Aston Villa v Tottenham Hotspur Post-Match Thread

[olaftab]

Ok, with the players that were carrying knocks and injured, what side would you have put out?

Only two players are injured. Benteke and Okore. Others are "carrying knocks" and were rested and will be, miraclessly, available on Saturday. My point is he should have treated this game as must win and not worried about a league game coming up. Why didn't we have one of the best keeper in PL playing for starters?

[dave.woodhall]

Ok, with the players that were carrying knocks and injured, what side would you have put out?

Only two players are injured. Benteke and Okore. Others are "carrying knocks" and were rested and will be, miraclessly, available on Saturday. My point is he should have treated this game as must win and not worried about a league game coming up. Why didn't we have one of the best keeper in PL playing for starters?

Those days have long gone, and not just for us.

[Damo70]

Resting a keeper has always baffled me. Especially if he is on the bench and has to train, prepare and travel the same as usual. Play him or give him a day or two off. I can however see it from the point of giving a game to the back up keeper.

[eastie]

The worry for me is another heavy home defeat and with man city to come on Saturday i fear we will be in for a similar result.
We must address the problems at villa park and find a way of playing that improves our style and results at home.

[Clampy]

Ok, with the players that were carrying knocks and injured, what side would you have put out?

Only two players are injured. Benteke and Okore. Others are "carrying knocks" and were rested and will be, miraclessly, available on Saturday. My point is he should have treated this game as must win and not worried about a league game coming up. Why didn't we have one of the best keeper in PL playing for starters?

Personally i'd have played Guzan last night but he's brought a number 2 keeper in and it was a chance to give him some more game time so i'm ok with that.

As for the players 'carrying knocks', making them run round for 90 minutes in a cup game and possibly making their knocks worse isn't a good idea with some league games coming up. Maybe if it was another situation like Rotherham where we didn't have another game for over 2 weeks, then maybe he would have risked them.

[Hoppo]

I'd like to know who made this decision that we should take The League Cup lightly? I watched the 77 final on you tube the other night and was still proud of winning it. We just accept mediocrity   now and take defeat like it means fuck all.
Its only September and were 'resting' players. Is avoiding relegation all we have to look forward to?

[mal]

I think people are very quick to forget that football today is not the same as 10 years ago. The difference in spend is not a few million here and there now, it is hundreds of millions of pounds. Spurs can afford it through massive ticket prices, London location and huge backers that are richer than Lerner. We can't. They put out a side tonight, their reserve side, that would probably be better than our first team all season. It is not being defeatest either, it is acknowledging that the playing field is so far tipped towards the money sides now, that those without have to plan differently.

Lambert is building. He has been in the job 15 months? If we are playing like this in 5 years I will be worried, but seriously, the reason Everton are in a good state for Martinez to build if because they gave Moyes 10 years despite finishing bottom 5 a couple of times. Swansea are an impressive side because they have stuck to a particular philosophy and approach over a long period of time.

Our next step is to spend say 30 million of the TV money on 3 players not 10. This will elevate the rest of the players and improve us no-end. At the moment we only have 3-4 class players and the rest are work men. We need more quality, but Lambert started pretty much from scratch and we need to give him 4-5 years IMO to sort it.

Hear hear

You're bang on with your assessment there Ozzjim.

I'll second (or third) that sentiment.

First half you could see what Lambert was trying to do - frustrate Spuds - which almost worked. El Ahamadi played quite well - but found Sandro difficult to beat. Kozak was all on his own but did quite well. Defence was reasonably comfortable. The 5 in midfield did keep Spurs at bay for most of the half.

Once they scored at end of first half it appears the towel was thrown in. Kozak and El Ahamadi taken off to save them for the weekend. Helenius - needs to improve his first touch which at times is woeful. Bowery - I'm sorry but if you sent him back to Shrewsbury he wouldn't get in their first team either.

Plus points. Albrighton looked OK at times - but he is at best a Championship player - and would do well at that level - maybe another Peter Whittingham type - who would achieve success with a decent team. Tonev at least got 1 decent shot on target and had a couple of decent runs. Bacuna looks to be settling in. Steer made a few good saves first half. Sylla looks fairly solid and needs more time on the pitch.

What we are lacking - somebody to dominate midfield. Spurs had Sandro who I thought was MoM.

With all due respect - I endorse Ozzjim's comments here - we did not throw in the towel after Spurs scored. We were shaky to half time but came out fighting and were undone by back to back injustice. It would have been a different game at 1-1 and playing 10 men and even if we'd missed the pen that was never a freekick that led to the cornalty from which they scored the second. Even then we ended up with more possession as a result of forcing the game in the second half and the third goal were lucky (Steer should have saved it) - only then did heads drop and we gifted them the fourth.
4-0 really flattered them although they did dominate the shot count and we in truth didn't create many clear chances. There was not the vast gulf that is being claimed by some on here and Lambert's half time changes were clearly aimed at having a go and at least initially had that effect.

[Clampy]

I'd like to know who made this decision that we should take The League Cup lightly? I watched the 77 final on you tube the other night and was still proud of winning it. We just accept mediocrity   now and take defeat like it means fuck all.
Its only September and were 'resting' players. Is avoiding relegation all we have to look forward to?

We were resting players who have knocks. Why is that so hard to grasp?

[dekko]

Gabby, Delph and Luna all played through injury on saturday as well.  Playing 180 minutes of premiership-standard football in 4 days is a good way of ensuring that a slight knock becomes a strain, or a pulled muscle, or something else that'll keep you out for a lot longer than a mid week cup game.

[eastie]

I'd like to know who made this decision that we should take The League Cup lightly? I watched the 77 final on you tube the other night and was still proud of winning it. We just accept mediocrity   now and take defeat like it means fuck all.
Its only September and were 'resting' players. Is avoiding relegation all we have to look forward to?

We were resting players who have knocks. Why is that so hard to grasp?

Not totally true, even if all fit i doubt lambert would have played his strongest team having read his comments regarding the man city game and the importance of it .
Guzan wasnt injured and was rested as was Weimann  and i think had it been a league game he would not have sent that side out last night .
It seems as many have pointed out that the premiership is the be all and end all and the cups are not taken as seriously which is sad to see , this was probably our best hope of silverware this season and its gone .

Lamberts pre match comments seemed to underline that he saw the man city game as the priority above a league cup tie.

[Surrey Villain]

I'd like to know who made this decision that we should take The League Cup lightly? I watched the 77 final on you tube the other night and was still proud of winning it. We just accept mediocrity   now and take defeat like it means fuck all.
Its only September and were 'resting' players. Is avoiding relegation all we have to look forward to?

We were resting players who have knocks. Why is that so hard to grasp?

Not totally true, even if all fit i doubt lambert would have played his strongest team having read his comments regarding the man city game and the importance of it .
Guzan wasnt injured and was rested and i think had it been a league game he would not have sent that side out last night .
It seems as many have pointed out that the premiership is the be all and end all and the cups are not taken as seriously which is sad to see , this was probably our best hope of silverware this season and its gone .

We were short-changed.  I felt embarrassed and let down by the performance. Whatever happened to the 'Proud History, Bright Future'?  Our proud history includes a proud record in the League Cup. Our heritage is important but I feel it was dealt a huge blow last night. Yes we have a proud history but it may be that is all we have to savour because the future will not be bright if we continue to sacrifice our tradition to the altar of the Premier League.

[itbrvilla]

I'd like to know who made this decision that we should take The League Cup lightly? I watched the 77 final on you tube the other night and was still proud of winning it. We just accept mediocrity   now and take defeat like it means fuck all.
Its only September and were 'resting' players. Is avoiding relegation all we have to look forward to?

We were resting players who have knocks. Why is that so hard to grasp?

Not totally true, even if all fit i doubt lambert would have played his strongest team having read his comments regarding the man city game and the importance of it .
Guzan wasnt injured and was rested as was Weimann  and i think had it been a league game he would not have sent that side out last night .
It seems as many have pointed out that the premiership is the be all and end all and the cups are not taken as seriously which is sad to see , this was probably our best hope of silverware this season and its gone .

Lamberts pre match comments seemed to underline that he saw the man city game as the priority above a league cup tie.

Which is ridiculous when the club try to promote these cup games on the OS.  Why should the fans bother to turn up if the club has no intention of competing in our only realistic chance of silverware?

[Clampy]

I'd like to know who made this decision that we should take The League Cup lightly? I watched the 77 final on you tube the other night and was still proud of winning it. We just accept mediocrity   now and take defeat like it means fuck all.
Its only September and were 'resting' players. Is avoiding relegation all we have to look forward to?

We were resting players who have knocks. Why is that so hard to grasp?

Not totally true, even if all fit i doubt lambert would have played his strongest team having read his comments regarding the man city game and the importance of it .
Guzan wasnt injured and was rested and i think had it been a league game he would not have sent that side out last night .
It seems as many have pointed out that the premiership is the be all and end all and the cups are not taken as seriously which is sad to see , this was probably our best hope of silverware this season and its gone .

I think if all our players had been fit he probably would have made one or two changes at the most but the team still would have been stronger than it was last night. I think it's obvious that he might have risked the one's carrying knocks had it been a league game.

[amfy]

If we'd not had the injuries and knocks we'd have put out a side that included a few players you wouldn't normally see on a weekend, with a smattering of our bigger players. Something similar to what Spurs did. Last nights team with either Gabby or Beteke  in it could've looked quite a lot different, but as it was, we couldn't really risk wiping Weimman out too! It was the injuries that took this selection from a normal early round league up side to a side we barely recognised, and who, seemed to barely recognised each other.
For me, I could see 10 minutes in that it wasn't our night, & kind of relaxed into watching a reserve game & seeing what different individuals have to offer.
When you lose 2 goals in he last 5 minutes of a cup tie, it really doesn't make any difference - it happens because you may as well push up. The fact that so many walked out on 85 mins when the 3rd went in, shows that despite what people say, they thought we could still be in it till then. I actually laughed & said 'Were you all waiting for the big comeback?' I wasn't, I was still there because as he game went on I saw some improvement, both in individual performances and in shape - I like watching my team develop, try stuff out - I sometimes think I'm not supposed to be into football because my tolerance of failure is pretty high! I like the journey, not just the destination - i used to think this was what it was about for non-glory hunters. Now I'm not
so sure.
If I'm annoyed its that it was sold @£20 on the basis of it being a more attractive fixture than Rotherham, yet it played out like a reserve match. The result, I just saw as an inevitable result of things not going for us on the run up to this game.
I don't know how people align rage with 'years of underachievement' with endless shock at nights like this. This is where we have been for a while now, we aren't going to bounce back overnight. If we don't stick with something, sometime, then we aren't bouncing back at all. There is no managerial genius out there who is taking us back to the top in 18 months. If there is someone that good, I am afraid they will have better offers than us.

[eastie]

I must say i agree that we should play our strongest available side in cup games as the cups are our only chance of silverware and look what happened with wigan last season - yes there were some injuries and knocks but he could have put out a stronger side if he had wished.

O Neill did the same as did houllier , and it saddens me that  we do this.
I can understand champions league sides doing similar but villa are a historic cup side and we should be looking to do as well as possible in cups.