Aston Villa v Stoke

Vlaar will be suspended anyway, so I guess it will be whether or not he brings him back the next game (hopefully Okore plays a blinder and renders the situation moot!)

The defence should pick itself against Newcastle. I think Sherwood picked the wrong unit against Stoke, but he doesn't know the players as well as we do yet. I'd normally say "give him time," but unfortunately we don't have much time left. He's got to get it right this coming Saturday.

What concerns me is that our two new signings Sinclair and Gil are our best players.

Our best players should be our best players: Vlaar, Delph and Benteke.

It worries me that they know they're going to bugger off to another Premier League club in the summer if we go down, or maybe even if we stay up.

Are these players going to give it everything? Do our best players care enough to fight a relegation battle?

Their form is not as good as that of our new signings.

Our new players are our best players for a reason: Lambert didnt have time to un-coach them and kill their confidence.

Sherwood didn't pick a bad side against Stoke (Vlaar aside). The formation was good. My guess is he's not seen who can get stuck in when the going gets tough because I imagine they're all as soft in training as they are on the pitch.

Kevin Mac and an extra week should hopefully give Sherwood more of an idea about what he's dealing with and 3 points against Newcastle could well start the kind of run that we need.

A loss though and I feel that that will be it.

Trotters wrote:Our new players are our best players for a reason: Lambert didnt have time to un-coach them and kill their confidence.

Sherwood didn't pick a bad side against Stoke (Vlaar aside). The formation was good. My guess is he's not seen who can get stuck in when the going gets tough because I imagine they're all as soft in training as they are on the pitch.

Kevin Mac and an extra week should hopefully give Sherwood more of an idea about what he's dealing with and 3 points against Newcastle could well start the kind of run that we need.

A loss though and I feel that that will be it.

Maybe it could be a good time to bring Robinson back from loan?

I don't think Vlaar was a bad choice, he's consistently been a good defender although Clark has surprised most of us by showing him how it's done. Okore's made some mistakes too but has made some very impressive tackles and blocks and has a good pair of legs. Clark's place is guaranteed for now so aside from when we play three at the back, the other spot is for Vlaar and Okore to fight for. Okore's going to have this chance against Newcastle to prove himself again.

I don't mind Cissokho as LB. What I did mind was Lambert's insistence on him providing most of the crosses from the left wing, something he's not very good at. Richardson is better going forward but I don't think he is as good a defender.

Right now I think we need to be concentrating on letting the defence keep out goals and letting everyone else try to work out how to score more goals.

Gutted with the result but we looked like we had the chances to win the game, we haven't said that often over the last few weeks. I thought Stoke we're the team holding on for a draw and we were trying to take the game to them. Vlaar cost us the game with a silly mistake, should he have been in over Okore? No, not in my opinion.

Most people on here are slating Gabby, Wieman & Benteke but what other choices do we have up front? If he puts Robinson in he'll get slated. He can only work with what we've got, unfortunately those players know that.

I am sure he will turn things around and we will be a much better team at the end of the season, not sure which division we'll be playing in but I'm not worrying about that at the moment. I'm enjoying the fact that we have a manager that will try new things, sometime they'll work and sometimes they won't but he will try.

If we go down then we should have a season of winning, can't remember what that feels like. UTV

Gracon73 wrote:Gutted with the result but we looked like we had the chances to win the game, we haven't said that often over the last few weeks. I thought Stoke we're the team holding on for a draw and we were trying to take the game to them. Vlaar cost us the game with a silly mistake, should he have been in over Okore? No, not in my opinion.

Most people on here are slating Gabby, Wieman & Benteke but what other choices do we have up front? If he puts Robinson in he'll get slated. He can only work with what we've got, unfortunately those players know that.

I am sure he will turn things around and we will be a much better team at the end of the season, not sure which division we'll be playing in but I'm not worrying about that at the moment. I'm enjoying the fact that we have a manager that will try new things, sometime they'll work and sometimes they won't but he will try.

If we go down then we should have a season of winning, can't remember what that feels like. UTV

I'm a fan of Gabby and want to see the manager getting him working properly again, if not then we can't just keep him for sentimental reasons. He's not been scoring goals though, while Robinson has. Lambert hasn't brought in any new academy players (aside - seemingly reluctantly, for whatever reason - Grealish) for a couple of years, I find it hard to believe they're simply not good enough. I'm not suggesting Robinson is the next Kane but without giving him a go we're never going to find out. What we do have is a striker playing with confidence and scoring versus a striker not scoring (much) and not doing much else. Either way we have no room for passengers in the team, if Gabby isn't playing he needs to be dropped.

I've just tried to find some stats for the game to see what he did do, I watched it on a stream but honestly don't recall him doing anything during the game.

Has his confidence gone or is he just not good enough? I'm not sure.

I find it hard to believe some of the comments regarding the game last Saturday.It was on the worst performances I can remember in a long time.Kick and hope would be the best description against one of the best teams in the division against high ball attacks.To think that Stoke came to just stifle our play just capped it.I think this would be a time to finally give up my season ticket.