The BigFooty Aston Villa Army

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HawkMongrel said:
Hi mate, happy to give my perspective. Also well done on knocking off Essenscum ;-)

- Unsure about the preseason, we've won against MLS clubs but then got whacked in Holland by Groningen, and then got a 1-0 result against Walsall who we should really be belting. Overall it's probably not too harsh to say it was poor.
- Appalling, however that's the result of an ownership issue and Lambert only being given 10mil GBP to spend. He's had to scrape the bottom of the barrel with free transfers like Joe Cole, Kieran Richardson, and Philippe Senderos who will bring some experience but also have some question marks above them.
- Nothing to be excited about just yet, although if Cole can stay fit he'd be great. He's already had an injury so I have doubts.
- West Brom as it's a local derby
- Okore & Vlaar. Okore showed glimpses of being a solid defender until he did his kneee and Vlaar is great if he isn't surrounded by awful footballers like Ciaran Clark, Joe Bennett, and Nathan Baker.
- Watch our for Jores Okore after recovering from an ACL
- Anything short of 13th+ would be a disappointment
- After the last couple of seasons dancing with relegation it's pretty unsafe, however last season was demolished by injuries to key players so we'll see how he goes.
- Guzan, Richardson, Vlaar, Okore, Lowton, Delph, Cole, N'Zogbia, Westwood, Benteke, Wiemann
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Thanks mate! I'll include them over in the previews thread for others to see.
 

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Carlos Sanchez has finally joined us.

The squad now looks a lot more solid, and hopefully the arrival of players like him and Cissokho will convince Vlaar to hang around.

Southampton ffs.
 
Great result for you guys last night away from home against a pretty strong midtable side. :thumbsu:
 
NUFC Tiger said:
Great result for you guys last night away from home against a pretty strong midtable side. :thumbsu:
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Sorry mate for not replying to your post about the pre-season previews, I've been a bit inactive and didn't see it until now! Looks like HM did a great job though.


In terms of the win against Stoke, we were absolutely superb I thought. Best performance we've had for a while, but consistency will be the real question here. Our backline finally looks a lot stronger, and we still have Sanchez to come in. Cissokho and Senderos were immense. Holding on to Vlaar after his great WC performances was also crucial.

The thing I was probably most excited about was seeing Grealish get a run. He didn't really have the time to do much, but he did lay on a few nice passes and did nothing wrong. I'm looking forward to seeing him secure a little more game time under his belt.

With a nightmare run of games coming up soon against arsenal, Liverpool, city and Chelsea, it's important we get a few points on the board in these first few games. It'll give us the confidence boost we need leading in what could potentially be a very dire month.

That said, I'm a lot more optimistic than I was before the season. Although one performance could easily be an outlier, as we saw last season in our opening victory against Arsenal...so I won't be putting any bets on yet.
 
Makedonija said:
Sorry mate for not replying to your post about the pre-season previews, I've been a bit inactive and didn't see it until now! Looks like HM did a great job though.

In terms of the win against Stoke, we were absolutely superb I thought. Best performance we've had for a while, but consistency will be the real question here. Our backline finally looks a lot stronger, and we still have Sanchez to come in. Cissokho and Senderos were immense. Holding on to Vlaar after his great WC performances was also crucial.

The thing I was probably most excited about was seeing Grealish get a run. He didn't really have the time to do much, but he did lay on a few nice passes and did nothing wrong. I'm looking forward to seeing him secure a little more game time under his belt.

With a nightmare run of games coming up soon against arsenal, Liverpool, city and Chelsea, it's important we get a few points on the board in these first few games. It'll give us the confidence boost we need leading in what could potentially be a very dire month.

That said, I'm a lot more optimistic than I was before the season. Although one performance could easily be an outlier, as we saw last season in our opening victory against Arsenal...so I won't be putting any bets on yet.
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All good mate! Yeah HawkMongrel did a great job providing a few thoughts on Villa so those insights were definitely appreciated.

Yeah, I think Benteke is injured as well and is another to come back into the side? When you have a fit squad to choose, from, it has quite a few handy players and quality to it. Maybe a top half finish is on the cards?

I believe our next game is away to you guys, should be a cracking game - hopefully we can pick up the 3 points like we did last season :D;)
 
Another win and we're third and pretty for now, although a big challenge coming up. Defense looks solid for the first time in years. Cissokho's OG was just bloody unlucky.

Also I put faith in Andi Weimann as captain for my fantasy team this week and he nailed it for me :D
 

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Hard to blame Lambert for:
- Benteke getting a horseshit red card over a month ago costing him three matches
- Injuries to Delph, Vlaar, Westwood, Senderos, Kozak, etc
- Kieran Richardson having a colossal brain-fart on the weekend in the loss to West Brom
- Dodgy EPL fixturing that saw us play Arsenal, Liverpool, Man City, Everton, and Chelsea all in a row

I know a lot of people are on the "Lambert Out" train, but if anyone can explain to me how he can change the above critical things that have contributed to our on-field problems I'll get on the train too. Until then, not a chance.
 
HawkMongrel said:
Hard to blame Lambert for:
- Benteke getting a horseshit red card over a month ago costing him three matches
- Injuries to Delph, Vlaar, Westwood, Senderos, Kozak, etc
- Kieran Richardson having a colossal brain-fart on the weekend in the loss to West Brom
- Dodgy EPL fixturing that saw us play Arsenal, Liverpool, Man City, Everton, and Chelsea all in a row

I know a lot of people are on the "Lambert Out" train, but if anyone can explain to me how he can change the above critical things that have contributed to our on-field problems I'll get on the train too. Until then, not a chance.
Click to expand...

Honestly I think most Villa fans just don't like the negative game plan, and if you're a manager who's not getting results with that kind of game plan well you're not in a good place.
 
sverik25 said:
Honestly I think most Villa fans just don't like the negative game plan, and if you're a manager who's not getting results with that kind of game plan well you're not in a good place.
Click to expand...

I'd say it's more to do with us almost tasting some success under Martin O'Neill and then falling into the s**t when he left and we replaced him with Houllier. An impatience grew after that and the McLeish debacle, and then the yank pulled his cash for Lambert and left him working with scraps. He's spent two seasons with kids trying to develop them and now he's got a few senior players out of that and topped up with other senior players to steady the ship.

Problem is most of them are now injured, but before the injuries hit and the fixture murdered us, we were sitting pretty in second spot and everyone was hailing Lambert. He's had the least amount of luck possible over the last few seasons, topped off with an ACL injury to Benteke of all players.

I think a lot of our fans are fairly stupid tbh.
 
Things are a bit quiet here, but it was good to read an explanation for why Lambert's progress has faltered. I thought his Norwich team was great, and I don't think that his preferred approach is negative.

Some rumours linking Benteke with Liverpool, but that seems wildly unrealistic since selling him would be a crazy move for Villa. Delph is more likely - how does he rate?
 
Can't see Benteke leaving for Liverpool, at least not until the end of the season. Can't really see Delph being transferred right now either as he's been playing like s**t and he's been out for a chunk of this season with injury.

I feel for Lambert, I really do. Almost every week he has to put up with one dickhead in the squad conceding a completely needless red card. I think we've copped something like a red in 5 of the last 7 matches or something ridiculous like that. (admittedly the Gabby red against United was horseshit and it was overturned, but it still murdered us)

Vlaar still can't get past injuries, Okore is still coming back to some semblance of form since his ACL injury, there's still no sign of Libor Kozak to help Benteke up front since Clarke, the worst defender I've ever seen, decided to break his leg in training last season ffs. Gabby is WELL past his used-by date and if there's one major bone of contention I currently have with Lambert it's that he selects him as the stand-in captain when Vlaar is out. The spud wouldn't get a start at Rushden and Diamonds but he's captaining Villa!

Carles Gil is hopefully going to give us some sort of creativity in the middle because Sanchez doesn't know what "forward" means (I don't think I've ever seen him play a forward pass), Westwood is another defensive mid, and while Delph was good last season he's still not a creative midfielder, he's a hard runner.

I've never seen Wiemann play so *******, I have no idea what his problem is. And I watch Benteke throwing his arms up in frustration almost every weekend now as his team mates like Gabby refuse to pass to him in a good position along the ground instead choosing to go for glory and put in into row Z.

And Tom Cleverley would have to be one of the biggest dickheads currently plodding around the EPL. He looks completely disinterested and can FOAD. Charles N'Zogbia also *s me right off as he's got talent in spades but he's playing like an absolute *.
 
Gabby still seems pretty darn quick. He is only 28 and should be firing on all cylinders. Definitely didn't deserve that red. But the whole Bent situation was odd, so maybe Agbonlahor is part of the problem.

I didn't know Clarke broke Kozak's leg. I remember him being talked up as a good young talent, along with the rest of the squad, so that's why I was confused that Villa seem to be making zero progress. N'Zogbia is seemingly like Ben Harfa, a lot of talent, but a lot more ego on top of that. They mustn't pass enough even in training, they seem to lose popularity with the manager/squad so quickly.

Delph's contract runs out in the Summer, so if they don't sell him now he goes for nothing. As he has been effective in the past, you'd think someone would buy him, but he might only want the big clubs and if he has been underwhelming then in 6 mths he can get an inflated pay check somewhere.

Should be an interesting game. Despite LFC being a more optimistic place, we still give away chances quite readily, and confidence is fragile with so many youngsters. Sturridge is back around the club after rehab tho, and that should get everyone's tails up.
 
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