Cardiff City v Aston Villa Post-Match Thread

[ez]

We needed the win tonight. I think that was our most winnable fixture left.

[Fin Feds Dad]

Oh and another one, will someone please tell our players that when they get in the box, attack the f&%$ing ball. Don't wait for it to come to you, any half decent centre half will nick the ball off you.

Correct - as I said earlier , Benteke jibbed every single challenge. A heartless display and he should have been hauled off.

[Chinchilla Bathhouse]

Oh and another one, will someone please tell our players that when they get in the box, attack the f&%$ing ball. Don't wait for it to come to you, any half decent centre half will nick the ball off you.

Correct - as I said earlier , Benteke jibbed every single challenge. A heartless display and he should have been hauled off.

And when Lambert replaced him with Holt you'd have been fully approving.

[Fin Feds Dad]

I'd have had him off for Wiemann earlier in the game .

[Dave Clark Five]

Oh and another one, will someone please tell our players that when they get in the box, attack the f&%$ing ball. Don't wait for it to come to you, any half decent centre half will nick the ball off you.

Correct - as I said earlier , Benteke jibbed every single challenge. A heartless display and he should have been hauled off.

I am sure that Lambert would have liked to replace him with Holt and thought he would do so on 85 mins.

[tomd2103]

A frustrating match and the reaction on here reflects that but trying to look at it objectively, it was a good performance.  We started brightly but lost our way in the first half.  Second half, we got the ball down and played, Delph and Westwood took complete control of the midfield and we put together some great approach play.  It's just a shame we couldn't fine a finishing touch, partly because Cardiff's centre halves - particularly Turner defended the box so well and partly because our own forwards look utterly devoid of confidence.  Marshall then pulls off the save of the season when we are first to a ball into the box.

Really frustrating not to win but most of the players had a good game.  Baker was occasionally clumsy but generally solid.  Vlaar has become one of the best centre halves in the league and as we all know is absolutely crucial.  Bacuna had some poor moments interspersed with some great ones.  Delph is truly a great footballer with exceptional touch and he was matched by Westwood in the second half.  Albrighton looks positive and much more like the player who first burst on to the scene, although he was breathing through his arse towards the end.  Benteke and Gabby won us so many games last season by being incredibly efficient in front of goal, how typical that both looked out of sorts in the penalty area on the same day, in a game that was there for the taking.  Gabby is usually a good instinctive finisher so I am stunned he ballsed up that change by not taking it first time.  Bizarre.

Would agree with that.  Frustration is the overriding emotion for me as well tonight. Plenty of chances to win that game, but it was telling that we didn't get a shot off on a number of occasions.  Benteke still looks way off the pace, though his touch to Gabby was sublime.   

There is a decent team there somewhere (3 or 4 good purchases would transform that team overnight) and it is annoying that we only see flashes of it from time to time.  I'm really beginning to wonder if PL is the main problem and whether he is going into his shell regarding tactics and style of play.  Albrighton did pretty well tonight, but his crossing at times was a little off.  Why not try him on the left for a short time and let him cut in on his right foot?  Why leave Joe Bennett on for so long when it was clear the lad was struggling a bit? As someone said earlier, that picture of Lambert and Culverhouse was pretty telling.   

[Monty]

Benteke hardly looked bothered but he had a few touches in the game which were several rungs up the ladder higher than any of our other players could have dreamed of doing.

[bertlambshank]

We go from shit to pretty good within the blink of an eye.

[saunders_heroes]

It's one thing wanting Gabby and Benteke hauled off - but for whom? We haven't got anyone better than those 2 so leave them on the pitch. We've got more chance of them creating something than the alternatives on the bench.

[hilts_coolerking]

You simply can't rebuild a side whilst reducing the wage bill and expect to go from relegation fodder to challenging for Europe in a season.

Lambert's had the best part of two seasons now and a decent, if not sufficient, amount of money to spend.  I don't think it's unreasonable to expect us to be playing more good stuff than we do.  And at the very least to be able to turn up and give it the beans for the the full 90 minutes.  His inability to get even that out of a squad largely comprised of his own signings has been quite a shock to me.

I've also been shocked that for someone who was touted as being in the vanguard of bright new modern coaches, his tactical acumen has been so poor.  As monty points out, the speed with which Lambert resorts to the direct approach when things aren't going well is very disappointing.

[pauliewalnuts]

West Ham were in the relegation zone just a week ago, now they're above us in the top half. Anyone who thinks we're comfortably mid-table are living in cloud cuckoo land. We need wins.

We're not comfortable but West Ham have had a fantastic run and we've fallen the grand total of 1 place in the league.  People keep talking about how many points away from relegation we are but for us to end up in trouble would mean 7 out of 9 teams below us go on runs like West Ham's.

It's just not going to happen.

My point is though, if a club can string a couple of wins together they can shoot up the league. It's happened with West Ham who are now above us. It could happen with other teams below us, that's why we're not comfortably mid-table.
We can't win games and it's a massive problem.

But one team doing it is one thing.  Seven doing it is a another matter entirely.

We're not safe, of course we're not.  I'm also not happy that our 'ambition' for this season is to stay up.  But we have to be realistic about where we're coming from and the time it takes to get to where we want to be.  You simply can't rebuild a side whilst reducing the wage bill and expect to go from relegation fodder to challenging for Europe in a season.

Indeed.

But you can go from fighting relegation to not fighting relegation.

How many of us really think we're not going to find ourselves fighting relegation this season? Honestly?

I also think there's a widely held view - which is correct - that in terms of the quality of football, he hasn't only failed to move us on this season, we've gone backwards.

[nodge]

Well we're 10th favorites to go down on Oddschecker at 12-1, we were 10's before the game.  The bookies are always right aren't they? Please say yes!

[saunders_heroes]

I think we've certainly gone backwards. Last season was awful, only saved by a decent run at the end. What happens if we don't replicate that during this run in?

[tomd2103]

You simply can't rebuild a side whilst reducing the wage bill and expect to go from relegation fodder to challenging for Europe in a season.

Lambert's had the best part of two seasons now and a decent, if not sufficient, amount of money to spend.  I don't think it's unreasonable to expect us to be playing more than good stuff than we do.  And at the very least to be able to turn up and give it the beans for the the full 90 minutes.  His inability to get even that out of a squad largely comprised of his own signings has been quite a shock to me.

I've also been shocked that for someone who was touted as being in the vanguard of bright new modern coaches, his tactical acumen has been so poor.  As monty points out, the speed with which Lambert resorts to the direct approach when things aren't going well is very disappointing.

The fact that he doesn't trust the majority of those signings to be anywhere near the starting XI speaks volumes really. 

[Drummond]

I hate the Internet.