Aston Villa v Stoke

Terrible Second Half. Only Sinclair takes any credit from that for me. What was Vlarr thinking? End of his time at Villa for me. Strip him of the captaincy and give it to Delph and tell him to step up. Angry and gutted.

No surprise to me really.

Wrong appointment at exactly the wrong time and even with new manager syndrome it wasn't much better than under Lambert.

When you keep going for the cheap option sooner or later it will bite you in the arse.

For the first time I think we're going down.

The same as Lambert ? We were attacking, creative and yes the quality wasn't there but it was a million times better than Lambert!

Vlaar, Sanchez and Agbonlahor were very poor but no doubt Sherwood can change that. Gil needs to stay on his wing where he can cause trouble and not float around doing nothing.

This was a huge improvement on the last few months and I know we didn't get the result but it's looking up.

I can't lay much by way of blame at Sherwood's door. Yet.

So where does the blame lie? Is it fair to blame Lambert for a professional footballers inability to control or pass a ball?  To be able to put in a corner? To not fuck about on the edge of your box with 2 minutes to go?

You know what?  Yes I can. I can and will blame Lambert and here's why...

Apparently the players were completely knackered in training this week and that tells me that it's tired legs that can't put a decent corner in. It tells me that they've been learning this pass and move business at a new level and it's hurting them. This team have been on fucking vacation for the last 3 seasons and it's gonna take more than a week of training to get it sorted.

I think the big difference now will be that whereas Lambert would put his arm around Vlaar and tell him not to worry about it, Sherwood will be asking what the actual fuck he was thinking!  I think when Weimann had a chance to bring the ball down in the box but decided to just wave his foot at it,  Lambert would  say he couldn't find fault . But I'm hoping Sherwood will.

This is the most unprofessional villa v team I've ever seen and i don't know if anyone can turn it around in the time we have left.

I was convinced that Lambert had lost the changing room and the lads just weren't bothered. But it seems clear to me that they're just utterly inept at this level. It really is outrageous how this team of top level, highly paid professional athletes have been allowed to get away with such shit standards.

As for Sherwood,  well I can't say I agreed with his substitutions. Sanchez won about three challenges all afternoon and should never have come back out 2nd half. Weimann shouldn't be on the pitch....he's finished at this level; in my eyes he's that bad!

But we had limited options against a Stoke side far more athletic (and when Walters is more athletic than you, you know you're in trouble), far hungrier, far more organised and far far far stronger. So there was no point in sticking Westwood or Cleverley out there to get mauled (although you could put forward a case that they might have done ok in the last 15 or so as Stoke tired).

For me, Sherwood needed to get Sanchez off, push Clark up in his place as he was dominant all game and wasn't getting bullied around,  and get Okore on in the back 4.

Sherwood's too new to even consider that though. And he couldn't risk the backlash from fans doing something that unorthodox so early in his reign.

But fuck me, what an atrocity this is! Clark, Hutton and Sinclair come out of this game with a passing grade. The rest need their wages docked and given to charity.

Tim Sherwood...your honeymoon period lasted 45 mins. I hope you enjoyed it. Now earn your money  the hard way and sort this shit out starting with dropping Vlaar for losing us the game. Set an example to everyone else that captain or not, you fuck up like that,  you're out. No going again. No comments that you couldn't ask any more from him. Out!  

O. U. T. FUCK OFF!

I didn't see the match, I did however just see this on newsnow:

"21/02/15 2:58pm

Vlaar thankful for new chance

Aston Villa captain Ron Vlaar admits the players need to take responsibility and help Tim Sherwood become a success at Aston Villa."

So that worked well.

How was Richardson at LB? Should we be back to Cissokho, Clark, Okore and Hutton at the back? Excellent news on Sinclair, the same attacking player scoring in two consecutive games but it sounds like that's it.

The back four should always be Hutton Clark Okore Cissokho injury and suspension permitting. Defence hasn't been the problem this season. It's scoring goals. Let's get the front bit right first!!!!

Carlos Sanchez was a complete waste of money. No goals, no assists, very slow on the ball, gives away sloppy fouls. He's had about 2 games where he's played alright, but was beyond dreadful against Arsenal and crap again today.

Really not a fan of Cissokho either, Walters had the measure of him all game. Lacks quality when he gets forward and his decision making when he wins the ball is hasty.

I still have no idea what position Gabby plays. It seems Hutton does his job for him, and when we have the ball it's easy to forget that he's even playing.

Not to worry boys we were never going to scrub off 4 years of crap management over night, so to quote the immortal words "We go again" this time hopefully with a much better result, not happy but Rome wasn't built in a day, Vlaar has been a liability all season always injured and when he comes in nothing much to show, but hey ho lets see what next week brings.

I didn't see any of the game today so I can't comment. All I can say is that I was absolutely certain we would win today, so I'm disappointed. Shows how little I know about football.

After today I have learnt several things. Never sit in Row A at villa as u get piss wet when it hails. Benteke is possibly th lazyest player to ever disgrace a villa shirt. Agbonlahor should be robbing banks for a living as he can go unnoticed infront of 32.000 people. Sinclair is a quality player who works hard for the team & Delph like every villa player/employee has taken a huge step backwards since given a bumper new deal.
Also with all the talk of loyalty that was rammed down our throats when he signed it will be very interesting to see what he does when we get religated as its "his club". Also why the fuck was Okore dropped??

Still really really gutted and massively annoyed. I would not let Gabby back into BMH, he's that bad. Mr Aston Villa, my arse, he doesn't give a shit. All he gave us was pace, we have that (and much more) in Sinclair now, get him the hell out of the club. Can't bear him and what the hell was Vlaar thinking? soley to blame for both goals, clearly doesn't want to be here either and neither does Benteke, he looks as uninterested as the other two. We are an utter utter disgrace of a team and to the fans now judging sherwood after one game (after vehemently supporting PL for 2.5 years) well done, you're logic is totally baffling to me...wow! I'm off the internet for the night, this has knocked the wind right out of me. Club and fans alike. Rant over

We need to find a spot for Bacuna. Things happen when he's on the pitch and he can take a good set-piece. If I ever see Weimann going to take a corner again, I'll have an aneurysm.

Cha Ching wrote:We need to find a spot for Bacuna. Things happen when he's on the pitch and he can take a good set-piece. If I ever see Weimann going to take a corner again, I'll have an aneurysm.

I shouted abuse at the screen before he'd even taken it, and it was about as utterly pathetic a delivery as I expected.

It's not that he was the only one to deliver a crap corner, it was that I have never, in my entire life, seen a professional footballer that is unable to kick a ball quite like Andreas Weimann.

There's not one player capable of taking a corner & that's just kids stuff. When a team isn't scoring set pieces is the easiest way to cure that. If I was Sherwood I'd have them all in today doing nothing but corners & free kicks until tea time with no stopping for lunch.

I'm surprised we didn't score from Stoke pissing themselves laughing. That's how bad they were. Still, better than last week when Westwood didn't get one of his corners more than 3 ft above the grass.

Sean wrote:The back four should always be Hutton Clark Okore Cissokho injury and suspension permitting. Defence hasn't been the problem this season. It's scoring goals. Let's get the front bit right first!!!!

Agree , I did not comment last week was waiting to see, how we played against Stoke, very poor game.Cannot understand why we changed the defence. Tim must had his own reasons our captain let us down.
Agbonlahor well we were told that he was on fire in training, he played like a damp fire work.
Why was bacuna not playing ? Well let's see what we can do next week, tim has his back room staff in, but we are running out of games.
It's all down to the players confidence, even after we were one up, some of the players switched off. And again cannot wait to get into the safety off the dressing room , most off them looking at the clock when they should be giving it all, bad performance.

Cha Ching wrote:While I'm at it......
Corners still shit.
Guzans delivery ditto.
Benteke lost 90% of the aerial challenges.
We were outnumbered and outmuscled in the middle of the park
Final ball was not Sunday league standard.

Some eyeopening findings for the new stats guy, I'd say.

As if you had read my mind. The 2 Vlaar yellows were piss poor from a so called experienced international. I hope I never see him with the armband or in the shirt ever again. We have better options in Baker, Okore, Senderos, Clark.

If we need pace up front with goal scoring ability there is a young lad at Preston called Robinson....... far better than Gabby!

South London Villan wrote:If we need pace up front with goal scoring ability there is a young lad at Preston called Robinson....... far better than Gabby!

Now that would be a smart move, our number two can get the youngsters going, some of our old boys need replacing. Same old problems, need to mix it up.

Cha Ching wrote:While I'm at it......
Corners still shit.
Guzans delivery ditto.
Benteke lost 90% of the aerial challenges.
We were outnumbered and outmuscled in the middle of the park
Final ball was not Sunday league standard.

Some eyeopening findings for the new stats guy, I'd say.

When Guzan came over to near the touchline to take a free kick and hoofed it straight out for a throw, I was just sat there, gawping at the screen. As if an adult did that!!

Feels like all the positivity of a week ago has evaporated!

Tim has seen this team in action, conferdence down , he said he wanted them to put a shift in, well a number of players did not show up, let's see what he is going to do about it.

Stoke had a really weak side out, so we missed a golden opportunity for three points. Newcastle are crumbling at the moment, so there's another possibility to kick start our season next week. The question is are we good enough? Up until yesterday I thought we were, but now it's obvious there's a hell of a lot to be done. Do we have the time to do it? I'm not sure any more.

Having slept and reflected, I'm still angry but I'm moving on.

Ultimately, Sherwood has his work cut out for him. He and we all knew this. The team that Lambert left has some quality but it is a jumble, like the ingredients for a really nice dinner but the cook has been using the wrong measurements and recipe for too long. Now the cook has gone and the new chef is looking at a pretty decent pantry but needs to get the right dinner in the oven. The kitchen needs a clean, the out of date ingredients need to be binned.

This has been said already but the measure of Tim, for me, will be the next match. For example he either turns Gabby into a player or drops him - same with Benteke. Is Vlaar's head in the right place? We don't have the time for any gentle nurturing. Big, big decisions now...