Paul Lambert writes to Villa fans with thanks

Boss Paul Lambert today sent a passionate letter to Villa fans and insisted the team will live up to their expectations.

The claret and blues chief has written to the Villa Park faithful to thank them for their early-season support.

He praised them for helping Villa through a tough spell and believes his team will thrive on their backing.

He said: "Inevitably, we experienced growing pains last season but over the second half of the campaign there was a big coming together and a massive effort to secure the results which gave us that platform to continue to build.

"We're a different team from that now. Everyone can sense this and see it, too, and some of our results so far have provided a real measure of just how far we have travelled in not much more than a year.

"The players enjoy coming to work, they work hard, they enjoy representing this club and they have taken upon their young shoulders a massive responsibility based on expectations which inevitably exist given the heritage and history we are proud to have here."

Villa have beaten Arsenal and Manchester City and impressed in defeats against Chelsea and Liverpool so far.