Cobblers: Young side to blame for last night, but they'll learn

To be that far ahead and only take a point is shocking. I don't expect poor excuses from MON, the bottom line is we screwed it. I think Harewood is prooving he is an utter waste of flesh (and £4 million).

I dont think its an age thing, I'm afraid my own belief is that the minute Harewood came on, that was it for me. Luke Moore could hardly pass to any of our players and I'd love to see his opta stats for pass completion because I think they'd have made bad reading but Harewood is just shite.
MON was going mental with him during the match. He just jogged around and that looked like it was too much for him. Apart from charging down the keeper his other contributions were to the detriment of the team. Both Agbonalahor and Moore chase defenders down and sometimes win the ball but Harewood cant be arsed which I think pissed MON off.
What the hell Harewood thought he was doing for the penalty will be for him to know and us all to think about but I couldn't believe what I was watching when he did what he did and that was the turning point of the game. Petrov is looking decidedly lack lustre and I think Gardiner should have stayed on as his hunger shines through.

Sorry but for me I think MON has to take alot of the blame with his substitutions. No-one said you have to make them but the key one was Harewood and it was a bad decision. I think MON has said one thing to the press etc but I bet he went mad in the dressing room and I wouldn't be surprised if we dont see much of Harewood for a while.

complete turd, why do we sit so deep and invite pressure, we do it at home aswell. i am getting tired of watching us do that. the best form of defence is attack because we have the ball and the opposition doesnt. its not very often we concede that many goals in a game and it was a bit of a freak show. The lino bottled two big decisions for us aswell with a penalty and defoe offside twice. i am also getting tired of excuses, iam also getting tired of reo-coker not getting stuck in or living up to his reputation, along with hareweood who can just pack his bags as far as i am concerned. he will never fill that number 9 shirt.

Oh how I did laugh! Enjoy the trip back? :D

The problems as everyone has mentioned was Marewood (yes I meant to spell it like that) and Petrov both ineffective and neither of them bothered to play for us.

If Curtis Davis can come out and say yes I was rubbish after the cup game then I should hope there's a lot of other players who can be just as honest with themselves and sort it out.

Gareth Barry did'nt put his foot through a challenge once lastnight

That is the turning point for Harewood:
1. to prove that he is worth 4 millions pounds or
2. to go out from the club
There is no other way for him.
I am sure that MON was furious about him in the dressing room after the match - but this is not a media-related story, that should stay only in our dressing room.

For me, the young average age IS an excuse, both sides are relatively young, so it is normal to see the match like this, when teams like these play together. The knowledge and experience gained from match like this is very valueable. The team, which is able to learn more from that knowledge, will be better in the future, I hope, that will be Villa.

To the match: NRC was forced by yellow card in the early stage of the match, to be calm. Barry has the right to have poor game, you cannot have all superb games, that is not possible.

We still need to learn to be consistent.

Nothing to do with age. Just pure unprofessionalism after Chimbonda's goal. Barry and Reo-Coker lost all their leadership and it was left to just Martin O'Neill to spur us on. Mellberg forgot what position he was playing it seemed and often drifted to centre-back. Leaving Bale a great amount of space to whip in some amazing crosses. 'If only we had bought him in the summer' :D ;)

Harewood was the beginning of the end. That foul was a joke and lost us the game!

Harewood was the beginning of the end. That foul was a joke and lost us the game!


Sorry.. Meant to say drew us the game. Feels like a loss tho!!!!

I think MON is the right man for the job, but last night he was firmly to blame in my opinion.
Why bring Harewood Petrov on ?? We were playing well so why change it and bring on 2 players who have no form at the moment and were quite frankly Dreadful ??

Also why tell the team to basically set up camp in their own penalty area, and invite pressure from strikers like Bent / Dafoe Keane ?? INSANE !

Finally Im getting more and more concerned with Carson. A keeper should command the penalty area, for the last 3-4 games now whenever a corner or a free kick comes in he just stands in the middle of the goal and watches the ball come over him, never once does he run and catch etc. If the defence wasnt playing so well... who knows..

On the bright side at least we are scoring away from home, winning drawing games, and will go 5th still if we win our game in hand..

Tired, bored, sick of reading this broken record - especially after the almighty mess made in the summer. Wasn't David O'Dreary crucified for doing what MON is doing right now? For making excuses about a young team and a small squad? Didn't we start well under DOL only to end up throwing season tickets at him? I like MON, a hell of a lot. As a person that is. But I'm getting less and less convinced he is the man to take Villa forward - he seems to me too much of an old fashion British manager, not capable to spot talent abroad and far too dependent on his knowledge of the British transfer market to be arsed to look elsewhere. It's an old chestnut but in my opinion - Redknapp and Ferguson aside in the old guard - not many of the old generation of British managers have the knowledge to go abroad and find a useful player. It is little wonder we have as a result spaniards, portuguese, french and dutch managers running the top clubs in this country. Mourinho is free..anybody?

i think MON has to purge this team in jan/summer, like he did last summer. get rid of average players (marlon, petrov, sorenson etc.), he needs to bulk up our defense, melberg go rapped ever time on the right from bale, laursen isnt sensible enough for our team, fair play to the guy though coz he gives 110% every game which can be said for a many, zat is frankly averae at best. if we do this it will stop ridiculous results like last night from happening

Lets all calm down. We beat Chelsea not so long ago and a draw away to Spurs isn't all that bad. Just annoying being 1-4 up!

Keep the faith. We'll win Saturday!

Marlon Harewood got a four in the Sun, What game were they watching. I would of give him minus one. The worst centre forward in the premier league bar none.

In fact lets start a link; Who is worse than Marlon Harewood in the Premier League?!?

Should be interesting?!?!

UP THE VILLA!!

What I cant understand is us still not having the right players in for the job!

MON is in my view a very snidey bloke indeed, he knew that if we bought young players and also didnt buy players to fill the vacant positions that he would always have those excuses in his pocket!

The worrying thing is, that by January, we will have played half a season without a right back... I know this is old news but these games that we are drawing and losing by small margins could have been wins if we had the correct players playing in the correct positions! It baffles me that MON isn't bothered about wasting half a season! These months up until January can make or break our European qualification, we've already been shat out of one cup, if he dosent act fast in January (and I mean he needs someone in within the first few days of the transfer window, not leaving it late and buying complete wank) then he will have the supporters to answer to!

I for one am not happy with the current state of our squad and what MON has brought in! Maloney, Petrov & Harewood obviously are not gonna get it right so they need to fuck off fast and be replaced as a matter of urgency, NRC still has a lot to prove, Curtis Davies I beleive will come good eventually, Zat Knight is still just a squad player, Carew - well in all honesty would we ever have been linked with him if Lyon didnt want Baros, leaving Ashley young as his only succesful real quality signing!

Sorry I forgot Scott Carson.... WELL HE'S NOT EVEN OURS!!!!!!!

To the Spuds fan IAGTL, whats that Jewish?!

The journey home was quite pleasant thankyou. Why do you laugh when you are still in the relegation zone? What can you take from last nights game (apart from a point)long balls from Robinson to your forwards. No wonder The Thing didnt buy a midfielder, you dont need em!!!!

UP THE VILLA!!

Woodinho, your comments are disgraceful. Obviously there are few Villa fans excited about throwing away a great opportunity to take 5th spot on the table, but you take it one step further and give us all your pessimistic uninsightful, extremely rash view on things and prove nothing to anyone except that your a foolish little boy. I was pissed off when we DREW with Spurs, not lost, because i want my team to win. Im not pissed off with with the person who is the leading contributer to our turn around, and eventual rise to the top of the table. Wake up mate, im not going to use MONs excuse and call you "young" but thats exactly what you sound like with statements like this..................

Spurs really should have thrashed us last night. It was a weird game all round.

If we don't start keeping possession for longer, we're always going to put ourselves under pressure for large parts of the game, even if we do managed to get the ball in the back of the net 4 times. Spurs had nearly 70% of the possession last night.

Still... you can't complain that we didn't take our chances!

Sorry Leroy but - even if in a different way from Woodinho - I agree with all that he says. The players at the club are not gonna take us beyond 9th, perhaps 8th spot. The squad is not completed and to waste a summer like MON did was criminal. Do we have money to spend or not? Is there real ambition or are we happy to squeeze ahead of Middlesbrough and Portsmouth? If these are the aims the club should let us know so that we can all settle back into the usual mid-table daze of the past 15 years and forget about this alleged bullshit of a bright future. For God's sake, this is a Premiership club and the staff employed can't even spot what's missing in the squad!!

y didnt oneill tell gabby to drop off and man mark bale after the 4th goal, when they were coming forward, apart from bale they were clueless long ball merchants. funny to think that they rest so much on an 18 year old from southampton. paper over the cracks for totascum i think, they are still pants at the back and teams will continue to expose them, the only saving grace for us its not very often we conceede like that, or in the fasion that we did.

We were v poor last night. Even at 4-1 up lets be honest we hadnt played good football, but having got to that position it was criminal to chuck it away.
Blaming it on young age is absurd. We all and the manager seem to think we have a young squad in comparison to all other teams. we dont at all. Yes we have a certain degree of youth but so does every other club.
As for what lies ahead this season. Someone said will we may finish just ahead of portsmouth. Not a chance they have a far better squad and team than us and will finish ahead of us. Get real!! We have a squad good enough to finish between 9th and 12th and that is ultimately where we will end up. The top 4 will obviously finish above us and Man City, Blackburn, pompey and Everton and spurs if they get there act together all have better squads than us and will finish higher in the league. I emphasise squad cause that is what matters. We already have carew and Maloney injured, we have had a number of bookings in recent weeks as well so in a few weeks we could be in serious trouble. I can envisage us not being able to put a full 16 out from the 1st team squad pretty soon.

woodinho and north stand.....love the comments..glad to see other villa boys are taking there glasses off....i was called a bluenose etc etc a few months ago for having a crack at oneil the plankster and marlon dingle..but ive stayed away from here,,because i was sure that they would prove me right...yes weve had good results against the top sides,but so have others...i think january will make or break oneil..and marlon well hes worse than i thought,lets hope acrington stanley come a calling in january,thats about his limit,,and dont forget oneil told us on signing him,that he sees him has a future england international..lol lol lol...that comment from oneil did it for me,,twas then i knew our gaffer was on another planet..
the sad thing for me last night was the fact that both oneil and the older heads in the team did not shut up shop,get tight and bore spurs down..you dont bring dingle and petrov on when your 4 1 up..gutted is not the word today..i think we would have all been happy with a point last night..but to throw 2 points away like we did was the worst bit of football ive ever seen from a villa side,,even worse than when we lost our long time unbeaten home record to arsenal many years ago..tactically obscene that day,,they had woodcock and wonder boy nicholas,,we sorted out charlie,,but woodcock scored 5,,us up the holte wanted him to take our late penalty as well...
last nite was like then it was sad to say, but i could see us letting them back in and even winning..
lets hope we dont ever see dingle again..and oneil gets his head together,,we may have a youngish side,but theres suposed to be a wealth of experience in oneil,walford and robertson,,shame they didnt show it...

As I pointed out in a post on the other thread, the term 'young' does not just apply to age. Almost all of our players are young to our new system, and the new roles required of them.

Carson - young to the club, excellent so far
Bouma - an exception, well established and no problem
Mellberg - young to playing at right back in the EPL
Laursen - young to playing regularly and magnificent so far
Knight - young to the club and competition for his place
Barry - young to central midfield role and media spotlight
Reo Coker - young to the club and has shown enough to suggest he is up to it once he sorts out his consistency
Young - young to his new responsibility as our main creative threat. Excellent so far.
Gardner - young guy, but flawless to date
Agbonlahor - is always going to be young when his position changes every week - MON should take some responsibility for this
Moore - young and obviously has consistency issues that hinder him.

Like I said, this will not be an excuse come May, but for now I see enough positives to push on. If these players develop as MOn will have them, I think we will be a very good side indeed.

LEROY I dont think I'm the one who needs to "wake up"! it's you mate! "top of the table" riiiiiiiight! I suppose Marlon Harewood will be top scorer too!

What was so disgraceful about my comments then, i'm dying to know?

Was it the truth about not having the correct players in? The truth about some of the players who are in not cutting it? The truth about half a season potentially being wasted by less than satisfactory transfer dealings? All of my statements (bar the one about MON having laid his excuses out in advance said in a moment of sheer frustration) are bang on correct... Yes they are negative points, well done you got something right!

Not sure what Maloney has done so badly for you to think he should "F off fast" cost a million and so far he hasn't done anything wrong, scored a couple of goals, hasn't really got a start yet, but when he's come on he's done things to warrent his position in the squad if not the starting 11. Bad call.

The guy gets paid anything between £20,000-£30,000 a week, and his excuse for not getting started yet is homesickness!?!

I was using Maloney, Petrov & Harewood as examples of players who (in my opinion) we are probably never going to see the best of for one reson or another! They could be world beaters but they are not doing the business for Aston Villa! So whats the point of them being here???

Dont get me wrong I'd love for these three to shove my words back down my throat and I'll continue to cheer them on from the Holte End whenever they play, but as Villa fans we have been the victims of a "nearly" team for far too long, and over the years we have stuck by average players who are not going to take us to the next level!

Anyone who is not good enough, or, who [u]is[/u] good enough but for whatever reason cant cut it for Aston Villa Football Club should go.

I am sorry but MON just doesn’t seem to have what it takes to get us back to the top because:

1The players that by general agreement, who are performing this season were at the club before MON arrived. It’s too early to make firm appraisals of the capabilities of Zat Knight and Curtis Davies but in my opinion, Young flatters to deceive. Yes he is fast but he seems incapable of beating defenders consistently and getting to the byline.

2Tactically MON doesn’t seem to be on the ball. I didn’t see the games against Leicester or Spurs but by general agreement it seems that tactical errors contributed to failures in both matches. Last night’s capitulation was similar to the one at Wimbledon some years ago that cost Ron Atkinson is job. Two capitulations in a row – it’s bound to have an affect on moral both on and off the field and on the terraces. Also, in my opinion, MON doesn’t use Carew properly. He would be more effective if he was used as somebody to hold the ball up, that is play with his back to the goal. He always seems to be ready to run at defences but he doesn’t have the skill to do this effectively.

3Maybe the biggest charge against MON is his failure to strengthen the team in depth before the deadline. At 31 August 2007, he had been in post a year and by then should have known who he needed to sign.

Yes we beat Chelsea but was the team that turned up that day the actual Villa team or was it the one that turned up against Man City or Leicester or the one that gave away 4 goals at Spurs? I don’t think it was the one that beat Chelsea.

As a general comment, in past years I have been fed up by Villa being second best to the likes of Blackburn, Bolton, Portsmouth even Reading. These are teams we should be outstripping with ease season after season. Mid table at best and if we have a mid season run like last year – which I don’t see any reason why we wont – I dread to think.

Moaning W*****s! We got a point away from home at Spurs. The same Spurs that have spent Millions on players and mooted to break the top four. I'm chuffed to f**k with the result,but,not the performance. O'Neil is nowhere near completing his side, so for f**k sake, get off his case and support him and the club unreservedly. Make your judgements at the end of the season to see if he has made progress. Some of you are expecting Champions League glory instantly, or a manager which never makes a mistake. We have such a threadbare squad at the moment, that the side virtually picks itself. I'd rather this though, than making rash signings who will not fit in to the long term plan.