Aston Villa’s strong start to the season has seen manager Paul Lambert rewarded with a new contract extension, which will see him stay at the club until 2018. The former Norwich City manager has been facing a lot of pressure in recent seasons following his failure to get Villa closer to European qualification positions. One of the few British clubs to have won the European cup, Villa are no longer challenging close to the top of the table due to the budgetary constraints. The club were almost relegated in the last two seasons only for an improvement towards the end of the season.

Chris Coleman has said that if he makes the Wales national football team qualify for the Euro Championships of 2016, it would be the biggest achievement that he can ever have in his career as manager.
Coleman, who has had stints as manager at clubs like Fulham and Real Sociedad, reckons that even if he wins the European Cup with some club in future, he would not get the same kind of satisfaction that he would get if Wales makes it to the Euro 2016.
Speaking in a programme, Coleman said, “Even Champions League glory would not give me as much happiness as Wales’ qualification for Euro 2016 would.”

The Aston Villa boss, Paul Lambert, has big expectations with his new signing Joe Cole. He believes that the former English player is still capable of competing at the top level.

Cole, who is 32 year old at the moment, has recently signed for Villa. He had actually been offered a big amount of money to join the Major League Soccer, the American league, but, he turned it down.

Not many players especially at this age would have rejected such an offer, but, Cole did it and he got heaps of praise from Lambert for that.

Talking to the reporters a couple of days ago about Cole, Lambert said, “Joe is one of those guys who don’t care about the cash that much. He is just looking to show the world that he has still got what it takes to compete at this level.”

Aston Villa boss Paul Lambert has claimed that the club will be undergoing a major rebuilding work in the summer, but he is aware that it will definitely not be easy. The former Norwich manager has come under intense pressure after two successive years of poor form. Aston Villa have only narrowly managed to avoid relegation at both these campaigns, which have led to calls for the manager to be sacked. However, a more important situation arose towards the end of the season after owner Randy Lerner confirmed that he was putting the club up for sale.

Aston Villa suffered a 4-0 defeat against Manchester city in the penultimate game of the season. This was yet another disappointing result for manager Paul Lambert, who has come in for intense criticism. Since the former Norwich manager replaced Alex McLeish, they have been struggling against relegation for the last two seasons. However, this season’s struggle has been compounded by the rumours that owner Randy Lerner is reportedly set to sell the club after they have secured another season of Premier League football.

Paul Lambert’s position in Aston Villa is now in jeopardy after the club suffered their 10th home loss in this season which is the first time which has happened in their 140 year history.

Aston Villa received Fulham at their home turf in Villa Park and goals from Kieran Richardson and Hugo Rodallega saw the team of Paul Lambert sustaining their 3rd consecutive defeat and the fans of the Premier League responded by booing the coach who risks being sacked by the end of the current season.

“The crowd has been very good,” said Lambert. “You can’t argue with the fan base here. It’s there, it is what it is and you have to perform in front of it, especially at home, where the majority of fans want to see you win’’.

West Brom striker Victor Anichebe has said that performance does not matter for relegation threatened teams and it is only results that count at the end of the day.

He says that manager Pepe Mel should be given more time after the former Real Betis manager has so far been unable to bring three points for the club after his arrival a few months ago. He has been in charge of the team for the last seven matches, but there have been no victories during this period. West Brom have achieved draws against Liverpool and Chelsea, but it is three points that will help them get out of relegation trouble.

Alan Hutton has been a player of Aston Villa since 2011 but has only managed to make 31 appearances for the Premier League club as he was offloaded to Nottingham Forest and Mallorca.

After his loan spell with Mallorca came to an end, the Spanish club attempted on signing Hutton on a permanent deal but could not afford it and now he has made his return to Aston Villa to where he still has not made a single appearance in this season and it does not seem like its going to change anytime soon.

The head coach of Aston Villa, Paul Lambert has told Alan Hutton that his career in the club is over because of his wages, which are simply just too high.

Aston Villa striker Gabriel Agbonlahor has said that the match with West Brom on Monday night is going to be of massive importance.

The Midlands derby could potentially see West Brom building on their recent run of form, which has seen them take a credible 2-2 draw against Chelsea just before the international break. They could have easily taken three points from this encounter had it not been for the last-minute penalty, which was very controversial. After a good start to the season, Villa have slipped into an inconsistent spell in recent weeks.

Aston Villa will have the opportunity to repeat the history when they take on Arsenal for the second time in the ongoing Premier League tomorrow.

The last time that Villa had defeated the Gunners twice in the league was more than 21 years back and they can do that again this time around.

Paul Lambert’s side had absolutely stunned everyone by thrashing Arsenal in their opening league game of the season and they had done that at the Emirates Stadium where Arsenal’s record in the recent times hasn’t been bad at all.
However, one thing is for sure that to pull off an upset against Arsenal again, Villa will have to put up a really good show. If they play the way they have been playing since the last one month or so, they will certainly not be able to get better of the Gunners.