Most people said Lambert was just an over rated championship manager, none of you guys listened though. I think you are definetly in a relegation battle this season and i don't think theres many teams as poor as you.

Agree, can't believe so many Villa fans are so calm. Glad Lambert got booed today. 1-1 against Norwich at home is the poorest result thus far and I'm surprised he didn't get more stick for the results against West Brom, Southampton and West Ham.

This Villa side not only lacks confidence 100%, it is also incredibly poor. Lambert doesn't seem to have a clue. He plays the same team every game and continues to alienate Bent and N'Zogbia, two players who need to be introduced as soon as possible. His tactics are negative. We play rubbish football and I don't see a difference to last season in our overall play.

Nothing good to say. We've been in a season of transition for the third year running now apparently. This is not transition. This is a club heading for the doldrums and if we go down I really am not convinced we'll come back up.

A Villa fan said we've always been a midtable side with the odd flirt at top six. He clearly doesn't know his history. Under Doug Ellis we only finished near the bottom 3 three times. We finished in the top 6 more than that. We finished in the top 8 quite a few times. The direction we're going in now is not in any way connected with the past. We should not be going in this direction. We are not Arsenal, Chelsea or Man U, but equally we're not Wigan, Southampton or Reading either and yet that is who we are competing with. How long ago was it when we were considered a similar sized club to Everton or Tottenham? Now we're a million miles from being compared to them.

This is a shambles and I'm not going to have any confidence for this club until something changes drasticaly. It's not good enough.

Spot on 1987 spot on

biggest mistake you ever made was p issing off Martin Oneil, he was building up something decent there and you have gone on a downward spiral since then,

Oneill was gash and lambert is your karma for treatment of mcleish! Shuttin a cheque book shouldnt make a MANAGER leave but as hes showin at sunderland he is gash!

lets all at Villa

As one who can remember when we were relegated to the old Third Division, this isn't the worst Villa side, not by a long way...

We should have played better today. As far as results so far are concerned, we were really rolled over by Everton, and collapsed in the second half against Southampton. Both poor, though there was some sort of excuse that we had a newly put together team of mainly young players. The other results I'm not too concerned about. We were OK against Swansea, and maybe our unlucky draw away against Newcastle was the best result of the season (apart from killing off MC in the cup!). The other matches I thought we played pretty well except for our long time problem of scoring goals.

Today we seemed to go backwards. Yes we have injuries, but I'd assumed that Lambert had enough players at his disposal to cover for them. It's good that Benteke scored, and a well worked goal at that; he has great potential and it'll help him. It's good that we got a point; we'll need it. And I think the defence stood up pretty well under pressure in the second half.

But what about the midfield? Couldn't hold onto the ball, very strange after the way Lambert's been coaching them. Ireland on the bench I think was right; he was brought back too soon last week. But N'zogbia didn't even make the bench. Forget about what fowards we play. Lambert has some serious thinking to do about how to get the midfield to produce.

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The midfield is awful, lost count of the times we gave the ball away even with eleven.

Two full backs are also a real weak link, they will get torn to shreds by the better sides, let alone Norwich.

Better face facts although I hate to say it, we will be bottom by end of November

Absolutely shocking comments McP. I admire the fact that you're a diehard Villan, but come on. We've played just as bad football under Lambert as under McLeish, if not worse. This time last year under McLeish we scored three times against Norwich and Bent and Agbonlahor were called up by England. Two years ago under Houllier we were taking points off Arsenal, Chelsea, Man U, City + Liverpool yet most fans complained about him. How does Lambert deserve preferential treatment? He signed these "youngsters" who were supposedly ready for Premier League football. The only one who looked Premier League quality today was Vlaar, who I admit was the one good signing he made. Yet the likes of Holman (signed by McLeish but always played by Lambert), Bennett, Lowton + El Ahmedi have looked nowhere near the quality we need. Benteke needs to work on his finishing + improve but you can clearly see he has something. But that's few and far between. Lambert's style is poor. He praised us today when really he needed to indicate an improvement because the fans are getting just as negative as last season and it's no surprise given the lack of improvement. Our worst start to a season for 45 years, last season we had our worst home record for 100 years, and our worst ever points tally in over 20 years of Premier League football. People say they've seen Villa worse than this: well, I thank God I've only been following Villa for 20 years because we are dire right now.

I saw someone write above that if we finish 17th, then that will be a good season. If this is really what we are about these days then I really don't know how I can follow this club. I'm not a glory hunter, far from it, in fact I've stuck with Villa through the bad times + the good, but if our aims are that pathetic and our fans' expectations so low, what is the point in even bothering? This club's aim has ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS been to try + win something and get into Europe. Even under Deadly Doug, we would always try and get to Europe. We'd always spend when necessary. I see no evidence that we want this any more and therefore I don't recognise this club.

Villa1987 - Sorry you're shocked, I can't see why. I don't pretend all is really OK. And am far as I'm concerned Lambert has still to prove his worth. But I've not yet got to the point of thinking he won't get there. Yet. I've been puzzled, maybe disappointed, by some of his selections. But we have to give it time.

I do think we need a balanced view. We played great against Newcastle. And against the PL champions in the cup. We CAN produce good performances. The question is, why aren't we?

Before we judge things, we need to reflect where we came from. Once Bent got injured last year, we hardly one a game, what's more we didn't look like winning one; getting even a point was pretty rare, and we hurtled towards relegation, just as Blues had under McLeish the previous year. We survived more to the failure of other teams, rather than anything else. That's where Lambert came in. If things had continued as before, we wouldn't be any better off, probably worse, unless Bent had managed to get us some goals.

So, Lambert decided he had to do a radical rebuild. With the money available that meant looking for the cheaper option, either local products with promise or less expensive foreign players. That comes with risks, and a predictably bumpy rid. I don't quarrel with the players he brought in; they're not Championship League players, but they may well turn out OK. I actually think our defence overall is better than last year; things weren't too good against Everton or Southampton, but apart from that I think our problems are elsewhere. For a start, I think we're lacking at least one class midfielder; we can't do anything about that until January (we will be buying in January), but I'm not convinced by Lambert's midfield selections, we have better players on the bench.And for forwards, Lawro said that PL should start playing Bent and Benteke together; I think he's right.

For the record, Deadly Doug did oversee the odd relegation, and some other years survival was definitely the main aim. And to get it in perspective, if we'd won today we'd be within a win of the top half of the table; it's early days. But I think what's worrying fans is what they're actually seeing on the pitch; today wasn't convincing, even though we grabbed a point, and if we'd have won I still think there would have been, rightly, worries. We have to show we can still produce performances like Newcastle and MC.

"If this is really what we are about these days then I really don't know how I can follow this club. I'm not a glory hunter, far from it, in fact I've stuck with Villa through the bad times + the good, but if our aims are that pathetic and our fans' expectations so low, what is the point in even bothering?"

That's pretty much how I'd define a glory hunter. If we'd been relegated last year would you have stopped supporting Villa? A year in the Championship would do wonders for some of our fans.

Today was disappointing and we weren't firing on all cylinders. But take the long view - this is one match and it IS going to happen again. All part of rebuilding the way we are.

Not sweating yet.

Long way to go. However you can't say that this hasn't been coming. The last two seasons you have been shocking

Chronic - you're right about there being a long way to go, but the last two seasons were very different in my mind.

Under GH we started poor and improved later on - if he'd stayed things would have (slowly) improved. He tried to change too much with players who were technically too poor. I'm glad he tried though.

Under AMC the start was better in terms of points, but we were playing to the strengths of a technically poor team. After a few games everyone figured us out and it went to dire pretty quickly. If he had stayed we'd be bottom with attendances under 10k - the football was just that bad to watch.

Under PL we've started like a team that was just promoted, and that's no surprise given how young and inexperienced the squad is. We'll have more bad days, but a few shock results too. In the new year we'll hopefully have gelled a bit more and the results will pick up.

We're in a very similar situation to Liverpool, just with less experience and quality on the pitch.

I agree these are worrying times at villa, for the first time i can honestly say i'm dreading the drop and the only thing which will save us is Randy's checkbook in January and by that i mean at least 4 new experience players coming in.
I knew Saturdays game was going to be tough but the way this current team simply fold in is frightening. West ham, Southampton, Everton and now Norwich if we continue without reinforcing then i believe were done for.

ahh lads you all seem very down.

i know how you feel. it wasnt long ago that we were bottom of the league with 2 points from 8 games and looking like we were going to be going down.

at least you have the power to spend in january.

wumming aside i think you will do very well to avoid the drop this year, as if southampton can tighten up even slightly they will score their way to safety, and the same applies to reading. qpr i think will eventually be fine.

Chronic i seen you with a couple of mates at the game yesterday.

http://i.imgur.com/W2pDK.gif

templar

It’s not the worst Villa side that I’ve seen but I fully understand where the OP is coming from. Saturday was another embarrassment and it’s difficult to remember a match where I left the ground feeling as depressed as I did on Saturday. Before the game I felt that something would go wrong with this one, and as soon as that idiot Bennett got booked I knew a sending off was imminent. The last 35 minutes were among the most shocking that I have seen at Villa. Why Guzan continually kicked the ball straight back to the opposition is absolutely beyond me. Why didn’t someone come short to collect the ball? When you’re down to 10 men you have got to keep possession. The tactics were inexcusable.

After Saturday I had resigned myself to relegation. However, I do feel that if we stay behind the manager, our support could give us a slight advantage over our relegation rivals. We have got to back Paul Lambert . No matter how poor we are, we have got to support the team at every game. Unrest really helps no-one. Even if we go down, is there a better manager than PL to get us straight back up? We need to accept PL is our man and back him 100%.

No-one is expecting much from our next 4 league games. Barring something spectacular we will be bottom of the league after our home game with Arsenal, so let’s not get too disheartened when the inevitable happens. It’s the games after Arsenal that will shape our season. However, let’s face the next 4 games in a really positive frame of mind and, who knows, something spectacular might happen. We’ve been written off already so what have we got to lose?

BTW, the bookies still feel that there are 5 teams ahead of us in the relegation betting. They’re right more often than not.

UTV

The one thing that'll save Lamberts neck is that the sides in and around us, are not any better. Lambert needs time.

Clearly Bent is away in January. He doesn't want to count on him when that happens.

who have you villa boys got this week?

Whoever it is, are we going to hear that they will spank us

andy

yeah no doubt whoever it is will give you a good whoooping

Saw it coming mate

so who you got then?