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Author Topic: Are we a boring outfit?  (Read 36492 times)

Offline eastie

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Re: Are we a boring outfit?
« Reply #15 on: November 20, 2013, 05:33:29 PM »
There seem to be a fair few games under lambert where we have struggled to have even a shot on target so I can see why some are far from comvinced we are exciting .

Online paul_e

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Re: Are we a boring outfit?
« Reply #16 on: November 20, 2013, 05:35:15 PM »
" = bunny ears - imagine someone doing air quotes.

As far as I'm concerned the people like "s_h" who find us boring are generally never happy with the club.  Under MON getting the results were ok but we were shit to watch, last year when we were scoring for fun after Christmas we were shit because we couldn't keep a clean sheet.  This season we're tighter in defence and have beaten a couple of very good sides and again we play shit football.

If your requirements for us to be anything other than boring and shit are to play great football, score loads and hardly concede any then you're running a risk of always being dissappointed.

As for are we boring, I think we scored 8-9 superb goals last season and we've scored 2-3 of those this year as well so there are definitely exciting moments there.  We also break with great pace and open teams up brilliantly at times.  However, with the lack of goals until the Cardiff game I can understand people calling us boring, I just don't see it, we're no more or less boring than probably 14-15 other teams in the league, and we have a better highlights reel.

Offline royvilla949

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Re: Are we a boring outfit?
« Reply #17 on: November 20, 2013, 05:43:09 PM »
Interesting to note you say you thought lamberts reign has been very exciting in the match thread but now it's only exciting ?

Unpredictable would best describe it , with high and lows along the way but far from very exciting - indeed some of the football especially at home has been turgid in the extreme ., whilst on our day we can be extremely good to watch .
 Are we boring - sometimes
Are we exciting- sometimes .

Given the choice of top 6 and Gregory type football or  what we have seen under lambert I would take the 1-0 wins and top 6 personally.
i will second that

Offline Dante Lavelli

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Re: Are we a boring outfit?
« Reply #18 on: November 20, 2013, 05:44:07 PM »
In between bunny ears???!!! Can I have whatever you're on Ads?! What are you on about....

It's a joke from Modern Family to symbolise the hand signal people make when signifying a word is between speech marks.  Trust me it's funny in context.

On topic, I think the "project" [bunny ears] Lambert has undertaken is endlessly exciting because it provides a glimmer of hope that the club can unlock it's potential.  I suppose hope is the key word there. 

On the flip side, as we've become a better team we've become less exciting to watch on a typical match by match, primarily because we have slightly more control of the game.  To a neutral this is all they'll see, They're not aware of the exciting project which is going on. 
« Last Edit: November 20, 2013, 05:47:00 PM by Dante Lavelli »

Offline claretandbeer

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Re: Are we a boring outfit?
« Reply #19 on: November 20, 2013, 05:45:06 PM »
It would help if we we relocated to London but then again the PL are being asked for ideas to improve the atmosphere at grounds and the 3 in biggest need seem to be Chelsea,Arsenal and Spurs whose fans have been berated by their own manager.Top 6 not good enough ?
The biggest problem is the cash cow that is the Champions League which almost makes the top 4 an exclusive inner circle  and  the payments from the PL which again reward those clubs.To break into the top 4 is extremely hard ,to win a trophy has become more difficult .
Before the Premiership,top 4 finishes and trophies weren't limited to a few clubs and also fans weren't given a weekly TV diet of the 'super teams '.
Present day football is of a high standard and more attractive than I can remember( going back to the 60s) but the unpredictability is being reduced.The PL is not far away from being dominated by a few sides ,like the Scottish,Dutch and Spanish Leagues,and that is worse than boring,it means teams like Villa,Everton ,Newcastle,Sunderland etc find it difficult to compete with the elite in the league that is ,however,famed for its competitive nature

Offline supertom

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Re: Are we a boring outfit?
« Reply #20 on: November 20, 2013, 05:48:23 PM »
It's not been pretty this season at times to be honest. That said as an outfit we look far more capable of grinding out a result. I think Lambo realised that last season we seemed to have mission to try and outscore the opposition. We could expect to lose 3-2 one week, perhaps win 3-2 the next. That's kind of what we suspected would be the Lambo way when he came in. It didn't start that way, we were largely wretched at both ends. Then we found an effective way to score goals from Jan onwards, and our front three were effective (Benteke was immense of course).

That's not a sustainable way to play though. Unless you're blessed with fantastic attacking quality, which working on a budget like we are, is unlikely, it will lead to relegation battles most times. So yeah, we were good to watch feb-May but we needed to address our defence badly. We've done that, somewhat at the expense of our attacking play, but there have been other factors in that too, like injuries and form to key players, and teams working us out.

Good teams on the whole will build from the back. A solid base is required then you can improve up the other end. You can't concede 2 goals a game and expect to win more than you lose. Won't happen. So the defence must be solid. Now, it seems, it is.

We've been pretty horrific to watch at times this season, in terms of attractive football. Entirely boring? No. Mostly? Probably. But for me, we're in a better situation than we were last season, because we appear to have a solid defensive base. Once we find a good attacking balance, we'll improve the spectacle on offer.
The games against City, Arsenal and Chelsea certainly weren't boring. The games against Liverpool, Hull and West Ham were sleep inducing. Against Newcastle just plain painful to watch.

But the seeds are there. We've got the makings of a solid side. A good side? Not sure, but a solid side. 2-3 quality signings could move us up a level. The midfield is the weakness right now. We lack quality. Get that, and with our keeper, defence and striker, we've got the potential to be nipping at the heels of the top 7.

Personally I'm also with Eastie. I'd take top 6 and a not particularly attractive brand of football like we had under JG, or even arguably O Neill. In truth, at our best under O Neill I thought we played great football. It wasn't Barca but in it's own way, great to watch when the likes of Ash, Gabby, Carew and Milner were in full flow. Whilst our team may not be the most attractive to watch we should consider we still have the mercurial talent of Benteke, who on his day can light a game up all by himself. Gabby when he's at his full flow is unstoppable, so there's plenty of excitement in the unpredictability we have at the club still.

Offline saunders_heroes

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Re: Are we a boring outfit?
« Reply #21 on: November 20, 2013, 05:49:34 PM »
" = bunny ears - imagine someone doing air quotes.

As far as I'm concerned the people like "s_h" who find us boring are generally never happy with the club.  Under MON getting the results were ok but we were shit to watch, last year when we were scoring for fun after Christmas we were shit because we couldn't keep a clean sheet.  This season we're tighter in defence and have beaten a couple of very good sides and again we play shit football.

If your requirements for us to be anything other than boring and shit are to play great football, score loads and hardly concede any then you're running a risk of always being dissappointed.

As for are we boring, I think we scored 8-9 superb goals last season and we've scored 2-3 of those this year as well so there are definitely exciting moments there.  We also break with great pace and open teams up brilliantly at times.  However, with the lack of goals until the Cardiff game I can understand people calling us boring, I just don't see it, we're no more or less boring than probably 14-15 other teams in the league, and we have a better highlights reel.

Just because I'm not happy with the Villa now doesn't mean I've never been happy with us before or again in the future. I'm not a nodding dog, and if I'm unhappy with Villa I'll let it be known.

Offline Ads

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Re: Are we a boring outfit?
« Reply #22 on: November 20, 2013, 05:50:11 PM »
“Saunders Heroes” has set an overlapping time frame which for him capsulates boredom. 2006 to present, with overlap of 2012-present. To avoid confusion, these are opinions based on seeing the games rather than reading propaganda, just in case there is confusion over the providence of my nonsensical opinion.

These are just a few things that strike me as being anything other than dull;

In that time I have seen us win an away game in Europe in a full competition. I have seen us win away in the preliminary rounds, but my European away day following started in Madrid and in all that time, I have not seen us win an away game. Plenty of draws and enough defeats. I found that exciting.

* We competed at the right end of the table for three of those four years.

* We challenged for trophies, albeit fleetingly.

* We have been witness to the most bizarre and muddled management of succession possibly in the clubs history as we lurched from Houllier to McLeish.

* We seriously diced with relegation on two occasions and managed to pull clear before the end on a third to finish a flattering 9th.

* With a 12 month absence, we have become a very good away side and are more than capable of going anywhere in the country and beating anybody.

* We have a manager who is a reckless gambler, offering unpredictable line-ups, formations.

I don’t think we’re dull. I find a genuine pleasure in watching this Aston Villa side and have only ever been unfortunate enough to question my belief coming back from a Norwich defeat under McLiesh.

I thought we were incredibly boring under Gregory. I think the FA Cup final typified the era and was one of the greatest disappointments of recent times, that all we could summon after nearly 50 years of waiting was that tedious performance? Would that team beat this one? Probably, but it would be a tedious affair.



Offline Jimbo

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Re: Are we a boring outfit?
« Reply #23 on: November 20, 2013, 05:51:20 PM »
I wouldn't say we're boring, just dreary.

Offline Ads

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Re: Are we a boring outfit?
« Reply #24 on: November 20, 2013, 05:51:45 PM »

Quote from: saunders_heroes
Just because I'm not happy with the Villa now doesn't mean I've never been happy with us before or again in the future. I'm not a nodding dog, and if I'm unhappy with Villa I'll let it be known.

... and just because its not always raining in my world does not make me a mouthpiece, sprouting nonsensical opinion or incapable of independent thought. Neither does being a misery arse equate to being a sage. 

Offline Dante Lavelli

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Re: Are we a boring outfit?
« Reply #25 on: November 20, 2013, 05:52:28 PM »
Interesting to note you say you thought lamberts reign has been very exciting in the match thread but now it's only exciting ?

Unpredictable would best describe it , with high and lows along the way but far from very exciting - indeed some of the football especially at home has been turgid in the extreme ., whilst on our day we can be extremely good to watch .
 Are we boring - sometimes
Are we exciting- sometimes .

Given the choice of top 6 and Gregory type football or  what we have seen under lambert I would take the 1-0 wins and top 6 personally.
i will second that

I think I'm the opposite (if I'm understanding you correctly).  I'd prefer that lambert (or whoever) tries a different approach that *might* help us leap from also rans to a genuine title contenders rather than the Gregory approach (see also MON and TSM) of spunking lots of money on established players knowing that there is a ceiling to what can be achieved.

As part of Lambert's philosophy there is bound to be a degree of chaos involved as he's choosing the harder route/option but the rewards are potentially much greater.

Offline saunders_heroes

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Re: Are we a boring outfit?
« Reply #26 on: November 20, 2013, 05:54:37 PM »
I think (bunny ears)Ads(bunny ears) should write for the OS. They could do with another "everything's smashing" outlet on there.

Online pauliewalnuts

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Re: Are we a boring outfit?
« Reply #27 on: November 20, 2013, 05:55:40 PM »
We occasionally - at the moment - put in a terrible performance that would merit the description "dull", but we're generally not dull at all.

We've been a managerial soap opera for several years and now have a promising yet highly unpredictable team mostly made up of young players, which is likely to either do great things for us, or get us relegated, I don't think there's going to be much in-between.

We've also got a manager who flits betweenthe roles of solid, ambitious young boss / trusting svengali for young players and gung-ho 9 strikers mentalist.

That's not dull.

Online pauliewalnuts

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Re: Are we a boring outfit?
« Reply #28 on: November 20, 2013, 05:56:35 PM »
I think (bunny ears)Ads(bunny ears) should write for the OS. They could do with another "everything's smashing" outlet on there.

By which measure, you should get a gig filling in for Franksy.

Offline saunders_heroes

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Re: Are we a boring outfit?
« Reply #29 on: November 20, 2013, 05:57:05 PM »

Quote from: saunders_heroes
Just because I'm not happy with the Villa now doesn't mean I've never been happy with us before or again in the future. I'm not a nodding dog, and if I'm unhappy with Villa I'll let it be known.

... and just because its not always raining in my world does not make me a mouthpiece, sprouting nonsensical opinion or incapable of independent thought. Neither does being a misery arse equate to being a sage. 


Just because I disagreed with a poster on here who claimed this Villa team is exciting doesn't mean that it's always raining in my world. And no need for the personal insult either.

 


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