I trust you all had a good Christmas?
Mine was busy, but not as hectic as usual.
Boxing day has come around again then and the lads are up against Swansea in a match that intrigues me, in that I really don’t have a clue about how I think it’s going to go.
In that typical biased football fan approach, I always perceive the Villa as a much bigger club than Swansea and even though we probably are, we don’t have a very good record against them.
We’ve only beaten them once in our last six meetings, having drawn three and lost the other two.
Our form over the last few games is good, depending on how you look at it.
We’ve only lost one in our last seven games, but at the same time we’ve only won two in our last thirteen or so.
Basically, we’ve become a lot tougher to beat and I don’t see many goals today.
We’ve got some good news, with Hutton being available. Gabby is up for selection after having his red card rescinded and Tom Cleverley is also available.
You can bet your boots that all three will be picked, as I’ve given up on Lambert changing anything round.
Kieran Richardson is still banned, but I’m not really sure that’s a bad thing, as he has yet to convince me of anything.
I can’t say I’ve seen much of Swansea, but they do have a couple of dangerous players, the obvious being Wilfried Bony, who could be back today after being “rested” in last week’s win against Hull.
Gylfi Sigurdsson, Leon Britton and Jefferson Montero are all back from injuries.
Given that I don’t think there are going to be many goals today, the really big player for us has got to be Christian Benteke. It seems like he’s in very decent form and he’s definitely my favourite for us to score.
It’s quite worrying how he’s become our “go to” option and although our football has been better of late, I still find myself wondering who’s going to score if Benteke doesn’t?
I’m not going to bother writing our lineup, because we all know pretty much what it’ll be.
The only question for me is which combination of midfielders will Lambert go with?
My prediction?
Well, I only see a goal in it either way and I suppose I have to be optimistic.
One-nil to Villa.
I’m not confident going into any game. We can be so bad sometimes. I would probably be happy with a point. I think they have very good home form so it would be a big result to get a win there.
OK I’ll go for a draw 2-2.
1-6 VILLA happy krimbo. 😀
DS, you’re right.
Swansea have only lost 2 out of 9 at the Liberty this season.
Giddy, I’ll have some of what you’re on mate 🙂
Definitely think we can beat Swansea, even at the Liberty. Keeping Bony and Sigurdsson quiet is going to be a tough one for Villa, obviously but I do think Bony’s style plays into Villa’s 3 CB’s hands as he likes it physical. Montero and Dyer are also good players but so are our fullbacks. I truly hope we don’t continue our pass around the back and make a mistake style and push it forward quicker. Their midfield’s meh and their defense is okay. So if Villa can control them there, then we should be able to nick it.
SWANSEA: Lukasz Fabianski, Angel Rangel, Federico Fernandez, Ashley Williams (capt), Neil Taylor, Ki Sung-Yueng, Jonjo Shelvey, Gylfi Sigurdsson, Nathan Dyer, Jefferson Montero, Wilfried Bony.
SUBS: Gerhard Tremmel, Jazz Richards, Kyle Bartley, Tom Carroll, Marvin Emnes, Wayne Routledge, Bafe Gomis.
ASTON VILLA: Brad Guzan, Ron Vlaar (capt), Jores Okore, Ciaran Clark, Tom Cleverley, Gabriel Agbonlahor, Fabian Delph, Christian Benteke, Alan Hutton, Aly Cissokho, Carlos Sanchez.
SUBS: Shay Given, Leandro Bacuna, Andreas Weimann, Chris Herd, Charles N’Zogbia, Matthew Lowton, Jack Grealish.
What a surprise.
Looking forward to watching Sanchez, looking a very good buy, imo.
Oops, I’ve just noticed Weimann’s on the bench, which is a bit of a surprise.
5-3-2 then?
Or 3-5-2 if you believe Lambert.
Guzan should of saved that one????
Not good for us. Sad that you feel the underdogs playing against Swansea
I dont see how playing 5 at the back and 2 defensive mids is gonna help our lack of goal scoring! Lamberk logic again
We do look like we’re set up to defend & catch em on the counter.boring Lambert your so predictable you fucking Muppet.
If only we had a Benteke to finish the chances Bentekes creating….!!!
Are we all in cloud cuckoo land ffs Swansea beat Villa? The whole team are crap, can someone put a league of mangers up and just see where that twat would be Lambert , if other teams would have won we would be bottom again and struggle to stay up.
But that didn’t happen, we are where we should be and that’s that….Get over it, its not getting any better anytime soon.
That’s a stone obvious comment Helenius was it not, we effin know it won’t get better.
Oh well back on the piss at least I find that enjoyable.
and Lambert costs us another game. Had we gone out with an attacking line up like we finished with, Swansea were there for the taking. He bottled it again and we ran out of time.
WIth Gabby out against Sunderland, maybe Grealish will finally get a start, although im sure Lambert will find a way to start Nzogbia or even try 5 at the back again!
On another note, are we really going to pay 7m for Cleverley?? He is a decent defensive mid, but we already have Sanchez and Westwood who play that position. Surely the money would be better spent elsewhere.
Or perhaps if we had setup like you wanted Swansea would have scored 5 on the counter as our finishing just wasn’t happening
Had we kept the formation from the first half we never would have had a chance to miss! We are the lowest scorers in the football league and yet Lambert puts that team out today. Its just embarassing.
We have the players at Villa, but Lambert has no idea how to use them. The sad thing is come the summer, at least 3 of them will be gone.
Notice how since Vlaar and Cleverley come back we don’t win and don’t play well. Better team without those two. As for Cleverley if we have £7m to waste we could do better than him he is a £2-3m squad player at best.
I honestly believe the very few reports claiming it’s 4m and not 7m. Then again a few reports claim he wants to wait till summer so…
Benno just now shows what a twat we have, even a nut doctor would give up with him, top of the league again with a prat of a manager.
Hoping Lambert’s “I don’t need an assistant manager” comment he made before the game and the result seriously changes the mind of Villa and gets him one.
What about the “tactics are always down to me” quote, thats a classic. At least we know who to blame 100% now!!
The bloke is a walking joke.
If we are playing as well as he says, why do we keep losing?
There was that one but I believe that spoke for itself on how horrible a manager/tactician he is. I’m more hoping seeing he won’t go anywhere, that an assistant can come in and even have that tiny bit of influence.
Forgot game was on. Better day spent with the family. Villa…ho hum…Wake me up when the bad dream is over.
Lambert OUT!!!
We should of won we were unlucky today.
It’s always excuses at the Villa. Maybe we should have beaten Bolton to Hesky’s signature! Lol!
Warnock has been sacked, shows the life’s of other managers in the league. I’m still pointing the finger at Lerner for our past 4 years.
We are the unluckiest team alive (although I don’t believe “luck” exists). We always play so bloody well and the players are so awesome and yet we lose more than we win. It’s unnatural for a team to play so well every game and lose, how unlucky can we get?
We’re obviously the only Team that looks good losing.Lambert your fucking joke.
I noticed that that word was used again?( thought we was excellent) he’s said that in every games we’ve played, he’s like a record with interviews same excuse every match. Tomorrow a tough game result we won’t win, why? Because every manager knows his team and read us like a book. Lambert has no idea how to play football tactics.
We’re gonna lose actually because we were brilliant.That’s the only reason we lose. Because if we got the results based on our brilliant performances, 38 wins in the bag easy.
It might work in our favour this with palace home on Thursday, unless there’s a swift appointment & as usual New manager factor comes into play.anyway here’s hoping.
Watched the match on a stream. Thought we looked very average in the first half but it was pretty much all Villa second half – so some credit to PL for changing it around. A very good save and a lucky one denied us a merited equaliser at the end. Guzan was at fault with the goal but the conditions were appalling at the time; other than that he had nothing to do. Oh, as an aside, it’s interesting to note the lack of comments on stats when they are not ‘worse’ than the oppositions. More possession (56%)’ more shots and more shots on goal. Our biggest problem remains the lack of creativity in the final third – now where have I heard that before?
Sounds lovely mate. Were you on a small boat or a barge? Nothing like watching the footy whiling away the hours on water…
LOL – nice one
All right Hitchens here are a couple of stats. Up to 90 mins we got no corners and although Villa took more shots than Swansea, they only had one on target.. The over-time minutes produced one corner and 3 shots on target.
Lack of creativity in the final third is one way of putting it, another way is that whoever we play up front very rarely sets up another of our forwards. If they see them in space they either do not pass, or put in such a bad pass the receiver cannot get to it. We see it happening – the question is why?
OLL, why we can see it and Lambert can’t is a mystery. I’m fed up of hearing the simple answer when the men who matter can’t. That is the big WHY!!!
OLL – thanks for confirming the point I was trying to make; stats are a waste of space and merely another import from American sport where stats are almost more important than the result (if you ignore breaks for advertising!) on your second point I suggest it’s because our players just aren’t good enough – simples!
Yes stats focus is American, but that does not mean it is useless. It has a particular benefit when there is a contradiction between apparent performance and results, which is relevant to Villa right now. If you were to ask most Villa fans and neutrals including the England manager who is Villa’s best player, Delph or Benteke would get most picks. But if you look at the stats of results when Delph plays, you would be forced to admit the stats say he is one of the worst players we have ever had.
So if you decide to keep Delph rather than flog him to Liverpool, you have to put forward a reason why the performance stats will dramatically improve. I cannot think of a reason, I think Delph would be a better player in another side and Villa would be better suited with a more direct player who makes strong runs up the middle in support of Villa attacks, and who can shoot hard and accurately.
Good point OLL but how many look at stats in the way you describe. Apparently, at one level Delph has very impressive stats like how far he ran with the ball but they don’t tell you the direction in which he was running or what he ultimately did with it 🙂