Penalty? No ... but who has been really penalised?

Why Villa only decided to start playing with some energy in the second half is amazing, but I suppose the youngsters were shell-shocked after that penalty. And at least the last 15 minutes were reminiscent of those days way back when Villa would finish a match with all guns blazing.

Pity that this time the aiming equipment was rusty and the finish to the match was, in all honesty, not dangerous enough to cause us to think that Southampton were lucky. Apart from, that is, another very reasonable chance spurned towards the end of the match (as there was by Bent against Bradford in mid-week)

One goal scored at home in the last 6 Prem matches says a lot doesn't it? So it's alright for the manager to (rightly) go on and complain about a penalty that shouldn't have been, but who has really been penalised here? It's the poor fan who has been penalised ... the fan who has been paying through the nose these past three seasons for a glimpse of hope and instead has been fed a misfiring cannon. McLeish certainly failed big-time and now Lambert threatens to produce similar - or worse - statistics.

The fans mostly wanted Lambert in this season ... and they got him. But I don't think the fans expected that all commonsense would be thrown on one side in the club getting rid of virtually all their most experienced players - yet keeping Ireland! I am, in fact, a fan of Lambert in his vision, but it does need adjusting with that bit of commonsense to ensure survival in the Premiership. I don't entirely blame Lambert for this current situation but a board that knows only how to control purse strings. I'm beginning to think that Doug was more effective in that role.

The good news, though, is that we've still got 3 weeks to go in January to get reinforcements.

Two fighters in the spine of the team will go down well.

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