Ok, so today we had a pretty bad result.
Actually, I don’t think it was that bad when you weigh up our record at St James’ Park.
But it was a loss, where many of us thought we might take a point(s).
A quite important result really, as if you take the Norwich game out of the equation, we’re now in for a tough run of fixtures, which will probably see us get sucked closer to the relegation zone.
Scary times, yet again and quite frankly, bloody annoying after what we’ve witnessed over the last few years (was it really that bad under MON? I don’t think so, but many disagree, which is fair enough).
And with today’s result, so come the criticisms from those that think we should now sack Lambert and get someone else in.
Well, I’ll say straight off that I think this is totally the wrong thing to do AT THIS TIME.
Whereas a short while back I thought Lambert might have lost the dressing room, I now don’t believe he has. And that is what makes the difference for me.
I keep coming back to “what would a new manager add NOW?” and I’m not seeing the answer.
The players, to me, just aren’t good enough. Something many of us said would be the result if you try and do things on the cheap and any top manager would get rid of all but one or two, if he came in; we all know that.
Hence until the strategy from above changes, changing managers that we might currently expect to come in will achieve nothing.
Hence I think we’re stuck with what we have and Lambert stays.
Indeed, the hierarchy decreed such, when the word came out that the club is in discussions with Lambert about a new contract.
This is strange, to say the least, but no doubt stability is the main reason, which I can see some merit in.
But for me, it’s all about the progression that we’re supposed to be making.
We’re struggling again and the footy has mostly been rubbish this season, in my opinion.
We’ve reverted to pragmatic tactics and to me it’s a classic sign of failure and acceptance that we’re just not good enough. Yet who signed the players?
And where exactly is the so called progression? I’m sorry, but I just can’t see any.
It’s not as though we’re bringing the kids through either, are we?
My own stance, if we just scrape survival, or god forbid get relegated, will change, as it will prove that we have made no progress whatsoever, regardless of the PR that the club has come out with.
Then, a serious campaign, which I suspect would be backed by other Villa sites, might be on the cards.
Until then, we have to try and support the club/team, I’m afraid.
I know. It’s difficult.
It’s reall frustrating when so called fans constantly persist with false or misleading facts. Firstly a Lambert has been given approx 30 million in two seasons he himself came out and said the figures quoted for players are being inflated. He has bought poor championship players under instruction from Lerner. The money he was given has not been used for three or four top players instead it’s for an entire squad . The other misconception is he CANNOT buy quality due to the wage structure again blame one man Lerner. The other rubbish that fans constantly misrepresent is Ketners investment. Firstly he had sold and recouped money with sales secondly there is a highly profitable finance stream from Sky and sponsers.. Put it this way we can’t compete with Hulll crystal Palace or Cardiff WHY? And those teams haven’t had regular Tv money. Lerner out
totally agree ted, lambert hasn’t been given credit nor will he, changing the whole squad with peanuts was a tough job, if he keeps us up for the second season thats success equivalent to winning a cup maybe . trouble is most villa fans expect the world, surviving isn’t in their vocabulary
id say all that is very true ted, it makes me laugh when people say ‘oh but lamberts blew 40mil’ I don’t know exactly how many we’ve bought but its 10+ which makes the average per player less than 4mil, in the premiership! and that’s the inflated price, its probably(when you take benteke and kozac out the equation)around 2 mil per player which in todays game is bloody shocking.
im all for bringing through players and taking a punt on talent instead of paying 100K wages and 40mil on one player but there is no balance at all, in anything in life there has to be balance and our club is currently so lop sided its unreal.
all this said the buck does have to stop somewhere andin todays football it stops firstly with the manager and I have to say lambert would have been fired a long time ago from any other premiership club. he took the job knowing the constraints, many others turned it down probably for those very constrictions but lambert took it thinking he could do it and so far which ever way you cut it what we are seeing week in week out is very, VERY poor, we have one decentish game in every 6/7 games, we continue to stick with the same tactics and players despite them clearly not working and that is down to management and coaching 1st and foremost.
but there is no point in removing lambert at the moment unless he has lost the dressing room which I doubt. all we can do until the end of the season is give our support when the games are on.
im starting to believe we may not see another win this season(im serious)I don’t see anything at all of late to suggest we can win a game, maybe draw a couple but we NEED 4 wins and I don’t see where they are going to come from.
I believe Norwich will do us next week.
nuff said.
i couldn’t agree more ~ norwich will come 2 spoil lamberts day, i also can’t see another win even Harry Houdini would struggle 2 conjure a result with these players
Norwich…Villa win
Hull……….Villa win
Fulham….Villa win
Stoke…….draw
Palace……draw
Swansea…draw
All other….lose = 40 points, comfortably safe..37 will keep you up this season
We will NOT be relegated
Another season of mediocrity next season, unless Lerner loosens the purse strings.
Fuck off Lerner, the Villa is OURS
i would take ur predictions now and then a shake up is totally needed in the summer
40 points? I think you’ve drunk them,
Norwich are better than us, hull much better.
We will not be relegated?
That 10/1 price someone posted today looks like the bet of the year.
How cna anyone still be defending PL..
The man is tactically inept.. yesterday was the last straw for me.. i want that man out of VP..
He just mumbles bollox..
I agree the budget is very tight and he has had to find bargains.. but my issue is his tactics.. subs.. style of play..
We have & strikers yet we can’t buy a goal.. FFS.. Hull Palace West Ham Fulham Newcastle Sunderland we have fired blanks against…
In under 12 months.. Bradford.. Milwall and Sheff Utd have slapped us in the Cups..
In four windows he couldn’t get in a play maker.. even mumbled on in Jan how he wants that special player..
If all that doesn’t show the man is not up to it then i do not know what it will take for some fans to wake up and smell the coffee…
& is meant to say SEVEN strikers..
Basically we’re really shit. It’s shicking how far we’ve fallen, I never seen a team bottle it as much as this Villa team does.
We’re directionless with a mumbling manager who regurgitates the same statements week in week out, win or lose it’s boring to listen to and frankly an insult to us fans.
I didn’t even watch on Saturday and I don’t intend to on Norwich, I’ve lost all interest, a first for me as a Villa fan. I’m tired of the anticipation that we might do well one day when it clearly isn’t going to arrive under our current board and manager.
I think we’re clear relegation candidates. vtid
Sorry lads, you’ve probably gathered that there’s a tosser who gets his kicks out of impersonating regular posters and posting shit.
He should be gone for tonight.
We’ll try and be more on the ball from now on.
Tbh, I’m nervous but trying to be positive with the odds. Looking at the schedule the only absolutely unwinnable matches I see are Chelsea, Man City and Tottenham. (yes, I think Man U is a plausible draw this year, even for this poor squad). Even with that, I can only see 2 wins and 2 draws out of that. 36pts. Ugh. Unless we find form, I think the WBA match will have been the decider between who goes down.
“Bottle it.” MDN8 you have absolutely nailed it. As the Villa team sees the clock ticking down – if they have any points they just retreat. Gabby is one of the worst for deserting whatever forward position he is supposed to be in, which must require the opposition to keep 2 defenders near him, and retreating to be a spare left back, or yesterday RMF. It has actually been happening since the last season of MON. We could instead play as we do when one down with minutes to go, we are more likely to turn one point into three than into 0.
Absolutely agree OLL
The biggest worry is that we have actually gone backwards in the last 12 months. A year ago the team was starting to gel, performances improved and new faces were settling. A solid summer some new additions and the young players all with a year’s experience looked good for this season. In reality only Vlaar and Delph have improved from last year, Guzan has maintained form, every other player has gone backwards and the summer signings have not improved us. Also the squad players are so poor that the first choice 11 are under no pressure to perform.
What makes it worse is PLs assertion after every game “if we keep doing that we’ll be fine” or “if we keep doing that we’ll win more than we lose”.
Wrong. If we keep doing the same we’ll keep getting the same output ie the occasional flukey win, the occasional good performance and lots of dross and blanks in between. We can’t change the players now, the manager seems unable to change his tactics or to get the best out of his players.
I would give him one last chance against Norwich to prove himself and to get the players to prove that they can step up for him in a match that means so much to him personally. If we don’t win on Sunday I would make the change. A new manager will bring fresh ideas, new tactics and possibly even coach the players to pass to a player in the same colour shirt and have more conviction in front of goal. It’s not all about wages, transfer fees etc etc, a good manager can make the best of what he has got and inspire them. PL cannot do that.
We need another 10 points to be safe. 2 wins 4 draws out of 11. Give a new manager a stab at that rather than stumble towards the trap door.
I have mentioned his name before and been shot down, but Glenn Hoddle fits the bill for me.
Good post RW.
Another difference between last season and this is last campaign when we really needed to pull a result out of the bag we did, that’s just not been the case this season.
Lose Sunday and as you say it is time to say adios amigo.
yeah, good post RW n id agree with much of it.
as for hoddle I don’t think he’d be any or much use in the coming relegation scrap but coming in the summer, id welcome that.
I do think we will loose against Norwich, I think it was Langford posting earlier that he sees us beating hull, Norwich and Fulham, me im not so sure we’ll beat any of em to be honest going on what im seeing lately.
Basically I’ve been saying exactly this for months. I even worte an article where I said I think we’ve gotten worse and are more likely to be relegated this season thatn last. At the time I got slated for it when it was so clear to see, I see that everyone is beginning to catch up..
very good assessment ~ ur so rite , why can ‘t other see this including villa coaches or money men, glen hoddle would never take such a massive job like this, been out of game so long now. its gordon cowans 4 me or leave lambert to it until end of season
I was thinking about the cups last night, how we’ve been knocked out by lower league teams three out of four times in the current and last season. Once isn’t unlikely, twice (if you’re being kind) is possibly just bad luck but three times suggests the manager and coaches really don’t have a clue. It’s not like we have a club full of bad players, or don’t have 11 decent players to choose from, with some decent subs available. I was happy with the idea of the club being rebuilt using youth and promising talent from abroad, lower leagues and most importantly, the club’s own academy. The manager and coaches clearly haven’t succeeded in doing anything with them though. How many times has the team played properly and won by luck (i.e. the opposition failing to score after 20 attempts on goal combined with us having three breaks, three shots and three goals)? Twice?
hi guys, if this works i’ll be using my gravatar email from now on due to imposters.
there’s only one Naughtius Maximus.
btw this thing of goal diff saving us, im not so sure, it’ll only take a couple of 3 nilers or a spanking by someone to drop us right in it even more and that is a distinct possibility.
article here on the aftermath of the Newcastle game and ties in with the rumour someone posted saying there were rows going on after the game in the villa dressing room.
its played down a little maybe and sometimes its good to clear the air but after a game like that when you’ve lost the game literally seconds before returning to the dressing room players and more importantly the manager and staff should be nipping that in the bud as what gets said is based totally on emotion.
on reflection you can get the team together and give a balanced bollocking if you will and let players have a say based on reason and objectivity and hopefully that will be constructive. having a blazing row straight after the game when things can be said that normally would be between team mates is not a good thing.
team spirit and unity is vital at a time like this, this news is very, very concerning in my opinion.
lol, shit, forgot the link, here it is.
http://www.expressandstar.com/sport/aston-villa-fc/2014/02/25/ashley-westwood-reveals-inquest-into-villas-form/
could someone write a article showing games left and how many points you think may be needed ~ plus who we think will be relegated ~ might help take our minds of the dire situation we find ourselves in again
ltrs
What’s the point?we’re far too hit & miss atm possibly more miss.i think we perform better against the better teams in the div than the poorer,but it’s too hard to gauge how we will perform on the day.so i think it’s pure guess work the outcome of our remaining fixtures,i know one thing we need to start accumilating points quickly for team moral.i live in hope.
I was on the Southampton site earlier trying to find anyone at all who can tell me if the U-18s match on Saturday is going to be behind closed doors (only 10 miles from me so I’ll just rock up and hope) and saw this on their ticketing site:
Category A:
Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Tottenham
Category B:
Cardiff, Everton, Fulham, Newcastle, Sunderland, West Ham
Category C:
Aston Villa, Crystal Palace, Hull, Norwich, Stoke, Swansea, West Bromwich Albion
Embarrassing isn’t it?
Oh and I keep posting at the bottom of the thread and my posts get dropped randomly in the mix. I think that glitch is back again.
Mate it could be due to a number of posts being deleted due to a tosser using other users names last night.that’s my theory