Villa 0-0 Sunderland; At least we didn’t lose

I attended this game with three grandsons and one of the son in laws in tow and it turned out a decent day, as the kids really enjoyed the family fun day. I’d highly recommend that, if anyone is contemplating taking their kids down a game.
And I certainly enjoyed it more than the game itself.

After a pretty bright start, things soon settled down into what was a game that just lacked any quality.

I mentioned the other evening that I was concerned about the state of our passing after the Albion game and we were just as poor in that area today. It amazes me that professional footballers can’t make simple passes, especially when they’re not under massive pressure. You can see the ideas are there and some of the through ball attempts would be great if the execution wasn’t constantly so poor.

As for formation, I still don’t see what we’re doing. We actually started off with five across the back, but it then quickly changed to a four. At one stage, it actually looked like we were playing four up front.
Sometimes we’re so narrow it’s crazy in my opinion, but I’m not the professional coach and you would expect Lambert knows what he’s doing.
My point is though, if I can’t see it stood high up in the Holte and am confused, it has to beg the question “do the players actually know what they’re doing?”.

Many of us had this down as a banker, including myself and ultimately this is a pretty poor result.
We were again limited to mostly speculative punts and rarely got the ball in the area to create decent chances.
Yes, we worked hard and I really can’t complain about anybody today as, erm, as per usual they all worked hard.
Except maybe Benteke.
For me he was incredibly poor and should have been hooked at half time. It seems he hardly wanted to get involved.
Perhaps I’m being harsh there, as it wouldn’t surprise me if he still hasn’t got over his injury.
That’s a few games in a row though, so he won’t be getting the benefit of the doubt for long.

If I’m honest, I think Sunderland possibly deserved it more than we did. I don’t know the chances stats, but I’d guess Sunderland might have edged it although the SIL thought we were the better team overall.
Don’t forget Sunderland at least had the ball in the net and hit the bar.
My eleven year old grandson summed it up for me as we were walking out. His opinion was that if we were playing first goal wins, we wouldn’t have seen a goal for ages. Pretty astute, I thought, as it did seem that the game had 0-0 written all over it with about ten to fifteen minutes to go.

Gabby got MOTM, a decision I can’t disagree with, as at least he offered something different with his pace, as opposed to the mediocrity everywhere else.

And regardless of the scoreline, the two (six year old twins, bless ’em) virgin attendees quite enjoyed it in the end.
They were even starting to sing along with myself (not the swearing songs of course).

I remembered attending a home Sunderland game in the late seventies, that was also pretty drab.
At that game, we sung to the tune of “give peace a chance”, “all we are saying is give us a goal”.
I was close to starting it again today, as it seemed incredibly apt and I wondered why we’d stopped singing it these days.
I bottled it in the end.

As the title says, at least we didn’t lose, but is a point at home against Sunderland a decent result?
Not for me. Just no way.

61 Comments

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  1. Sir Earl Barratt
    Sir Earl Barratt December 1, 2013 at 2:31 pm . Reply

    The title of the post says it all about the apathy of most Villa fans. ‘At least we didn’t lose’ and ‘We won’t be relegated’ are the two most overused phrases of the Lamberk Lemming community who have been brainwashed into believing we’re unable to compete with Southampton in the transfer market and 17th is a successful season. Could somebody from the club – Lerner or Fatty Faulkner come out and tell us which season this transition period is going to end that the fans also seem to have swallowed. The football now is no better than under McTwatt but at least Lamberk never managed b-loose so that’s ok. Those are mostly his players now and he’s had plenty of Tranfer Windows to get in a creative midfielder and a right back but has chosen not to. Do we now have the record for most times last on match of the day? Shit football and another season of relying on there being three worse teams.

    1. OohAhPaulMcGrath
      OohAhPaulMcGrath December 1, 2013 at 3:45 pm . Reply

      Spot on sir earl and hull are above us now ffs assuming they hold I to their lead over Liverpool

  2. GIDDYVILLAN
    GIDDYVILLAN December 1, 2013 at 3:32 pm . Reply

    Fair comment sir earl barrett

  3. Naughtius Maximus
    Naughtius Maximus December 2, 2013 at 7:33 am . Reply

    yep we’ve got to be beating teams like sunderland at home.
    bloddy typical though that sunderland are currently on the rise with a new manager when we play them, under pdc they’ve been god awful but since he’s gone they’ve beat Newcastle and man city and only conceded the odd goal.
    no doubt when we play Fulham in a couple of games they will be on the rise under a new manager and playing really well to impress, it happened a couple of times last season too, god awful sides who when it came to playing us were on the back of a new manager like qpr and ‘arrys 1st game last season and sunderland (again) and im sure there was others, hard to keep up with the modern game and managers being sacked every 5 games.
    im beginning to think chairmen are looking at the fixture list and going ‘ok we’ve got villa in 2 games, its time to sack our manager, we’ve got a good chance of 3pts at villa if we do’ ๐Ÿ˜‰

  4. GIDDYVILLAN
    GIDDYVILLAN December 2, 2013 at 8:59 am . Reply

    Lol NM it seems to work out that way,haven’t they got it in for us mate.

  5. Vaze
    Vaze December 2, 2013 at 2:03 pm . Reply

    Three clean sheets and undefeated in four.

    Hardly disastrous, but we need to move up a level and try to turn these draws into wins.

    1. DSVilla
      DSVilla December 2, 2013 at 6:15 pm . Reply

      As usual Vaze you have a realistic perspective. We aren’t playing that well but still picking up points and hard to beat. I think (hope) we will improve. We really could do with Benteke firing as that would make all the difference when things are tight. I’m sure a number of the players can step up a gear and we could do with that sooner or later. It looks like it’s going to be a slow process so patience is needed, and it’s hard to look at it in this way with each successive disappointment.

    2. BWS
      BWS December 2, 2013 at 6:39 pm . Reply

      We rode our luck on Saturday on another day we could have gone down 3-0 if Sunderland had got the rub of the green,it’s simply not good enough.
      As for the stats as Disraeli said “There are lies, damned lies, and statistics”.

      1. DSVilla
        DSVilla December 2, 2013 at 7:15 pm . Reply

        Can’t disagree with that BWS. I had a feeling Sunderland wasn’t going to turn out how many predicted. Performances do need to improve by a long way. We can all see weaknesses in the team that look like they will need to be addressed in the transfer market. I don’t have a great deal of confidence that will happen in January, but I think we should improve enough to finish OK. if it doesn’t get fixed in the summer then that’s a different matter

        1. OohAhPaulMcGrath
          OohAhPaulMcGrath December 2, 2013 at 7:48 pm . Reply

          I really fancy us to beat saints. After watching them yesterday they were knackered in last 20 mins and there defending if set pieces was as bad as us last year plus we are better away.

    3. OohAhPaulMcGrath
      OohAhPaulMcGrath December 2, 2013 at 7:51 pm . Reply

      Well if we draw every we get 38points and we would be unbeaten but in bottom 3-4. As I said earlier if rather win 5 games and lose 5 games and get 15 points than draw 10 games and only get 10 points. It’s how many you win that matters

      1. Vaze
        Vaze December 2, 2013 at 8:59 pm . Reply

        December last year we were losing. By bucket loads.

        This time we’re keeping clean sheets but not taking wins.

        Hopefully we’ll move on next season. I’d say a decent cup run and a few unexpected wins in the Citeh mould is the best we can hope for now.

  6. GIDDYVILLAN
    GIDDYVILLAN December 2, 2013 at 2:32 pm . Reply

    I’d say a number of levels mate.

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