What Is It About Aston Villa

[kippaxvilla2]

I was going to edit my original post but to further sum it up.  If the opposition are 2-0 up against Villa I never have any confidence we can pull it back (Crewe doesn't count).  If we are 2-0 up I never have any confidence we can see it out.

[curiousorange]

It was interesting to hear Chelsea fans bleat on about Mourinho yesterday, so no, I don't think it's just us. But we've made a habit of it, which is horrible really. The amount of pointless emotion wasted on a team who do just about enough to survive each season despite inherent incompetence depresses me. If I could force myself to look away I would.

[Dave]

How many fans say this about their teams? It's not just us, it's probably about 90% of teams.

I bet Sunderland do. They must have been through about eight managers and half a dozen new teams and everything seems the same as it always is.

[Jimbo]

Failure is considered ok at Villa.

[SoccerHQ]

Thing that gets me is get to March and we'll start winning games, seeing out wins in professional manners and generally looking a reasonable team. It happened last season and in Lambert's first.

It's like a lightbulb suddenly switches on in the players heads like we're about to relegate this club so we maybe should start playing properly whereas if they'd bother doing it a few months earlier they could have the cigars out already.

The biggest problem is the ownership and lack of direction imo, it all stems from the top and regrettable another summer has passed without a takeover.

[myf]

A losing mentality has a grip on the whole club.  TS has said this himself, but I'm not sure how we are going to shake it off with an unproven and inexperienced squad. 

We just can't do the basics right - Bacuna and Lescott trying to play it out with two men on their backs, Guzan throwing it out quickly when we should be time-wasting, Sanchez and Amavi conceding possession when a simple pass is required.

I was watching Leicester today in the last 20 minutes and they fought like their lives depended on it.  I haven't seen a Villa side put a shift in like that for years.

Not very clever going into two local derbies on the back off that result.
 

[kippaxvilla2]

The thing is you just know that next weeks dilemma (another trait of recent years) is that Smethwick will park the bus and we will struggle to break them down and may well concede a shit, sloppy, or jammy goal in the process.

[robbo1874]

Maybe it's to do with the quality of the players we have in the squad now as much as management tactics and coaching. Think of the players we've lost since oneill left. Barry, young, Milner. However exciting this summer's transfer business was, none of those players were ever properly replaced with players of equivalent or better quality. I'm sure there are others I've forgotten, but when you factor in losing benteke aswell, we just don't have the quality we once had, in my view.

To me it looked like it was starting to come together with houllier and Mcallister - remember the 9th placed finish that season. I think we may have kicked on if they'd have stayed on. I'd have had Mcallister as manager with houllier in the dof role. Since then though, it's been one shit manager after another and an exodus of decent players who haven't been adequately replaced. I think we are where we deserve to be.

Still think we'll come good this season and finish top half, but it's going to be a battle.

[KRS]

Not very clever going into two local derbies on the back off that result.

Chances of winning all 3 was always going to be unlikely, so going in to the Baggies game with the players having to prove themselves and making up for the todays result may actually work in our favour. They should also be aware that this is a local derby and need to apply themselves for the full 90 minutes. No fuck ups. No excuses.

The thing is you just know that next weeks dilemma (another trait of recent years) is that Smethwick will park the bus and we will struggle to break them down and may well concede a shit, sloppy, or jammy goal in the process.

We know thats what they will do, and we know they'll try to score on the counter or from a set piece. We'll have at least 60% possession and we should be able to break them down with our pass and move football. Its our ability to convert chances that concerns me, however if Traore is fit then I'm pretty confident it will be a comfortable win.

[Villafirst]

Not very clever going into two local derbies on the back off that result.

Chances of winning all 3 was always going to be unlikely, so going in to the Baggies game with the players having to prove themselves and making up for the todays result may actually work in our favour. They should also be aware that this is a local derby and need to apply themselves for the full 90 minutes. No fuck ups. No excuses.

The thing is you just know that next weeks dilemma (another trait of recent years) is that Smethwick will park the bus and we will struggle to break them down and may well concede a shit, sloppy, or jammy goal in the process.

We know thats what they will do, and we know they'll try to score on the counter or from a set piece. We'll have at least 60% possession and we should be able to break them down with our pass and move football. Its our ability to convert chances that concerns me, however if Traore is fit then I'm pretty confident it will be a comfortable win.

For me, Gana is the key player to be fit for the weekend. If he'd played yesterday, I think we'd have won. Westwood doesn't do enough for me. Also, when Okore is fit, play him at Right Back - he got the pace and power to play their and is an upgrade on Hutton and certainly miles better than Bacuna.

[chrisw1]

I was going to edit my original post but to further sum it up.  If the opposition are 2-0 up against Villa I never have any confidence we can pull it back (Crewe doesn't count).  If we are 2-0 up I never have any confidence we can see it out.

This is so true. Is it just natural pessimism of a football fan or are we genuinely worse than other teams at this?  It feels like the latter to me.

[chrisw1]

People bang on about the ownership. This has nothing to do with the ownership.  It has to do with the Sherwood, the coaches and the team they have assembled for £50m plus.  Randy didn't lose us the game form a 2-0 winning position yesterday, the ****** on the field and in the dug out did that.

Fair play to Leicester and their fans though, you hardly ever see that sort of atmosphere at VP, other than major Derby days.  Their fans played a major part in the result which is something at home we very rarely do.  We just take the piss out of those that try to and laugh when they get kicked out.

[brian green]

Excellent topic.  It has been like this all the time I have been on the Holte. Except for two periods and I will come to them anon,  we have been run like a parish church or a residents association or an amateur dramatic and music society. Everybody well meaning and dashing about a lot but fundamentally amateurish and easily roused to role defence. Of course we engage professional managers and coaches and trainers but we shop in Argos and are motivated by value for money. The nettle we have never seized is that football clubs cannot be run like conventional businesses.  A conventional business produces a yearly balance sheet and is judged accordingly. A football club is judged once, sometimes twice a week. That requires management skills of the highest order not adequacy.

The two exceptions which have bucked the trend in my time are the periods of Ron Saunders and of SGT1.  There was an iron self belief that ran through the team into the club and out onto the terraces.  If MON had not put himself first before the club his could have been a third period of self belief but it was not to be and he flounced out counting his money.

The first faint traces of the writing on TS's wall came to me from an odd source. It was when the club used him via the VP screens to bollock the fans for running on the pitch after the Olbyun game. At least 98% of us were booing the pitch invaders and shouting for them to stop yet we were all treated like naughty children being told off by teacher.  I thought, hang on, he has been here a couple of weeks and the club is using him  as a means to improve crowd behaviour. Doesn't he have enough to do improving playing standards?

Therein for me lies the thread of weakness marbling through our later history.  No fancy stuff, no PR, no BS just the best people you can afford doing the simple basics to as high a professional standard as possible.

[Gregorys Boy]

There are two simple answers for me.

First we have become a selling club post-MON days which would be fine if we were able to replace the players going out with players just as good, but we haven't and in some cases we have not replaced them at all.  Until this summer we've been run on a very tight budget the last few years, not saying that's a bad thing, but in reality it was always going to play a part in where we find ourselves.

The other main factor is that we have relied too heavily on youth (you could extend that to the current manager too) and while we've waited for that youth to mature we've struggled as a result of their mistakes, and sadly only a select few have developed enough to make the gamble worth while. 

Some of those basic issues are still there this season, but then it is a whole new team and Sherwood is still learning as a manager and there is no point in going back so we have to give them the season and see where we are after that.

[ktvillan]

I think  a big chunk of the problem is our insistence on hiring British managers and coaches, and usually mediocre or inexperienced ones at that.  They are, almost without exception, tactically lacking compared to foreign counterparts.  Our most successful recent manager, O'Neill was much lauded by sections of the UK media, yet was a dinosaur in terms of tactics and playing style.   Houllier showed promise and I felt it was a shame he couldn't continue.  Sherwood is so bad he is even being out thought by the likes of Pardew.  Lambert was so bad that a corner was as good as a goal for the opposition, and he put 6 up front against Bradford.  McLeish with Hutton and Heskey as wingers away at Spurs says it all.  I mean these guys are paid millions to come up with this garbage.  And yet they all seem to be as thick as two short planks.  But we continue to throw money at them.