nick76

Enjoyed the performance, loved the goal. Shame another game goes by with only one attempt on target

I think the Chelsea game is perfect once we do go 2-0 down as, - we know we are going to lose anyway and we are expected to - we'll have probably 80 minutes of the game left to chant - we are very unlikely to come back from 2-0 with Chelsea so not going to harm the players plus Hutton says it doesnt anyway and thus with no chance of coming back it makes no difference whether we are fully behind the team or not - dont care what the media think, if they play "you dont expect to beat chelsea do you" - dont want chanting against Hull if we are 2-0 down as we do still have a small chance of coming back (despite our goalscoring record) - something needs to change and outside of football game we dont get heard - we need to start thinking of us and stop worrying what the media and others think, doing nothing doesnt fly for me, I dont want to get relegated without a fight otherwise I'm as bad as the owner, manager and players so I will deserve it.

I'm a big fan of the NBA so love the extra bits they include around the game. I'm not saying to do that as football is very different, in a different environment and a different expectation. Additionally the cost would probably have no financial benefit to Aston Villa and could come as quite an expense and given our finances would not be a good idea. I do think the non-game entertainment is incredibly antiquated and needs revisiting. TV's planted around the stadium showing basic information, once in a while presentations on the pitch and that's pretty much it. I think improving the football is the key thing and would attract more people but I think improving the experience on non-football matters would also attract more people to the stadiums. I would also like our ex-players involved in that somehow to bring back that we are a family club which include the players (I know players of today arent like that) but the players of a generation ago and more. Who knows, focus on the football improvement obviously but I would like to see much more

In this case isn't the surgeon incompetent, amputates the head and sh1ts down the gorilla's neck? Then he claims that following week he'll do his best to save the next gorilla's life. Well the surgeon is Tom Fox. That there are people in this thread who think that they know better how to be CEO of a business worth a hundred million than a man who was CFO at Arsenal during a period where they were one of the most profitable teams in the league, and are now in a superb position to take advantage of the FFP rules, is like the gorillas screaming that they'd be better at operating on their gorilla mate than a vet. but he wasn't CFO at Arsenal was he!

Why would they do this with Ricky Lambert? Surely they'd go for a bigger name? I don't think there's any conspiracy here. As I said to appease the fans. Just think about it......out of all the other strikers on the planet why choose to name the one that they knew would never happen. Moreover, where has the 5m been all through Jan when we hadnt scored a single PL goal. Why wait until 7pm on deadline day. I know Lambert is dumb but FFS we all knew we needed a striker for months....plent of time to scour the leagues to find one IMO. As far as I'm concerned it was purely to appease the fans. With 5m we could have got Defoe for example! Which fans have they appeased? i bet you it comes up in the next few months in conversation as these things usually do. "He tried to get players, can't fault him for them not coming" so that's where the appeasing comes from But we did get players.fair point based on what I wrote but I meant strikers if we continue with our poor scoring record

Why would they do this with Ricky Lambert? Surely they'd go for a bigger name? I don't think there's any conspiracy here. As I said to appease the fans. Just think about it......out of all the other strikers on the planet why choose to name the one that they knew would never happen. Moreover, where has the 5m been all through Jan when we hadnt scored a single PL goal. Why wait until 7pm on deadline day. I know Lambert is dumb but FFS we all knew we needed a striker for months....plent of time to scour the leagues to find one IMO. As far as I'm concerned it was purely to appease the fans. With 5m we could have got Defoe for example! Which fans have they appeased?i bet you it comes up in the next few months in conversation as these things usually do. "He tried to get players, can't fault him for them not coming" so that's where the appeasing comes from

Two things On cleverley the club struck a deal to sign him if we wanted. If the manager had wanted to sign cleverley on a permanent deal we would have signed him. So IMO you are utterly wrong to suggest they didnt allow him to shell out on that player On Lambert the club bid for him, the club wanted him and the manager wanted him. Lambert (Rickie) was in a difficult position as he wants regular football and he doesnt have too much longer left to get it. He had to balance that against playing for his club, his family and how settled he is. In the end he chose family over career, cant blame him for that. So again you are, IMO, utterly wrong to suggest the club did not allow Paul Lambert to shell out on that player as if Rickie L had decided differently then this morning he would be at Bodymoor training with his new colleagues What you can be critical of, and quite rightly here imo, is the timeliness of the bid and why we waited until Monday afternoon to make it but again that may have depended upon business Liverpool were making or signals from them What im critical about (among many other things) is that someone, most likelly Lambert at any time thought that Cleverly would solve our midfield problems and that Rickie Lambert would solve our attacking problems What I'm critical about is not Him wanting Rickie Lambert as that is a manager preference but doing late in the day and having no Plan B. IMO we were never going to get him because as I mentioned in my prior post everybody knew he was playing for his boyhood club and only just got there, and he's at the tail end of his career......why would he move?!?! Yes he's getting less playing time there but coming to Villa, Benteke is the number one striker despite how he's performing and then Lambert will be vying for a place against Gabby, Andi and eventually Libor, and that's if we revert back to 442 which P Lambert rarely plays.....rather stay Pool and play for boyhood club competing at the higher end of the league competing against Sturridge whose been injured and Mario whose a square peg in a round hole up there.... Very cynical about why we bid on this be given the circumstances.

It's amazing what a 5-0 loss can do to your perspective of the balance sheet. The cynic in me has thought a lot about this today, a bid so late in the day for a player who playing (agreed rarely) for his boyhood club at the tail end of his career. I know, I know...suggesting we knew we would fail but giving the perception that we were trying to sign players cannot be real but given we could've tried earlier, looked at other options, never had the money before, paying that for a guy that turns 33 in 2 weeks time, you can't help but be cynical sometimes......

Isn't that pretty much what he said though? He said we weren't good enough, but while it was 1-0 we were "in the game" I took that to mean we could still sneak something from it, not that we were as good as Arsenal. Interesting to hear a different perspective on what he said, I took it as we were competitive with Arsenal and I struggle hear him in the fashion you have interpreted but I will take back my objection if he meant it that way.

I know he can't be totally honest in his interviews as he needs maintain a positive outlook but his interviews are becoming more fairytale by the game. How he thinks we were in it for 60 minutes is bizarre, yes I know the scoreline gave us a chance at that point but the game certainly didn't. I know nothing will change in terms of his job status so where do we go from here?!?!

This is a false narrative

Good interview and seems very switched on. I would love to know what he is hearing and seeing to give him such a postive outlook though?Really positive interview and all I can expect from him. I have slight trouble with it and he talks about what we don't see but as an entertainment business what we see is what matters as customers. Any other entertainment business that doesn't have the loyalty football has would have lost a lot more customers a long time ago under the same situation and sometimes I think this is lost at Villa.

why I don't feel so bad about loans is that 5 out of 8 were misses....wasting 7.5m on Cleverley would haunt me and spending money on the others I wouldn't have been happy with at the time. Keane was always a quick, short term thing. So remains Bertrand and Walker...Bertrand was ok but I wasn't that bothered, it's only because our other left backs have been so poor, but was disappointed with losing Walker. The point being IMO we got two players that we needed to fill a gap, wished it was long term but neither the player or owning club wanted it that way, we probably couldn't afford it anyway and given we had been poor with cheaper permanent signing it was wise to have these season long arrangements. The other loan deals we were either lucky not to purchase and Keane was a nice short term life injection we needed at the time.

Wonder what made him sign now of all times? As a Villa fan I'm pleased obviously but for him it's strange timing

Well that was awful. Bacuna geez and Benteke the lazy.......

great post, well thought out I just don't fully agree. Agree that Lambert has an eye for a player but has also brought some donkeys and all managers have successes and failures, just Lambert is slightly more in the positive than negative at this time. This is his only positive, everything else he has failed at, broken so many unwanted records, believes we are better than we are and the football is the most dire thing to watch. Time to go!

Guzan was great, defence wasn't good Hutton bombing down the right was decent Sanchez was great Delph, awful game Cleverley, how he still gets a game is beyond belief Westwood ok, his through ball was good Gabby and Benteke ermm I'm not sure, not involved enough Gil, great first introduction Andy, ok for 10 minutes then disappeared as usual

Lambert's fault today was it then? Yes

more than that or was that a joke?

Cleverley joined the protest and didn't turn up for the first 8 minutes

I have no feelings either way about the protest but your suggestion that it's a minority does my head in. Have you completed a poll to see people's feeling? I guess no. So how do you know? It may not be a majority but maybe a substantial group worthy of a voice. When you watch MOTD and they mention before the game that a large protest was planned, then they switch to the game and about 400 people are doing it, then you'll realise. The only protest villa fans have done that have been worthwhile in the last 10 years, was the one against Doug with the pound signs - and even that wasn't that successful, plus it was planned for ages. This feeble attempt began this week. I think you're probably right, it will be chanting against the manager either this or the next home game that will happen. Chant against the manager by all means, he's on thr cusp of failure, but he's not there quite yet (pls don't mention the last 2 years or whatever it is you regurgitate normally). As long as it's after the final whistle, and the team won't be affected, i honestly couldn't give a monkeys. I haven't joined in any anti chanting and I probably won't on Saturday but its going to happen at some point from a large group of supporters. You think he hasn't failed because you've decided to ignore 2 years previously for some stupid reason. I think he's failed (not in the owners eyes) because he hasn't been able to move us on from mcleish after 3 years working with the squad. The problem with chanting after the whistle is that nobody cares then. The only vocal chance we have is during games because as you say other protests didnt work in the past........outside the ground, pre-match or post match. The people we want to listen havent arrived or have gone home by then. I'm always in two minds about chanting or protesting during games.......it's either hurting the team short term with a long term aim or if no chanting/protest is completed then it's accepting our slow but obvious decline into championship eventually in the next couple of years because we don't want to rock the boat when we can be heard and nobody hears any other time apart from reading internet forums.......... We all want better, we have just different ways of believing we can get that across to the people that can influence and neither ways are perfect.....

I have no feelings either way about the protest but your suggestion that it's a minority does my head in. Have you completed a poll to see people's feeling? I guess no. So how do you know? It may not be a majority but maybe a substantial group worthy of a voice. He will find out Saturday when liverplop do us 3-0. yeah the ground will then be empty at least 8 minutes before the end lol

I have no feelings either way about the protest but your suggestion that it's a minority does my head in. Have you completed a poll to see people's feeling? I guess no. So how do you know? It may not be a majority but maybe a substantial group worthy of a voice.

What's the fuss about Dembele? I've seen a fair few times and he's ok but Spurs fans I know, when I mentioned, laughed and said they'd pay us to take him, they feel he's one of their weakest midfielders

Sell as long as we can reinvest all of it