I have a sneaky feeling Adam won’t be doing a preview for the game today, as (as some of you may know) he went to Australia on Saturday, which means a) he probably won’t be feeling up to it and b) I suspect the time difference may prove a problem. If he even has internet, that is.
So you’re stuck with my ramblings, which will be more general thoughts.
I couldn’t dare try to compete with Adam on this sort of article as I don’t have a clue who Lambert will line up with or what his formation will be.
Adam just does that way better than me, so I’m not even going to try.
So just look at this article as somewhere to sound off and add your predictions to.
Is this what we’d call a big game?
Well, normally, it wouldn’t be. No disrespect to Cardiff, but it’s not exactly the sort of game that attracts major interest is it?
But yes, it is for me this time, as if we win, we open up a bit more of a gap on the bottom three.
As opposed to the opposite case, where obviously, if we lose, we’re going to start getting sucked in.
Something that, regardless of your stance in the serious and somewhat heated debate in the last article (good stuff by the way), I’m sure none of us want to see.
Cardiff have a pretty poor record of late. They’ve won two, drawn one and lost the rest in their last 10 games.
Whereas we’ve won two, drawn two and lost six. Also pretty poor.
While Villa have a just below average record in conceding goals this season, Cardiff have a decidedly poorer record and only Fulham have conceded more.
Cardiff don’t score many either. Their goalscoring record is equal second worst in the league whereas ours is again very average, as you’d expect for a mid-table team.
So what does that little lot tell us?
Not a lot, except that we should have the edge, given that we’re generally better when playing away.
I can see goals here. Not many, but some.
Hence I’ll predict Cardiff 1 – Villa 2.
But for some very strange reason, I can also see a very good win just niggling in the corner of my mind.
Wouldn’t that be nice?
Just to add a bit of spice to it, if anyone can predict the correct score AND name the last (or only) scorer on either side, I’ll give a prize of a score (£20). A score for a score, get it? Please yourselves (that was my Frankie Howard impression, fwiw).
If there’s more than one correct answer, it’ll be split.
I’m not made of money, you know!
And no, I won’t accept 0-0, with no scorer. Far too negative, that. And also far too easy to predict.
Get your predictions in then lads, you’ve nowt to lose.
And Up the Villa!
Piss poor passing. FFS we are playing the bottom PL team and they are running us ragged.
passing has been poor but defensively we look solid enough I think.
got a serious Cardiff bias on the stream im watching, anyone would think we were 5-0 down according to them.
This is a nightmare wake up villa
Absolutely terrible we are gettin worse every game! And why the Fuck is baker starting ahead of Clark i mean Clark isn’t a great defender but baker is a serious fuckin liability! He’s gonna give a pen away i guarantee it, will we ever stop this long ball shit? We are fucking useless at it every week yet still we keep fuckin doin it, gettin more and more pissed off with this shit! This is the 1st time i have said this but Lambert needs to go he is taking us backwards!
Because Clarke’s worse, much worse
NM..we desrve to be behind. All I can see is 11 very confused players who are not sure if we are playing the passing game or hoof ball. No surprise there! We havent seriously worried the Cardiff defence yet! They are bottom of the league for fuck sake. Go for the jugular!
I don’t think ive seen vlarr or baker miss a thing yet so I really don’t know what you guys are on about. bacuna looks a little unsafe and I expect them to hit our right side 2nd half more.
I think the reason people are criticizing the defence is coz we are on the defence so far for 90% of the game and soory but that is down to the midfield.
Agreed. Delph and Westwood not anywhere near good enough on that showing. Too many 5 out of 10 performances (haha that said 5 out of 19 when I first typed. That might be more accurate)
I agree that our weakness is in midfield. No protection for the back four at all.
We really look a poor team. Pass selection is wrong. We give the ball away too often after only one or two passes. We make a very ordinary team look half decent. No game changer on the bench, maybe try Helenius.
To be fair though Cardiff don’t look like scoring so shoukdnt lose
Getting outplayed by the mighty Cardiff. We are so poor it’s actually embarassing to watch.
Second half is normally the time we capitulate, 1st goal from Cardiff within the first 10 minutes of the restart.
Lerner out! Lambert out!
I think it will be 0.0 or 1.0 to us
Someones stolen the real oohah!!
I’m still here. Well after playing the worst team in the division we nearly won. But again only played well for one half. Vlaar was immense yet again. So glad we didn’t get OGS he looks well out of his depth they should of stuck with mackay
Vlaar is our biggest player this season mate, we’re a different team completely with him in the fold. I can’t understand why we can’t play with that intensity for the 90 minutes, it’s just plain confusing. At least we didn’t lose tonight the 6 point gap gives us breathing space,
Agreed md8 I was vlaars biggest critic last year but I will eat humble pie and say I was wrong about him. He’s gone from being the worst centre half last season to arguably the best this season. Ben turner on SS “we should be beating teams like Villa” says it all really
Even I think we’re a second rate team atm oohah, I also thought Cardiff would win tonight and comfortably. No wonder others think it. We a shadow of what we should be for a club of our stature
Agreed but when a nothing player from a nothing team is gutted they didn’t beat us it says it all. Btw so glad we didn’t get ogs he’s shit
Not too sure about OGS yet, he’s inhereted a shitter team than our own mate (only just) so the jury’s still out for me but you’re right I’m glad we didn’t get him from his showings so far, he does look a little out of his depth.
It’s sad days when someone from imo the worst team in the league thinks they should beat us. But thats what I’ve been saying for time, everyone thinks they can beat us ffs
a ffs! guzan stop hoofing the fucking ball!
not guzans fault btw he has obviously been instructed to do this.
and is westwood actually playing or is he trying to keep his boots clean for the next match?
Westwood never plays he’s like a fuckin ghost its such a waste of a midfield position i mean either have somebody good at defending or creative in there not somebody who’s only asset is passing backwards or losing the ball, once already this game he received the ball with acres of space behind him yet he passes back to the def stupid!
0-0 everywere else by the way, neutrals must be bored shitless.
Bentekes got the first touch of a hippopotamus
Lerner get your fucking pen ready your signing a real gem for the next 3yrs.what a fucking joke.
We have more possession…… I took a screenshot as proof!!!!!
We’ll win this.
Anyone know why we only play well for one half only yet again. It’s a joke
Great tactics from Lambert tonight….Wait until theyv no gas in the tank then hit em. Shame we couldn’t get the winner.
Up The Villa
Lots of love
Lerners Nephew
Better second half…then again, it had to be. I swear I could go to my local and get drunks who pass the ball better….magnificent save by Marshall to deny us at the death!
1st half Cardiff, 2nd half villa, draw fair result.
our CB’s vlarr and baker were very good today, in fact the defence as a whole was excellent as was cardiffs in particular that fuckin turner, he had a great game.
and marshals save at the end was world class inspite of a superbly intelligent shot from wiemann.
im still not really sure what it is that westwood contributes to our game, when he’s got the ball he’s poor and without the ball, if you watch him he’s always stood in the middle of the play, never marking or closing down, he sooooo reminds me of bannan its unreal.
over all we were unlucky not to win on the 2nd half performance although you could say Cardiff were unlucky not to win it in the 1st half.
Priority number one for the summer should be too sign Bertrand
different class compared to our own crop mate
Bertrand is the real life version of Young and hungry the rest are shit
Agree we need to snap up Bertrand. And we also need to sign a solid box to box midfielder and a playmaker. Not sure why we didn’t get Holtby.
So much for a high scoring game, eh?!
And that games shows precisely why Gabby needs to be phased out of the starting 11, absolutely woeful touch and brainless play.
I think he’d be more effective where Bennett started and have Weimann or Helenius up top
Anyone is more effective than Joe Bennett, thought we’d seen the last of his woeful play
for the first time this year we played with a bit of width the only problem was nobody told delph or westwood we could of done more damage if they they had been more adept at this tactict, albrighton immense again