Spineless

What a difference a fortnight makes...

A three-nil triumph away at Anfield, a frighteningly good performance from Benteke in the process, all on the back of a quarter-final triumph in Mustardland and the prospect of a February trip to Wembley looming large, everything in the garden seemed lovely...

..except it didn't...not if you were looking at the performances as well as the results... and the battering we received before the scoring began at Anfield was as bad or worse then any of the horrors in the three Christmas debacles, while we gave Norwich enough chances to bury us but thankfully these fell to Grant Morison...

In those games though, we were able to regroup, get our own passing going and create enough chances to get a decent return. Just two weeks ago, it looked as thought the team had found some much need fluidity and our biggest problem this term – a lack of goals – had finally been addressed.

Of course the problem with scoring goals is that you need to keep possession long enough to do it and what the Wigan game ably demonstrated is that the main problem here isn't the quality of the opposition, more the fact that whoever we are playing, we can't wait to give them the bloody ball back. Dead simple rule in football, the opposition can't hurt you while you've got the pig's bladder so when under pressure, just keeping it for a bit and passing it around can not only give you some respite, it can restore confidence levels and wind up the enemy. You don't have to find the killer ball in the first five seconds.

At the moment Villa's men (forget this “boys” claptrap, if they're good enough, they're old enough and if they're not good enough they shouldn't be there) can't wait to get rid of the spherical thing. Does it smell of shit or something? Time and again, we lose the impetus with stupid, mistimed or speculative “passes”. Yes, the back three is leaking like a sieve, but that should make it all the more important to create stuff at the other end. Why aren't we? Because we're too terrified to keep the ball long enough to manage it. Spineless? You bet!

When the season began I'd imagined that our spine would be Given - Vlaar- El Ahmadi - Bent; not really a scenario that has worked out.

For Given, we now have Guzan who has, to be fair to him, taken his chance both hands and by and large not dropped it. There are those who believe that in the current turmoil, Given may be more guiding and supportive of the shell-shocked defence, but there were decidedly rocky moments from him at Norwich and whether it's ring-rust or not, I wouldn't be looking to pitch him back in now.

We've desperately missed  Ron Vlaar, not just as a defender but as a leader of men and with Dunne almost certainly never to wear the claret and blue again as his contract reaches expiry, surely we are crying out for an experienced centre half in the January window. Maybe we need to entice someone with one eye on a coaching future but certainly we need more mentors in the squad and a calmer old head would be more than welcome right now. What we certainly need is a spare defensive vertebrae in the spine for when Concrete isn't available

El Ahmadi is a bit of an enigma. I was filled with hope when we saw him playing creative expressive football in pre-season, though that was at lowly Burton. It seemed obvious at the time though that it would take some months for the Benelux imports to get used to the pace of the Prem (remember how long it took Bouma) but to do that you need to be playing. After a fairly disastrous debut, Ashley Westwood began to emerge as a decent talent and “El Dave” - having been anonymous in many games - lost his place, something that seems to have destroyed his confidence and his game at a point when we really need older heads like him to be the on-field leaders. The fact that this key signing hasn't really come off is one of Lambert's major headaches as he attempts to pull things round.

We are crying out for a strong central midfielder to pull things together. Westwood may well be that in the future, but he's not ready yet.

Whatever the truth is about the Darren Bent situation, I don't believe we're being told it, though if he isn't the type of striker Lambert wants to work with, it would be wise to cash in those particular chips now as long as those chips are spent on a proven replacement.  I believe that both Weimann and Benteke will only improve and if we can get the midfield sorted than goals will flow from the strike force.

So where are we? Money must be spent in January. Money will be spent in January and Lambert will have to veer from his build for the future policy in this window because given the massive size of the new TV deal, this is the worst possible season in which to be relegated.

Action must be taken now.

Get rid of Lambert? Definitely not. We simply can't keep switching jockeys but what he should be doing and his players should be doing is getting down on their knees and apologising for what has been a deeply depressing Christmas for anyone with claret and blue blood coursing through their veins. Saying sorry can't erase the memories but it could be start of the healing process.

Mister Lambert, your supporters are hurting at the moment.

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Inevitably, the trauma of the Worst Villa Christmas EVER has led to calls for Randy Lerner's head. A bit knee-jerk that, unless anyone can see a viable alternative on the horizon. If no-one wants to buy and if he doesn't want to sell then no amount of poorly painted bedsheets or venomous tweets will change the situation.

Happy New Year.

Don't have nightmares.

Boxing Day Indigestion...

Puppetmaster Gerry Anderson's death was announced yesterday. Just hours later, it didn't seem evident that anyone was pulling the strings at Villa Park either...

I started to lose faith on the short taxi ride from the city centre pub in which we'd been attempting to anaesthetise ourselves against the horrors to come, having seen the team news on Twitter. One striker. Just one. The team sheet itself looked like this was going to be backs to the wall operation. Unfortunately, it transpired that not too many of our team even knew where the wall was.

We were totally and utterly battered in the first half, which at least meant we got to see some action down at The Holte End. This was capitulation, pure and simple, from a defence that looked like they'd been at the valium and a midfield yet again prepared to stand back and watch the opposition pass the ball. The idea of actually keeping possession ourselves - if only to take some off the pressure off if not to try and create something – never seemed to enter anyone's head.

How got to half-time at nil-nil is a mystery to me – partially because by 40 minutes I'd seen enough and was already quaffing Strongbow in the Holte Suite – though the general consensus was that Mister Guzan was our saving grace... comes to something when a keeper who has had to pick the ball out of the net twelve times in two games is your glimmer of light. This was a big chance for Delph and El Ahmadi to re-establish themselves. They didn't seem that bothered.

Credit to the opposition though, Defoe put on the kind of display that has many of us casting envious eyes at White Hart Lane over the years, while Gareth Bale responded to the constant barbs about his simian like appearance by knocking in three to add the final barbed sprig of holly into Villa's ruined Christmas.

Not sure where we go from here... we can't keep changing the manager but we expected and needed something after the shellshock of the Chelsea and what the team actually managed to serve up was, to my eyes, even worse...

Twelve – nil in two games may sound bad but I always say don't just look at the results look at the performances... the performances were actually even more terrible than those scorelines would suggest and all played out on live telly to the delight of our knuckle-dragging, braying neighbours.

Make no mistake, we're in a dogfight now. We might just need to nip out and buy a couple of dogs...

The clanging chimes of doom

Amazing how the “the clanging chimes of doom” merchants and the wild optimists are often the same bunch of people.

“Wahey! We've won three one away and the only way is up” and “Bloody Hell! We've been massacred and we're doomed!” has been the sentiment from people who seem incapable of understanding that it doesn't have to be just one thing or the other.

In fact any who had watched the away adventures at Norwich and Liverpool would not have been overly surprised by the fact that we would eventually take a caning.

At Norwich, Grant Morison – a striker we are allegedly interested in signing – had a Savo of an evening, missing gilt-edged chance after gilt edged chance and had he been on form, we wouldn't all be looking a London hotel prices in late February.

In Scouseland, we were more on the rack against Brendan's men in the first twenty minutes that ever we were in the early stages of the Stamford Bridge. The big difference here is that while Liverpool squandered chance after chance, Chelsea pounced with a ruthless efficiency.

So while in Lambert I still trust, I've not been a massive fan of this formation, even though when we do get the chance to go forward, it has at times given us some much needed width. This width was not in evidence at Chelsea, as the full backs were too timid to risk forward runs, our midfield seemed contempt to step back and admire Chelsea's passing skills rather than close them down and Chelsea's well marshalled offside trap was all that was required to nullify the threat of the Beast of B6.

Men against Boys? I don't buy into that argument. 23 years old is hardly a boy, they are getting games under their belts now and they are all in the side because of an injury crisis, seasoned professional and experienced Premier League campaigner N'Zogbia didn't even make the bench.

For me it was the subs that finally sunk us (not that we weren't doomed by then anyway), I found the replacement of Westwood with Ireland particularly puzzling, while this probably wasn't the best moment to throw a Joe Bennett who has yet to win the hearts and minds of the Villa faithful back into the fray.

Still, although the goal difference column looks a tad on the bleak side, we should dust ourselves down and get on with it. After all a loss against Chelsea isn't the end of the world, no matter how apocalyptic the scoreline may looked.

It would be an understandable reaction if a bit of fear crept in now but a few fresh faces in the Christmas games could see a whole new attitude and I'm sure that Delph, Concrete and El Dave will be chomping at the bit for another chance to establish their credentials. Taking nothing away from Ciaran Clark, who has been a able deputy, I'd like to see Vlaar back in the team and in the armband, providing the sort of gutsy leadership that galvanises teams and supporters alike. I certainly don't think we've seen anywhere near of El Ahmadi's best yet and still think that could come off as a great signing while Delph seems to split opinion but when on form, but I've still not given up on him.

I'd always said that it would be January before we started to see the best of the new intake and it well be that the severe thrashing we've just taken could be the springboard we need to graft our way up that table. Certainly, any complacency will have been banished.

8 – nil might have made Christmas less merry but it might, just might herald a happy new year...