Aston Villa v Manchester City post match thread

[edgysatsuma89]

I don't have any issues with losing to these teams. However ask yourself how many of the other teams, against the skycumbubbles, will have more attempts at goal in those games than us? Answer is: all of them. It's not fact yet but it will be. Lambert is as inept as ever in my opinion. I remember hearing a lot about 'east games' last year not exactly being so 'easy'. I'm not remotely fearful for the season, just ... well ... bored.

I know Zog has had a little praise on the match thread, but not for me. I'm now decided on him (finally), i don't care how often he may be a little exciting, it's all insignificant when you are such a poor decision maker.

And Aly, going forward ... wow.

[Chris Smith]

I think the home form will improve. We won't play sides as bad as Hull everything, but by the same token we won't keep playing the likes of Arsenal or Man City.

Yes, Hull, who we ended up hanging on to three points against, and who still managed to see far more of the ball than we did. That's what worries me. I can live with losing to Arsenal and Man City, they're much, much better than us, it is as simple as that.

The problem is that we pretty much never manage to impose ourselves against the shit teams, either, and we haven't for several seasons now.

When does that improve?

When our best player is fit, perhaps?

We worked hard and played some decent stuff at times but when the only available striker is Weimann it is going to take a miracle to impose yourself against the Billionaire Boys Club.

The league is so totally skewed at the moment it is anti competive. It is easy to blame Sky but if wasn't them it would be some other broadcaster funding it to fuel the demand. The problem is more fundamental with the way that the game is structured but because Scudamore et al measure success in purely financial terms things are unlikely to change.

[*shellac*]

Finally the horrible run of games are over.

[brian green]

You are absolutely right Chris. The core problem for all of us who love sport is that those who run the sports are obsessed with money and unable to grasp the fundamental importance of the values of what they control.  Wherever you look, horse racing, formula 1, cricket, athletics, rugby, the very essence of the sport is being bloated and devalued by marketing and the pointless spiral of money chasing more money.

The simplest comparison I can think of is that sport of all kinds has become like modern food, far too much of it, churned out off the back of saturation advertising and, compared to what went before, basically unsatisfying.

Why did the Tour de France attract such massive crowds in this country this year? Because it was free. You could turn up to the route and watch it and go home again. Why does the Epsom Derby which used to attract half a million spectators  to the Downs now pull in a crowd little bigger than an evening meeting at Newmarket with Status Quo doing a turn after the last race?

Football has become a snake so greedy and so stupid it has started to eat its own tail.

[Brian Taylor]

My theories held fast for 82mins..then went to pot.. Villa stil suffer from the eternal last minutes factor..Solve that and we be Champions!

[brian green]

I would clarify my point about the Derby.  When Derby Day was to all intents and purposes a Bank Holiday the viewing of the race from the Downs was free. Over the years the free element of the spectacle has been choked off and the financial opportunities of the world famous event exploited with ever increasing avarice. The result is the current Blue Riband of the Turf becoming a shadow of what it once was. The FA Cup treads the same dangerous path

[Matt Collins]

And the Darren Bent 1-0 3-4 seasons ago. We went for it that game too, it wasn't a backs to the wall job if I remember rightly.

It was basically the same performance but we scored and kept a clean sheet

[Matt Collins]

One frustration today was how often we had the opportunity to put it in a cross when we had players in the box and didn't.

I disagree. We had Weimann up front. I think he proved today he's no target man (I never understood why people wanted him to replace gabby there). Crosses into the box against Kompany and mangala would have been a complete waste unless there was space

I'm not going to suggest we're great. Or that I'm not concerned about our goal threat. But we had all three of our viable centre forward options unable to start and that was a real problem.

We're seventh after playing last season's top four consecutively in our first seven games. We won two and drew one of the other three. Benteke and vlaar have been out which in the spot has meant certain defeat. At the start of the season many of us thought we'd go down. Results have gone to form in the last three games and suddenly the tone of the comments would suggest we're bottom three. I'm not exactly surprised and I know people's patience is wearing thin after four years of this. But in what may be a difficult season I'm disappointed at how quickly people are slashing the wrists. I expect grealish to be written off if he has two more games like that too. Meh

[Matt Collins]

Nzogbia is a frustrating player but he was involved in some of our best moments and is the only player we have who can really penetrate in the final third. I'd play him v Everton as I reckon they're vulnerable at full back and pace wise.

[oldtimernow]

You are absolutely right Chris. The core problem for all of us who love sport is that those who run the sports are obsessed with money and unable to grasp the fundamental importance of the values of what they control.  Wherever you look, horse racing, formula 1, cricket, athletics, rugby, the very essence of the sport is being bloated and devalued by marketing and the pointless spiral of money chasing more money.

The simplest comparison I can think of is that sport of all kinds has become like modern food, far too much of it, churned out off the back of saturation advertising and, compared to what went before, basically unsatisfying.

Why did the Tour de France attract such massive crowds in this country this year? Because it was free. You could turn up to the route and watch it and go home again. Why does the Epsom Derby which used to attract half a million spectators  to the Downs now pull in a crowd little bigger than an evening meeting at Newmarket with Status Quo doing a turn after the last race?

Football has become a snake so greedy and so stupid it has started to eat its own tail.

Spot on

[olaftab]

We generally defended well, despite them scoring two and hitting the woodwork twice. Given their array of expensive talents I was not bitter at losing the way we did. Modern footbal is hard to swallow, but we were set up well defensively, kept our shape and were in a position to win the game after 65 minutes.

The real disappointment for me was that we squandered some decent opportunities to put real pressure on them when we were in good positions. Weimann took advantage of a cock up in the first half and failed to muster a shot, whilst Richardson seemed to be wearing lead boots when clean through in the second. We lost forward momentum for all but the first five minutes after Benteke came on, but a lot of that was due to their substitutions, allowing Toure and Lampard to move further forward ( and ultimately kill us).

Negatives - Guzan's  kicking, Zog's inability to cross and some awful misplaced passing from good starting positions.  We also looked one dimensional once Benteke came on. First time I have seen Cleverley and he needs to develop strength - but we generally looked like weedy kids versus men .

I was in the Holte Upper and atmosphere was deceent, literally couldn't hear City fans until they scored. Really disappointed at the mass exodus when they scored as I thought our lads deserved hearty applause for their efforts at the end.

Excellent post. And I hope the team didn't have the same pack up and go attitude as some supporters did at 1-0.

[atomicjam]

From signing on fees to wages to sponsorships they could fund the NHS but they instead pay footballers to be better than us. They are the ultimate example of why football is rubbish. They could be Leicester or Fulham. It just happened that another bunch of arrogant mancs were up for grabs with a big souless stadium.

We did ok, we keep the ball at throw ins and can defend. When we play a team who have not bought a place up there we will be fine.

[fredm]

City played Hull and Villa away and won both games by a 2 goal margin. The difference being Hull after being 2 down gave it a go and equalised. Villa hardly threatened the goal throughout the 90 minutes and Hart did not have to make a save of note.  Which fans went home the happier - Hull or Villa?

[Ads]

Chris J, I agree regarding Cleverley. I think he played well too. He moves the ball on quickly and doesn't mind getting his shorts dirty. Once Benteke is back fully fit, I think he will benefit from having Cleverley playing behind him.

N'Zogbia is a frustrating as anything, best typified by him cutting City apart, beating four of them and then not producing anything at the end. I would have kept him on and I would play him more regularly still though, inspite of the indifferent delivery as I think he will work well with Benteke and is probably our most creative midfielder.

Regarding the comments about Lambert being inept because Man City had more chances, I am sorry but I find those comments bizarre. Man City are the champions of England and have bagged 80 odd points for the the past four seasons. That means they're winning 20-25 games a season, with the likes of Ya Ya Toure, Ageuro, Silva, I heart James Milner and Dzeko, who was crap, so they have the option of bringing on a midfielder that has scored 200 goals. They have more chances than just about everybody, with the exception of say Chelsea, who we had the misfortune of playing last. Chelsea incidentally played William, Hazard and Oscar, so £90 million worth of talent, who they added Fabregas too and a world class centre forward who was the difference in his side pipping Messi, Ronaldo and Bale to the title. They had more chances than us too.

We defended pretty well in both games, played some nice stuff up in midfield at times and had one or two chances and worked very hard, but ultimately succumbed, as will 85-90% of sides, to Russian and Gulf hydrocarbon fuelled fantasy football. I think anybody seriously criticising Lambert for the set up and the past two games lacks any sense of perspective. We are not playing the same sport as Chelsea and Man City. Or Arsenal as it happens, whose first goal scorer cost £44 million, 6.3 times our total summer spend. Nobody is suggesting you can't get a result or that you surrender. In the case of the former, that is possible, but as they're end of season points total indicates, it doesn't happen too often. In the case of the latter, anybody who watched the game will have seen how hard we worked. Chuck a fit Benteke, Vlaar and Gabby in and you increase your chances.

Against those lacking world class players, we look defensively very solid and more than capable of getting a result, as the statistic of 10 points from 12 shows.

[Ian.]

Well I'm just glad we have got these teams out of the way.

Sometimes I think Lambert's reign here is cursed. He loves it here, he seems to appreciate the size of the club, the fans etc. he comes across as such a decent and willing chap. You get the impression he is popular with the players. But since he's been here the task in hand has been thwarted with massive long term injuries, ill health, ridiculous wage cutting, which seems to have been managed somewhere very wrong, having his long term allies or friends even take the piss behind the scenes, It's been mental. He obviously agreed to the task of keeping us in the top flight on a budget, which he did, just. Then suddenly the premier league throws us a set of fixtures at the start of a new season which is just bloody crazy. I know we beat Liverpool but even there it was a team created by a spend of over 200 million pounds. We held out thank god and got the points, but to then face Arsenal, Chelsea and City has been a pain in the arse and just messed with all the optimism in the air.

Well hopefully now, we can start to get key players fit and ready to go. We can maybe play some games with a more fair standing. There has been enough glimpses of improvement this season for me to remain confident. Hopefully our attacking play will improve as we build confidence and be not just a solid and organised team.