Just when you think that things couldn't get any worse....

[KevinGage]

I thought his Bolton side were a mix of industry and flair.  The overall pattern of play wasn't hugely innovative or progressive, but they had decent quality in the final third.  The likes of Anelka and Diouf weren't the kind of players you could just lump the ball up to.

I hated his Blackburn side, their only mode of attack seemed to be assault the opposing keeper at set pieces and hope to get lucky. 

From what I've seen of West Ham, both this season and last, they have more variation in their play than Blackburn.  I don't think they've been that bad - certainly not McLeish bad.

[damon loves JT]

Allardyce Out.

[Risso]

We played the worst sort of anti-football against Bradford, and weren't even good enough at it to beat a 4th division side.

[PaulWinch again]

That's true but it's pretty isolated, even though we've been bad this year I don't remember a Villa side scoring as many quality goals as we have this year.

[dave.woodhall]

We played the worst sort of anti-football against Bradford, and weren't even good enough at it to beat a 4th division side.

So that's half an hour out of the season. Nobody's denying that results have been awful but to say that the team isn't at least trying to play football now is totally wrong.

[pauliewalnuts]

I thought his Bolton side were a mix of industry and flair.  The overall pattern of play wasn't hugely innovative or progressive, but they had decent quality in the final third.  The likes of Anelka and Diouf weren't the kind of players you could just lump the ball up to.

I hated his Blackburn side, their only mode of attack seemed to be assault the opposing keeper at set pieces and hope to get lucky. 

From what I've seen of West Ham, both this season and last, they have more variation in their play than Blackburn.  I don't think they've been that bad - certainly not McLeish bad.

I thought they were the worst side I've seen come to Villa Park for a long time, to be honest.

[pauliewalnuts]

Bolton played far better football under Allardyce than we do under Lambert, much better in fact.  As I said before, he's a pragmatist.  Build a solid base using the players at your disposal, then gradually improve things.

The Bolton he left six years ago?

The Bolton he was at for eight years?

I totally understand anyone who points out our poor results, some of the thrashings we've taken, and our league position - it isn't a secret, we've all watched it all season, and it hasn't been fun.

What I don't get is how anyone can seriously suggest Lambert isn't at least trying to get us to keep the ball and play football, even if he's largely failing. That just strikes me as "I don't like the results, so NOTHING about the manager is good, and ANYONE is better than him".

I also think the majority of Villa fans can see this too.

Otherwise, how do you explain a manager with a record (on paper) as poor as Lambert's, but who, on the keep or sack thread on this forum, still has more people backing him than sacking him?

[KevinGage]

We haven't been adverse to the big hoof up to Benteke at various times this season.

As anti football goes, you'd have to go some way to outdo our shiteness against Norwich, Reading, Wigan, Tottingham and Southampton at home.  Bradford we were actually a bit unlucky -if you can be unlucky to lose to a Fourth Divison side over two legs.  We created enough chances to win 3/4 games.

[Chris Smith]

Bolton played far better football under Allardyce than we do under Lambert, much better in fact.  As I said before, he's a pragmatist.  Build a solid base using the players at your disposal, then gradually improve things.

No, they didn't.

The season they avoided relegation by a couple of points on the last day, that's when you'd have been calling for his head - probably by about mid-September. We're suffering at the moment from the club taking such a short term attitude to everything and changing manager again will just perpetuate that.

It's been a struggle this season, absolutely no doubt, but every so often there have been glimpses of what might be. 

[pauliewalnuts]

We haven't been adverse to the big hoof up to Benteke at various times this season.

That's a totally different thing to basing our game around it, though.

Don't get me wrong, I am totally au fait with where we've looked poor this season, and there's not a man amongst us who didn't shrink into his chair at the sight of things like Bradford or Chelsea or several other games this season.

However, Allardyce is a manager whose entire ethos is based around horrible, physical percentages football, so I find it pretty staggering when people who have spent much of the last few years (alongside myself) pointing out the footballing failures of previous managers suddenly start to re-evaluate Sam Allardyce favourably.

[pauliewalnuts]

It's been a struggle this season, absolutely no doubt, but every so often there have been glimpses of what might be. 

Exactly.

[JJ-AV]

In the right situation I'd have him. Not now though. And this is almost certainly bollocks anyway.

[Legion]

We haven't been adverse to the big hoof up to Benteke at various times this season.

That's a totally different thing to basing our game around it, though.

Don't get me wrong, I am totally au fait with where we've looked poor this season, and there's not a man amongst us who didn't shrink into his chair at the sight of things like Bradford or Chelsea or several other games this season.

However, Allardyce is a manager whose entire ethos is based around horrible, physical percentages football, so I find it pretty staggering when people who have spent much of the last few years (alongside myself) pointing out the footballing failures of previous managers suddenly start to re-evaluate Sam Allardyce favourably.

Spot on.

[KevinGage]

I thought his Bolton side were a mix of industry and flair.  The overall pattern of play wasn't hugely innovative or progressive, but they had decent quality in the final third.  The likes of Anelka and Diouf weren't the kind of players you could just lump the ball up to.

I hated his Blackburn side, their only mode of attack seemed to be assault the opposing keeper at set pieces and hope to get lucky. 

From what I've seen of West Ham, both this season and last, they have more variation in their play than Blackburn.  I don't think they've been that bad - certainly not McLeish bad.

I thought they were the worst side I've seen come to Villa Park for a long time, to be honest.

And yet they created the more clear cut openings and probably feel aggrieved to not get at least a point - despite not playing particularly well.

[pauliewalnuts]

And yet they created the more clear cut openings and probably feel aggrieved to not get at least a point - despite not playing particularly well.

If you're taking that as admissable evidence, how many times this season could we have considered ourselves aggrieved not to get more than we did?

How different would things be now had we held on for another minute or two at Everton? Or in several matches this season?