Aston Villa v Sheffield United Post-Match Thread

[Chinchilla Bathhouse]

I don't give a toss about being 'a laughing stock', and I don't care what Rodney Marsh or Robbie Savage or any other pundit says about us.

But I do expect my club to give me something to look forward to, and to be honest a mediocre battle for tenth place isn't good enough.

Lambert's better signings have gone backwards. And he has successfully created an 'us versus them' mentality where Culverhouse is 'us' and the Holte End is 'them'.

Next year will kill him. He won't be able to turn twelfth place into sixth. He will survive to the end of the season but will be gone this time next year.

I'd agree with that Damon.  I think he's going to have to conjure up just that level of spectacular improvement in form to turn around the ill will he's managed to generate this season, and he's clearly not capable of that.  In spite of our current form I really don't think we'll go down, but I just can't see how he can remain in charge beyond this season without the full support of the fans. 

One of the sorriest things about all this is that Lambert has actively sought to cultivate a siege mentality with the fans from the day he walked in the door, constantly showering us with praise and talking of making Villa Park a fortress; I think all of that was commendable and completely the right thing to do.  He needed to try and galvanise the club as a whole.  Unfortunately all his flattery has been fatally undermined by our pathetic home form, so it has begun to come across as deluded, patronising and infuriating.  There is only so much people can take.  The fans get angry, the management and players get defensive, and as frustration has grown it has quickly descended into the "them" and "us" mentality you referred to; once that's happened I think it's game over.  It's just a matter of time. 

Up until today I was prepared to sit tight and wait for an improvement in form (however crazy that may sound to some) but it now seems to me that even that wouldn't be enough.  I fear too much damage has been done.  Just look at the anguish on this forum.  It doesn't even matter who's right or wrong any more, the point is that this is a desperately unhappy club; the fans, management and players appear divided.  Without a freak change of fortunes and set of results, that is irreversible and is only going one way.   

Like you, I couldn't give a stuff what assorted pundits or fans of other clubs think.  I'd just like to enjoy watching my team play once in a while. Not too much to ask is it?

I think we'll limp to a 14th/15th place finish this season, and then Lambert and Lerner can engineer some sort of mutual consent departure so no one loses face.  And we'll go again...

[Damo70]

The only bright spot was I was pleased for my old mate Nigel Clough. We have been friends for over twenty years since I spent some time with him in the build up to the '91 FA cup final.

OK, that was a slight exaggeration. He was sat next to me at a Paul Simon concert at the NEC a few days before the final and we nodded politely to each other when he took his seat.

[*shellac*]

You Can Call Me Pal?

[edgysatsuma89]

Mickey Mouse cup anyway

😉

[OzVilla]

When I got up and saw the result I wasn't the least bit surprised.

I expect nothing from the FA Cup in terms of actually winning the thing any more but I wold expect more than what we've heard and seen this week.  Where is the ambition?

I'm a long term supporter of Lambert (living abroad I'm fortunate enough to have only seen two live games this season and one was Man Citeh) but it ain't working.

Problem is with Lerner and Faulkner at the helm the lack of ambition will remain.

I can't quite believe its come to this.......

[coreyfeldman]

shit manager buys shit players and has no idea how to manage them. all this talk of our budget being so small we should tailor our expectations, how much have swansea spent? how much have southampton spent? very similar amounts. fuck off lambert, you have ruined villa park. a once great stadium now lies in tatters because of your negative, dour, clueless football.

we're not fickle, you're just a shit manager

[PeterWithesShin]

Both Swansea and Southampton spent more. Southampton a lot more. Swansea are below us.

[mr underhill]

 Managers are hired to be fired and Lambert's time will come soon enough. Sadly, that then asks the most important question - who and what, culturally, comes next. After at least four years of pain, we have to get it right but unless we , i.e. RL and PF, take qualified independent advice from people who really know the market, I doubt we will. IMO a prerequisite of future managerial change should be the concurrent appointment of someone to the board who lives and breathes football.

[brian green]

Having slept on it I still think that Lerner and Faulkner will attempt to paper over the cracks.

After yesterday the truth is writ large for all with eyes to see.   We have appointed another sub-standard manager.   Faulkner will not dare face this truth because it is his fourth managerial failure if you believe, as I do, that MON was a prodigious money waster, Houllier was never well enough for premiership management, TSM was a wild and random straw of perceived financial salvation clutched at and Lambert got the job by simply not being TSM and cultivating a fantasy that there is a master plan behind his incompetence.

After all these years I think I know the Villa pretty well and extending the criticisms which were made on this thread last night that we never really assert our selves I expect Lerner and Faulkner to cobble together a compromise of bringing in hired "help" in the form of somebody like Glen Hoddle.   This would offer the board a win-win option of either so outraging Lambert and Culverhouse that they resign or them staying and Hoddle (or whoever) bringing an improvement in results and the premiership survival which is our holy grail.

As always the problem with such a compromise solution lies in the fact that neither Faulkner nor Lerner is a football man and the parachuting in of a Hoddle type fixer would outrage a fan base already at breaking point.   I would not put it past them being so out of touch with football reality that they would approach somebody like Redknapp.

I think Lambert is a dullard who, jointly with Culverhouse, has,  as my son rightly says gone head to head with the fans.  That can have only one outcome but I hate to say that we shall be relegated before that boil is lanced.

[alanclare]

My two teenage grandsons came up from their home in the Cotswolds to watch this match. It was embarrassing. This once great Club was absolutely humbled by a team that's struggling in the 3rd Division. The high spot for me was listening to and identifying with the wall of sound that was generated by the 6,000 Blades' supporters at the opposite end of the ground. This was in marked contrast to the weak, quavering rendition of "Holte Enders in the Sky" that occasionally trickled out from our demoralised supporters.

[brian green]

That song Holte Enders In The Sky is not a tape.   It is not played over the public address system.   It is a tribute to the players and it has to be earned.   Take a look at our home record and you will understand why a "quavering" rendition "trickled" out of the Holte End.

En passant, if you had come with your grandsons to Sheffield United when we played them two seasons ago you would have noticed that our travelling fans were more numerous than their home support.

Criticize the players, criticize the board, criticize the manager but do not criticize the fans.   Bearing in mind what we have had to endure the supporters have been brilliant.

[oldhill_avfc]

I just can't see Lerner and Faulkner bringing in someone like Hoddle.

They seem to have either a blind faith in Lambert or don't perceive there to be a massive problem.

Even if they did think there is a problem they are neither Machievellian or clever enough to scheme in this way to oust Lambert. 

[charlie659]

I just can't see Lerner and Faulkner bringing in someone like Hoddle.

They seem to have either a blind faith in Lambert or don't perceive there to be a massive problem.

Even if they did think there is a problem they are neither Machievellian or clever enough to scheme in this way to oust Lambert.

Glenn Hoddle is a yesterday's man, a very very average one at that.
He is NOT the answer to our problems, I have no idea who is mind you 

[brian green]

Don't get me wrong.   Not for one minute do I think they should bring in Hoddle or anybody like him but the record of Faulkner and Lerner is one of naivety and I expect them to continue in the same vein.   To them Lambert has been doing as he has been told and because both Faulkner and Lerner are bean counters they will look at the savings Lambert has made and that will save him from the sack.   They will turn their attention to what, to them, is the much lesser problem of the unhappiness of the supporters at the performances which have to be endured on the pitch week in week out.   The performances will not be addressed because that would cost money to buy in better players on bigger wages so the matter of the unhappiness of the fans, being the cheaper problem (they think) to solve will be addressed.   The standard business model manual says in these circumstance have a PR initiative and my guess is that will take the form of bringing in a "name" perhaps as DOF, perhaps a board member, perhaps a consultant.   Some sort of lollipop to sweeten the fans.

We ceased to be a football club a couple of years back and became a brand.   There will be a business related reaction to the current sickness at the heart of the club not a playing performance related one.

[eastie]

Faulkner will not want to admit to another managerial error and they will continue the project sadly in my opinion - we look a team shot on confidence and playing badly and I expect serious hammering against arsenal  and Liverpool - lambert may well bring in players to help- but he is poor on organisation and poor on tactics .

Last season after about 6 months he hit on a formation and style of play that paid dividends - this season i doubt he will find that sort of success and eventually I can see him taking us down .

People will point at the table and say we are comfortable in 11th but the truth is any of the bottom half could be relegated , it's very tight down there and defeats to Liverpool and arsenal will see us right in the relegation fight and in the bottom 6 ,if not the bottom 4.