Aston Villa kick-off their League Cup campaign with a home game against Rotherham. Aston Villa suffered an embarrassing elimination last season losing to Bradford City in the semi-final of the League Cup. This year, Lambert believes that the team is much stronger. Rotherham have been promoted to this season’s League 1 and they haven’t been doing so poorly, they’re currently undefeated in their league!
I expect Paul Lambert to make a host of changes for this game, and the starting 11 may host one or two players from our youth academy. I’m also fairly confident that our new signings will be given more game time, expect second keeper Steer to start as well.
Team News:
Aston Villa will be without Baker and Luna is a doubt for this game. N’Zogbia is still out injured.
Rotherham will be without suspended forward Daniel Nardiello. Winger David Worrall remains a doubt.
Stats:
Aston Villa reached the quarter-finals in the 2011 season and the semi-finals in 2013.
Likely-Lineups:
Steer
Bacuna-Clark-Okore-Bennett
Albrighton-Herd-Gardner-Tonev
Bowery-Helenius
Revell-Tubbs
Agard-Frecklington-O’Connor-Pringle
Bradley-Morgan-Arnson-Skarz
Shearer
Predictions:
Aston Villa 2-0 Rotherham
I’ve probably got the starting 11 completely wrong, but I truly expect Lambert to rest a few of our players. The same starting 11 played 3 games in one week! Still, I’m excited to see more of our youth and new signings and perhaps someone can push into our starting 11. I think Rotherham will give it a go, there a good League 1 side but I have a feeling Aston Villa and Paul Lambert will want the team to have a successful League Cup campaign, in order to forget the dismal one last season.
After a couple of weeks if football now and considering we had the three games we had..
Can anyone say that Everton Norwich Newcastle Sunderland Fulham Stoke Palace Hull look why better then us..
Ha ha…its difficult to fault Lambert’s substitutions! Other managers we have had were just useless at switching the team around! O’neill especially!
Cruise control lads, I’m a happy Villan, could of hd 6-7 goals tongiht
Delph man of the match,
Delph’s goal was a cracker but I’m going with Okore as MOTM, he was superb and is making Vlaar look good!
Cracking result. Compare this to last year’s embarrassment in the cup. I think we will upset a few teams this year. Definitely think Okore will turn into a Villa legend. He’s just what Vlaar needed – someone to steady the ship!
Just looked at stats and can’t believe we counter attacked Rotherham at home ffs. They actually had 52% possession to our 48%. How can we not dominate possession against a shit team like that. Yes possession isn’t crucial but when you are defending a ear keeping the ball for long periods us crucial
Didn’t look anything like that little possession, I thought it would be more like 70/30
I’m only going by what bbc stats say. Wev got spuds at home next round the scum have Swansea
We don’t have a team that’s going to play the possession game. Simply don’t have the technical team to be able to do it and Lambert looked desperate for a result. No real reason not to allow Tonev a start if Bacuna got one and such,
True but surely we should dominate teams like Rotherham ffs
So what… You want Villa to pass around aimlessly just so Villa can have more possession?
Whenever I watch teams dominate possession I see a lot of passing backwards. A sensible thing to do when attempting to keep the ball. The problem is, everytime I’ve been to Villa Park recently you always get that moaning minority have a bitch when the ball dares gets passed to the keeper or even back into our own half. TBH we won 3-0! Possession makes no difference.
Tottenham at home
Anyone know if the highlights are on tv later?
23:35 – BBC One
^thanks pence 83, i’m sure we’ll get the usual 2 mins!
Clean sheet clean sheet ohh ahh
In a Micky mouse match with Rotherham still gone a record 25 league games without a clean sheet. Another unwanted record from paul lambert.
It doesn’t matter where they get the clean sheet, as long as the confidence goes up.
A lot of so-called bigger teams who had “mickey mouse matches” with lower division sides struggled last night. Notts County took Liverpool to extra time same with Burton and Fulham. Not many kept clean sheets. This isn’t as easy as I believe you think it should be. Of course to you we should be beating every team 10-0 no matter if there league 1 or champions league. The idea of the game is to score more than you opponents. Not sit back and defend for a precious clean sheet. We could go 100 games without one for all I care, as long as we win more than we lose and we get progress in the side. Which is what is actually happening in reality. We’re going places Ooh Ah.
The difference being they didn’t play their full teams where we did
Didn’t look at the teams diud you before that silly comment. Liverpool team was
22 Mignolet
02 Johnson
04 Toure
20 Cissokho
47 Wisdom
06 Alberto
08 Gerrard
24 Allen
31 Sterling
33 Ibe
15 Sturridge
That’s a strong team not a 2nd team. Gerrard and Sturridge were in it for christ sake. They still struggled. The fulham team only had a couple of changes and had the amazing Darren Bent in it. Barely weak teams. We played well last night, got a clean sheet in a match which can prove tricky and we’ve struggled with in the past. We breezed through it. Now that’s what i call progress and things going in the right direction. The fact you refuse to admit its happening just goes to show how much you either hate to be wrong or an idiot you are becoming.
But still not full strength. The worrying thing is notts county did better than us against them ffs
Well hell, Luna was out injured, Lowton was on the bench as was Guzan. That’s basically the amount of changes Liverpool made.
Notts County “did better” simply because Wisdom is a garbage player. He was at fault for both of their goals and if he actually played against Villa, Villa would have put 5 past Liverpool. The difference between Agger and Wisdom is huge, that any of our CB’s would have played for them over him with ease.
Lunar and Guzan are no loss against a team like Rotherham tbh. Lowton maybe
Well it being Steer… You never know.
But you can say the exact same thing about Pool’s changes. Allen isn’t much of a change to Henderson, Alberton over Aspas, Sterling to Coutinho. And yet… They were broken down, had to go 120 minutes and had to sub in 3 players they were trying to rest for United, to save them. While Villa got to bring on 3 subs to get them some fitness, some time and just let them play without actual pressure.
I think Liverpool just got complacent though after being 2.0 up they just relaxed.
So Villa suck and Liverpool were just complacent. Did you bother watching Liverpool? County were good for their 2 goals and were hardly complacent.
bloody hell ooah, we keep a clean sheet and you still moan that we haven’t kept a clean sheet.
bottom line is we played a team tonight who we should have beaten comfortably(with all due respect). we beat them comfortably and the team played well, there was 22 thou at the game(a good showing for a mid week match in the league cup against a league one side)and everyone seems pretty happy, it was a possible banana skin(rotheram were unbeaten in 5 so far this season)and I expected a reasonably strong side due to the fact we have no game this weekend and this is a tournament I imagine we will take seriously so everyone was well entertained.
when you compare this to the performances of everton, Newcastle, crystal palace, Fulham, Liverpool and sunderland id say we did alright 🙂
Wiemann’s and Delph’s goals were both crackers too. I’m beginning to think maybe Vlaar was MOTM. He played a cracker of a match. Did you see it OOHAH?
Oohahh just likes to moan.. its in his genes!!
We are a work in progress and what i oike about PL is that whether he has the money or not he seems to scout players across the board… whether 1M or 10M..
I would love a creative midfielder in this summer BUT if we don’t get him i still think we will finish in a comfortable position..
I agree the midfield could be better and i think next summer we will sign players early again.. hopefully with a bigger budget in hand..
Newcastle Sunderland Norwich Palalce Hull Stoke even everton look a lot worse then us in the opening few weeks of the season.. struggling to score etc
I am quietly confident..
Lionheart the teams you have mentioned IMO will struggle but think our midfield & defense should have been the priority areas for PL to address our strike force is second to none but the engine room seems to splutter quite a bit.
Okore and Luna both look great, we moaned last season about Bennett not being up to task, and needing another CB. We have two players straight into those two positions and both of whom are only going to improve, plus Bacuna to back up Lowton and Clark and Baker as reserves in the middle. We have a lot in midfield too, with Tonev and Bacuna possible AMs, along with Gardner, Wiemann (please) and even N’Zog if he ever comes back. No, no one experienced but all following Lambert’s policy of young and either plucked from obscurity or lower or foreign leagues.
The thing is is that Bacuna, Tonev, Helenius have a fair bit of experience, because they’ve been playing since they were 18-19 years old, or even younger.
it was a solid performance last night. some great examples of passing football, one sequence for a goal (can’t remember which one) was sublime. great link up play between Gabby, Benteke and Weiman. Solid from Westwood and Delph, well what do you say, he will be player of the season, simply brilliant. Okore makes mistakes, but he puts them right, our defence is getting stronger Oohah. the lions roared last night.
I rate okore and like u say if he makes a mistake he has the pace and strength to put it right whereas milk turns quicker than vlaar!
Well said mate even maggots turn quicker into casters.
I like Delph but getting worried the amount of cards he’s getting, strong tackler and very determined player i did say few games ago he will be ear marked to get sent off by opposing clubs, l listen to avtv comment on the game as it was being played and to be honest you don’t feel part of the game with Jack what ever his name is just rambles away, did see the goals and wow nice play from Delph and Abonglahor, Vlaar played well Oohah told you give him time. 🙂
Only because okore keeps getting him out the shit
Not really, Vlaar actually looks to have picked up his game a bit. Maybe Okore gives him more confidence, but if he keeps it up, then he’s by far our most improved player.
Remember he was playing against Rotherham ffs not Real Madrid. No one on here will convince me re vlaar the guy the majority of time is a liability and he should be taking the pressure of okore not the other way round ffs!!
Haha welcome back Ooah.
I think you might have to eat your words in a few weeks mate re Vlaar.
He looked decent on Saturday and was ok last night from what I saw, which was most of it from about 5 Mins before we got the second goal.
True, it might be Okore making him look better, but who cares?
It’s about the pairing and compared to last season, we look a lot more resillient.
I know it was only Rotherham, but we must have had 90% possession, in what I saw and the truth is I pissed off out for a curry about 10 mins before the end, as it just looked like a training game, where we weren’t even really trying, tbh.
We won without even breaking sweat against a team that’s had a decent start to their season and that’ll do for me.
Thanks badger good to be back but hatred for vlaar still hasn’t gone. I thought he looked better against Liverpool to be fair but was very dodgy in first half hour and kept on clearing it to their players. I also hold him at fault for goal he just let the ball go across his body where he could if cut that out thou Delph must take blame to as he lost Sturbridge completely
You do realize Vlaar’s never going to play Real Madrid at Villa, right? I’m not worried about changing your mind, that doesn’t really bother me, simply pointing out a different view.
Vlaar looks much more comfortable with someone like Okore next to him and that’s brought the best out of him. As is said by most fans about the “smaller teams going against the bigger teams”, they have nothing to lose and will attack, Vlaar handled it with ease, something last season wouldn’t have happened.
So what happens if okore is injured and we are stuck with vlaar again without his babysitter. Admittedly I didn’t see him play last night but against Liverpool he was pulled all over the place in the first half hr his positioning is a joke. But he did play better second half thou Liverpool didn’t really attack us second half
Anyways, it seems Liverpool are trying to sign Shay Given and get rid of Jones as back up. Perfect.
Then we go back to Clark or Baker and hope his confidence has grown enough to continue to perform. He’s not going to be dropped/replaced.
So Clarke or baker would have to cover his arse then. Vlaar has played 1.5 half decent games in a year and everyone is going on as if he were beckenbaur ffs
You’re the only one making comparisons. First it’s Rotherham and Madrid, now it’s Vlaar and Beckenbaur. No one is claiming Vlaar’s the greatest CB going, simply claiming he’s starting to come good, looks more confident and realizes just because his partners are young, he doesn’t have to always attempt to go for everything, meaning he doesn’t need to be backed up.
But he is still error prone, slow and constantly out if position.
Ffs Oohah give it a rest on Vlaar, as captain and in defense watching his game the man is responsible to what goes on, he has young up and coming defender’s by his side do you see mistakes they make that he tries to right, and you blame him. Give him time man and take notice of how the team works, your knocking them now because we played lower opposition giving no praise to Villa, always Vlaar, Vlaar, Vlaar, I wonder what you are all about sometimes are you becoming a moaner full stop, OK you have been spoilt with a icon that will never be seen again in Paul McGrath but please stop judging one man all the time, he’s not that bad.
Sorry bill but vlaar is crap Okore is very good and I’d put Clarke and baker above vlaar now
Oohah if by some strange twist of fate Villa where to sell Ron Vlaar in the last minute of the transfer window just how would you fill your days??
I’d be filling my day doing handstands but. It ain’t gonna happen plus no other prem club would be stupid enough to take him
Oohah mate nice to see you are on top form i will always read what you pen with great interest.Good on ya mate.
Thank you kind sir glad someone else can see what a useless twat vlaar is.
Mate always on the side of common sense and like you i don;t wear rose tinted glasses.KEEP IT GOING old son.
Right on B W S. The man is obsessed about Vlaar to the exstent in driving himself loopy loo, Oohah give it up man for Christ sake find a night job.
BP don’t you thing Its becoming a just little obsessive?
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) can be looked at in two parts: obsessions – these are repetitive, obtrusive, unwanted thoughts that are experienced and result in unreasonable fears, and compulsions – acts or rituals carried out in response to fears generated by obsessions.
Oohah, any of the above ring any bells? You need help mate.
‘Think’
Good god B W S you hit the nail on the head, a head shrinker is wanted to save an obsessed sole in Oohah,