Aston Villa v Newcastle United Post-Match Thread

[silhillvilla]

12k? wow. That must have been depressing!

Not as depressing as our 0-0 draw with southampton in front of about 8,000 at villa park .

I was at that game. Brings back bad memories.

I was there too.
Back In the glory days of clean sheets .

[tomd2103]

12k? wow. That must have been depressing!

Not as depressing as our 0-0 draw with southampton in front of about 8,000 at villa park .

I was at that game. Brings back bad memories.

Losing 5-0 at home to Bradford in front of 4,500 in the Simod Cup brings back fucking nightmares.

As does beating them 2-1 infront of 40,000 + in the League Cup!!

[brontebilly]

Terrible result. Yes Newcastle have a lot of individual quality but are a dreadful team and club. We should have enough about us to be beating them at home or avoiding defeat at the bare minimum. Real problems for Lambert already. Aside from Benteke's goals, Delph, Okore and Gabby, a lot of players are struggling.

He has a tactical brainfart particularly at home when we are chasing a goal. Enacting the Bradford tactics is a waste of time yet he does it routinely and now with 2 more 6ft6 strikers as options.
A calm head and captain like player in midfield is badly lacking. The player we should have bought played that role superbly for Everton this weekend. A lot of talk about James McCarthy but I think Barry will easily eclipse him this season.

[mr underhill]

agreed. We have been fortunate to survive in the last two or three seasons given our appalling home form but sooner or later that will come back to haunt us. We only ever seem to be able to function as a reasonably effective counter attacking side best suited to playing away. The last thing we need is yet more instability with the changing of manager etc., but unless PL develops hitherto unknown tactical depths we might have to contemplate that course again come December.

[Brend'Watkins]

I don't know whether I'm angry with PL over this result or the players. Everyone of them seemed to have an off day.  One effort on target, the goal, is utterly pathetic from a home team.  Allowing a mediocre Newcastle to dominate for long periods is too.

I would put Sylla in for El Hamidi next game to add a bit of muscle, it's desperately needed.   

[Ron Manager]

I am really worried about the Norwich match.We need a performance to get things back on track. Bassong saw off Benteke(when he was at the top of his form) last time we played them and as we rely on CB to provide our major attacking threat that is a worry.

If we lose and play badly again questions will start to be asked as to how good Lambert actually is so we had better treat this one as a match we must win at all costs.

[rob_bridge]

agreed. We have been fortunate to survive in the last two or three seasons given our appalling home form but sooner or later that will come back to haunt us. We only ever seem to be able to function as a reasonably effective counter attacking side best suited to playing away. The last thing we need is yet more instability with the changing of manager etc., but unless PL develops hitherto unknown tactical depths we might have to contemplate that course again come December.

God No. It will mean Faulkner gets to pick yet another manager. We'd probably end up with Chris Coleman

[Irish villain]

we need to get out of the guzzan hoof up the middle tactics its a bit dated.

Last season we started by trying to play football from the back. What has happened to that?

[Clampy]

I am really worried about the Norwich match.We need a performance to get things back on track. Bassong saw off Benteke(when he was at the top of his form) last time we played them and as we rely on CB to provide our major attacking threat that is a worry.

If we lose and play badly again questions will start to be asked as to how good Lambert actually is so we had better treat this one as a match we must win at all costs.

I don't think we rely on Benteke as our main attacking threat. Yes, he's the one getting the goals but Weimann and Gabby on their day are just as effective doing what they do.

[placeforparks]

Lowton and Weimann were very poor yesterday. The latter has been incredibly lucky to be in the team for so long considering his poor form this calendar year. You can add Westwood to the mix as well. In my opinion there's a touch of the 'emperor's new clothes' syndrome about Westwood and Lowton. Never been impressed with either of them but I keep getting told they're fine players who should be in the England squad. Not sure if they're even PL quality myself.
It's really painful watching Villa at home these days. Roll on next week when we're away!

agreed. weimann had one decent spark at the start of the second half when he crossed for gabby (who should have scored) but he was poor again, and has been for a while now.

edit: oh, and he had a good chance at the end of the first half when we had an excellent break and he screwed wide.

lowton was woeful on saturday. useless in defence, useless in attack. kept checking inside and wouldn't take his man on, misplaced passes, looked off the boil.

westwood looked every bit the league 1 player on saturday. kea does well away from home when we need someone to close the opposition down and generally cause a nuisance, but he's a complete plodder and it's a waste of time looking to him for inspiration at home.

[UK Redsox]

kea does well away from home when we need someone to close the opposition down and generally cause a nuisance, but he's a complete plodder and it's a waste of time looking to him for inspiration at home.

I still don't understand why teams change their style depending on whether they're home or away

[aj2k77]

Basically we still have the same team that struggled for 90% of last season playing this season. Crap summer.

[Villafirst]

Basically we still have the same team that struggled for 90% of last season playing this season. Crap summer.

And without Okore! Rumours on VT that the knee injury is worse than first thought with a possible 6 month lay-off! I hope that's untrue.

[paul_e]

Ok we lsot a game we should've been looking to win and played really poorly but some of the responses on here are ridiculous.  To call it a crap summer or start calling us as being in a relegation battle is a massive over-reaction at this point.  If we lose a couple more then you can start with that.

Personally I think the extended international break we've had meaning 3 weeks without a league game has affected us rather worse than anyone could've expected, we just didn't look as sharp as we had before.  If Lambert addresses that quickly we should still be ok, we have got a good enough squad to be comfortable in mid-table and I doubt many people thought otherwise at 2:55 on saturday, so why is 1 poor performance enough to cause so much upset?

[JUAN PABLO]

how many bad days at the office are we going to have

that is  all I hear - oh well just a bad day at the office . how many bloody times ?

our home record over the past few seasons including PL season is pathetic .  And needs to be addressed now !!!