Following my request for a more postive post, Andy Badger has submitted the following, cheers mate;
I’ve been following the articles on here for a long time now. I’ve read most of them and trawled through many comments and I’ve finally reached the end of my tether. The build up of negativity is staggering and has prompted me to write this article. I’ll probably get trashed in the comments but I couldn’t give the tiniest shit.
We’re 4 games into a brand new season and last Saturday aside it’s not been a bad start. If you’d offered me 3 points and a zero goal difference from the first three games before the season, I’d have taken it. We played very well against Arsenal, were edged out in a poor game (from both teams) against Liverpool and could quite easily have taken something away from Stamford Bridge.
We’ve made some good signings IMO and I really like the direction we’ve taken with bringing in young players and trying to build a team. We narrowly survived last season but I believe we’re a lot stronger now and will improve on last years standing in the table. It looks to me as though we have a long term project going forward and I’m not sure how we could approach it otherwise. Critics on here and elsewhere are giving Lambert a lot of abuse for his management of Aston Villa but I wonder how we could do it differently. Could we splash £40m+ on a player like Arsenal or several £30m+ players like Citeh? Probably not, as I doubt firstly that, without European football, we could attract that type of player and secondly, would we all be comfortable paying £1200+ for our season tickets. One viable alternative is to shop around in the £12-£15m bracket and up the wages to compensate for the lack of European football but we’ve tried that already and O’Neill received dog’s abuse for that approach.
For the time being at least, I’m happy that we’re supporting a well managed and sustainable club and I believe that, if we continue in the same direction, we will continue to improve season on season until we can achieve European football and be back amongst the elite of the English Premier League and Europe where we belong.
Up the Villa – Support Your Club!
Cheers Andy, this balances Terry’s post quite nicely.
I’m not sure I agree with it totally though and guess my opinion lies somewhere in between.
Vaze, your post is scheduled for tomorrow morning, purely so it doesn’t clash with this one.
Partially agree with what you say, the negativity at this point is quite surprising, but if I am completely honest I am concerned that in lambert we have a younger version of oneill. The players we have signed are value for money players that he is clearly hoping will win him a cup and a route into Europe where further srtengthening and improvement will occur through an enhanced budget. The club are going about it the right way, but I would be happier if we had signed a player that would be opening up play from midfield, as without it I feel we are one dimensional and easy to figureout
I forgot Andy.
You aren’t my brother, by any chance, are you?
That would be a bit of a coincidence.
Haha, not that I’m aware of
Not another badger ffs 🙂
I seriously hope I don’t catch TB from any of them
A foxy and 2 badgers this sites like dr fuckin Doolittle 🙂
Seems people are currently hooked up in previous debates.
Regardless, I like this point.
My attitude concurs with some of the neggos, in that we need some proper quality to help the prospective kids out mate.
We will achieve little on the backs of unproven signings and we’re just trying to do it on the cheap, imo.
We need a bit of balance, as in some quality to balance out the raw incomers, which I don’t see as being forthcoming.
But by the same token, I think we’re well capable of survival.
That’s how low the sights are set.
I agree that we could do with some quality but also we’re only 4 games in and haven’t had nearly enough time to judge the new signings. Lambert may well have brought in some gems or he might have acquired a load of rubbish – I think it’s too early to judge yet based on the games we’ve seen.
In response to Nelly, if Lambert is a younger version of O’Neill but buying cheap and paying low wages is that such a bad thing? For all the things O’Neill did badly, we did finish 6th three seasons running and I quite liked the counter attacking style of football (although maybe not so much at home)
Can’t wate for vaze’s party political broadcast on behalf of the Lerner Party.
we have a project going on here at villa at the moment, a strategy that was set out the moment learner bought Lambert in, we all knew it was going to be tough, a rollercoaster ride at least for the start and we have not been let down on that score.
if we improve on last season I believe as the aricle says we will kick on season in season out as the article says. its brave and its risky but then so is what we’ve done before under o’neil and at least this way we aint going bankrupt like many other clubs(just look acroos the road to small heath if you want to see how a club is run into the ground)and I don’t want that.
if we fail to improve on last season, relegation or even another relegation dogfight then we will have to concede project lambert a failiure and we will have to go back to the drawing board.
but we are in this for the long haul, we are not(despite what some people want after one poor showing on Saturday)going to do a Newcastle, Southampton and QPR and sack our manager and rip up the blue print at the 1st sign of trouble.
I agree up to the point where I like the direction the club is going.I like the youthful transfer policy and the spending part of it.What I am not sure of at the moment is has Lambert got his tactics and formation right?CBs are exposed due to full backs supplying the width thus exposing behind themselves.Midfield 3 needs to be a midfield 2 of Westwood and Delph.LM and RM needs to be put back into place to give the full backs protection plus having 4 across the midfield protects the CBs.Front two of Kozak and Benteke….UTV
Agreed, but the problem is JD, we don’t have any decent natural wide players apart from N’Zog who has been excluded (another stupid Lambert decision IMO). We are so narrow and one dimensional and the only plan B from Lambert is to throw tall strikers on and hit it long.
I wouldn’t describe AVFC as well managed. Its surprising how much Lerner and Lambert are getting away with, when you consider how recently promoted sides like Swansea and Southampton have over taken us and shown ambition (Cardiff will be the next).
We’re being left behind and this youth policy is the ideal excuse for Lerner not to invest heavily. Nobody is asking for £30/40m signings but a few experienced heads make the world of difference. The wages excuse has gone on too long now, we are supposed to be an established PL club and that means playing PL wages, whether Randy likes it or not.
Agreed pal we have stabilised our financial situation.I don’t think its a thing about wages I think its the Dortmund model has rubbed off on Lambert and Lerner likes it too.It makes sense all round if you can pull it off.Young players cost less,wages are smaller in demand,If you can get the coaching right they develop fast and it can be really proactive.I hope Lambert gets it right.Can Agbonlahor and Weiman become LM and RM..?UTV
Mr Badger we don’t have 3 points from 3 games, we have 3 points from 4 games and as for the build-up of negativity it’s not just this site take a look AV Life, Villa Blog you’ll get a large selection very similar views posted.
Good signings? Vlaar any better than Collins? Bennett better than Warnock or even dare I say Hutton and Bowery well let’s not go there.
we’re a lot stronger now? Are we 10 of the players that finished last season are still in the team so how are we stronger. PL signed the likes of Tonev and Helenius but he’s not playing them and most aren’t looking for a £40m marquee signing but just a bit of experience and a bit of nouse, say a Gareth Barry type.
Paying £1200+ for our season tickets, well they can’t sell them at £370 so what’s the chances selling them at £1200? And Man City blows a hole in that theory by offering the cheapest season tickets in the Premier League less than £300 and how much have they spent?? Only the London clubs get away with those inflated prices.
And finally will you be supporting a well-managed and sustainable club should the unthinkable happen and all this austerity leads to relegation? Surely it would be a little wiser to speculate to accumulate than take that gamble.
I appreciate that it’s not just this site with a build up of negativity and I find it equally staggering that the other sites have it as well.
It’s just my opinion that we’ve made some good signings but the general gist of the article was to point out that we’re still only 4 games in (and three of them were against Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool) and so far they’ve been broken in slowly to the team. I do, however agree, that getting rid of Collins was a mistake the same way I thought it was a mistake letting Gary Cahill go so easily.
I also believe that we are stronger this year for three reasons; 1. The young players we brought in last season have had a full season of experience at this level and so far I haven’t seen any despondency and each game has been hard fought (if sometimes lacking in quality) 2. We have more strength in depth in the squad – compare this years bench to last years. 3. This is a bit tongue in cheek but last year we lost all of the corresponding fixtures we’ve played this year and conceded 14 goals – so we’re at least 3 points stronger.
As for the season ticket prices – Man City isn’t a realistic comparison really is it? The last financial report I saw for them showed an annual £98m loss which is approx 13% of Randy Lerner’s net worth.
And finally, do you really think there aren’t at least 3 worse teams currently in the premier league? You may be right and in Dec/Jan we may be having a very different conversation but again, and I can’t stress this enough – it’s early days yet, calm down dear!
“we lost all of the corresponding fixtures we’ve played this year and conceded 14 goals – so we’re at least 3 points stronger.”
I like what you did there.
Season tickets – neither is £1200 realistic comparison, only Arsenal, Chelsea and the Spuds are around that figure at the top end, so maybe we are both using extremes to prove a point?
3 worse teams? Mate fucking hope so!
Just out of interest at the moment name me 3 worse teams than us?
Possibly Sunderland then I’m struggling
Palace, Norwich and Hull Please.
“Even Norwich spent more than us FFS”
Everton have impressed me, brought in some real quality to add to an already good squad and the icing on the cake – raped Man U for £27.5M for Fellaini, brilliant business.
Not sure about Norwich tbf
Oohah your “at the moment who is worse than us” inadvertently hits the nail on the head. At the moment probably nobody, but how will we and other teams fare across the season? Poor as we have been, a number of teams will probably prove weaker over the season. I guess after the way we performed towards the end of last season and the start against Arsenal expectations were higher. We need to improve and fast that’s for sure, but we will see if Lambert adapts the team soon enough. At the moment same team/same formation/same rumbled tactics are scarily reminiscent of MON.
True mate I think a couple of teams are on a par with us and if we lose to Norwich that will be a huge blow. Already looking like a six pointer