brummie

I've a feeling our run of getting points we don't deserve against Everton (goes back about 7 or 8 years now) is going to end on Saturday.

I was going to withdraw from this, but can't let this stand. The black country? The black country is the area occupied by Wolverhampton, Sandwell, Dudley and other similar places, it's certainly not Birmingham, and any Brummie would recoil with disgust about being labelled a yam-yam. Mind you, I live in Warwick now, so don't know what that makes me.

God no. The Other Matches thread is surely fine? TBH, I try to limit my whingeing to there anyway, and had forgotten I was spouting in the Carroll thread, but I agree with otter, it's not ideal.

Nope, it didn't.

That's very nice of you. Others are right, though, I had forgotten this was in the Carroll thread, so apols for derailment.

The only ones I recall being roundly unpopular are McLeish and O'Leary (and even that was only his last year or so). MON got an awful lot of stick from some fans over certain issues, but I can honestly say, I have only ever met one or two people who actually wanted him sacked. Even I didn't want that, and I'm no fan of his "legacy". Other managers, like Atkinson, Gregory (with a few exceptions), Sir Brian Little, Sir Graham Taylor (mk 1 at least) were exceptionally popular. In other words, kind of like all fans - Villa fans will genuinely give someone a go, even if they're not fond of the appointment (and that genuinely happened with McLeish last year), but when they turn, they usually do so en masse.

Your Allardyce comparison is bang on. I was frequenting this place when he was here, and can confirm, the reaction amongst our lot was very similar to that. Honestly, what do people expect?

Worse than Graham Turner, and even worse than Billy McNeill - a manager so bad, he got Villa AND Man City relegated in the same season. Remarkable.

Exactly. It's fucking rank. Of course we're deluded for wanting the cunt ran out of town after a few months of it. Tell me about it. The thick cunts on Sky's saturday afternoon thing we moaning on about how Villa fans didn't give McLeish a chance, how he did an ok job. Offensive bullshit. He didn't get any serious crowd stick till about March, for starters. Houllier got much worse than that. Football punditry is essentially a closed shop of former pros who do nothing but stick up for other former pros. Fucking hell. I didn't watch much of Villa last season like, but the Arsenal (?) game where he effectively set his team out after half time to hold onto a 2-0 defeat was one of the most surreal 2nd halves of football I've ever seen. We played at Spurs with a six man defence effectively, which included Alan Hutton (who can only kick people) playing right midfield. Unforgiveably negative. I seem to remember doing alright till half time against you lot too before he decided to drop the H bomb (bring Heskey on) at half time and give up. I think it was your lot, but to be honest, it could have been against anyone last season. Genuinely, I am a 40 something man, and when I think of last season, even now, it actually makes me want to cry, it was so depressing.

Incidentally, I remember our 87 relegation, and we were fucking awful that year, right from the first game, but we were never as embarassingly negative as we were under that wanker.

We won 4 home games all season last year, the worst since 1888, and the only reason it is 1888 is because THE LEAGUE DIDN'T EXIST TILL THEN. That includes tens of seasons where there were only 11 home games a season, FFS. It makes me want to vomit my kidney up when i hear some fat, clueless cunt like Lawrenson saying people who've thrown over 6 0r 700 quid a year to watch that shit are being unfair. I hated the appointment, but the vast majority of us gave him a chance - and then he started playing his mindbendingly defensive, negative tactics all the time. He asked for it, and even then, he didn't get any real stick till three quarters through the season. If you played Stoke at home, and were winning 1-0, only to concede an equaliser on 84 mins or so, and at the final whistle, you saw your manager do a little celebratory fist pump, how would you feel? In fact, how would supporters of ANY club feel?

Exactly. It's fucking rank. Of course we're deluded for wanting the cunt ran out of town after a few months of it. Tell me about it. The thick cunts on Sky's saturday afternoon thing we moaning on about how Villa fans didn't give McLeish a chance, how he did an ok job. Offensive bullshit. He didn't get any serious crowd stick till about March, for starters. Houllier got much worse than that. Football punditry is essentially a closed shop of former pros who do nothing but stick up for other former pros.

Savage hates Villa, and always has done since his spell at Birmingham City. Plus he's an absolute prick. We're in a transitional period at the moment. Lambert is having to change the entire playing structure, on and off the field. On the pitch, we're adapting to a new, patient passing style, and that's not going to happen overnight, and maybe not at all until he gets more players of his own selection in the squad. One of the reasons we're transitioning is the ongoing effects of allowing Martin O'Neill to spend huge amounts of money on really average players, and watching them sit, contribute nothing, and rake in 50k plus a week. It is going to take a while, but he's started. For starters, Vlaar - who is an excellent passer of the ball - in the centre of defence rather than James Collins and his predictable 60 yard clouting of the ball is a gigantic improvement. El Ahmadi looks a very decent passer of the ball as well. The problem we have is that we don't get the ball to Bent enough. Bent is an out and out striker, he just puts the ball in the net but contributes nothing more than that. He's statistically a great finisher, but I wonder if we can really afford to have him in the team sometimes, and whether a more rounded striker would offer us much more, albeit at a lower strike rate. re academy products - there were only two in the starting line up on Saturday, Baker and Clark. Baker was playing at left back, which is a position we need to sort out, now that Lambert has toid Warnock he's not in his plans (same as he told the execrably poor Hutton on the other side). Saturday, we passed well and kept the ball, but couldn't handle West Ham's physical barrage for the whole 90 minutes. In many senses, they were one of the worst teams for us to face at this point of the season. Allardyce's "style" is fucking horrendous, though. Constant long, high balls, obstructing the keeper at any possibility, belting it upfield at the slightest opportunity (no wonder he likes James Collins). I think I'd find that about as entertaining as watching McLeish's 9 main defence routine.

Actually, ignore that, quicker to tag the ones that *aren't* ITK

Someone needs to take the time to tag every single person in the Spurs end with "ITK"

It is almost certainly "ITK" bollocks, mind.

There's lots of chatter on Twitter this evening about him coming to us. Not sure what I think about that (assuming the price is right). We struggle to get the ball to the front men (although, impressively, Sky had us having 66% possession at West Ham yesterday, which is certainly a change from last year, even if most of it was passing the ball in nice midfield triangles that didn't go anywhere). Rumour is the fee for Carroll is 16m, but they still owe us 8m for Downing, meaning we're chucking them 8m for him.

No, but not much to spend I suspect, or it will at leat be prudent. Hutton and Warnock to move on.

They must be paying him a canny wedge too, he turned down Spurs because he didn't like the wages he was offered. Ha ha, as if any player ever turns down Spurs!

Is Martin REALLY paying Saha, at 34, 40k a week? That is terrible even by his own mental standards.

That thing about only having one man, Storey-Moore, and zero scouting network is absolutely true. In fact, one of the first things Lerner told Houllier was to sort scouting out, which he started doing. Lambert has just appointed Michael Henke who was at Bayern and Dortmund to run our European scouting. Finally, we're in the 21st century. Martin's ways were determinedly 20th century.

That's a well written article, and seems to be written by someone channelling my opinions on him. Is it someone on here? I'd just add that he never really did Heskey on for Carew, it tended to be Steve Sidwell on on 75 minutes. In fact, no "tended to be" about it, it was almost every week

Bit unfair on Cuellar, he's not a bad player at all.

You won't find many journalists arguing against MON. The thing that annoyed me most about him was the degree to which we became MartinONeill'sAstonVilla, and how when he walked out on us when he did, it was somehow twisted by fauning apologists like Patrick Barclay, Henry Winter and - absolutely worst of the lot - Oliver Holt to make it look like we'd sacked him. I think about some of the shit they'd write about him, and I feel sick coming up my throat and into my mouth.