Don’t get me wrong, I’m as happy as any other fan about the result against Man City.
As I said in my thoughts thread, it was a cracking result and a bonus three points that the vast majority of us never expected.
And while part of me expected us to lose, I expected us to have put up a better overall effort.
It’s a bit difficult to describe what I’m trying to get at, as ultimately we won, which is all that matters at the end of the day and indeed it makes my argument look weak.
So I’ll have to cut to the chase.
How poor did we look in the first half?
Did we have a single shot on target or even create a chance? Not from what I recall.
And that’s worrying, when you’re at home.
Ok, us being unable to open up teams at Villa Park is an ongoing problem.
Before saturday, I think we’d taken something like 11 points from 42 at VP.
That’s simply not good enough and indeed is relegation form at best.
In fairness, we turned it around somewhat in the second half and looked better, but the truth is we were being well and truly battered all over the pitch.
And no-one can deny that we were lucky, can they?
Here’s an opinion I read on a Man City site. It’s obviously a bit one-eyed but there is a line that immediately surprised me, but makes sense;
“for 85 minutes this was a routine victory against the worst side we have faced this season. Villa were laboured, poor in possession and were swamped by our movement in attack. Yet they somehow came away with the win. Typical City is alive and well…”
Yes, an outsider’s view and maybe a bit of sour grapes, but I don’t ever remember us being called the worst side they’ve played on any website, anywhere (I often read the opposition’s fans opinions, for what it’s worth; it gives me alternate views and keeps me more balanced).
And it’s not as though they’ve played all the top teams before us.
We’re talking Newcastle, Cardiff, Hull and Stoke (although Utd are in that list too).
So yet another new low, in my experience.
Of course, we have the excuses that we were missing top players and are bringing new young players through etc and they’re valid points.
But my point is that saturday’s result should not gloss over the fact that we’re really not very good in many areas and we shouldn’t get carried away.
We’re very much a work in progress, I mean.
As Johnny Storm of the fantastic 4 would say, “flame on”, I suppose.
Would you really prefer that I come out and say everything is rosey and we’re going to qualify for the Champions League though?
Look at it more that I’m playing devil’s advocate, please.
I agree that everything is not rosy at VP. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again “this is the worst Villa team/squad I’ve ever witnessed. Having said that, one thing they don’t lack is effort. They all bust a gut each time they put on that shirt and wether we win/lose or draw we can’t fault them for effort. How many people have said in the past that as long as the lads give 110% that’s all that can be asked of them? Well that’s what they’re giving. No we’re not a good side but look at our squad and look at Man City’s, they should be battering us but our effort, belief and some luck has got us through. It was the same at Chelsea, they should of battered us but in the end we were unfortunate to come away with nothing. Every team needs luck, no one wins anything just by skill. We don’t have the best players around compared to what we’ve had in the past, because we have had some quality players in the past, but one thing that I’m seeing at VP for the first time in a long time is players busting a gut for each other and the manager as opposed to a bunch of overrated, overpaid, lazy prima donnas who’s only concern is to pick up there pay packets.
I have faith in Lambert that he will give us a decent team and within 3 years we will be challenging the top 6. It’s finding the blend of hard work and quality, but for the time being I’m happy with players that work hard.
I agree B6. At least these players want to play for Villa and show it. They are trying to make a name for themselves and if we find quality players each year we will be fighting for the top six after even two more seasons if the Benteke cash is spent wisely.
Simply we need an AM to unlock defences. Sylla and KEA can play DM roles for now and with a good AM we can afford to have a 4 man midfield with Sylla and KEA both in DM and Delph as the other man in the middle. Bacuna and Luna could make width and move forward more often with Sylla and KEA covering. To me an AM is what we need most, especially for our home games, and I don’t mean some cheap 2 million buy that ‘might’ come off. I want a solid youngster who has proven himself and will be a star. 10-15 million and if that’s all we did in January, you know what, id be happy with that (pending injuries, assuming benteke stays).
If we played 4-4-2 who would be your two up front?
That’s not a bad idea about the 442 Darren but my thoughts are this. Yes I agree with the 442 but with the team that you’ve said we would be lacking natural width. I’d go with the defence that you’ve said but then I’d only play 1 dm (Sylla/Delph/KEA, I’d play Gabby right midfield, Bennett left midfield (yes I think Bennett is decent going forward and can deliver good crosses) I’d then play either Helenius or N’Zogbia (watch me get slated now ha ha) as an attacking midfielder and Weimann and Benteke up top. That would also leave us with options on the bench.
Having said that Darren if Lowton can find his form from last season is play Lowton at RB and play Bacuna as the AM.
B6, how about Delph on the left with Luna and Gabby, Bacuna on the right with Lowton and Wiemann and then KEA/Westwood/Sylla in the middle? I think Delph is the key on the left to Luna and Gabby doing so well, I just don’t think the right hand side works which is why Wiemann has been having such a hard time of it.
Foxy…..I personally think if we took Delph out of the middle we’d be weakening that position. He could even play AM, it’s where he used to play when he was at Leeds, I just think he’s our strongest midfielder and would be more use as a DM than a winger/RM/LM.
Sorry, what I meant was Delph LM and Bacuna RM with one of the others in the middle. If we had Delph in the middle (which isn’t a bad idea at all) who would we have on the left in our now trademark 4-3-3 formation? As much as I don’t like the predictability of that formation it seems to be the best one for away matches. I like Delph on the left, he works really well with Luna and Gabby. If you look at the stats for Guzan long balls to Benteke he’s always on the left hand side with Gabby despite I think Benteke working better in partnership with Wiemann. Is it because Guzan is more accurate kicking to the left or does it have something to do with Delph/Gabby/Luna being stronger than the right hand side of the field?
I disagree that this is the worst Villa team/squad. In my opinion, we were worse under McLeish.
I don’t think the squad was bad under McLeish, there was just no morale in the players or VP. I believe even Gabby said that if McLeish stayed he’d consider going somewhere else.
The results don’t lie if we had of lost to city it would if been our worst start since 1946
Ps all that result v city has done is paper over the cracks. This team could easily go another 10 games without a win
IF we had lost to City….that’s IF, fact is we didn’t lose to them, we beat them. Admitidly we didn’t deserve to and we had some luck but at the end of the day we DID Beat them.
True. I think we are going to be one of those teams that could play utd away and win 3.1 then lose 3.0 at home to palace the week after.
We had a tough start. And as I keep banging on about, let’s see where we are at Christmas. I mean it’s not as if we can buy in any new players until then so it’s all now down to the manager and the team he chooses.
True mon always said he never looked at the table till after 12 games so let’s see where we are then as that is a decent indicator of where we will finish
Last season the team didn’t gel until after that awful December, and then did well in the second half. If we can do well enough until Christmas (and Gabby doesn’t pick up his usual winter injury) hopefully we can get a decent full season in.
I read that comment on the ManC blog and just thought the writer was an arrogant asshole. As far as I’m concerned ManC is the worst team we’ve played all season, their defence was appalling and it looks like they just never assumed we’d be able to put up a counter attack without Benteke and didn’t bother. Arrogant and very very poor.
The team is shaping up and we’ve seen that Lerner is willing to provide money. In two seasons Lambert has completely changed the squad, including bringing in cover (this season LB, RB/M, CB, goalie, striker, striker/AM, midfielder and I probably forgot one or two) and there’s now no reason for him to go and buy six or seven players again. In January maybe one or two to fine tune the squad or replace injuries, next window maybe a couple of £8-£10million players and so on until in three or so years time we’re fighting for sixth or so.
I still think we’ll finish somewhere between 10th and 14th and have some fun (and some complete disasters) along the way. The Liverpool first half and entire Newcastle games were utter rubbish but we played really well against Chelsea, Arsenal and Norwich so just because we fluked it against ManC and lost to Spurs in the week (I still reckon Lambert used that as a glorified training session) it doesn’t mean we don’t have an ok squad and are in the crap.
There will always be over reactions when we win a game we didn’t expect to or lose a game we expected to win.
The reality is we are a lower mid table side, with a good team spirit and a manager whose strength lies in motivating a young group of players. On paper the squad is weak but the desire and unity is clearly there and that will carry us through.
I agree with oohah’s view that I can see us upsetting more of the ” tradiotional top 6″ yet screwing up against Palace, Cardiff, Fulham, etc because when the pressure is on us to win at home, we lack the cutting edge, guile and composure as the Newcastle game showed.
In many ways Man City at home was like an away game for us, they were never going to sit back and counter like others, so played into our hands in the second half.
To move forward truly we have to retain the ball better and for that we have to invest in a quality midfielder (not a £1/2m bargain buy). If we keep the ball better, then the knock on effect should mean less corners conceded and ultimately less goals conceded.
And here we go with the negatives.
Lets focus on reality….. Man City have hundred of millions of £ worth of quality players in their squad so they were expected to dominate possession wise, as they do most weeks, especially on such a big pitch.
What you fail to mention or understand is the tactical genius from Lambert Saturday, knowing exactly how to come up against one of the best teams in Europe.
No it wasn’t pretty, but it worked. Reducing City to long shot after long shot, with their goals coming from set pieces.
2nd half we showed alot more character and I thought we were brilliant at times, defensively and going forward, while missing 3 key players.
I bet Moyes wishes he setup like that last weekend…!!!
Helenius my thoughts as well, they lost but looking for an excuse to how, its goals that count if you have two over rated centre backs that don’t defend who is there to blame? obviously they are, even Trever Francis said they wanted locking up, OK it was pure luck that Man City with a limited less pocket lost to a shoe string club, my words to them , get over it, its goals that count, might be they cannot take the Micky out of each other them two Manc,s got beat and it hurts.
I think moyes did set up like that but when they got the first goal utd had to attack which left their defence open. Re,ember city have struggled away all season even Cardiff beat them 3.0 so perhaps not a great a result as we all think. Nothing to do with tactics lambert dosnt know meaning if the word. It was simply put everyone behind the ball and hope for the best. City just didn’t finish well and completely let us of the hook. We were extremely lucky not to get hammered as could of been 4.0 down by half time
Why does everything have to do with “luck” (which doesn’t exist)? Why can’t it be that Villa actually defended well? They had really no clear cut chances until they scored from Toure’s shot…
Because we got a goal that was a yard offside the free kick that led to our goal wasn’t a free kick and we were lucky their defenders defended like clowns for their third goal. They still had enough half chances to win and let’s face it how many could complain if we were 3-4 .0 down at half time. Yes we defended well it their finishing was woeful. They took us lightly second half and paid the price.
OOHAH, I don’t know exactly how the offside rule works but if KEA’s foot wasn’t on the ground then he wasn’t offside. Wiemann was fouled so it was a free kick (he was checked, therefore making a return pass impossible). So no, it wasn’t that unfair on us. We were lucky in that there seemed to be some kind of forcefield around the right post which meant all ManC strikes were just going wide. In essence we were as lucky as Liverpool were when none of our shots went past the goalie. Still luck played a part, it was just that ManC had all the bad luck when it came to shots and we took all available opportunities.
What I find remarkable is that I’m agreeing with OOHAH quite a lot at the moment, it must still be the aftereffects of the match on Saturday.
You know what they say foxy if you can’t beat em join em. Glad to have you on the dark side me and terry will take you through your initiation shortly 🙂
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
Don’t worry Foxy, I’ll save you..
Moyes setup 3-5-2 did he……Get real OOHAH, have a day off
I rest my case. His results are hardly anything to brag about so far. We all know he is just keeping the seat warm for a top foreign manager
Ooh ahh.. that is complete and utter bollox.. we had six points before the City game.. when we lost four on the bounce under Little the MAX we could have had was 6 after six games then too.. and i am sure that wasn’t in the 1940’s
Haven’t been on here for a few days and then all i see is you moaning away.. FFS..
The facts are.. we have issues in midfield and our TOP man has missed the last two games.. which by all accounts would be seen as a disaster and yet we have claimed six points against a title challenging team and another who have only lost to us in there last 10 home games ( approx )
If we can get 9 points from Arsenal Chelsea Liverpool Newcastle Norwich and Man City then what can we achieve against others.. We haven’t been whooped by anyone.. no one has scored more then 2 goals against us.. we have conceded a goal in the last ten minutes.. ALL things we WERE doing last season and yet some will say there are NO signs of improvement from last season.. FFS get ur head out of your ar$e.. last season Chelsea Liverpool Arsenal Man City smashed 13 past us and this season it has been 6.. at least call a spade a spade.. and then people wonder why some can’t be bothered to post on here anymore..
Fecking hell we are the third highest scorers in the league and that’s without any invention.. and on top of that from the fixtures we have had.. imagine when we do start showing invention 😉
Tbh iv not seen one team that’s impressed me so far. I think Liverpool coukd win the league this year and saints and Everton have fine well as have arsenal since we caught them cold other than that the rest of teams are much of a muchness
Liverpool aren’t winning anything. Yes Sturridge and Suarez are probably the best strike partnership around, but their defense has shown problems, as has their midfield and Lucas while a very, very good DM, can’t cover Gerrard while doing his own job, covering the wingbacks and defenders, while controlling the midfield, so they’ll get opened up.
best strike duo in England*
I think Spurs and Arsenal are looking pretty good at the moment considering the problems all the other big teams are having.
No one’s glossing over anything. We won. We know we have problems though. We’re all aware we could have been gone and out after the first 30 minutes, but the team defended extremely well, so much better from last season. Then their goal came before half, after I believe their 9th corner? So clearly we’re doing much better on set pieces as it took their 9th and 10th corner’s to score. We had 1 midfielder, 1 defender and 1 striker score, that’s something that very rarely ever happens for Villa as of late. No one’s claiming we’re CL contenders, few are claiming we’re even Europa League contenders, but few are glossing over the fact that we got out played, however the team defended so well that we won. Not luck, we won. Of course the first goal should have been ruled out but that’s a linesman error, not this fictional luck garbage.
We didnt play well on Saturday and if we play like that against Hull, we will probably lose.
However, what we did show was fighting spirit and the ability to hold on to a lead even under serious pressure (similar to against Norwich)
For me, when we have a full team (without okore), this is our strongest line up:
Guzan
Lowton Vlaar Baker Luna
Sylla/Westwood Delph
Bacuna Weimann Gabby
Benteke
Why do we only seem to play well one good half and one bad half we have not played well fr both halfs all season. Everton already 3.0 v Newcastle. They have a good team now
That didnt come out as i wanted it to…but its a 4-2-3-1 formation! Weimann playing as the ‘number 10’ which given his number, may work!
Does the league table lie? Yes after 6 games because you haven’t played the rest of the teams and your fixtures may not be representative of the whole league. So who has had a hard start? Here’s a crude analysis. “Big 5” teams (MU, MC, A, TH, C) are a difficulty factor of 4. Liverpool and Everton are worth 3, the promoted teams are worth 1 and all other teams 2. If you play a team from a band above you, away, then add an extra point for difficulty.
This doesn’t give you a new league table, but does tell you how hard your games have been and an idea of how realistic your league position is so far.
And the results….
Average difficulty is 14
Man U who claim to have had a hard start = 16
Cardiff 17
Hull 18
Villa 21
So my point is…. 9th is a good start.
It’s not how you start it’s how you finish. Arsenal started poorly against us look at them now. Lets see where we are after 12 games iv a feeling it won’t be as high as 9th
Tbh, I expected a right slating re this post.
Thanks for going easy on me.
The truth is, I’m a fair bit more upbeat than the post indicated.
But it’s all about debate and I read some good points here.
Yes, City did and should have battered us with their quality, but they didn’t get the result.
This was a freak result though to me and we really shouldn’t read too much into it in that sense.
What will define our season is how we perform against our peers: the likes of Stoke etc
It’s a bit sad to rate us so low, but there you go.
Spot on badger all this result did was paper over the cracks of how poor we really are at home.
Good morning one and all have just got back from a fishing trip to Adinkerke Belgium so what a surprise we SHIT on SHITTY now bring on Hull another three points seems everytime i am away we win.So come on lads another win please as i am in Ireland fishing this weekend.
Lets hope you don’t (mean do) fall in and get eaten by a man eating carp.
Mate don;t know of any carp in the river Shannon but will keep me eye out for one.lol.
Some nice bream Terry but mainly Trout mate, (Belterpits ) 13 nice pubs.
And don’t forget the soadabread….. with a Guinness Terry.
I think we set up for the game the only way we could and it worked, if we’d have tried any other way city would have run away with it, there was an element of luck but anyone remember last season at city and their 2 disgraceful pen decisions that went against us?
at half time though I really couldn’t see us scoring and with tekkers and gabby out really what else could we expect.
just prior to the equaliser Lambert was just about to bring Albrighton and Tonev on so looks like we were going to go 4-4-2 for the last half hour which shows we were going to give it a go to get something and roll the dice.
it was a brave performance and well played tactically.
we still have big problems obviously but there is a good team spirit at the club which you can see on the pitch never more evident than on Saturday.
personally when the fixtures came out I wouldn’t have been at all surprised at seeing us in the bottom 3 with 3 or less point by the end of sept and that would’ve been realistic.
I think you’re bang on with this post badger mate. It’s what I was trying to get at in another post recently after the game. We were extremely lucky and that tripled with determination & effort is what saw us through. Not good football, balanced play, fair share of possession or any other these types of things. We were battered and totally outplayed for the majority of the game. Kompany against Manure was the scariest 90 inutes I’ve seen from a defender in a long while, he didn’t do not one thing wrong for the entire match. We were very lucky for our winner as on any other day this season you will not see Citeh defend like that.
I believe we’re playing worse football now than our run-in last season from January and arguably beofre, yes, even considering our batterings over Christmas. Out possession game which I was very impressed with last term seems to have gone out the window and we are now just a counter attacking team, very one dimentional. We are playing a worrying alount of long ball (mostly from Guzan) which wasn’t happening last season. Our midfield look somewhat flaky despite all their efforts, (which I won’t fault). The midfield 3 always looks to have too many gaps and at times the Tour”s and Lampards of the world have a good 10 yards space to play which is too much. They are stretched very easily. At this very moment I think our midfiled is the weakest area.
There are some positives though, it’s not all doom and gloom. Main positive for me is we look like a team, everyone putting in a shift for each other which I’m really delighted to see, every lad on the filed seems to bleed claret and blue at the moment, the group hug after our 3rd against Citeh and particularly Lunas celebration was full of passion and pride for the badge, and I think genuinely as well. Defence looks a little tighter which I thought I would never be saying, they are really doing the simple things well at the moment, Vlaar looks a different player and Clarke looks 10x better because he’s not trying to be Ronaldo and take on the Tevez’s of the world. Luna is a nice upgrade from Bennet and Bacuna and lowton give us great rotation at RB.
Anyway won’t bang on and on. UTV
Steer seems to prefer to put the ball out to defenders rather than hoof it up to Benteke. Guzan’s ball to Wiemann for the third City goal was a cracker but unless there’s a possible break on (and what a great move by Wiemann too, he makes a lot of these runs and often no one picks them up or choses to go with them) it shouldn’t be the default setting.
Agree mark all the last 2 results have done is paper over the cracks. It’s inky a matter if time before we get a hammering. Beat in mind the first goal was offside the second goal was an exception rather than the rule and the third goal was villaesque defending by city. Lamberk said it was vision from Guzan but us was just a long punt from Guzan which 99 out of a 100 times leads to nothing. I think city grossly underestimated us. And bear in mind city have not been a good away side all year and still not won away yet. They are not as good as we all think as proven by Bayern last night
Bollocks, the goals were great, especially the third where Guzan looked up, saw Wiemann on the run and Kozak up with him, Kozak did enough to make it look like he was getting the ball although he either didn’t connect or let it run, and the defenders and Hart didn’t have a chance. Cracking opportunist goal and about the only time I can think of where a long ball from Guzan has led direct to a goal.
Is there anything you do like about Villa? I’m not accepting Benteke as an answer, you had a lot to say about him when all the rumours were abound that he was leaving.
I like okore too
If we had conceded the third goal we’d all be up in arms saying how shit defence is. But because we took advantage of their error it is suddenly a great goal! Do me a fabour bacuna s goal was the best of a bad bunch of goals for both teams
That’s a very royal “we” there. I don’t think we have the greatest defence in the league but then again they’re looking a lot better than last season (what is it, plus 10 goal difference on the same matches last season?) and when they’re pummelled as much as they were by ManC there is an element of exhaustion creeping in. I find it odd that Benteke is being credited as being a great striker but it’s never the opposition’s defence or goalie who is to blame. Why can’t we look at some really nice goals scored against us rather than blame the defenders for not being perfect? People bang on about our defence being shit but ManC have such a strong team they’re going to bang in goals left, right and centre whoever you are. As it was even had we conceded another the defence would have done a great job just limiting it to three. The Sturridge goal against us was a superb bit of work, in much the same way the Wiemann goal was against ManC. We though, in the view of a select few, have a shit defence. ManC have an incredibly expensive and a pretty damn good defence. All defenders make mistakes, sometimes they make a lot of them (ManC again are a good example this season, ManU too). There are some bloody good strikers (and midfielders) scoring some great goals in the PL so on current form and looking at the results so far I think our lot are doing a good job. I started the season wondering why Clark had a new contract (but trusting the manager on that one) and agreeing that Vlaar not having a new and improved contract yet was a good move but I’m now looking at both of them and wondering if by the end of the season Okore is going to be the one struggling to get a starting spot.
Bacuna’s goal was excellent. ManC seem to have underestimated Villa, become complacent. From that distance Hart didn’t think someone could get the ball over the tall defenders in the wall so he covered the gap. He was wrong. The Wiemann goal came from two defenders being too far forward. They’d been in our half for most of the match and forgot that balls sometimes come out of nowhere. I still don’t know if you have to have the offside part of your body touching the ground for it to be offside as from what I saw KEA was in mid air, with his back foot touching the ground onside. If someone wants to correct me then I’ll concede that he was offside and we were lucky but until then it was a darn fine goal from someone who hasn’t scored in a year but who put himself in the position to get the shot away.
Three scored from four chances on target. No, we didn’t put on a show, tens of thousands of Villa hearts were in mouths for the last 15 minutes of the match and yet our bunch of academy players, lower league upstarts and cheap to relatively cheap unknown foreign players beat one of the most expensive bunch of players in the EPL who won the title two seasons ago.
I like the line someone used here after the match: they came, they saw, we conquered.
The defence us not better it’s the teams we have played who have missed loads if chances djeko for example should of had a hatrick plus city only beat us 1.0 last season at home. Chelsea arnt going to beat us 8.0 everytime and under mourinho they are more defensive more likely to win 1,0 than 8.0. Liverpool beat us 2.1 last year and 1.0 this year. Newcastle still beat us 2.1 again. Spurs beat us yet again 4.0 at home, we beat Norwich 2.1 instead of 1.0 last season the 2 results v arsenal and city were better but we beat Liverpool 3.1 away last year and u can bet we won’t beat them this year so arsenal result is in lieu of that. We had a jammy win v Norwich and an even jammier win over city. We will still concede lots of goals as time goes on and we will finish around 6th from bottom and we will all cream ourselves as last season we finished 5th from bottom whoopee. We won’t go down thou especially as palace and Sunderland are as good as down already
So if City scored a 3rd, “we” (meaning you claiming for the rest of us as per usual which is usually wrong), would claim our defense is shit? No, not really. Our defense isn’t shit, they’re not great, they’re good, hard working and are getting quite used to each other and learning from each other. Villa conceded 2 goals from set pieces, because City had so many of them, because of Villa’s fine defending. Unlike City yesterday against Bayern who dominated City as City did us, but Bayern took their chances, and won 3-1, which could have been 5-6 to 0, but like City to us. Difference is is that our defense held firm, something that hasn’t happened in years.
Not sure why the look of our goals matter… Most goals come from defensive mistakes, that’s why they’re scored. A handful come from the brilliance from the likes of Bacuna and his free kick. It’s simple if you actually understood the game.
Think u misunderstand I meant if we had conceded a goal like city’s 3rd we would all be pissed of and slag the defence. Not every goal is from an error bacunas wasn’t
Pissed? Hardly, probably would have been annoyed at best.
And I NEVER claimed every goal, I claimed most goals. “A handful come from the brilliance like Bacuna and his free kick”. Reading helps.
When the great Alex Ferguson joined Manchester Utd his first season was really poor.His second a little better.And so it went on.Man Utd had won trophies before and expected from their new manager who was eventually given time to build a team.Alex Ferguson has ended up the greatest manager of his time and probably that we or the PL will ever see.Im not comparing Lambert and Ferguson together but I am saying a manager needs time to build.Im sick and tired of all this petty crap from supporters who want to see the bad in everything and never the good.Lambert needs seasons 4 or 5 at least then judge him not judge on 1 or 2 seasons.The man wants to do well he’s trying hard and so are the team.Give it a fuckin rest…….UTV
Your having a laugh jay dee. When fergie joined in 1986 they hadn’t won the league for at least 17 years. He took over at a time when managers could take a few years to build but remember if he had lost that forest game in fa cup he was out in his arse. He was also lucky to get 6 exceptional youngsters all come through at the same time. Our youngsters are nowhere near in the class of giggs, scholes etc. And if they were they wouldn’t last long enough at villa for lambert to build around them as they would be off to a sky four team. We are a selling club now and selling clubs are never successful. Benteke would have gone after one season if it wasn’t for the World Cup next year. A classic example is west ham who have always produced good talent if they had held on long enough to Ferdinand, carrick, Parker, cole, Lampard when tevez and masciotino arrived they would have probably won the league. But like us they sold all their best players and are about the same as us now. We are the new west ham I’m afraid.
As I said I wasn’t comparing the two managers but saying and this is a fact as you put it out on his arse but he survived,he built,he conquered.Lambert will see us fine and I actually feel glad that we have a manager who wants to win.Lambert is passionate,positive,hungry and wants to win things.AVFC when Lambert took over you have to admit we were shit mate.I believe in Lambert,I like his passion and the fact he wants it.He is a young manager as managers go but we have beaten 2 of the top 4 already this season.Im sure some would find something to moan about even if he won a trophy.We will have got 12 points if we win on Saturday from 21 and be about 7 or 8 the which will be a good start considering the fixtures…..UTV
Jay Dee Oohah does have a point mate, in this here wonderful EPL you would be raped of all your half decent players if we had the merest hint of success and I think you hit the nail on the head with ” Lambert is passionate,positive,hungry and wants to win things” and that’s the point, if he eventually does ok at VP and then gets a better offer and he’ll be off like a ferret up a drain pipe (imo) in same way he unceremoniously departed from Norwich and Colchester before that.
If his previous form is anything to go by then it’d be foolish to expect much loyalty.
So true BWS lambert can say what he likes about player loyalty but he will be the first to fuck of when a sky four club come calling. However I really don’t think he will ever be at sky 4 team 3 reasons: 1) tactically inept
2) can’t handle big players
3) no charisma
Can definitely see some similarities though. Both are stubborn, both take a while to integrate new players, unless already proven. Both will stick with their players despite struggling to see show their character. When at Norwich he played a similar style to United. Both like players with really good work rates and United had a few world class players, but still with a bunch of above average players, got the job done multiple times, Lambert’s on that road now. Will he become Ferguson? Probably not, but there are similarities.