Manager Paul Lambert

[AVFCforever1991]

Its Sandro, Not Sandros.

And lets just put this into perspective, Sandro cost spurs 8m, and Delph Cost us 8m. That is our problem.

Edited December 27, 2012 by AVFCforever1991

[VillaCas]

while I sort of agree with the sentiment of these two lines I'm not sure the term "real supporters" is the correct one to use. It implies a better fan argument and that is not right

Point taken - I used the wrong term

[Morley_crosses_to_Withe]

If Spurs sold Bale they could buy our complete PL squad - you can't train Chris Herd to become Vincent Kompany.

I don't understand your point!? So because Bale is worth the value of our entire squad, we should just expect him to run rampage and score only his second career hat trick? We shouldn't expect basic closing down, tracking and tackling just because it's Gareth Bale?

[Harry]

If nothing else i would like PL to bring a big man into the centre of midfield, an evil git whose only remit is to be a spoiler, we have players who can pass the ball and look good but spend there time running round like headless chickens being knocked off the ball and made to look useless. we want a bully, someone to run the show and protect the rest of the midfield. a Vinny Jones type player

Completely agree with that. We have at best a powder puff midfield who look so weak its embarrassing.

I do rate Westwood but I think its who else we put in there. For me at least KEA is simply not a Premiership player. He is weak in the tackle, his passing is poor and he gives the ball way far too much. I so want Delph to be a good player but I think he is out of his depth in the Premiership. We paid £8m for this player and I had hoped once he had a decent run in the side we would see some value for money.

I blow hot and cold with Bannan, we do seem to play better with him in the side but like Westwood and Ireland for that matter its who sits in there with them. None of the options we have at the moment have that grit and determination to protect the back four and give some solidity to the midfield. The game yesterday clearly demonstrated this.

I support Lambert in the sense that he is trying to rebuild a footballing side. If we were in the Championship and doing it over a couple of seasons I think his approach would be spot on. Sadly the Premiership is unforgiving and I don't think he can do that and keep us in that division. Whether its loans or signing we need to bring in 2-3 really experienced battle hardened players.

Should we get rid of Lambert? Definitely no from me as I do believe we are moving, albeit very slowly, in the right direction. Anyway who else could we realistically bring in to replace him?

I would also cut Lambert a little slack based on the number of injuries we have have which interestingly has been completely ignored by the media in the usual tiresome anti Villa rhetoric. Just a little example but Baker was a huge loss when he went off yesterday, Herd is not a CB it is that simple. Add the injuries to Vlaar, Dunne, Gabby, Weimann, N'Zogbia (?) and that in a small way explains some of our problems. We still desperately need to strengthen our midfield but I would hope that has already been recognised.

Edited December 27, 2012 by Harry

[VillaCas]

Its Sandro, Not Sandros.

And lets just put this into perspective, Sandro cost spurs 8m, and Delph Cost us 8m. That is our problem.

Sandro would now fetch ast least double that - Delph would fetch far less than half that. PL didn't sign Delph but has got to work with what is available

[AVFCforever1991]

Sandro would now fetch ast least double that - Delph would fetch far less than half that. PL didn't sign Delph but has got to work with what is available

True, should have posted this in the Delph thread

[VillaCas]

I don't understand your point!? So because Bale is worth the value of our entire squad, we should just expect him to run rampage and score only his second career hat trick? We shouldn't expect basic closing down, tracking and tackling just because it's Gareth Bale?

The point I was making was in response to critisim of PL not training our young players well enough to deal with Bale. I beleive Chris Herd gives 100% every time he pulls on a Villa shirt - I think he trys to close down, track back and tackle to the best of his ability. My point is that a player worth £1m (generous) is not going to be able to nullify and player worth £50m, even with the greatest training in the world.

The problems at Villa are not due to poor training techniques they are due to a total lack of quality - surely you can see that

[Morley_crosses_to_Withe]

You defend as a team; we were allowing Spurs, and not just Bale, acres of space to maraud forward. There were times when they had huge empty parts of the pitch (quite often down the right) in which to break into. We weren't retaining any shape or defending as a coherent unit.

And the argument that we shouldn't be expected to nullify a £50M player is nonsense. Other teams have managed it this season. Does Bale score/score a hat-trick each week!?

If we can't be expected to defend against expensively valued players then we might as well not bother turning up at all against some teams.

[VillaCas]

You defend as a team; we were allowing Spurs, and not just Bale, acres of space to maraud forward. There were times when they had huge empty parts of the pitch (quite often down the right) in which to break into. We weren't retaining any shape or defending as a coherent unit.

And the argument that we shouldn't be expected to nullify a £50M player is nonsense. Other teams have managed it this season. Does Bale score/score a hat-trick each week!?

If we can't be expected to defend against expensively valued players then we might as well not bother turning up at all against some teams.

I think you know why this is a nonsense agrument so i'm not going to correct you

[Big_John_10]

I think it's better than your idea that what we saw was inevitable because of the price difference in the two squads.

[blandy]

Completely agree with that. We have at best a powder puff midfield who look so weak its embarrassing.

I do rate Westwood but I think its who else we put in there. For me at least KEA is simply not a Premiership player. He is weak in the tackle, his passing is poor and he gives the ball way far too much. I so want Delph to be a good player but I think he is out of his depth in the Premiership. We paid £8m for this player and I had hoped once he had a decent run in the side we would see some value for money.

I blow hot and cold with Bannan, we do seem to play better with him in the side but like Westwood and Ireland for that matter its who sits in there with them. None of the options we have at the moment have that grit and determination to protect the back four and give some solidity to the midfield. The game yesterday clearly demonstrated this.

I support Lambert in the sense that he is trying to rebuild a footballing side. If we were in the Championship and doing it over a couple of seasons I think his approach would be spot on. Sadly the Premiership is unforgiving and I don't think he can do that and keep us in that division. Whether its loans or signing we need to bring in 2-3 really experienced battle hardened players.

Should we get rid of Lambert? Definitely no from me as I do believe we are moving, albeit very slowly, in the right direction. Anyway who else could we realistically bring in to replace him?

I would also cut Lambert a little slack based on the number of injuries we have have which interestingly has been completely ignored by the media in the usual tiresome anti Villa rhetoric. Just a little example but Baker was a huge loss when he went off yesterday, Herd is not a CB it is that simple. Add the injuries to Vlaar, Dunne, Gabby, Weimann, N'Zogbia (?) and that in a small way explains some of our problems. We still desperately need to strengthen our midfield but I would hope that has already been recognised.

Spot on, all of that, Harry.

As an aside, Dunne has been "injured" for a heck of a long time with this groin/hip problem. I'm beginning to become curious about what's going on there.

[VillaCas]

I think it's better than your idea that what we saw was inevitable because of the price difference in the two squads.

Bit selective there BJ

The original point was that PL training was poor - my response was that with the best will in the world you can't blame training technique for a non-centre backs inability to marshall one of footballs hottest properties

But I do think that 9 times out of 10 the more expensive side will win in encounters where there is such a massive disparity of talent.

[cbr600rr]

im still sticking with lambert..i thing hes had a look at the squad & knows whos "any good".. however as good as PL is he carnt make herd into a better player,make kea into a power house player ..the list goes on

[Morley_crosses_to_Withe]

????

You started banging on about Bale vs Herd. I didn't mention those two originally. I said Bale was getting freedom, but he was getting it all over the pitch.

My point was that we didn't defend as a solid, cohesive unit; as a team. You can coach players on how to defend as a team & how to retain shape/provide cover for each other. You know, the basic stuff.

Edited December 27, 2012 by Morley_crosses_to_Withe

[The_Lions_Roar]

The difference between spurs and villa who I have always considered to be similar sized clubs. Is that spurs have managed to keep hold of their best players and add to them. Sadly we've been a selling club. The person I sat next to yesterday said we've still not replaced Barry and miner. Well theyre 2 players that are very difficult to replace. We've lost / sold 5 regular England internationals over the past few seasons. Take that out of any club and not replace them then they'd struggle.

[Mantis]

Spot on, all of that, Harry.

As an aside, Dunne has been "injured" for a heck of a long time with this groin/hip problem. I'm beginning to become curious about what's going on there.

Apologies for gossiping but I heard a while ago that he's in rehab for a drink problem. Could of course be absolute BS though. It's definitely a strange situation.

[Swerbs]

Dunne had a setback in training and had to have another operation.

[darrenm]

The difference between spurs and villa who I have always considered to be similar sized clubs. Is that spurs have managed to keep hold of their best players and add to them. Sadly we've been a selling club. The person I sat next to yesterday said we've still not replaced Barry and miner. Well theyre 2 players that are very difficult to replace. We've lost / sold 5 regular England internationals over the past few seasons. Take that out of any club and not replace them then they'd struggle.

The difference between Spurs and Villa is that they have a larger fan base who will pay more to go and watch the team every week. We've had to sell these great players who wanted out and haven't been able to replace them because we couldn't afford to, because we don't make enough money.

Spurs on the other hand have been able to reinvest and have done so due to not having a crippling wage bill and the excellent negotiating skills of Levy.

[Nabby]

The difference between spurs and villa who I have always considered to be similar sized clubs. Is that spurs have managed to keep hold of their best players and add to them. Sadly we've been a selling club. The person I sat next to yesterday said we've still not replaced Barry and miner. Well theyre 2 players that are very difficult to replace. We've lost / sold 5 regular England internationals over the past few seasons. Take that out of any club and not replace them then they'd struggle.

Disagree with that somewhat, what Spurs have done is sell players at the right time for maximum profit and then replace them with equally good players.They also kept their Wage budget under control whilst we were handing out Millions to the likes of Beye and Heskey.

[darrenm]

Apologies for gossiping but I heard a while ago that he's in rehab for a drink problem. Could of course be absolute BS though. It's definitely a strange situation.

I think that's a bit too much of an obvious conclusion to arrive at. It seems that all of the frozen out players are the ones who Houllier and McLeish had serious trouble with, and coincidentally were involved in 'that night' on Broad Street.