brummie

Yeah, it just needs to start in the right direction. Two years ago we played them in the cup up there, and Houllier surrendered before the match, then said after we were never going to beat them. Had McFuck taken us there in the cup, he'd probably have done the same, and then sent them an apology letter and offered to pay their expenses. Lambert at least got them believing a bit. It might not have been City's best XI, but apparently their starting XI cost £187m, so it was hardly a bunch of shmucks. Good to see Gareth Barry doing something for his old club, too, mind.

Some talk going around that the Man City fans were chanting "let him die" during whilst the Villa fans were doing their 19th minute applause for Petrov. That's disappointing, if true. I hope they didn't.

Think that's part and parcel with a new manager coming in, takes a while to adapt tbh Quite right, plus we'd sunk as low as I'd seen us since 1987, under McFuck last year.

I think we're going to have a mentally up and down season. We had 55% possession at the Etihad, and won 4-2, three days after losing 4-1 at Southampton, including shipping four goals in the second half. At least it's not going to be boring.

As someone I sit near said to me "you could hold a music festival in the space Hutton leaves behind him when he wanders out of position, looking for someone to kick"

Did well for us right up till Valencia took him to the cleaners at the CC Final, then became awful overnight.

A moment of silence in appreciation of the terrible ordeal Randy Lerner put that horrible little PornDwarf and his side kick, Mr Tumnus through when West Ham visited Villa Park

So, farewell, then, Stephen Warnock, now you have joined Bolton on an emergency loan. To sum up the reactions of the Villa faithful to this terrible loss, here are the last few responses i just saw on a Villa forum discussing it. Far too many.

http://www.birminghammail.net/birmingham-sport/aston-villa-fc/aston-villa-news/2012/09/18/aston-villa-emile-heskey-signs-for-newcastle-97319-31859985/ On the bright side, he's strengthening you.

It's a matter of time, to be honest. He;s been a touch unlucky, too. There's an argument that we can't really afford to play with Bent, as he's only about goalscoring and contributes nothing else, but Lambert, certainly in the last game and to a lesser extent, the one before, has got him dropping back and helping out a lot more. I actually really like the look of Weimann up front, though, I think he's got a decent future ahead of hime. Benteke did well when he came on, too. I think getting Agbonlahor fully fit will help, too, as we sometimes lack that bit of pace to stretch teams. It's all interesting. Early days yet, but 100 times as interesting as the snoozefests of the last two seasons (and, to be honest, it's more like the last four seasons at home).

Broken foot. Due back soon, I think. He was injured for a chunk of last year as well, although when fit, he, like the rest of them, was way off form.

He did really badly for most of last season, but then again, so did all of them. He tends to play the "Hollywood" pass too often for my liking, but it looks as if Lambert might be trying to get him to make better decisions on what ball to play.

That was definitely a start. It's a long, long road, though. Half the squad are either still imbued with O'Neill's approach to the game (big men at back in the middle, big man up front, wingers, nothing else matters), some are kids having to learn to change, and some are new arrivals who will need time to settle. As I said, definitely still be a few really poor performances and results over the course of the season, we've only just started, but Saturday was the first time I've enjoyed a match at Villa Park for a long time.

The prophecy is coming true. Well in brummie. To be honest, you'd have got the same thing from any Villa fan, it was all just so predictable. They've specifically noticed the whole "trying to play on the counter attack at home" thing, mind.

Cracking game at our place on Saturday. We are showing definite signs of improvement the last couple of games. It's so refreshing to have a manager who will change things tactically to match the opponent. We closed Swansea down very well, and always looked to win the ball back when we didn't have it. We're trying to pass the ball around much, much more. It'll be better as he has more time to change the squad to acquire more players comfortable with that kind of approach, but the difference he's made already is pretty remarkable. The new signings, those we've seen, look good. Vlaar and El Ahmadi pass and retain the ball fantastically well, and this is having a rub-off effect on other players, particularly Bannan and Clark. Lowton looks more and more comfortable at this level, too. I am also very impressed with Holman. His work rate is astonishing, he's constantly closing down and harrying opponents. He reminds me a little of the way James Milner was when we had him playing centrally - he at least looks like he could grow into that role. Really, really early days yet, as Lambert himself said, and we will have plenty of set backs along the way, but as long as we don't expect too much from this season, and accept that it won't all be plain sailing, people will be happy with that kind of approach.

On SMB tonight, they were moaning a bit about Sunderland sitting back and trying to play on the counter at home. They'd better get used to that, because that is ALL MON knows how to do, and that's what he's going to carry on doing. The bloke is a relic.

13 shots from the whole team all season. Negative as fuck. I almost spat sick out of my mouth tonight when Hansen likened Lambert to MON tonight on MOTD. Is that true? 13 shots from the whole team all season? We had 16 in one match today. Which is probably what we'd have had across 20 matches under McFuck last year.

Fuck me, I've no vested interest here, but the state of the Sunderland fans in shot after Fletcher's goal. Girl with a Croydon facelift so severe, her tits were hanging off her chin.

I'm not one for hyperbole, but we were excellent today, really excellent.

It's the Liverpool thread, not the hillsborough thread. I didn't say it was the hillsborough thread, I just wondered if it was posted with reference to what has been discussed on the last few pages. Tooj said it isn't, which clears it up. It was pretty obvious it wasn't. Not really, take a look through the last few pages for some of the offensive, irrelevant bollocks people have been posting.

It's the Liverpool thread, not the hillsborough thread. I didn't say it was the hillsborough thread, I just wondered if it was posted with reference to what has been discussed on the last few pages. Tooj said it isn't, which clears it up.

Is that posted with relevance to the Hillsborough discussion? Because if it is, there is absolutely no relevance at all.

I've read a few threads on this on various message boards today, and I am both amazed and depressed how so many people, despite having just had a truly independent inquiry given full access to, and having studied 400,000 pages of evidence and state the utter contrary, still persist in going on about ticketless fans, pissed fans forcing entry, etc - do you not realise these are EXACTLY the slurs which the families have put up with for 23 years and which have been so comprehensively demolished today? Why on earth are you letting your dislike of one football club or city poison your rationality like this? Get it into your heads - the fans have NOTHING to be guily about regarding what happened that day. There were NOT bands of pissed up fans forcing entry. There were NOT great numbers of ticketless fans outside. Seriously, what will it take for people to stop spouting this bullshit? I suspect the great majority of those who do are too young to have been a football match attender in the 1980s. or they'd realise that ultimately Hillsborough is not just about Liverpool fans. Anyone who attended matches in that period will have similar stories of dangerous conditions, of terrifying overcrowding, of police hostility, brutality and negligence. Anyone who visited the Sheffield grounds as a fan in that time will be entirely aware of the deserved reputation South Yorkshire Police had at the time in the way they treated football supporters. They were in a great many cases total fucking scumbags, who would frequently look for trouble, not try to stop it. Those in denial today really need to understand this - it could quite easily have been your club, and the people of Newcastle who would have suffered what happened in 1989. Then imagine 23 years of being called liars by important sectors of the media, and the police. Imagine having the police lie and doctor evidence to protect themselves at your cost. Imagine having the people who are supposed to protect you turn on you so overwhelmingly to protect their own backs. Imagine living with that blighting your life for 23 years. Have a think about people sneering about your city because of it. Think about total fucking scumbags like Kelvin MacKenzie continuing to lie about you right to the end, right until he's forced to apologise. How do you imagine that feels? The worst thing about today is finding out just how comprehensively, wilfully, and shamelessly the government, media and police of this country treated those families for a quarter of a century, but I have to say, i find the wilfully stupid denial that so many people in the football community - the very community which was under attack - have even today in refusing to believe what has been spelled out so comprehensively by this report, and by the reaction of the Prime Minister in parliament today. Honestly, get a fucking grip.

There's no evidence of there being lots of fans there without tickets, so it's not a question of them being guilt free - it is a total red herring.

This is from one of the witness statements released today, from a Liverpool fan, and given in April 1989