Aston Villa v Sheffield United Post-Match Thread

[Ron Manager]

If we played the England Test squad we would probably lose 5-0

Thats how bad its got!

[saunders_heroes]

Lerner and Faulkner are too weak to act. Lambert should've gone after the Bradford debacle last year - we got away with it by the skin of our teeth in the end. Other clubs have sacked their Managers for far less. The majority of the fans have lost confidence in the Manager, this will transmit to the dressing room if it hasn't already. Lambert and most of his players are simply not good enough, so this long term vision and plan will fail on a lack of quality.

No decent manager would take over at Villa while Lerner runs us on a shoestring, that's why he won't sack Lambert.

[eastie]

Lerner and Faulkner are too weak to act. Lambert should've gone after the Bradford debacle last year - we got away with it by the skin of our teeth in the end. Other clubs have sacked their Managers for far less. The majority of the fans have lost confidence in the Manager, this will transmit to the dressing room if it hasn't already. Lambert and most of his players are simply not good enough, so this long term vision and plan will fail on a lack of quality.

No decent manager would take over at Villa while Lerner runs us on a shoestring, that's why he won't sack Lambert.

Not quite a shoestring - £43m spent on players from June 12 to August 13 is a lot more than many clubs .

[Brian Taylor]

Let's forget it..put it behind us and get head into gear to save us from the drop!

Our sole ambition as a club. Avoiding relegation year in year out. Depressing.

Couldn't agree more..year on year!! Sell Benteke before his shelf life is up and his January 'sale' price is marked down!..get someone less prone to injury..and depression

[ez]

I went to a christening yesterday so didn't see any of it. Not watching the highlights prog either. Ignorance is not exactly bliss but it spares me some heartache.

[nigel]

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.

We can easily criticise the appointmentn now, Brian, but:
I don't know one Villa fan who wasn't over the Moon at MO'Ns appointment. Yes, he wasted money, I don't recall anyone moaning at the time  , but, at the same time we had 3 successive 6th places, which is far from failure.
Houlier wasn't everyone's cup of tea, but, I thought he had us playing decent stuff come the end of the season. With hindsight, the move would have been to move GH upstairs and promote McAlister.
McLeish, yes, well, the less said the better.
Lambert, not my choice, but, I reckon 70 -80% of Villa fans wanted him bought in.

It's depressing stuff, but, so was this time last season. I hope we can pick ourselves up like last season, too.

Not having a pop at you, Brian, I've read plenty of your posts this thread which are spot on.

[onje_villa]

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...

Good post.

[JUAN PABLO]

Just been thru the match thread in a bar in Tenerife , its taking bloody five mins to load each page , so took bloody hours,

Am I shocked with the result , no

Am I gutted ,yes

This manager is awful , get rid now .

[bertlambshank]

Lerner and Faulkner are too weak to act. Lambert should've gone after the Bradford debacle last year - we got away with it by the skin of our teeth in the end. Other clubs have sacked their Managers for far less. The majority of the fans have lost confidence in the Manager, this will transmit to the dressing room if it hasn't already. Lambert and most of his players are simply not good enough, so this long term vision and plan will fail on a lack of quality.

No decent manager would take over at Villa while Lerner runs us on a shoestring, that's why he won't sack Lambert.

Not quite a shoestring - £43m spent on players from June 12 to August 13 is a lot more than many clubs .

But put the signings on Championship wages.You get what you pay for in this life.

[Ads]

Poor game between two poor sides. No surprise to see us go out, we have made a habbit of going out to lower league sides for as along as I can remember.

On the bright side, I will save some money in tickets and diesel.

Helenius looked decent, much of the rest is entirely forgettable.

[martyn ellis]

In the context of 'shit happens' sometimes in cup competitions, it seems to have reached utter incontinence proportions in our case. Time for some effective medication.

[olaftab]

Poor game between two poor sides. No surprise to see us go out, we have made a habbit of going out to lower league sides for as along as I can remember.

Not so easy to brush this over as we have been doing so for a while now on League games. Just exactly how poor are we that a struggling 3rd division team outplayed us...mind boggling.
We also can't just put this one in the category of "we have a habit". A shock result is part and parcel of the cup game but this after Millwall and Bradford is NOT acceptable as shock. This is pure incompetence of the lowest order. This team and management have descended to a shocking state.

[rob_bridge]

After 2 incredibly strange managerial appointments, I think 18 months into a new regime, most us would have settled for improved performances, no more relegation battles and no cup humiliations.

We are no further forward.

[olaftab]

If we played the England Test squad we would probably lose 5-0

Thats how bad its got!

Anyway  did you and Lady Ron enjoy the panto?

[eastie]

If we played the England Test squad we would probably lose 5-0

Thats how bad its got!

Anyway  did you and Lady Ron enjoy the panto?

They did at 4-55 when it had finished