maqroll Posted December 16, 2012 Share Posted December 16, 2012 Full credit to Lambert for the current form of the team. He never seemed nervous or defensive when we were struggling, and his vision is beginning to bear fruit. The unity of the players is obvious, they were mentioning it on RAWK, too. With the right moves next month, we just might be able to push on and challenge for Europe. Why the f*ck not? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
legov Posted December 16, 2012 Share Posted December 16, 2012 Full credit to Lambert for the current form of the team. He never seemed nervous or defensive when we were struggling, and his vision is beginning to bear fruit. The unity of the players is obvious, they were mentioning it on RAWK, too. With the right moves next month, we just might be able to push on and challenge for Europe. Why the f*ck not? Because we're still very close to the relegation zone? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AstonMartin82 Posted December 16, 2012 Share Posted December 16, 2012 Before a ball had been kicked at the start of the season there is one thing which I would have said would have been essential for us staying up. Experience through the middle of the park... that to me would have mean essential starters in Given, Dunne, Ireland and Bent. Lambert has ripped that up and either they are injured or he has dropped them. In have come the lesser known, lesser experienced, yet hungry players and they are starting to look like one hell of a team. Even at the beginning of the season when results and performances were not great Lambert had such confidence in the players he never waivered for a moment and resisted going to a more defensive or experienced solution. This is the mark of a confident manager who knows what he is doing and the players will revel in having such a sterling leader. For this I say fair play and I would/am gladly paying money to watch this team play their socks off for the badge much more than the Young/Milner/Downing mercenary days. In true Christmas spirit: here's to the future. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sonic_bouma Posted December 16, 2012 Share Posted December 16, 2012 Well said Villa Lion it still boils my piss that jokers like Warnock, Hutton, Ireland and to a certain extent Dunne are still on the books hopefully they will be all gone by the summer and PL can bring in more players who want to fight for their shirt and give everything on the pitch I fully expect us to get turned over by Chelsea next week but it will not change my mood about how much we are progressing and improving this team respect each other too much, fight for each other too much and we have too much of a good manager (tactically and as a motivator) to be relegated Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maqroll Posted December 16, 2012 Share Posted December 16, 2012 Because we're still very close to the relegation zone? Yes, and we're also 8 points off 5th place and playing with positivity and momentum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Posted December 16, 2012 Share Posted December 16, 2012 Well if plop are going for second place maybe we could win the league 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Lions_Roar Posted December 16, 2012 Share Posted December 16, 2012 Chelsea and spurs up next, hopefully we don't lose too much momentum. Saying that I think we will beat spurs at home. Then end of December and January will be very important for us. Wins at home to Wigan, Southampton and Newcastle would really push us up to safety. And I'm afraid that is our aim this season, just to stay up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AvfcRigo82 Posted December 16, 2012 Share Posted December 16, 2012 Top 4 anyone?? . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Willy_Evergo Posted December 16, 2012 Share Posted December 16, 2012 Top 4 anyone?? . You should start a thread Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big_John_10 Posted December 16, 2012 Share Posted December 16, 2012 Pipe has certainly changed it's tune since the start of the season. Glad you've come around. I've never been against Lambert. I just worried we didn't have enough to stay up. But with what's happening at the moment there really isn't anything to complain about. I wanted us to improve our performances and we did. I wanted us to defend better and we did. And finally i wanted us to be better attacking wise and the last two games have been terrific. I didn't write off his signings but I also wasn't confident they would contribute lots this season. But Lowton, Vlaar, Westwood have been very good and Benteke is just on a different level to anyone I've seen in a villa shirt for a long time. I will still worry about relegation as I still think its going to be close but things are looking good right now. Can't wait to see the kind of quality January will bring. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morpheus Posted December 16, 2012 Share Posted December 16, 2012 Top 4 anyone?? . In the match thread when I saw our team being announced I really felt Liverpool would hammer us by the same score line, or more. Thankfully that didn't happen with Lambert getting both team selection and tactics spot on. Liverpool didn't expect the velocity of our play and Benteke scaring the living day lights out of plop's defence. A sign of fear is when any defence starts to stand off a forward and they did this particularly after the first fifteen minutes when we settled into the game. Our team then benefitted and took advantage of the fear, maybe even respect, which Benteke and to a lesser extent Weimann created. Actually the best and most complete performance from a Villa team for some considerable time, even better than the one against Man City in the cup for obvious reasons and for the very first time in many a season, I have now reserved excitement about our future. It is however only reserved excitement for the following reasons. We played against a Liverpool team without a recognised striker. Yes I know all about bugsy and how good he is but he is more of a link striker than anything else. With that striker Liverpool probably would have taken one or two of their chances in the first fifteen minutes. It should not however detract from our performance which I have already desribed above, My second reason is expectation! Due to one fantastic performance Europe and top four is now being mentioned on here and the media are starting to note our apparent improvement. Strictly speaking it is much better to have that than talking about relegation but I am concerned that the added expectation will filter down to the young players and they might start to believe in their own publicity? The manager will not only have to deal with that but also teams now targeting and man marking Benteke. I can understand the euphoria, indeed it is most welcome, but we should also temper our enthusiasm with the realism that we do still have a long way to go yet before we place the expectation of Europe on our young players when they are still dealing with the threat of relegation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AvfcRigo82 Posted December 16, 2012 Share Posted December 16, 2012 You should start a thread What a tremendous idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flamingsombrero Posted December 16, 2012 Share Posted December 16, 2012 In the match thread when I saw our team being announced I really felt Liverpool would hammer us by the same score line, or more. Thankfully that didn't happen with Lambert getting both team selection and tactics spot on. Liverpool didn't expect the velocity of our play and Benteke scaring the living day lights out of plop's defence. A sign of fear is when any defence starts to stand off a forward and they did this particularly after the first fifteen minutes when we settled into the game. Our team then benefitted and took advantage of the fear, maybe even respect, which Benteke and to a lesser extent Weimann created. Actually the best and most complete performance from a Villa team for some considerable time, even better than the one against Man City in the cup for obvious reasons and for the very first time in many a season, I have now reserved excitement about our future. It is however only reserved excitement for the following reasons. We played against a Liverpool team without a recognised striker. Yes I know all about bugsy and how good he is but he is more of a link striker than anything else. With that striker Liverpool probably would have taken one or two of their chances in the first fifteen minutes. It should not however detract from our performance which I have already desribed above, My second reason is expectation! Due to one fantastic performance Europe and top four is now being mentioned on here and the media are starting to note our apparent improvement. Strictly speaking it is much better to have that than talking about relegation but I am concerned that the added expectation will filter down to the young players and they might start to believe in their own publicity? The manager will not only have to deal with that but also teams now targeting and man marking Benteke. I can understand the euphoria, indeed it is most welcome, but we should also temper our enthusiasm with the realism that we do still have a long way to go yet before we place the expectation of Europe on our young players when they are still dealing with the threat of relegation. I don't think anyone is seriously considering Europe or Top 4 for this season. As for Liverpool, if they had another recognised striker and were a more clinical side we would have adapted our formation and gameplan accordingly. I realise that is a hard one for people to get their head round (me included) after so many years of managers throwing out their villa team v1.0 game after game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AVFCforever1991 Posted December 16, 2012 Share Posted December 16, 2012 If we keep up this current form, then there is no reason we can't challenge for top 7.. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Folski Posted December 16, 2012 Share Posted December 16, 2012 How good was his post match interview where he was asked about how well the youngster / signings had been playing playing and he said that it was only a few weeks back that he was being criticized for buying inexperienced lower league players and that the media have to make up their mind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrackpotForeigner Posted December 16, 2012 Share Posted December 16, 2012 If we keep up this current form, then there is no reason we can't challenge for top 7.. Not with this team imo. But add one creative midfielder in the same class as Lowton/Vlaar/Westwood/Benteke and we'll have a real chance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LondonLax Posted December 16, 2012 Share Posted December 16, 2012 Yes, it was a fantastic win yesterday but we will all be discussing relegation again if we lose to Chelsea and Spurs. Still, that will have given us a lot of believe that we can get a result anywhere I think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danwichmann Posted December 16, 2012 Share Posted December 16, 2012 For this I say fair play and I would/am gladly paying money to watch this team play their socks off for the badge much more than the Young/Milner/Downing mercenary days. I don't think you can really accuse Milner of not working his socks off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeMcKenna Posted December 16, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted December 16, 2012 The Times online reckons yesterday enabled Lambert to put an end to questions about Bent. Did it? I think so. But then they also said "But then Villa, having played within themselves, started penetrating to deadly effect." Which I initially read as "...played WITH themselves ...." And my misread made me do a quick double take :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markavfc40 Posted December 16, 2012 Share Posted December 16, 2012 With the right moves next month, we just might be able to push on and challenge for Europe. Why the f*ck not? Some may think that crazy but your right why not and history will show we have done it before. Momentum and confidence is very important and we are now gathering both. When John Gregory arrived in February 1998 we were 15th. We finished the season in 7th and qualified for Europe. Under O'Leary in 03/04 in mid December we were 17th and finished 6th. Regardless of where we finish this season though be it 6th or 14th I am certain that Lambert will continue to put the building blocks in place to ensure that under him we will go from strength to strength next season and beyond. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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