I'm not sure where to begin with the performance and result from yesterday. I answered a few questions for Iron Views, a West Ham blog before the match and while I got a bit of it wrong; we did have more possession than them yesterday, I highlighted Nolan as the one player I'd have from that West Ham side, because he scores goals.
It's also what we're missing from midfield. Someone that can score and create who is also a leader. We don't have a leader on the pitch or really anyone that the other players will look to for inspiration.
When it comes to Marc Albrighton having to come on to create chances, you know you're in trouble. And that is nothing against Marc Albrighton, it's that the manager really is starting to look like he doesn't know what his best team is and it's quite clear that the style he wants us to play is the only style he knows and that style is very basic and easy to play against.
It's Championship football
It's the type of football that gets you out of the Championship if you have good enough players and keeps you in the Premier League for one season, but usually relegated the season after. We are flirting with it again and the next few games don't offer much hope.
Against West Ham we were playing against a side that was going to hit long and that was exactly what they did and they're better at it than us because they have Sam Allardyce, who has done this for years. He spends his week before a match figuring out if they're going to hit long to the left, right or middle and it's not much more complicated than that.
And that was why we had most of the ball yesterday, because they were more effective than us at hitting long. And when they scored twice in the opening three minutes of the second half, they sat back. We only came into the game then because they let us.
The other tactic Sam Allardyce has mastered in his twenty plus years is parking the bus and with two goals, that was exactly what he was going to do. They showed us all that they are good at that against Chelsea and we had little hope of clawing anything back in fairness after they had gone two up.
Chelsea had 39 shots against them and failed to score so when you only have sixteen, it's going to be a struggle, especially when only one in ninety minutes is on target. Yes, one on target in ninety minutes, even though we did hit the woodwork a couple of times.
Take away the PR, what have you got left?
It's hard supporting Aston Villa at the moment. You've got an owner that appears to not care. You've got a CEO that is learning and a manager that is going to get rewarded for mediocrity. It just doesn't seem as if it's right and all this when we're getting served up long ball football.
They say money is coming and if it does, it's only because the club can afford to pay it back to Lerner, but if you look at all the players that have been brought in, would you trust Lambert to spend it wisely? I'm not sure I do and I'm not sure with this style of football we're going to get the right type of players to come.