Ignominy

Three games in seven days that would shape our season. We always knew it would be a big ask for it all to come out okay. As it turns out, pretty much none of it did.

Just like the Albion game, the Bradford showdown turned out to be a game of two halves, with Villa in rampant attacking mood in the first half. It's a really pity that we couldn't have converted this into more goals, because things could have been so different if we had. The problem was that all heart left our side once Bradford scored. The lack of leadership on the pitch is reaching crisis point and anyone who thought that Ron Vlaar was going to be the talisman to take us out of the mire got a swift reality check.

The ignominy of being knocked out by a League Two team when Wembley was in touching distance was hard to take, but at least we'd had two weeks to get used to the idea. The tepid, uncreative (aside from N'Zogbia) and defensively inept excuse for a performance against Millwall was the real slap in the face.

You don't have to be a skilled tactician with all your UEFA coaching badges to work out how to beat Paul Lambert's Aston Villa. Schoolboys have sussed it out. If it's so obvious to everyone watching what the defensive frailties are, why is it taking so long to sort them out? I'm really sorry to say this, I am, but the answer has to be that Lambert doesn't know how to. We've had over a month now in which the defence has been truly woeful and nothing, NOTHING, seems to be being done to address it. Well, nothing that actually bloody works.

I may not have been Stephen Warnock's greatest fan, but I can't recall him being as positionally naïve as Enda Stevens, as clumsy as Eric Lichaj or as shit as Joe Bennett. Yet, he's forced to train with the academy while this defensive mayhem continues. By all means exile him if he's not good enough, but at least replace him with someone better, not worse.

Don't worry though, say some, Richard Dunne is coming back! Some people have got really short memories.

Some players are rallying to the cause. Weimann, N'Zogbia and Delph are all showing signs that they realise how serious this is and are playing some exciting and creative stuff, but we've such a lack of depth that when these players have to be withdrawn, their replacements just can't hack it. Barry Bannan and Stephen Ireland get chance after chance and have proved that they are incapable of consistent performances . However, sorting out the midfield can wait until the summer. We have to build from the back.

It looks as though we are not going to bring in any fresh blood as the transfer window clocks counts down. This is a desperate state of affairs because the current incumbents of our back line have relentlessly shown that they are not good enough for either Premier League football or indeed, in my opinion, the Championship. Unless we buy at least two quality players to steady the ship then we are going to be relegated, no question about it.

And we're not going to.

Someone at the Bradford game, obviously fuming with anger suggested “I'd rather have McLeish back”. I couldn't agree with that but Paul Lambert needed to answer the big question as to whether or not he was good enough to manage Aston Villa and not with words but by the way his team performed on the pitch this week.

I fear we have our answer.