Aston Villa v Tottenham Hotspur Post-Match Thread

[Phil from the upper holte]

Had to watch it in a Islington pub , which I bloody hated ,spurs fans clapping while eating their 20 pound steaks .

Was not surprised with the outcome .

The money on kozak instead of creative midfielder ,I still don't understand.

Could have brought that Japanese fellah from Germany

[itbrvilla]

If McLeish has presided over the last few performances this form would be in melt down.

The last two performances have been piss poor.

I think one of the major differences re your McLeish comparison is that with Lambert, he's not a disciple of dour football, he's trying to get us playing attractively and sometimes failing.

McLeish never tried, and that was what was so monumentally depressing about him, he was doing "what he does" and it was never going to be different.

I can remember previous relegations, and some truly terrible Villa sides eeking out poor performances in front or 14k people, and that was horrible at times, but I still maintain, I never had the hope and enjoyment so comprehensively sucked out of supporting Villa as McLeish managed in one single season.

I agree there is clearly a fundamental difference in philsophy between the current regime and the Mcleish era. It might not work all the time, but we do try to win now.

You normally have to have chances on goal to win.

[PaulWinch again]

If McLeish has presided over the last few performances this form would be in melt down.

The last two performances have been piss poor.

I think one of the major differences re your McLeish comparison is that with Lambert, he's not a disciple of dour football, he's trying to get us playing attractively and sometimes failing.

McLeish never tried, and that was what was so monumentally depressing about him, he was doing "what he does" and it was never going to be different.

I can remember previous relegations, and some truly terrible Villa sides eeking out poor performances in front or 14k people, and that was horrible at times, but I still maintain, I never had the hope and enjoyment so comprehensively sucked out of supporting Villa as McLeish managed in one single season.

I agree there is clearly a fundamental difference in philsophy between the current regime and the Mcleish era. It might not work all the time, but we do try to win now.

You normally have to have chances on goal to win.

And we normally do have chances on goal, and we had at least one golden opportunity yesterday.

[supertom]

I think anybody accusing Lambert of being a negative manager hasn't been watching him.

So you think he is positive? On what basis?

Displays against citeh, pool, bar codes, spuds, hull would suggest otherwise. Like others on here I got carried away after the first two games but otherwise we are as poor as last season

You thought the City game wasn't positive? Really?

If he's talking about attacking intent then not that positive. We set out to try and keep the score down, frustrate them and possibly nick a result. We scored three fairly fortunate goals from City falling asleep (and the lino), and didn't have any chances aside.
That was a game where our first thought was defending.

Perhaps against Spurs we should have been a bit more negative and gone 5 at the back. Clark was injured I guess, so maybe we would have had he played. We need to get more width in our side. Is it any wonder our best chances yesterday (few and far between) came from wide positions?

I disagree. For the Man City game Lambert had two of his three main strikers out so rather than play maybe Tonev and possibly leave us a bit vunerable against a very good attacking side, he played it safer and it worked.

But you say we maybe should have played 5 at the back yesterday? Would'nt that have been keeping the score down, the same thing you accused us of doing against City?

I wasn't accusing. I just said it could be argued it was as you put it "playing it safe." Which is more a negative than a positive tactic I'd have thought.

As for yesterday, I thought we set our stall out to be more offensive, but like I said, the will was there but not the skill.

Could we have ground out a 0-0 playing 5 at the back? Maybe. We'd have been tighter defensively on the flanks (we kept City's wide men pretty quiet). It might have nullified Townsend better.

In an attacking sense it probably wouldn't have made us any less effective in all honesty. Lloris had an easy game.

As others have said though, we are trying, which is the major difference between this regime and the last.

[Witton Warrior]

I always wait for 24 hours-ish before commenting as I tend to be upset and too subjective just after another home defeat.
So it comes down to did Spurs look £100m better than us? No I don't think they did.

Can we play someone crap now please...

[nick harper]

Comment from the Guardian - on the money I think. He needs to find a different approach to home games....

Villa struggling to stamp authority at home

So Aston Villa's search for successive home Premier League wins in the same season goes on. August 2010 was the last time it happened. On the face of it there is no crime in being unable to beat Manchester City and Spurs back-to-back. But it was not so much the result against Spurs as the performance. Paul Lambert, the Villa manager, said: "I didn't think there was much in that."

A personal view would be that Spurs were playing within themselves while Villa, until Christian Benteke came on, looked toothless and devoid of ideas. Look at the stats: Villa had 31% possession in the first half, a figure that increased to 37% come the end. In total Villa made 309 passes, Spurs made 532. Villa were the home team. It is hard to know what their game-plan is at times at Villa Park, where they so often struggle to impose themselves on opponents (we've debated the need for a 'No10' before). From the midfield trio through to the three up front, only Fabian Delph emerged with any credit against Spurs. There is no doubt that Lambert will not be impressed that André Villas-Boas, the Spurs manager, talked for the second time this season about Villa playing "long balls".

Villa are not a team that bangs it aimlessly from back to front (not that AVB said they were). And there is no doubt they carry a real threat on the counter-attack. But is there another way of playing that involves keeping the ball more, especially at home?
Stuart James

[Richard E]

I always wait for 24 hours-ish before commenting as I tend to be upset and too subjective just after another home defeat.
So it comes down to did Spurs look £100m better than us? No I don't think they did.

Can we play someone crap now please...

I agree - I didn't think we were that bad and until they scored the second we had the momentum in the game. There was no comparison between that performance and the 4-0 over Christmas last year. They had about 15 corners in the first half alone in that one.   

[Mister E]

Comment from the Guardian - on the money I think. He needs to find a different approach to home games....

Villa struggling to stamp authority at home
.... Villa are not a team that bangs it aimlessly from back to front ...

Well, I thought we did yesterday. The mindless surrender of possession by passing it back to Brad so that he could hoof it upfield in the vain hope that Kozak might win something off Dawson drove me mad.
Our game plan at home is beginning to grate with me big time, and I think Lambert needs to think differently. For me, this means having at his disposal:
- wingers that could be deployed in an alternative strategy;
- centrebacks who can pass to a team-member (Baker, take note);
- fullbacks with more energy than Tony Moon;
- a couple of game-changing central midfielders;
- back-up strikers with the speed and / or anticipation to get in front of their markers.

The problem is that  he doesn't have the players in the squad currently to change the approach (and having Bowery on the bench seems utterly pointless! He'd be better off with Carruthers, Robinson and Grealish as bring-on players).

[silhillvilla]

We really shouldn't beat ourselves up to much over this loss, after all spurs are the 3rd best club in London. Let's just move on and give Everton then west ham bloody noses.

[Toronto Villa]

If McLeish has presided over the last few performances this form would be in melt down.

The last two performances have been piss poor.

I think one of the major differences re your McLeish comparison is that with Lambert, he's not a disciple of dour football, he's trying to get us playing attractively and sometimes failing.

McLeish never tried, and that was what was so monumentally depressing about him, he was doing "what he does" and it was never going to be different.

I can remember previous relegations, and some truly terrible Villa sides eeking out poor performances in front or 14k people, and that was horrible at times, but I still maintain, I never had the hope and enjoyment so comprehensively sucked out of supporting Villa as McLeish managed in one single season.

I agree there is clearly a fundamental difference in philsophy between the current regime and the Mcleish era. It might not work all the time, but we do try to win now.

Yesterday it was pretty even until Spurs scored a jammy goal. Then we had to try and push on and got a lot better with Benteke on the pitch. Naturally in trying to push forward it opened us up to a counter attack and frankly Spurs have the guns to take advantage. They scored again with a very good move between two players that cost in the region of 45m. Yesterday, we tried and came up short against a squad that will compete at the top end all season. We're just not at that level. There will be days when we or another side gets it right against the big spending sides. We've done it twice already. It wasn't to be yesterday.

[PaulWinch again]

Comment from the Guardian - on the money I think. He needs to find a different approach to home games....

Villa struggling to stamp authority at home

So Aston Villa's search for successive home Premier League wins in the same season goes on. August 2010 was the last time it happened. On the face of it there is no crime in being unable to beat Manchester City and Spurs back-to-back. But it was not so much the result against Spurs as the performance. Paul Lambert, the Villa manager, said: "I didn't think there was much in that."

A personal view would be that Spurs were playing within themselves while Villa, until Christian Benteke came on, looked toothless and devoid of ideas. Look at the stats: Villa had 31% possession in the first half, a figure that increased to 37% come the end. In total Villa made 309 passes, Spurs made 532. Villa were the home team. It is hard to know what their game-plan is at times at Villa Park, where they so often struggle to impose themselves on opponents (we've debated the need for a 'No10' before). From the midfield trio through to the three up front, only Fabian Delph emerged with any credit against Spurs. There is no doubt that Lambert will not be impressed that André Villas-Boas, the Spurs manager, talked for the second time this season about Villa playing "long balls".

Villa are not a team that bangs it aimlessly from back to front (not that AVB said they were). And there is no doubt they carry a real threat on the counter-attack. But is there another way of playing that involves keeping the ball more, especially at home?
Stuart James

Pretty much bang on, and as I say until I'm blue in the face our struggles tend to occur if we go long. We're successful when we play on the deck.

[Goldie.7]

Someone mentioned earlier on the thread that the most shocking thing about losing again is that it doesn't hurt as much as it used to.  It's getting the same for me

This is exactly how i feel about yesterday. I hate betting on us to lose but at home it's easy money i wish it wasn't and we were solid but sadly we are terrible.

[silhillvilla]

I don't think we are terrible, more dull, predictable and impotent at home. Away we can be a different kettle of fish, ask the current league leaders.

[andyh]

We really shouldn't beat ourselves up to much over this loss, after all spurs are the 3rd best club in London. Let's just move on and give Everton then west ham bloody noses.

I think Everton will an even harder proposition than Spurs.

[Rudy65]

I think anybody accusing Lambert of being a negative manager hasn't been watching him.

So you think he is positive? On what basis?


Displays against citeh, pool, bar codes, spuds, hull would suggest otherwise. Like others on here I got carried away after the first two games but otherwise we are as poor as last season

You thought the City game wasn't positive? Really?

I nearly didnt include that game in my list. The consensus after the match, including mine was that we got lucky. City dominated thefirst half. You get lucky once in a while, but more often than not (see my list of games) you dont. Yesterday being a case in point.

Lambert doesnt have the quality in the squad, we all know that, due to financial restrictions when compared to the likes of Spurs. However, there is no excuse for a defensive minded approach and the fact that after the Chelsea game we have played poorly. There is a lack of skill, passion, pass and move, ingenuity etc etc. our dead balls, bar Bacuma's free kick, are shocking.

If McLeish has presided over the last few performances this form would be in melt down.

I wouldn't call 4-3-3 defensive minded, I really wouldn't.

You can quote whatever formations you want

I did and it's 4-3-3. What formation would you call it?

I think you were trying to make out we were set up to attack with a 4 3 3. My point was that we werent, we didnt push men forward to seek to attack with any potency. It was defensive no matter what the formation suggested based on the team sheet