Finally A Verdict From Monny

over reaction if ever i've seen one

You amaze me Vital Villian, if you dislike MON so much why do you wait up till beyond midnight like a child on christmas eve to wait for his eloquent words !! just to dilute them with your own "Championship manger " punditry. Please I call for you to put down your pen save us all the negativity.

i like the "Aston Villa would like to thank all those who attended tonight's game against Rapid Vienna"........personally i didnt see or should i say hear any villa fans, they like to hear them selves Boooooooo but what about the support??? we were the far better team tonight its a shame the fans let them down BOOOOOOOOO on you!! or is it wrong to booo??

oh and Crapsky should have scored a hat trick

Childish,whinging rubbish (as per usual on this site now)

WWWOOOOOOooooooo mr Pking

Surely moderators on this site should be moderate. Not cheerleaders for the delusional "if only MON would listen to me" brigade. Sad article.

Disagree write your own chaps, it's about opinions....mine isn't the be all and end all. I've had enough of the nonsense, I'll say so. If you haven't, defend him. Simples.

As for why I stay up, I'm not, I'm enjoying the forum, watching the TV - there's more to my life than Monny but I thought I'd cover it whwn it came up.

Not exactly a conspiracy is it. Then again as over reactions go, I wrote far worse about previous managers and most agreed....seems Monny is untouchable for some?

So moderators shouldn't be allowed an opinion Faangler? Not the first time I've heard it. Unlike the official site there isn't a party line, if you disagree with me write up your own take on things showing where you think I'm wrong? It'll get published. As for the listen to me brigade, sadly since February I'd argue he's been listening to those who think he can do no wrong and we've seen our form since then.

Folks - humour or not, too many threads taking the pee out of fans - and given this article is my opinion I'm not having the site slated, if you wish, complain to JF otherwise pointless comments removed.

ps - goes without saying, abuse me all you like - I enjoy it!

Astonian Villa where is your charm I have seen you write some good stuff on here, I don't agree with all of it but you manage to form some cohesive arguments, Im just expressing a view same as you

i just like to throw whatever bones i can out their for people to chew on, i just dont like the whole "lets start our own site" its not only daft but vital Villa is the place to be for ALL villa fans no matter what the views, like you said you dont agree with all my views but does it mean i should go elsewhere???

well this will just be deleted but I am here on a serious note to say that the match on monday was one of the best nights of my life in a long time I took a round trip of eight hours and was rewarded with a positive play a great play i forgot about barry and the years of heartache .... It was beautiful how i dreamed it would be can honestly say I loved every moment, I look at the bench and sit near it most home matches and see taht MON goes through every ball avery header , he is there in the game , and thats what i want to see from my manager , i suspect there are some raesons he has not spent as we thought he would , perhaps we dont have any money after all. I know you all think im all over MON and this team but I belive they are giving everything they have , and more . More monday nights please it was music !!!

w1villa - don't be a child. If you have an opinion state it, if like others you just want to abuse it won't last long. Simples. As for your post, I agree with all of it, but that doesn't change my opinion of Monny or the excuses he uses to divert attention from performances or his tactics. But would we all like more matches like Liverpool....a great performance, the team together, pulling in the same direction for a change, Christ yes - why do you think some of us are so annoyed that it rarely happens - when the truth is we know we are capable of it.

If we are capable of a performance like that against Liverpool, shouldn't that be what we expect everytime, shouldn't that be what the players strive for everytime and a performance like that, how can he drop players who created it?

As Mike says, if you don't agree with his view and have a strong enough one of your own, write it and it will get published. I personally can't see MONs fascination for Heskey, he has done naff all of note for the team since he was signed, the stats tell the story ffs. The game was crying out for a tactical switch after the 2nd goal went in..... I had a lot of faith for MON last season, even through the latter stages. It started to rapidly disappear through the closed season and now, well, i'm just stunned by the idiocy of the man after tonight.

I have to say mike_field I thnk your slightly off on your opinion on tonights game. I was fortunate enough to make the short walk from my house in handsworth to mighty VP this evening. When we got there the atmosphere was strange, and often we were outsung by the travelling away support-but never on the pitch. We held possesion well and created chances, we should have been awarded a third penalty as there was a clear handball from a shorey cross destined to find ashley young or milner or carew or heskey. Your negativity towards the performance suggests that you we're watching the match on T.V..all said and done unless you can see how the teams are lined up, feel the atmosphere I feel your opinion is lacking in some key factors here. I will gladly agree that heskey did not do much..but the fact is we should have won 4-1, but we missed a penalty and had a gutless..confused ref. more importantly though, had VP been roaring like I have heard it during many of my visits I think we would have given the players the extra lift they needed as from where I was sitting they played well enough to win the game, but such is football. stop slating the team you love and with decent support we could turn VP into the daunting place it once was instead of nerves and ill informed opinions on the game, if you trained and worked with these players every day I would listen to this with more ease but as you don't and as our side looks more and more organised the longer MON is at the helm I will disagree with you good sir.

oh and milly was everywhere bloody good egg should be giving dvd's to kids to watch his work rate and commitment..su-bloody-perb..right then 3points saturday and Im a happy man!

sorry this was a response to vital villains article..:-)

On the TV it sounded muted but that was to be expected after CSKA and our start to the season (even given the Liverpool victory). It was only a 22 odd thousand attendance but watching on the box the fans did enough. Heskey and our manager blew it for us. The third penalty, wasn't a penalty mate....it wasn't handball. I so wish it had been given, but it wouldn't have been fair. I said days before the match I'd be watching on the box, but if we are talking about my criticism of Heskey I'm spot on. Carew was looking for him for a square ball to the end of the box, Milner got closest, Heskey was nowhere to be seen even when the camera panned. 99% of the balls up to attack were at Carew, Heskey was lumping round in no position of use whatsoever.

Ok, you were there, you saw his off the ball runs. He could've been doing them all night, but Carew for the most part had two around him when he won flick ons, brought the ball down and played it off. If Heskey was making off the ball runs, Vienna were ignoring him as a danger just like it seems our players were ignoring him as an option.

But let me correct you, I have all night long praised the 10 men on the pitch for giving their all, and for deserving to hold their heads high. I just don't class Heskey or Mon in that category. I thought for 10 men it was an astounding performance. It wasn't perfect, it wasn't crisp, and it was full of errors - bad passes - rushed judgment etc BUT they tried, they battled, and they gave their all in order to win despite the handicap forced upon them in my opinion by Heskey again being on the pitch and Monny being unable to know tactics from tictacs.

Please don't accuse me of not appreciating the effort the lads gave tonight. I'm *****ed we went out, but I've said plenty of times I'm proud of the team tonight regardless. They gave me what I wanted - effort and desire. That's all I ever ask.

I also agree wholeheartedly on the referee, it seems he thought yellow cards and fouls to those playing in claret and blue would be welcomed as sweeties (I said this on the forum during the game). However, we could've won 4-1, but do not do Vienna's chances down especially in the second half. A reasonable result on chances could've been 4-3 to them. I don't need to be at the match to know that. What we needed was more strength in midfield, not a ghost up front, and we'd have progressed tonight.

As above, the fans played their part, 10 men did. Heskey is just not played in a manner that suits him so it is unfair to criticise him but he's Monny's favourite so his performance matters not. Mon lost us this tie by wanting to keep Heskey on (whilst not playing to Heskey's few strengths), and more importantly when we went 2-0 by not removing Heskey the invisible and bolstering our midfield. We all knew it was coming - even he admits he saw it coming - yet he did EFF ALL to counter it.

The team hold their heads high tonight - Monny the tactical genius and great man manager should apologise.

Mate, fans can scream support non stop, when you have a manager who can't make the right decisions at the right time, the fans are irrelevant unless they serve the purpose of being blamed. The fans would not have carried us through today, a capacity crowd wouldn't have, because we were at 10 men from the start and only once they scored and we were out were changed made. That's pathetic.

As for your last sentence about whether I'm informed or not....you think the team looks better the longer Monny is here. Watch a season recap from 24 months ago, and then compare that to the last 18 months.....do you really hold that opinion still, are we more organised? Are we playing better? Unless you train and work with them then my (borne out by fact) belief we aren't counts as much as your belief we are. We agree to disagree, but the fact is two years ago we were playing great football. Last season we were nicking games 1-0 and then we went on a record losing streak because nothing changed tactically.

Let's agree to disagree mate because I find it difficult to actually tear apart where your wrong considering you agree me with the Milly is a Super Hero on the pitch.

ps me and Vital Villan are carnally linked.

Get MON out now or you will be relegated.

I don `t think we played well Mart,and i don`t think we created lot`s of chances. Again at home we lack pass and movement to create and open teams up,Petrov/Cuellar/Delph and Davies on more than one occasion had to pass back and then gesticulated a lack of movement ahead of them,either employ a coach to assist you or just go long ball and percentages when our opposition gives the ball away,that`s only way we seem effective.

Sum fans are so fickle, Heskey didnt play well but dont turn on him it doesnt help anyone.

Good article Vital Villan.

Totally over the top laying this on Heskey and MON alone. Milner was excellent, but what if he'd played a simple pass on the deck to Heskey in the first half? Heskey was there to slot it in, but the cross was high and poor. What if Ashley had scored on his penalty? What if Carew hadn't waited for Heskey, but instead went to the left (right of the defender) and banged it in with his left foot? What if Milner hadn't missed his sitter?....open goal ffs. (Imagine if it was Heskey who'd missed that.) All poor executions/decisions by the players. Still, it's just Heskey and MON's fault we lost, right? And imagine the uproar if MON had decided on 2-0, to take off Heskey, put on NRC, reverted to 4-5-1 to protect the lead and play counter attack football. Imagine if we'd conceded a goal then. People would be furious with MON. We'd get comments like 'Why did he threw the game away when things were going well?', 'why did we invite Rapid into the game', 'why did we go 4-5-1 when we should have killed the game with another goal?' Still, easy being a Championship Manager, ain't it? 4-5-1 worked wonders against Liverpool. It was a magnificent performance, but a totally different game. How many chances did we create? We played 4-5-1 in the first half away at Rapid by the way. Did it work? How many chances did we create, how many goals did we score? Different games, different opposition, different tactics....football's ABC. Oh, and what is it with VitalVilla, your constantly failing conspiracy theories and your predominantly negative loaded headlines? Is it just a trick to get more hits on the site? Looks ridiculous on sites like Newsnow you know. Ah well, each to their own I guess.

This site, in the main, has become an embarasment.

Lorenzo,this site in the main reflects the feelings and opinions of villa fans, within the whole spectrum of opinion. This site is lightly moderated to allow it to be just that. That's all the site is, a sounding board for those that choose to come on here and voice their opinions. At the moment there is a vociferous pro and anti MON debate going on, the site hasn't invented that it is merely reflecting the thoughts and opinions of villa fans. As a mod on this site I KNOW that Fear and all of us mods try to keep things balanced, however, what we will not do is censor fans opinions unless of course they are abusing other fans. There is no party line here, the good, the bad and the ugly get's posted and it is that which makes this site, IMHO, the best villa fans forum out there.

not forcing you onto the site mate, go to the others and read the delight after losing, I know they don't exist, football is about effort as well though and I couldn't fault the effort of the lads last night, I'd have kept NRC in but I'm not the manager, I'd never have bought Heskey and many a fan last night was questionning what the point of him was (as they came out of the game). The Rapid fans were great, total nutters but great. Coming home listening to Radio WM though Lorenzo some fans were far more doom and gloom and MON out than anyone on here, so if this place embarrasses you, then don't whatever you do listen to the local radio and I'd avoid talking to fans in the pubs after games as well.

after last season, i'm of the opinion that its a blessing. we still dont have the squad to compete in 4 competitions

'IMHO, the best villa fans forum out there.' Inadvertently funny statement. The forum is useful and because it is lightly moderated does reflect the genuine views of fans, for which I thank Fear. But sadly not the best villa fans; short-term thinking, overly critical, myopic and easily frustrated. I get the impression that some here think the club could be run better by them on their little pc running Championship Manager; wise up, that's a game, real life is a helluva lot more complicatd than that. Get real.

Bobbyfett, totally agree. Whilst I'm disappointed that I wont be seeing any European football at B6 this year, it might not be the worst thing that has happened to us. We still lack depth in the squad, our bench is not what you would call 'full of options', but hopefully we can have a nice cup run this season in of of the domestic competitions. It was better than the Wigan game, Carew is back AND SCORING and Milner is finally looking like the player we all thought we'd signed.....positives...all positives.

Re. Lorenzo's comments and the responses to it; negativity isn't nice is it? Especially when it's aimed at your site. Let's hope Mr Lerner doesn't ask the fans to go and support Manchester United if they don't like what they see on the pitch! The fans who vocalize their opinions on forums and the radio etc are not a true representation of fans in general. The vast majority of fans don't say anything in the public forum, so how can you really know what the "fans" think. Those who do choose to voice an opinion (or run a website) have a responsibilty (only a moral one, unfortunately) to represent the Villa fans to others, but as things stand, those opinions mean that we are all now known as a bunch of whinging Brummies. You can not deny that the fans negativity has affected the manager and players as they have repeatedly commented on it. Has it done us any good? Have we improved as a team or a club? If you think so, keep up the endless criticism and see where it gets us.

Re. Lorenzo's comments and the responses to it; negativity isn't nice is it? Especially when it's aimed at your site. Let's hope Mr Lerner doesn't ask the fans to go and support Manchester United if they don't like what they see on the pitch! The fans who vocalize their opinions on forums and the radio etc are not a true representation of fans in general. The vast majority of fans don't say anything in the public forum, so how can you really know what the "fans" think. Those who do choose to voice an opinion (or run a website) have a responsibilty (only a moral one, unfortunately) to represent the Villa fans to others, but as things stand, those opinions mean that we are all now known as a bunch of whinging Brummies. You can not deny that the fans negativity has affected the manager and players as they have repeatedly commented on it. Has it done us any good? Have we improved as a team or a club? If you think so, keep up the endless criticism and see where it gets us.

Lorenzo, get your arse in the forum and get posting, Simples! If you think it's too negative, step inside and be positive, back up your stance, back up your fellow optimists, trust me, they need all the help they can get : ) And AllanW we also have a reasonably mature membership who have only just worked out how to send texts never mind all these computer game football manager fifa pro thingies, and Jonah is right, this IS the best forum, and it is widely known that I am indeed the best Villa fan and care more about them then anyone else, you can ask anyone : )

General Disarray: So censorship is the answer then is it? You start from a very false premise anyway. I can assure you that the overwhelming majority of fans who come on here go to VP regularly, many of them are ST holders AND I hear the same opinions in the Upper Trinity every game as I hear on this site. Maybe you should ask why so many are whinging instead of condemning them for doing so. the more sensible amongst us accept that not all fans share our own opinions, the less sensible merely attack those who's opinions differ from their own. It's a forum, it's about debate. If you aren't prepared to enter into that debate without attacking others views, don't post, it really is that simple.

For all those who are happy with this result and criticising Vital Villa for his comments (dispite no-one really offering any useful criticism besides MON is god and can do no wrong cause I say so), go check up on the stats. Have a look at how many games we have won with heskey starting. Yet he gets played every game. Now explain to me how MON's decision to play Heskey when we basically have lost almost every game he has played in is a good plan! Explain how our best player since the beginning of the season is stuck on the bench! So reo has played in every game we have won this season... So please please tell me why MON has this god given right to throw away games by running stupid tactics and playing players who can't cut... Let alone even fix a problem that he has had four years to solve. In fact he has made our squad situation WORSE with more money available! So before you criticise someone who is critical of MON's decisions, don't quote "he got us 6th twice". Then he produced magic with a team I didn't think capable of making it. But this is now. 3 wins in 20 or something stupid... We are out of Europe. The single biggest concern is our squad. NOTHING has changed.

Oh do stop whinging Astriel :-)

If you think that MON comes on these sites, you are very mistaken. If you go to the games you hear exactly the same sort of comments, some 'up for it' some 'doom' and others just up for the crack. This is getting ridiculous, more talk about the sites than the actual football. I have never said I represent all fans, just myself as a fan and that is why there is a facility to post yourselves as well + things like the site to site interviews, I am spreading amongst our eds so it isn't just me. There seems to be a myth growing that Villa fans are the only ones who moan. Totally wrong. I run the entire network and fans all over are exactly the same. Wasn't that long ago Man Utd fans were starting to question whether Sir Chewalot was washed up, he then went on to win the CL for them.

Also got to say, there were only 22 500 ish fans at the game last night, around 2 500 of them were Rapid fans. That says a great deal about the negativity and no way can that be blamed on websites. Negativity doesn't do much good but it does come from somewhere, and that includes MON's negative comments! Juddy agree, some great signs, I do like Milner, even when not totally on his game, he never hides, he runs tirelessly and gets totally stuck in and as you say JC's goal was fantastic.

Jonah, err no. I didn't say censorship was the answer and, as for a false premise, how the hell do you know it's false! Do you have that thing from the X-Men where you can connect to all the minds of the Villa fans in the world? You say you know what Villa fans think but I'm a Villa fan and you have not taken my opinion into consideration because, oh yeah, that's right, you don't know it! Perhaps a little self-censorship might be in order here. People can criticise O'Neill, Heskey or whomever they wish and I can criticise you for doing so. I would never condemn a person for his or her opinion except where it it becomes damaging to others. I might criticize your Mother (please realise that this is merely hypothetical as I have never met your mother), I am entitiled to say what I please, free speech and all that, although I would expect you to tell me to shut up and not necessarily present a reasoned argument as to why my criticisms are unfounded. The point I was trying to make was that, trying to make judgements 2 league games into the season is frankly ridiculous and the only people to benefit from it is to the opposition. If, at Christmas, we are bottom of the table and Heskey is playing left back, I will be as critical as anyone but in the meantime, we should keep a sense off proportionalilty.

WhyTF does Heskey deserve the right to play over everyone else???? MON is pushing the fans away by being a stubborn tw*t and not dropping him.

You are getting rather silly now General Disarray. Nowhere..that is N-O-W-H-E-R-E did I say that I know what villa fans think. I merely said that I hear the same things in the UT that I hear on this site. As for the rest of your points about only being 2 games in etc, totally legitimate opinion. MY point is that not all fans agree with you and you have to accept that instead of criticising them merely for having one that differs from your own.

I'm sorry Jonah, I haven't made myself clear. The act criticizing is damaging, not necessarily the content of the criticism. You have to admit that people can be a bit over the top, especially as a lot of the criticism seems to be from posistion of ignorance. People complained that we didn't sign Sneijder, get real! He wouldn't join us in a million years and that's somehow O'Neill and Lerner's fault. This insistence that Tuncay is the key to the Champions League is also faintly ludicrous . Ok, he looks like a good footballer but he's not Christiano Ronaldo. When O'Neill criticized the "Championship Manager fan", bear in mind that, a few years ago, a quarter of the applicants for the Coventry job were by people whose only experience in football was Championship manager! People really think that it's easy to manage a football club and to sign top quality footballers but they forget that in the real world footballers are almost real people and mostly have their own views and opinions, you can't force them to join. Look at Man City, all the money in the world but they couldn't get Kaka, Etoo and some others who I can't remember. That's the truth of it. You can only buy the players who are willing to sign. As for Heskey, he was pants against Rapid but not every player will be great every game. I just can't see who it benefits by us fans slating our own players and management, can you explain to me, plaese Jonah, how it helps?

It isn't my job to explain anything mate...I am not sticking up for one side or the other here. Merely stating that opinions differ and everybody is entitled to their own.

By the way GD, I thought your last post was very good...that's what it's all about mate...debate!

I wish people would just debate what`s on the pitch,if you think it`s fantastic then come on and highlight the positives,tell the world where we`re going right.If we lose a game or play cack then if you go on a website people will question things or else why would we bother ? Praise when great and questions when cack,it ain`t rocket science people!

4 - 5 - 1, or just play 4 - 4 - 1 if heskey plays, he ruind our season

This is quite an amazing thread to read, with comments about comments and lots of gripes about the site and the negativity debate. When it comes down to it MON seems to get so much right and knows far more than me or anyone else on here. But, he does not know more than everyone and when nearly everyone is in agreement, he in my view has got it something wrong. That is why he is so frustrating. It is an 11 a side game and one player makes a huge difference to results. All the comments on this site at present seem to revolve around one main dissatisfaction, and despite all the ramblings are summarised briefly and best by the post as above: WhyTF does Heskey deserve the right to play over everyone else???? MON is pushing the fans away by being a stubborn tw*t and not dropping him.

thanks for the response mike, I can understand that you thought MON's tatics differred from the4-5-1, but we are forgetting that davies was pulled off with his shoulder, delph was then replaced by allbrighton so milly, who was our best player became more central and bolstered up our midfield, when gabby came on for heskey..well, how we can say he played any better or made a difference. In my honest opinon, we looked a threat with carew or heskey, soon as gabby came on the ball seemed to come back to the defence quicker. dont get me wrong I love gabby, but then I love underatted heskey and carew and allbrighton.. its not blind faith, nor the very decent band formed by mr winwood, I have seen the ability of these players and the shape of the team was still strong enough, but one non block from beye, who let a couple come into the box was enough for them to score, if you look at shorey, barely a cross came from his side all evening because he again was excellent and quietly went about his job. just bloody hard luck is alll I can see, not tatical ineptitude or favouritism. plus with the fulham game coming up, I thought it was a good team selection that should have seen us through..I stil cant get me breath at some of the refs decisions.. and it was definately a handball..all 23,000 fans saw it, but despite that, the ref gave them plenty of opportunity to get back,in the game in fact there goal was a indirect result to a bad decision if I recall

i love his site, there's nothing like a mass debate (say it fast...) fnar!!

haha I know I promised myself that I wouldn't mas debate again..damn villa madness i tells ya..it gets you everytime utv

Vital VIlla can damage your eyesite. its official.

lol, bobbyfett, you are such a w...... no good trying it, my swear filter will block me! :o)))

Makes a change Fear, I thought I was the only W.... on here!

Full tilt, but by that point it was too late. He has to then bring on another striker because we were out. If it had been done earlier in the match, and bolstered up midfield we had a chance of seeing it through. Yes you can't dictate for the injury to Davies and the need for Lowry to make an emergency appearance but again all this happened after they scored. Strengthening the middle (although it's debatable if Milly in the middle is a better option in terms of the tackle than NRC/Sidders he does run non stop and hassle) after they'd already scored was more locking the stable door after the horse had bolted. Again when Gabby came on it went back to big balls up because we were rushing to get a third and Vienna were playing reasonably deep so the best asset of Gabby was lost, and he only had what about 10 minutes to get into the game anyway. The changes came too late to have an effect.

I've listed my thoughts on Beye in the forum aswell, I can see why Newkie fans loved him, he gives his all (which is more than most of the Newkie 'stars' did last season) but he reminds me of UDLC, he's always looking for the attack instead of playing it safe when in defence and that makes him a liability.

The less said about the ref the better, about the only 50/50 decision that he made the right way was turning down the 3rd pen shout.

As for another comment in this thread, I'm ignoring the ones that made me giggle, about if Monny had made a change at 2-0 and took Heskey off, brought on an extra midfielder that we'd all be screaming he took Heskey off and lost or something like that - I doubt it very much. Heskey offered absolutely nothing all match, we all saw that. If he'd been removed, we'd made an attempt to tighten up midfield which was shaky it would've been an effort. They may still have nicked the goal, we'll never know. But it would've been an effort and it would've been the right move for the team. It wouldn't have been criticised. Not by me anyway.