50% Villa: Assou-Ekotto on not becoming us

[pauliewalnuts]

This has to be taken with a pinch of salt as it comes from a Houllier 'supporter', but apparently the Frenchman was 'shocked' to find that the attitudes and culture at Villa Park in 2010 was largely the same as that at Anfield in 1999.

I agree with Kevin Gage, Houllier was the right idea but not necessarily the right man. And I don't agree that the football we played was shit. It was inconsistent, but in glimpses we played some of the best I've seen Villa play for years. More of that would have been nice. As mentioned by someone else on another thread, if all we can is float along, at least let's play some decent football.

What games were they then Eigentor?  We were absolute gash for almost the entire year, and the theory about Houllier improving our football is as much of an ideological fantasy as is the idea that he was excellent in the transfer market and would bring us lots of exciting foreign talent. 

The defence was rubbish, but we at least spent a decent part of the season trying to pass the ball around a bit, to play the game.

It's also a bit fair to slate his transfer policy or judge it as home biased when he only had one January window, and almost all the money went on the player who eventually kept us up.

[Vanilla]

This has to be taken with a pinch of salt as it comes from a Houllier 'supporter', but apparently the Frenchman was 'shocked' to find that the attitudes and culture at Villa Park in 2010 was largely the same as that at Anfield in 1999.

I agree with Kevin Gage, Houllier was the right idea but not necessarily the right man. And I don't agree that the football we played was shit. It was inconsistent, but in glimpses we played some of the best I've seen Villa play for years. More of that would have been nice. As mentioned by someone else on another thread, if all we can is float along, at least let's play some decent football.

What games were they then Eigentor?  We were absolute gash for almost the entire year, and the theory about Houllier improving our football is as much of an ideological fantasy as is the idea that he was excellent in the transfer market and would bring us lots of exciting foreign talent. 

The defence was rubbish, but we at least spent a decent part of the season trying to pass the ball around a bit, to play the game.

It's also a bit fair to slate his transfer policy or judge it as home biased when he only had one January window, and almost all the money went on the player who eventually kept us up.

There were games where we played some creative football and showed glimpses of promise last season. The problem was we have now sold the creative players from that team. If we had played last season without Young or Downing, we would probably have been relegated.

The days of us playing attractive football is limited at the moment. Like it or not, the current manager has reverted to type, and is playing turgid, stolid, lets not get relegated football. That's not the managers fault I suppose, that is what was known to be his forte before he was brought in.

[Chris Smith]

Looking back I'd say that Hoillier tried to make players perform in a style to which they weren't suited and it was only when he returned to a more familiar way of playing that results improved.

[Eigentor]

This has to be taken with a pinch of salt as it comes from a Houllier 'supporter', but apparently the Frenchman was 'shocked' to find that the attitudes and culture at Villa Park in 2010 was largely the same as that at Anfield in 1999.

I agree with Kevin Gage, Houllier was the right idea but not necessarily the right man. And I don't agree that the football we played was shit. It was inconsistent, but in glimpses we played some of the best I've seen Villa play for years. More of that would have been nice. As mentioned by someone else on another thread, if all we can is float along, at least let's play some decent football.

What games were they then Eigentor?  We were absolute gash for almost the entire year, and the theory about Houllier improving our football is as much of an ideological fantasy as is the idea that he was excellent in the transfer market and would bring us lots of exciting foreign talent. 

I agree that we were poor most of the time, but the matches against Newcastle at home, West Ham away and Liverpool at home, for example, were pretty good. And there were also some encouraging signs in matches we drew (Man Utd at home) or even lost (Bolton away).

[WA Villan]

Looking back I'd say that Hoillier tried to make players perform in a style to which they weren't suited and it was only when he returned to a more familiar way of playing that results improved.

Just shows the limitations of the players we have, who are on stupid money, but are average. Thanks Mon.

[Vanilla]

Looking back I'd say that Hoillier tried to make players perform in a style to which they weren't suited and it was only when he returned to a more familiar way of playing that results improved.

Just shows the limitations of the players we have, who are on stupid money, but are average. Thanks Mon.

I don't think they are that limited. I mean, they have coped with the current style of 'play 10 men behind the ball and try and nick a goal, if not, take the draw' quite nicely.