Aston Villa v Swansea City Post-Match Thread

[richtheholtender]

Objectively in the context of where we currently are that was a good point, unfortunately from a paying and entertaining perspective that was utter shit!

The "where we are at the moment" line is the cherry on the top. Just how have the likes of Swansea, Everton, Southampton and now even Hull overtaken us?? They haven't spent close to the amount of money we have spent.

[eastie]

I am even tempered but watching the Villa at the moment is really testing my resolve. I will only say that  I believe Lambert is a good man manager and what is needed is to do a root and branch overhaul of the coaching system, defence apart.

I really do wonder what they do all week between matches as I doubt if it is fitness or stamina work, basic skill development, set piece organisation, systems and tactics all of which appear to be non existent on match day. Be brave Lambert and wield the axe and get someone who knows how to develop players and methods of winning games.

Having seen the he froze out the likes of given , bent and others I'm not sure man management is one of best assets .

[Phil from the upper holte]

Not that fussed about the football.  Just walked up witton lane to get the bus and some poor fucker is fucked on the floor. Hope he's ok he looked in a bad way.

Hope the chap is ok.

Beaten up or pissed?

Beaten up, I believe.

By Swansea fans?

[amfy]

The stats look dreadful and the comments suggest another pitiful performance and a team going backwards. I wish we had a lovely passing game. All that huffing and puffing to put a mere 20 points on the board after 19 games?

What stats?  If you're pointing to possession it's utterly irrelevant against Swansea.  Everyone knows that Swansea are a passing team and have massive possession stats, however they don't turn that in to points.  Swansea have 'out-possessed' everyone this season - in the six games they've played against both Manchesters, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Spurs they've had the majority of possession in every game and picked up 1 point out of a possible 18.

Despite all their possession today other than the goal their next best opportunity was a weak free kick that Guzan easily tipped over.  They had 3 shots on target to our 3 on target.  They had loads of corners and with the exception of the one early doors which they somehow managed to head down so hard it bounced over the bar they did nothing with them.

I'm certainly not saying it was a vintage performance but in the context of the run we've been on it's a decent point.  As for those booing at the end again, I think for some people they think that's just part of the matchday experience now.  It becomes meaningless if you do it after every game.

When the other team has the ball for 70%+ of the time there is damn little villa can do with it. I know Swansea are a great passing side. When Lambert joined us I expected to see us develop along such lines but we have been very direct this season and stand just a point better off than we were at this stage last season, the one where we came perilously close.

So today we didn't have very much possession at home and drew.

We had as little possession away at Southampton & won. We had the majority of possession against Palace & lost.

It'd definitely be nice to see us keep the ball more, but we really need to get over the idea that it means anything.

[eastie]

Objectively in the context of where we currently are that was a good point, unfortunately from a paying and entertaining perspective that was utter shit!

The "where we are at the moment" line is the cherry on the top. Just how have the likes of Swansea, Everton, Southampton and now even Hull overtaken us?? They haven't spent close to the amount of money we have spent.

True , there  are clubs above is who have spent far less than lambert has done .

[Stu]

We were attacking last season though. It just appears there has been a massive retrenchment in this style in favour of forming some sort of defensive solidity. Looking at the signing of Okore, and the appointment of a defensive coach, then there's a pretty strong case to say this where his priorities were at the start of this season. If this is the case, then he has been desperately unlucky with injuries.

This does not explain the alarming drop in offensive performances however, which is something that we all knew we were good at.

*this was in reply to eastie*

Cheers , stu.

I messed up the quote. I was in the bath, using my phone to post - risk taker that I am.

[PeterWithesShin]

Not that fussed about the football.  Just walked up witton lane to get the bus and some poor fucker is fucked on the floor. Hope he's ok he looked in a bad way.

Hope the chap is ok.

Beaten up or pissed?

Beaten badly. He looked pretty fucked up. I thought he was a Swansea fan as there was a bloke by him with a Welsh accent who was very angry and upset arguing with the policeman treating him, on the bus people were saying it was a lone Villa fan jumped by a bunch of Swansea. As I walked past he wasn't moving and the police had a bunch of people handcuffed. Some women was a bit hysterical and saying she saw someone stabbed with a bottle. Looked very nasty and I really do hope he is okay whoever he supports.

As an aside the medical treatment poor. He was lying just on Witton Lane by the island, the policeman treating him was telling the Welsh bloke an ambulance was on the way, a woman at the bus stop said she'd seen an ambulance pull onto Witton Lane form the NS car park and it turned right towards the Holte. Was a good 15 mins later that it came past the bus stop with sirens blaring and turned back onto Witton Lane.

[aj2k77]

I don't think we're direct it's just more hit and hope

My thoughts aswell. Direct football is normally long ball into channels or at a target man and looking for a stream of on running midfielders to feed off of it.

Ours is an aimless punt 90% of the time not even in the vicinity of our carthorse which is picked up by their defence and they come again.

It is not long ball football, it's not any kind of football.

[villajk]

Not that fussed about the football.  Just walked up witton lane to get the bus and some poor fucker is fucked on the floor. Hope he's ok he looked in a bad way.

Hope the chap is ok.

Beaten up or pissed?

Beaten badly. He looked pretty fucked up. I thought he was a Swansea fan as there was a bloke by him with a Welsh accent who was very angry and upset arguing with the policeman treating him, on the bus people were saying it was a lone Villa fan jumped by a bunch of Swansea. As I walked past he wasn't moving and the police had a bunch of people handcuffed. Some women was a bit hysterical and saying she saw someone stabbed with a bottle. Looked very nasty and I really do hope he is okay whoever he supports.

As an aside the medical treatment poor. He was lying just on Witton Lane by the island, the policeman treating him was telling the Welsh bloke an ambulance was on the way, a woman at the bus stop said she'd seen an ambulance pull onto Witton Lane form the NS car park and it turned right towards the Holte. Was a good 15 mins later that it came past the bus stop with sirens blaring and turned back onto Witton Lane.

Oh dear, oh dear.  That sounds awful.  Fingers crossed he's ok. 

[eastie]

Not that fussed about the football.  Just walked up witton lane to get the bus and some poor fucker is fucked on the floor. Hope he's ok he looked in a bad way.

Hope the chap is ok.

Beaten up or pissed?

Beaten badly. He looked pretty fucked up. I thought he was a Swansea fan as there was a bloke by him with a Welsh accent who was very angry and upset arguing with the policeman treating him, on the bus people were saying it was a lone Villa fan jumped by a bunch of Swansea. As I walked past he wasn't moving and the police had a bunch of people handcuffed. Some women was a bit hysterical and saying she saw someone stabbed with a bottle. Looked very nasty and I really do hope he is okay whoever he supports.

As an aside the medical treatment poor. He was lying just on Witton Lane by the island, the policeman treating him was telling the Welsh bloke an ambulance was on the way, a woman at the bus stop said she'd seen an ambulance pull onto Witton Lane form the NS car park and it turned right towards the Holte. Was a good 15 mins later that it came past the bus stop with sirens blaring and turned back onto Witton Lane.

How very sad that this should happen to someone going to a football game - this puts things into perspective and whoever he is lets hope he has a speedy recovery and that the culprits are brought to justice .

[pauliewalnuts]

The stats look dreadful and the comments suggest another pitiful performance and a team going backwards. I wish we had a lovely passing game. All that huffing and puffing to put a mere 20 points on the board after 19 games?

What stats?  If you're pointing to possession it's utterly irrelevant against Swansea.  Everyone knows that Swansea are a passing team and have massive possession stats, however they don't turn that in to points.  Swansea have 'out-possessed' everyone this season - in the six games they've played against both Manchesters, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Spurs they've had the majority of possession in every game and picked up 1 point out of a possible 18.

Despite all their possession today other than the goal their next best opportunity was a weak free kick that Guzan easily tipped over.  They had 3 shots on target to our 3 on target.  They had loads of corners and with the exception of the one early doors which they somehow managed to head down so hard it bounced over the bar they did nothing with them.

I'm certainly not saying it was a vintage performance but in the context of the run we've been on it's a decent point.  As for those booing at the end again, I think for some people they think that's just part of the matchday experience now.  It becomes meaningless if you do it after every game.

That's a fair enough point that Swansea get the lions share of possession against most clubs, however, two issues

Firstly, 77% of possession at our place

Secondly, how often do we get more than 50% possession? Almost never.

Today was another demonstration that we can't get the basics right. Swansea are blunt up front and didn't offer the goal threat you'd expect from a team so much on top, but watching us run around aimlessly, failing to complete even the most simple of passes, lumping it long every time we had a chance, whilst they played a crisp passing game was about as depressing a view of where we are now as you are likely to find.

And, let's not forget, a couple of days ago, it was Crystal Palace totally outplaying us on our own pitch.

I am happy we got a point, but really, what I wanted to see today was something to suggest that we are starting to make little improvements in the basics of the game, and there was pretty much nothing to hint at that - again.

Last season, there was plenty of evidence of us at least harrying the opposition when they had the ball, trying to get it back, and when we had it, attempting - at least - to keep it.

This season, there has been almost none of that in evidence. When we don't have the ball, our natural instinct is to fall back and defend, not to win it back. When we do get the ball back, we either pass it straight back to the opposition, or aimlessly lump it long.

I was glad when Lambert was appointed, and supported him unflinchingly last season, but I can not stand to watch any more of this failure to complete the most basic of simple tasks.

Under McLeish, we turned into the sort of horrible side that, if I were a supporter of another club, I would want to get relegated. We are rapidly turning into that again this season.

[olaftab]

I am glad we managed to stop the rot. If they awarded points for keeping the ball, then we would have been down and out, thankfully Swansea created Jack (geddit?) after they scored.

Three points and maybe even more crucially, some midfielders now required.

This. We had 65% possession v Palace bug created nothing. Possession is overrated.

[BC54 VFC]

On the positive side we are now no longer on a losing streak. Swansea must be kicking themselves!

If we tried to kick ourselves we'd probably miss.

[Billy Walker]

In the context of the run we've been on I can see why Lambert is content with the point and find very little wrong with what he has said.  A safe mid-table finish this season will represent progress and I back the manager to steer us there. 

[PeterWithesShin]

Pravda

Paul Lambert hailed the effort and application of his team as they ground out a 1-1 draw with Swansea.

Gabby Agbonlahor opened the scoring for the hosts early on but Roland Lamah equalised for the visitors just before the break.

Lambert was happy with the point because it put a stop to a bad run of four defeats on the trot.

He said: "It's a game where you'd love to win, no two ways about it.

"But a point stops that sequence of losing. It was vital for us.

"Swansea are a good side. They pass the ball really well. But Brad Guzan hasn't had many saves to make at all.

"They came here and played nice football. But I was happy with the effort and commitment of the lads. I couldn't fault them for that.

"I have seen my team play really well in some games and come away with nothing, really well and you look at it afterwards and think 'we did really well in that.'

"Sometimes you have to fight tooth and nail to get something. They certainly did that. Their commitment was really pleasing."

Lambert admitted he's keeping an eye on the long-term vision for the club aswell as the short-term need to get results to push Villa into a healthy position in the Barclays Premier League.

He is confident of developing this group of players aswell as making a dart up the table when the likes of Christian Benteke, Ron Vlaar and Jores Okore return.

He added: "We are missing big players. It's a lot for us to carry with a young squad.

"When you lose Benteke, Vlaar and Okore, it's a big chunk from the spine of our team.

"We have only been here 17 months or so. I knew the first few years would be really, really tough.

"We're a million miles away from where I want to be. But I am building something, developing it and making it go in the right direction.

"The table is really tight. It's a big point.

"We're on 20 points - we're halfway there. If we can get one or two back, it will make us stronger."