the manager and the squad. 

The club needs to be purged but it is only going to happen when we are on the brink of relegation to League 1 and guess when that day comes who the people in power on bloated salaries at Villa Park will turn to for the inspiration to rebuild the club?   You've got it.   The fans.

[eastie]

There really has to be an end to this "get behind the lads" and "get behind the kids" and "get behind the manager" nonsense.  The players and the manager and the support staff are all professionals.   They are not children.   They are not part timers.   They are not amateurs or volunteers giving up their free time to make it possible for some young men to enjoy a game of football.  They are professionals and they are very well paid.   They live in fabulous homes, they drive fabulous cars, the have exciting lifestyles of travel, glamour, money and celebrity.

The fans, like me and my sons, squeeze our income, make sacrifices, infuriate our spouses, manipulate our work commitments, travel hundreds and thousands of miles at our own expense, endure fatigue and sleep deprivation, get ripped off  (bottle of warm beer 500ml at £3.60 at Millwall last night), get treated like aliens intent on destroying the planet (ditto Millwall last night), endure uneducated mumbling of meaningless cliches or total silence when we need information, get snarled at by coppers with hate in their eyes while the opposition fans throw bottles at our players on the pitch, endure ridicule and mockery from other so called football watchers (I will not call them fans because they are not) and give up the chances to do other more rewarding and pleasurable things with our lives -ALL OF THIS in order to support the lifestyle of a goalkeeper on more money for a week than most of the supporters earn in two years, who cannot even keep goal kicks in the field of play and whose answer to repeatedly kicking the ball into touch and conceding possession is to hold up the palms of his hands and then proceed to do the same thing five minutes later.   And players who clearly do not care if we lose, who lack fight, who lack technique, who lack self discipline, who lack composure, who lack mental strength, who lack love of their club, who lack team spirit, who lack pride, who will not communicate with each other, who will not or cannot be coached into the elimination of glaring errors in their individual and collective organization on the field, with a manager who makes Alex McLeish looks competent - all of whom as I write this are yawning and stretching themselves and wondering how they are going to spend some money today and which nightclubs they are going to grace tonight.

You ask me to "get behind" that stinking mess?

Anybody who does "get behind" the disgraceful shambles which is Aston Villa FC, and not demand a complete and total reality check from the very top of the club down, is, in my opinion as culpable and as guilty and as weak minded as the owner, the CEO, the manager and the squad. 

The club needs to be purged but it is only going to happen when we are on the brink of relegation to League 1 and guess when that day comes who the people in power on bloated salaries at Villa Park will turn to for the inspiration to rebuild the club?   You've got it.   The fans.

Marvellous post brian.

[CastleValeMassiv]

Lambert has refused to take questions from Mat Kendrick from the mail. It would appear the mail open letter hasn't gone down too well. This off the back of will he won't he attend the PC on Thursday and it doesn't appear he is actually "thriving"

Happy if he is sacked or walked now. Enough is enough

It's the start of the lockdown,it started with the PR guy on WM.
[/quote

Was talking about this last night in the pub. I personally wouldn't mind a season in the Championship change of scenery more exciting, A realistic chance of winning the league etc. Its the got to be better than watching what were getting at the moment. Going down will give Lambert at chance to makes a decent team without all the bullshit of the premier league.me personally I'd do a season in the championship and rip that team apart. At the moment I just feel everytime we play we are going to get beat. Can't ever remember being so down beat about things at VP.

[PaulWinch again]

There really has to be an end to this "get behind the lads" and "get behind the kids" and "get behind the manager" nonsense.  The players and the manager and the support staff are all professionals.   They are not children.   They are not part timers.   They are not amateurs or volunteers giving up their free time to make it possible for some young men to enjoy a game of football.  They are professionals and they are very well paid.   They live in fabulous homes, they drive fabulous cars, the have exciting lifestyles of travel, glamour, money and celebrity.

The fans, like me and my sons, squeeze our income, make sacrifices, infuriate our spouses, manipulate our work commitments, travel hundreds and thousands of miles at our own expense, endure fatigue and sleep deprivation, get ripped off  (bottle of warm beer 500ml at £3.60 at Millwall last night), get treated like aliens intent on destroying the planet (ditto Millwall last night), endure uneducated mumbling of meaningless cliches or total silence when we need information, get snarled at by coppers with hate in their eyes while the opposition fans throw bottles at our players on the pitch, endure ridicule and mockery from other so called football watchers (I will not call them fans because they are not) and give up the chances to do other more rewarding and pleasurable things with our lives -ALL OF THIS in order to support the lifestyle of a goalkeeper on more money for a week than most of the supporters earn in two years, who cannot even keep goal kicks in the field of play and whose answer to repeatedly kicking the ball into touch and conceding possession is to hold up the palms of his hands and then proceed to do the same thing five minutes later.   And players who clearly do not care if we lose, who lack fight, who lack technique, who lack self discipline, who lack composure, who lack mental strength, who lack love of their club, who lack team spirit, who lack pride, who will not communicate with each other, who will not or cannot be coached into the elimination of glaring errors in their individual and collective organization on the field, with a manager who makes Alex McLeish looks competent - all of whom as I write this are yawning and stretching themselves and wondering how they are going to spend some money today and which nightclubs they are going to grace tonight.

You ask me to "get behind" that stinking mess?

Anybody who does "get behind" the disgraceful shambles which is Aston Villa FC, and not demand a complete and total reality check from the very top of the club down, is, in my opinion as culpable and as guilty and as weak minded as the owner, the CEO, the manager and the squad. 

The club needs to be purged but it is only going to happen when we are on the brink of relegation to League 1 and guess when that day comes who the people in power on bloated salaries at Villa Park will turn to for the inspiration to rebuild the club?   You've got it.   The fans.

Marvellous post brian.

Yep excellent.

[Chooch]

Nearly one in the morning, just home from the game.

Where can I start?

I followed Villa down from the first division, through the second division and into the third division, home and away and that performance tonight was as bad if not worse than any of that period of our history.

It seems an odd thing to say but some passages of our play tonight and the performance of some of our players was so bad that if somebody had told you that they had been betting on themselves to lose you could easily have believed it.

In the Stalag Bermondsey compound in which were were held for nearly fifty minutes freezing our knackers off while the police racked up their overtime I became involved in a heated but friendly debate about the reasons why were are so shit.   My point is that is not lack of confidence, it is not morale, it is not age, it is not lack of leadership, it is not tactics, it is not coaching - YES, all those things play a part but the rock bottom fact which is there in plain sight for us all to see is that the players are not good enough.

From that team tonight, the two with proven quality are Given and Bent and they both played stinking games, especially Given.   They are good enough players but they both have personal issues with the manager, both having lost their automatic team sheet places, Given to Guzan, Bent to Benteke and neither of them gives a shit whether we win or lose.   They are both on mega money and if the results get it up the arse for the manager so much the better.   As for all the others with the possible slight exception of Weimann who could make a tidy player for a Premiership mid table club, they are simply not good enough.   They may have been not so bad if they had been drafted into a better side with better players around them but they were not.   We are a rubbish side playing rubbish football and anybody who thinks we will bounce back from the Championship, go and stand over there with those who think we are going to sign some players in this window.

As for the manager, he stood for ninety minutes in the corner of his technical area with his hands in his pockets looking totally bored.   The only time he took his hands out of his pockets was when they went two one up.   He did three or four quiet little claps as we lined up for the restart then put his hands back in his pockets.   He behaves like a man who seems to have lost the will to live, let alone the will to win a football game or two.   Perhaps he has suffered some deep personal trauma we do not know about, but in the absence of knowing anything about such a thing I conclude that he is in the same category as the players, namely simply not good enough.

I am off on an Aston Villa detox programme.

Great post Brian....you hit the nail on the head there.

[eastie]

Lambert has refused to take questions from Mat Kendrick from the mail. It would appear the mail open letter hasn't gone down too well. This off the back of will he won't he attend the PC on Thursday and it doesn't appear he is actually "thriving"

Happy if he is sacked or walked now. Enough is enough

It's the start of the lockdown,it started with the PR guy on WM.
[/quote

Was talking about this last night in the pub. I personally wouldn't mind a season in the Championship change of scenery more exciting, A realistic chance of winning the league etc. Its the got to be better than watching what were getting at the moment. Going down will give Lambert at chance to makes a decent team without all the bullshit of the premier league.me personally I'd do a season in the championship and rip that team apart. At the moment I just feel everytime we play we are going to get beat. Can't ever remember being so down beat about things at VP.

Thing is theres no guarantees it would be a year in the championship, look at leeds , sheff weds , forest , derby etc.

[Steve kirk]

There really has to be an end to this "get behind the lads" and "get behind the kids" and "get behind the manager" nonsense.  The players and the manager and the support staff are all professionals.   They are not children.   They are not part timers.   They are not amateurs or volunteers giving up their free time to make it possible for some young men to enjoy a game of football.  They are professionals and they are very well paid.   They live in fabulous homes, they drive fabulous cars, the have exciting lifestyles of travel, glamour, money and celebrity.

The fans, like me and my sons, squeeze our income, make sacrifices, infuriate our spouses, manipulate our work commitments, travel hundreds and thousands of miles at our own expense, endure fatigue and sleep deprivation, get ripped off  (bottle of warm beer 500ml at £3.60 at Millwall last night), get treated like aliens intent on destroying the planet (ditto Millwall last night), endure uneducated mumbling of meaningless cliches or total silence when we need information, get snarled at by coppers with hate in their eyes while the opposition fans throw bottles at our players on the pitch, endure ridicule and mockery from other so called football watchers (I will not call them fans because they are not) and give up the chances to do other more rewarding and pleasurable things with our lives -ALL OF THIS in order to support the lifestyle of a goalkeeper on more money for a week than most of the supporters earn in two years, who cannot even keep goal kicks in the field of play and whose answer to repeatedly kicking the ball into touch and conceding possession is to hold up the palms of his hands and then proceed to do the same thing five minutes later.   And players who clearly do not care if we lose, who lack fight, who lack technique, who lack self discipline, who lack composure, who lack mental strength, who lack love of their club, who lack team spirit, who lack pride, who will not communicate with each other, who will not or cannot be coached into the elimination of glaring errors in their individual and collective organization on the field, with a manager who makes Alex McLeish looks competent - all of whom as I write this are yawning and stretching themselves and wondering how they are going to spend some money today and which nightclubs they are going to grace tonight.

You ask me to "get behind" that stinking mess?

Anybody who does "get behind" the disgraceful shambles which is Aston Villa FC, and not demand a complete and total reality check from the very top of the club down, is, in my opinion as culpable and as guilty and as weak minded as the owner, the CEO, the manager and the squad. 

The club needs to be purged but it is only going to happen when we are on the brink of relegation to League 1 and guess when that day comes who the people in power on bloated salaries at Villa Park will turn to for the inspiration to rebuild the club?   You've got it.   The fans.

And I thought I was passionate, that was brilliant Brian.

[Phil from the upper holte]

Well said Brian

[andyh]

2 absolutely brilliant posts from Brian in this thread.

[TopDeck113]

Brian Green hits nail on head. Again.

Now all we have to do is get someone high up at the club to read them.

[pooligan]

Brillant Brian, you have put into words what many of us who eat,sleep and drink Villa feel. If only the people who own  and play for the club felt remotely the same.

[JUAN PABLO]

There really has to be an end to this "get behind the lads" and "get behind the kids" and "get behind the manager" nonsense.  The players and the manager and the support staff are all professionals.   They are not children.   They are not part timers.   They are not amateurs or volunteers giving up their free time to make it possible for some young men to enjoy a game of football.  They are professionals and they are very well paid.   They live in fabulous homes, they drive fabulous cars, the have exciting lifestyles of travel, glamour, money and celebrity.

The fans, like me and my sons, squeeze our income, make sacrifices, infuriate our spouses, manipulate our work commitments, travel hundreds and thousands of miles at our own expense, endure fatigue and sleep deprivation, get ripped off  (bottle of warm beer 500ml at £3.60 at Millwall last night), get treated like aliens intent on destroying the planet (ditto Millwall last night), endure uneducated mumbling of meaningless cliches or total silence when we need information, get snarled at by coppers with hate in their eyes while the opposition fans throw bottles at our players on the pitch, endure ridicule and mockery from other so called football watchers (I will not call them fans because they are not) and give up the chances to do other more rewarding and pleasurable things with our lives -ALL OF THIS in order to support the lifestyle of a goalkeeper on more money for a week than most of the supporters earn in two years, who cannot even keep goal kicks in the field of play and whose answer to repeatedly kicking the ball into touch and conceding possession is to hold up the palms of his hands and then proceed to do the same thing five minutes later.   And players who clearly do not care if we lose, who lack fight, who lack technique, who lack self discipline, who lack composure, who lack mental strength, who lack love of their club, who lack team spirit, who lack pride, who will not communicate with each other, who will not or cannot be coached into the elimination of glaring errors in their individual and collective organization on the field, with a manager who makes Alex McLeish looks competent - all of whom as I write this are yawning and stretching themselves and wondering how they are going to spend some money today and which nightclubs they are going to grace tonight.

You ask me to "get behind" that stinking mess?

Anybody who does "get behind" the disgraceful shambles which is Aston Villa FC, and not demand a complete and total reality check from the very top of the club down, is, in my opinion as culpable and as guilty and as weak minded as the owner, the CEO, the manager and the squad. 

The club needs to be purged but it is only going to happen when we are on the brink of relegation to League 1 and guess when that day comes who the people in power on bloated salaries at Villa Park will turn to for the inspiration to rebuild the club?   You've got it.   The fans.

f**king hell Brian , that's brought tears to my eyes. Great post .

[john e]

A lot of Brian's post is about football in general, players milking the system is not going to change no matter how well we are doing,
No one supports the mess we are in, but then what do we do, just get behind them when things are great and we are doing well, that's a bit Man Utd for me

Supporting a football team outside of the top few rich clubs is a painfull thing, about 95% pain to 5% glory if your lucky, but for most the 5% good times makes it worthwhile

Football disappeared up its own arse, and it's not coming out any time soon,
older supporters still follow the game because that's what we've always done and won't ever stop, no matter how shit it gets because that's the addiction.

It's as low as I can remember at Villa at the moment, as bad as it gets, but the day will never come when we have 11 players on the pitch who arnt there for the money just the shirt, maybe one or two show a bit more passion, but it general football is now controlled by the money men, and that's not going to change

[oldtimernow]

That . Sir should be posted on the dressing room wall for all to read and be read out to the ones that can't read ( Brian's post)

but hey they don't give a shit really, do they?