What a mixed bag of the game, all the chances obviously for stats fell to us but we lost because lack a steel in the side.
Until the sending off, frankly we were the far better team because they attacked us, we counter attacked and Heskey was immense playing very well with Gabby. Even though one -nil down you felt we would always create something but after the sending off they sat back and that did not suit us at all and we saw the result of that.
Houllier for me was wrong to play Delph, not that Delph had a bad game (no one did) but the midfield was too inexperienced and NRC should have started as it was fittest of the three and give him a chance. What is noticeable since Houllier has come is that we have lost the spirit we had under MON, the same spirit got us back into many games, not once have we come back from being a goal behind and never looked like today.
Should I really mention the defending and how poor that is, we have tried different players and same old problems, lets put this simple, WE PLAY TOO HIGH A LINE for the players we have, we allow players to run through us. If you can not keep clean sheets then we do not stand a chance and that is what we should concentrate on, get clean sheets and nick the odd goal or so.
Clearly this is because there has been a rebellion with some players and it is clear who and this has affected the whole squad and nothing he can do about that until the summer I guess. I have no hope of any points in the next two games and this will place all kinds of pressure onto Houllier as we will be close to the bottom 3. You know my stance on here and coming back today I heard two callers on 606 saying he should go, this will only increase.
So for once a bad referring decision went for us and yet he never helped us and the missed chances yet again summed up our season. I also thought that Hogg had a good game before he had to be took off for his own protection because the ref believes tough tackling is no longer allowed.
MOTM – some good performances and based on the first 25, easily Heskey, overall though I am struggling to think who !!
Now is the time for the club to show us what they really want, I fear in our position attracting quality players will be very difficult.
One final thing.
Can someone explain why he brought on Pires and not Bannan ?
Aston Villa News 24/7
another bust up before the game. Gabby wasn’t in the first 11 – NRC was in 4-5-1 – Gabby was going home if he wasn’t playing – NRC was quickly dropped – but told he would get the 2nd half – but told GH to stick it.
p
now how would you know that rolex?
What utter absolute 100% BS.
NRC
Robert pires was a legend in his time but clearly now he has lost it. If houlier ever let’s him set foot on the field again I’d be bitterly disappointed and my first reaction was exactly the same why is this has been coming on and not bannan????oh that’s right. Pires is French and obviously gh has no real commitment to this team and is slowly sinking us with poor formations and terible substitutions and player choices. A few weeks ago Ian, u said let’s give him a chance. Do u really think we can afford to??
No spirit? What? We have so much more spirit under Houllier. We actually WANTED to get back into the game unlike when we went down under O’Neill, we would sit back and hope we don’t concede again. We continued to be the far better team throughout most of the game, just after the 2nd goal were they better for maybe 5-10 minutes.
do you really want me to bring up all those times we came back against teams ?
we have no fighting spirit under Houllier, his game is all about being ‘technical’ but you need fighting spirit and that has gone
10 Men..!! We only got 10 Men…….. COYS
I agree there is spirit but there are several other problems. The team is not organised, alot of effort but large gaps all over the park with players mot tracking runners. The defence has been destroyed, dunne was awesome last season and u dont just turn that crap over night, collins is not playing at his best and the defence in general has no control, what has houllier done to it, there was nothing wrong with it. We have great youngsters and will serve the club well but when the heat is on you need experience, why didnt NRC play, pires is past it and bannan is on a bit of form. There is no creativity through the centre and when its cross after cross some luck is needed. To much keeping the ball in front of there players and not moving forward quickly. Sorry about this rant but my club has been turned to crap, i see nothing that i think “oh i see what he is doing”
the defence is the key and that is houllier to blame because in there we have not had the major injuries that other parts of the team have had. they are being asked to play a different way that does not suit them.
…stop this Pires thing. He can´t handle the physical demand of Prem lge any more, not even for a half time. We have excellent youngsters, so give them the chance. It´s so frustrating for them when an unfit 37years old is playing and they have to watch. Whats about Clark. Has scored twice against Arsenal and has disappeared from the team completely. Nice bonus system. Cuellar showed he is a very good defender in this game, but Warnock costs us points. 1st goal of Spurs was his fault, as he was totally out of position.
andrew no offence but ya chatting a bit off shit there more spirrit under houlier dont be stupid its a complete farce and to be fair randy lerner shouldnt be getting away with this his mistake but he thinks fuck it ill go america an keep out the way back to a nothing side that no one respects
So it was Houlliers fault when we got stuffed at Newcastle? Tell you what, I think it was also his fault when we got hammered at Chelsea last season. The defence was leaky for the second half of last season and we have struggled to score goals for a long time now. Villa have spent about 7 or 8 million on strikers since Milan Baros and how long ago was that? This time last year we lost one nil to Liverpool when Torres buried the only chance he got and it was never in doubt from the moment he got the ball (from a defensive mistake which of course didn’t happen under MoN did it?). Hands up who thought Gabby was going to score when Heskey set him through? We need a decent strike force to take the pressure off a defence that is not good enough and doesnt get the protection Palacios gave the Spurs defence yesterday. Stick with GH and he will sort the defence? Remember the defence he built at Liverpool? I don’t like losing but the football under the last manager was dire as it was just hoof the ball out of defence to the opposition and hope they overcommitted coming forward so maybe the hoof would land at AYs feet and we could break and score. That tactic had long been sussex. It will get better. Stick with the manager and get behind the team
Most intellegent comment by far. I agree completly. You got to look at the whole picture. And saying Houiller is making strange tactical calls is all allright, but that doesn’t exactly make him unique in that position. MON did things I don’t understand to this day, and that wasn’t rarely, it was the whole time. Houllier has taken over a side on the brink of falling apart it seems, and when he demanded a bit more of the secure 11 of MON, that released the so called “riots” and troubles. But this was immenent, and blaming Houllier is ridicolous.
I strongly believe that this will get better, and that we may have a really great spring coming. We really just need to clear the air with changes this january, and espechially in the summer, and then add some real last-third quality. That is what we need in this new, and BETTER, way of playing football. Playing football like we used to may have given us 6. three times, but it wasn’t going to continiue! This season and everything we are going through is a much needed change that had to come! It is how we adjust and progress from this change and troublesome period that is creating the future for this great club! Just look at Tottenham. Two years ago they struggled the whole season and finished at 8. Next year they qualified for CL. This is the time to get behind the team and the manager more than ever!
you mention spurs, the parallel is correct but not quite in the way you meant it
they lost a manager who go them into decent league poisitions but it was not enough
they went out and got a so called big name foreign manager
he was totally out of his depth and they reverted back to plan C and brought in a typical british manger.
the lesson is clear.
Chris: ..keep on the facts. We got 3 successive top 6 places. Thats fact. GH took over a team on the brink to falling
apart? Who is telling that? Thats your assumption but not a fact. And our football was so bad the last 3 seasons. I see it differently. And we will get a great spring. Hopefully, otherwise we will go down.
“MON did things I don’t understand to this day, and that wasn’t rarely, it was the whole time.”
That he did. But a simple difference. MON made weird decisions and won football games. GH makes weird decisions and loses football games.
10men. actually you,ve only got one.your a one man team and you will be knackered when he decides to join a big team like arsenal chelsea or united.van der vaart is using you,thats why he is free to leave tottenham in the summer if big teams come calling.you could always try and resign palacios’ brother.
My commiseration to all decent Villa fans.
What an embarassment to have a moron called Shafter with gutter-level comments about the murderd brother of Palacios. What sort of specimen makes such a comment on a football banter site. A disgrace to fans of all clubs to have such scum amoongst us. MNinjd you the level of literacy is only matched by his complete lack of knowledge about Van der Vaart’s contract. Still he’d have to be able to read proficiently should he be given sight of it. These sites offer a great platform for such inadequates.
Spirited second half performance augers better for improving results. Good luck to a decent footballinmg side.
I agree Spud dude. Too many footy fans lack more than a dozen brain cells and a less morality. Twat. Spuds are having a cracking season…go for it you Yids! (As you refer to youselves that is…!). You’ve followed a similar plan to ourselves rather than the Ci£eh way, you deserve it! We’ll have our revenge soon enough when we replace our very own Christian Gross/Ramos in GH…
And he’s called Shafter ‘cus he takes it up the poop chute!
..since our good performance against Man Utd (2:2) we have lost 5 games out of 6!! Thats horrendous, although many injured players came back. Rumours about unrest players. Dunne, Carew, Ireland, Luke Young (injured?), Sidwell completely out of the picture. Pires a transfer nobody will understand. On Oct. 31 we kept the last clean sheet (home game against Blue noses, where we didn´t score ourself). Sorry, we are a club in a crises and we are in a relegation fight already. Now we have to collect points. Thats our main priority and not the quality level of our performances. And that decline happened in 4 month.
Spurs played us off the park in both games last season. I mean totally dominated us! They played like the home side at VP and down their place they battered us; if they had scored we would have seen another Chelsea.
Yes we took 2 totally undeserved points in those 2 games but did anyone see anything to give us a faint glimmer of hope that this season we might turn those draws into wins ?
In every game of last season, it was the same story. There was not one single footballing sign to suggest we could improve this campaign. Apart from Bolton at home we were constantly flat out. Even against all those lower league sides in the cups we never once put in a classy performance.
Over the season we had fewer attempts at goal than bottom club Portsmouth and that included our ‘trademark’ headers from set pieces. Everything pointed to us not being to sustain that luck forever. And this season without James Milner (and yesterday without Young against Spurs) well….
The club has spent millions on transfers and salaries assembling this average squad. I agree the players we have are only suited to playing the Allardyce or Pullis way. But I disagree O’Neill might have been able to get them to grind out 60 points for yet another season. I personally think this season we would have been found out big time under O’Neill and many of those lucky draws would have been defeats and those lucky wins would have been draws.
O’Neill surely thought that way too.
…maybe a good manager has luck and others don´t have. Whatever it is or will be – the difference is the good ones get results and the bad ones are loosing all the time. The reason for it isn´t essential for me. Fact is, MON improved every season in terms of points.
And one other fact: we put in decent performances when we are one or two goals down. Then we take risks and put some pressure in. But in the end we don´t achieve anything. Spurs game is a master example for that. And in terms of luck, we were rather lucky against WBA who had some decent chances. Without luck in this game we would have 6 losses in the last 6 games.
Last time I checked, O’Neill sold our best player and then walked out on us 5 days before the season started. He timed it to inflict maximum damage on the Villa; anybody who believes anything other than that is seriously underestimating the man’s intelligence or is blinded by love.
You and ianrobo seem to love him more with each passing day all I can say is hope you’ll all be very happy together.
UTV
I see the facts and will always love a Manager who gives me reason to be happy. And the last 4 years
I was more than happy. MON didn´t sell Milner, the Board was doing that. And the Board brought in
Ireland too.
The board sold Milner??? What a ridiculous claim. And your proof of this is where exactly?
UTV
Houllier was wrong to play hogg not delph.. Delph was very very impressive i would play NRC And him vs city … Petrov didnt look fit enough.. Hogg is not good enough i dont see how GH has given him a contract extension … Defoe didnt cost us the game because im sure if he would have stayed on Bale and Modric and VDV would have just put more through our high line… If you had taken out Bale and VDV spurs would be about as good as us.. In jan we need quality in the midfield and up top we cant rely on Heskey who is good but injury prone and Gabby who doesnt seem to give much passion and the fonz’s shooting needs to improve. If both youngs re back vs city we have a chance!
Our main problem was playing Fabian Delph (used to be a winger, now converted to the middle jumping up to the top league and making 1st appearance in 8 months) alongside Jonathon Hogg (a youth team holding midfielder who isn’t ready just yet and has struggled in recent weeks) up against Modric, Palacious and Van Der Vaart. From the KO we all knew Spurs were going to dominate. Why couldn’t we play Bannan, NRC and Petrov from the start? I don’t get it.
Delph is better than bannan… delph should be playing as an attacking midfielder not as a CDM he cant do that … and nor can Hogg hes just out of his depth i agree we should have played either one of NRC and Petrov … if heskeys out against man city we should play 5 in midfield and hope that Young, petrov and NRC are all fit
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