Aston Villa v Crystal Palace Post-Match Thread

[Legion]

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/143340eb8f373014

I get a pretty picture of a flower.

[danlanza]

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/143340eb8f373014

You do know that we don't all have access to your email inbox Dan?

Oh well. Nothing to hide in my box.

[David_Nab]

From my viewpoint for the first 20 mins or so Guzan was playing it to feet the long punts up field started when he realized we were getting no where passing it about side to side at the back.

[olaftab]

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/143340eb8f373014

You do know that we don't all have access to your email inbox Dan?

Oh well. Nothing to hide in my box.

However we need your gmail user name and password please?

[mrfuse]

If Weimann really did put his finger to his lips as well, he'd better start pulling said finger out if his ample arse and doing something about this utter shit we are putting up with.

Without having to drag through the forum and find the post what the story with Weimann?

I'm in the lower North and and there was a point in the 2nd half where he just left a man he should have been tracking and looked totally disinterested. He got a lot stick from fans for that, but I didn't see any gesture from him at the time.

[pauliewalnuts]

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/143340eb8f373014

That's not going to work, Dan.

[silhillvilla]

Dan Dan the IT man.

[Des Little]

Have you tried switching it off, and then back on again...?

[eastie]

By Mike Walters | 27/12/13 

Paul Lambert will face the music if Aston Villa come a cropper at home again and he is serenaded by more orchestral manoeuvres in the dark.

For the first time in his ­managerial career, Lambert is on the verge of a crisis with fans’ patience exhausted by a glut of dreadful home performances.

Villa were booed off after suffering a Boxing Day sucker punch in added time against struggling Crystal Palace – and the natives will be even more restless if they come unstuck against Swansea today.

Lambert’s job is NOT under imminent threat, but the facts read like a ransom note.

Villa have scored only six goals in nine home League games this season – half of them in one memorable fightback against Manchester City – the worst home scoring record in all four divisions.

They have lost four games on the bounce, last season’s talisman Christian Benteke is injured, they have failed to score in five of the last six at Villa Park and Lambert’s cushion against the drop zone is down to three points.

Twelve months ago, when Villa shipped 15 goals without reply in a bleak festive programme against Chelsea, Tottenham and Wigan, Lambert – assembling a young side – was cut some slack on the basis of his squad’s inexperience. But patience is wearing thin because early-season optimism, generated by a startling win at Arsenal, has evaporated amid a series of moribund displays at home, culminating in Lambert’s painful Boxing Day concerto from his flock.

Lambo said: “It’s a challenge and I’m not going to duck it.

“We are doing everything we can to keep building on last season, but we are a million miles short of what we are trying to do with the club.

“I’ve never wilted in the face of a challenge – you fight it, you don’t wilt or run away from it.

“There is so much pressure in football these days that if you haven’t won in two games, there’s a crisis. It seems to be getting shorter and shorter, and Swansea are on that same kind of run.

“I played with some big clubs as a footballer – I was not exempt from criticism then, and I’m not exempt from it now. I can remember my first few games at Celtic – I lost them and people were saying, ‘Go back to Dortmund, not good enough’ until I bedded myself in and got a grip of it.

“We can’t turn round and be critical of the crowd. They give us energy when we win, so they are entitled to voice an opinion when we lose. You have to be big enough to take it and you see it through.

“Some people talk about bravery as being going in for a tackle that’s 10ft high or blood, guts and thunder – but real bravery in football is taking the ball in front of 40,000 fans in an area where others would shy away from it.

“As long as these players don’t try to hide and run away, then I’ll never criticise them for trying to do the right things.



Goalkeeper Brad Guzan, who had denied Palace with three excellent saves before ­substitute Dwight Gayle’s stoppage-time bolt from the blue sent Villa fans into open revolt, warned Swansea’s visit was a game for “big characters” with a burning desire to atone for Boxing Day’s horror show.

Guzan has been a safe pair of hands for Lambert in more senses than one, consistent on the pitch and a reliable ­ambassador when a voice from the dressing room is required to articulate the party line.

The American keeper admitted: “We have to put this behind us and find a way to get a result against Swansea.

“There’s a determination that we want to make things right and do it for ourselves and for the fans. We sense that ability to go and get a result, and there is no doubt in my mind we will have a response.

“Yes, we are going through a bad run of results, but that doesn’t make us a bad team.

“We are still the same team that won away at the Emirates (on the season’s opening day) and have picked up other ­positive results along the way.

“Let’s dust ourselves down, go again and find a way to get a win – but it’s never an easy task, which is the beauty of the Premier League, and it’s going to take some big characters to step on to the pitch and find a way to get a result.

“It’s not the way we wanted to finish the Palace game and not the result we wanted, but the good thing about the Christmas period is that we can turn it around quickly because the games come thick and fast.”