Aston Villa v Birmingham City - Match Thread

[dicedlam]

Get Gestede and Agbonlahor off and put Sinclair up top with both Gil and Grealish either side.

[olaftab]

Lescott is very nervous

Not nervous just useless.

[aev]

Gabby looking poorly..maybe he has to leave early and tuck the kids in.

[richard moore]

Awful so far, this is all very worrying and the portents for the season ahead are not good

[villa_cads]

Well, Clark is not a midfielder. This side is so unbalanced, what is our game plan tonight?

[ozzjim]

Westwood is out of position. He is almost playing wide right. He should be where Clark is, and Clark should be either sitting in a 3 with 2 up front or we should have Grealish on the pitch.

[Monty]

Clark you tit.

He's just not a midfielder. I've seen centre-backs much better on the ball than Clark struggle to cope with the extra pressure on the ball in the middle of the pitch. It's a daft move to play him in there.

[Nelly]

Get Gestede and Agbonlahor off and put Sinclair up top with both Gil and Grealish either side.

Add Sanchez in midfield and I'm with you.

[Uknowthescore]

Clark in midfield is just not working

[Nirog72]

If we are going to play Allardyce football I'd rather Allardyce was in charge. Why did we buy technical, passing players in the summer to do this?!? Feel sorry for Veretout in particular, the only player attempting to play football.

[Proposition Joe]

Hoofing and flicking. Against Blues. At home.

Make no mistake, this is a managerial decision. And it's as bad as anything we saw from TSMs I or II.

I would guess the fact that they've come to play and we've decided to be all in your face and kick them all over the place is also due to Tim firing them up.  But it makes us look like the lower league cloggers trying to knock the big team out of their stride.

[silhillvilla]

What's our formation and tactics ?

[Jon Crofts]

Gestede has taken root.

[SoccerHQ]

Awful game so far, again Midlands football looking like the stone ages.

[SamTheMouse]

The starting line-up is pretty much an admission that we won't be playing much football and will be looking to grind out a battling draw.