Richard Dunne was he really that bad?

[rob_bridge]

Great to start with, for a season, then considerably not great.

He always came back from a summer break looking overweight.

Yep he was a 90's player in 00's for me in his less than professional off season approach. 1st season he did well but sorry to be a bore I think Milner covered up a lot of people's one paced / slight sluggishness with his energy and Dunne, Collins and Stan were 3 who benefited. Let's face facts they all looked rubbish when Milner left for 6 months+.

Typical Brit/Irish style centre half - decent enough positionally/organised initially then ball watches, then throws himself in front of the shot last gasp style. Suppose Adams and Terry did ok for themselves with similar attributes.

[pauliewalnuts]

I cannot agree with that.

I was pleased with his first season and disappointed with the rest because his performances and professionalism merited those responses.

Dunne was not hard done by at all as you’re trying to portray.

He was/is over-weight and has a problem with alcohol. We’re a pretty understanding bunch here and don’t ordinarily hold that against a player. However, in Dunne’s case, there was a strong correlation between his weight issues and increasingly poor performances, to such a point where he couldn’t be bothered for an entire season. Fit and healthy players come back from worse injuries in less time than unfit and over-weight ones.

What you do not mention is that he also raised his hands to a Villa legend and coach, completely disrespecting the club in the process.

We’ve had a lot of great Irish players over the years, but taking off those green spectacles, you should be able to plainly see that Dunne does not hold a candle to the majority of them.

Well said.

[Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air]

Lambert is trying to build a team based around young hungry players.
Dunne is not so young and ....

[Big Dick Edwards]

In his first season, Dunne did better than we could have possibly hoped for when he had to fill Martin Laursen's boots. I recall Manchester City's fans being pretty upset that he'd been forced out. Unfortunately it all went downhill after that but he'll be a good signing for QPR.

[OCD]

A great addition to the physio room, complete with vending machine.

[KevinGage]

Great to start with, for a season, then considerably not great.

He always came back from a summer break looking overweight.

Yep he was a 90's player in 00's for me in his less than professional off season approach. 1st season he did well but sorry to be a bore I think Milner covered up a lot of people's one paced / slight sluggishness with his energy and Dunne, Collins and Stan were 3 who benefited. Let's face facts they all looked rubbish when Milner left for 6 months+.

That's a very good point.

[sid1964]

With my rose coloured glasses on ...he reminded me of Beckanbauer, but he was another Villa player, who was just there to pick up the cash!

[MoetVillan]

Like a rich mans Titus Bramble

[supertom]

Great to start with, for a season, then considerably not great.

He always came back from a summer break looking overweight.

Yep he was a 90's player in 00's for me in his less than professional off season approach. 1st season he did well but sorry to be a bore I think Milner covered up a lot of people's one paced / slight sluggishness with his energy and Dunne, Collins and Stan were 3 who benefited. Let's face facts they all looked rubbish when Milner left for 6 months+.

That's a very good point.

Except Stan actually played well when Milner left. But yes, Collins and Dunne were shite.

[KevinGage]

Our midfield -even including Stan pre illness- looked far from robust.

He was popping forward a bit more and chipping in with a few more long range shots, but we often lost the midfield battle, even against supposedly inferior teams.

He was noticeably tiring from about the 60th minute onwards in 2010/11.  12 months on, with more miles on the clock and with an even bigger workload due to Milner's departure, that situation wasn't improving.

[supertom]

Our midfield -even including Stan pre illness- looked far from robust.

He was popping forward a bit more and chipping in with a few more long range shots, but we often lost the midfield battle, even against supposedly inferior teams.

He was noticeably tiring from about the 60th minute onwards in 2010/11.  12 months on, with more miles on the clock and with an even bigger workload due to Milner's departure, that situation wasn't improving.

I'll agree on the sluggish part, and we certainly did miss Milners energy for sure. I felt in terms of performance though, Stan still hit the mark. 7/10 most weeks for his last 18 months. He was pretty solid, but he, or perhaps to Houll's instruction, took a lot of running out of his game to conserve energy. O Neill ran him ragged (and everyone else). I actually felt Stan was better after O Neill left than he had been in 09/10.

[brontebilly]

I will always associate Dunne with the club's high point when Villa got to Wembley where they lost narrowly to Man United in the League Cup final (2010).

I often wonder whether Villa's recent history would have been significantly different had referee Dowd  followed the rule book, when Gabby was tripped in the penalty box.

I never thought Dunne was a defender of the very best quality, and obviously Man City didn't either, but the £5m fee reflected that at the time, and for an ambitious club, which Villa were back then, his contract did not seem extravagant, for a rich club which was trying to achieve the same as Man City, but as we now know, for a lot less.

When he played for Villa he was a lot better than I expected and just as at Man City or playing for the Republic, he more than made up for his lack of finesse by his bravery and commitment.

Sadly, his reputation has suffered during the process of historical revision which has been required during the fans' adjustment to Villa's substantial reduction in ambition.

This is one hell of a funny post.

It's fine up till the last line, which is a total non-sequitur. It might have some value if Dunne had been an extravagant signing, but he wasn't, he was the sort of signing we could still afford to make today.

If people are remembering the poor side of Dunne as well as the decent one, it's because there was such a contrast between his first season and the subsequent three.

How, for example, was it possible for him not to kick a ball for us in the entirety of the last season, and then go on to play for the Republic days after the season ended?

It is hardly beyond the possibilities of reason that Dunne was unable to line out last season due to injury and was able to play a barely above training pace end of season friendly with Ireland. He has been left out of the Irish squad for the upcoming friendlies so those injury worries are still an issue, also evident in that his deal with QPR is pretty much pay as you play.

Some of the crap posted about him here in relation to his absence last season aint half libellous. if only to get a decent contract elsewhere, he would have given anything to have been able to prove his fitness last season playing regularly. The conspiracy theories being spouted are a crock of sh*t frankly.

As a player Dunne was a very solid central defender but he certainly had his flaws on and off the pitch. For one, he never worked hard enough at his game particularly in his younger days to be up there with the John Terry's but he wasnt that far off. Particularly at Everton and his early days at City, his off the field lifestyle was terrible. Have a look at the size of him in the WC2002 qualifier at home to Holland where Roy Keane was immense. The honeymonster was in shocking condition there was also reports of him getting rowdy with Irish journalists at the World Cup that time. Keegan finally got him sorted out and he turned his career around.

Irish fans tend to forget that Dunne was awful at international level until Trappatoni took charge. Managers like MON and Trappatoni who preached structure, prioritised set pieces and limited football suited him perfectly. He was a stopper to the core with outstanding physical attributes and brave to a fault. Qualities that were found badly wanting in our defence last season. He was also well able to organise a defence around him. At international level that included such luminaries as Kilbane, Ward, St Ledger, O'Dea and McShane. He was never a centre half that was going to be comfortable taking the ball out from the back or having to thrive in a situation of managerial instability like when Houllier, McDonald or even Staunton and Brian Kerr at international level were in charge. He tended to slip back into his bad old ways then.

In the aftermath of the failure of Ireland to qualify for the WC in 2010 and MON leaving, he did go back to the back old days in terms of his conditioning off the pitch. The game against Bolton at Villa Park where he had to be taken off was the nadir but he bounced back pretty well when he got back in the side. Not that it was hard but he was our best defender under McLeish too. We went to absolute crap when he got injured that season and old when he came back did we steady the ship some bit. He wasnt the only player that lost their way in the 2 seasons after MON left. The boy hero from Erdington a case in point and the atmosphere around the club was rotten. Yet Dunne always seemed to get the abuse far more than most. Popular players like Carlos Cuellar werent fit to lace his boots lets be honest.

An old school manager like Redknapp who prioritise man management will get the best out of Dunne next season provided his injury troubles clear up. I wish him all the best.