I have a sneaky feeling Adam won’t be doing a preview for the game today, as (as some of you may know) he went to Australia on Saturday, which means a) he probably won’t be feeling up to it and b) I suspect the time difference may prove a problem. If he even has internet, that is.
So you’re stuck with my ramblings, which will be more general thoughts.
I couldn’t dare try to compete with Adam on this sort of article as I don’t have a clue who Lambert will line up with or what his formation will be.
Adam just does that way better than me, so I’m not even going to try.
So just look at this article as somewhere to sound off and add your predictions to.
Is this what we’d call a big game?
Well, normally, it wouldn’t be. No disrespect to Cardiff, but it’s not exactly the sort of game that attracts major interest is it?
But yes, it is for me this time, as if we win, we open up a bit more of a gap on the bottom three.
As opposed to the opposite case, where obviously, if we lose, we’re going to start getting sucked in.
Something that, regardless of your stance in the serious and somewhat heated debate in the last article (good stuff by the way), I’m sure none of us want to see.
Cardiff have a pretty poor record of late. They’ve won two, drawn one and lost the rest in their last 10 games.
Whereas we’ve won two, drawn two and lost six. Also pretty poor.
While Villa have a just below average record in conceding goals this season, Cardiff have a decidedly poorer record and only Fulham have conceded more.
Cardiff don’t score many either. Their goalscoring record is equal second worst in the league whereas ours is again very average, as you’d expect for a mid-table team.
So what does that little lot tell us?
Not a lot, except that we should have the edge, given that we’re generally better when playing away.
I can see goals here. Not many, but some.
Hence I’ll predict Cardiff 1 – Villa 2.
But for some very strange reason, I can also see a very good win just niggling in the corner of my mind.
Wouldn’t that be nice?
Just to add a bit of spice to it, if anyone can predict the correct score AND name the last (or only) scorer on either side, I’ll give a prize of a score (£20). A score for a score, get it? Please yourselves (that was my Frankie Howard impression, fwiw).
If there’s more than one correct answer, it’ll be split.
I’m not made of money, you know!
And no, I won’t accept 0-0, with no scorer. Far too negative, that. And also far too easy to predict.
Get your predictions in then lads, you’ve nowt to lose.
And Up the Villa!
Bloody hell I hope they hurry up and sign up Lambert for another 3 years, he is a tactical genius…
Lambert is like Raneri he can’t stick to one system that works he had to keep tinkering with it fucking useless scorch c–t
Tell me lads, do you think Benteke has lost pace and missing far to many chances, he just has that lack of sharpness that he had last year, just over the last two games the number of chances have gone a begging 5 with Hammers and two or three tonight.
I would not start him next game, his touch his passing and his vision is off the boil. he is also very tightly marked.
Yep he’s not the player he was. Still offside a lot and first touch is embarrassing. His head is not at villa and will be gone soon anyway
Where are the fickle Police, are my expectations too high? i was expecting 6 points from cardiff and the same from palace.
The moment you say anything negative you are boxed off as expecting too much being fickle or wanting an oil barren as the chairman.
Surely by now the majority of fans can see that we are shit and the board are shit. i dont care they spent £250m or that lerner is or is not paying interest back to himself. Since Ellis left we have gone no where.
We are playing worse than when the ginger one was with us, the football is effing dire
I dunno about that morgan, defensively we were excellent and overall id say we were unlucky not to win it.
of course people will say ‘oh but we should be beating Cardiff ffs!’ but id say based on what? 2/3 PL players in gabby, guzan and vlarr(guzan and vlarr having only a season under their belts so far)and the rest of the team very young with an overall spend on the squad of less than 4 million per player, most recruited from the lower leagues of UK and Europe and a couple of academy prospects all of which have no more than a seasons PL experience each.
based on that what the hell makes people think we should be walking into Cardiff and taking a piss easy 3 pts from a team with a new manager fighting for their lives in what can be a very intense home stadium?
people think we should be winning these games based solely on the fact that we are
Aston Villa and nothing else. look at it objectively, wtf is there about our team that makes us think we should be beating Cardiff?
this is solely down to the direction the club is taking and that is solely down to Learner and co.
whether it will work or not is a matter up for debate.
Agreed NM.
I don’t think we were that bad.
The new article says just that.
NM, anyone with half a brain can see we’re not goo enough to beat Cardiff, that’s how low we’ve fallen. I expected a Cardiff win tonight!
Fulham and Cardiff will go down, the 3rd spot could be us very easily. We lack so much quality it’s painful to watch. We played a great second half but a draw is a fair result on the balance of play over the 90.
I agree about Baker. Thought the experienced head of Vlaar helped him saying that we were lucky not to be three down at half time.
We drew the match because Cardiff could not score not because of how well we played.
We played better in the second half, but we give away too many balls and corners. Cardiff had 5 corners in the first 30 minutes. If we don’t get points on the board we don’t stay in the league. I am shocked people are saying it is ok to drop points against cardiff or palace.
I don’t understand why when we play teams with small defences we play with no width, and then teams with big defenders we play with more width and more crosses the tactics don’t make sense
Maybe Lambert confuses even himself with his incoherent mumblings.