Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: Mister E on November 26, 2011, 08:40:51 AM
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Lawrenson (http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/opinion/columnists/mark-lawrenson/Mark-Lawrenson-Alex-McLeish-must-get-a-break-from-Aston-VIlla-fans-article834716.html)repeats many of the old arguments about Villa's place in the world.
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He's still a cock
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Unfortunately he is spot on on nearly everything he said.
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Pushing for a top half spot eh? Ooh the giddy heights :)
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He has said what Faulkner should say and that would leave no one under any illusions.
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The truth sometimes hurts.
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This is a stupid article, and I could careless what this guy has to say on Villa matters.
AM knew the circumstances before he came to the club, and he still has players on the bench who are attacking minded. No sympathy from me.
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Well he spouts a few cliches and misunderstands the problem. It's a piss-poor excuse for an article really.
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It is very depressing to see in print.
When we were being called a selling club 2 or 3 years ago, most of us were up in arms, but quite comfortable in the knowledge that the so-called experts were all wrong and that we knew our club better than them.
Now ? yes, the truth does hurt.
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And he's completely missed our main ambition to be in the Deloitte top 20
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It is very depressing to see in print.
When we were being called a selling club 2 or 3 years ago, most of us were up in arms, but quite comfortable in the knowledge that the so-called experts were all wrong and that we knew our club better than them.
Now ? yes, the truth does hurt.
We were competitive three years ago that is the major difference.
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It is very depressing to see in print.
When we were being called a selling club 2 or 3 years ago, most of us were up in arms, but quite comfortable in the knowledge that the so-called experts were all wrong and that we knew our club better than them.
Now ? yes, the truth does hurt.
We were competitive three years ago that is the major difference.
Precisely.
Our fall from grace is nothing less than spectacular.
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It is very depressing to see in print.
When we were being called a selling club 2 or 3 years ago, most of us were up in arms, but quite comfortable in the knowledge that the so-called experts were all wrong and that we knew our club better than them.
Now ? yes, the truth does hurt.
We were competitive three years ago that is the major difference.
Precisely.
Our fall from grace is nothing less than spectacular.
What fall? We finished 6th then 9th, no huge difference in league positioning.
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just read the piece again, then look at the first 9 lines...seems about right to me.
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Summed up well.
We are where we are, and where we are is as Lawro describes.
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just read the piece again, then look at the first 9 lines...seems about right to me.
I have read it, it is rubbish.
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just read the piece again, then look at the first 9 lines...seems about right to me.
I have read it, it is rubbish.
fair enough
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He's right.
And a right knob.
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Can't argue with that based on the evidence of the past 18 months or so.
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Of course he's bang on the money - the journalist who has ghost written it has been on this site and just copied and pasted much of what can be found here day-after-day.
We're a club that, at best, can be described as being in limbo. It might not be particularly well-written, but that's the message the article is telling those who still harbour illusions we're currently anything other than a club making up the numbers. Yes, Paul Faulkner, that's you I'm referring to.
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I always have a look at pre match forums of our opposition prior to the game and the general consensus is that they can't believe how far we've fallen. It makes depressing reading
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It is rubbish. Classic cliche ridden rubbish at that, allegedly written by an ex-footballer who was of course renowned for his finesse on the pitch as much as he is now known for his academic insight into all things football.
As for "selling club", I've still not seen a definition of what it means, despite the phrase being frequently bandied about willy nilly. In my opinion it's just a convenient phrase normally used as a way of intellectualising an insult.
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Its not a bad article overall, just let down in a couple of instances.
Firstly he trots out the extremely lazy viewpoint of the fans not liking him because he managed Birmingham City. He's not the first pundit/journalist to fall into this ridiculous trap, but it makes you wonder whether he actually knows of Mcleish's recent managerial record.
Secondly he says we've had a decent start. He does this without mentioning the very kind run of fixtures, and without mentioning the run of games coming up.
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just read the piece again, then look at the first 9 lines...seems about right to me.
I have read it, it is rubbish.
fair enough
It is embarrassing and so one-sided. Did Downing and Young want to leave? It takes many determining factors in a transfer, but no it is only the club's philosophy according to Lawrenson.
And ML is basically saying, as supporters we must accept AM's playing style because the owner is selling players who WANT to leave the club. Sorry Mark, but I, and others supporters, are allowed to have different opinions on OUR clubs. I guess the players and management can do no wrong in any situation. Completely laughable and comes across as extremely ignorant.
Look at the club's philosophy and budget, and at what
McLeish has to work with.
What does he have to work with? He had two attacking wingers on the bench? A player AM replaced for Downing, and a young exciting prospect. It makes no sense and Lawrenson knows it, look at his following sentence.
Maybe he regrets not being more adventurous at Spurs.
Yes, I am sure he regrets setting the team up in this style, even though that style has been synonymous with AM for years.
I can understand why some fans are believing this crap, the club has a depressing aura at the moment and it is easy to eat this shit. But guys we are better than Monday's performance.
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Its a lazy article.Not quality players? You could argue that a strike force of Gabby, Bent and N'Zogbia is as good as we are going to get, probably the best since Little, Gray and Deehan.Add to that players like Bannan and Herd and Jenas and we have a good team in there.We lost as we did on Monday because ot the manager.The team he put out, the message to the players everything about Monday was appauling.
I don't mind losing, but at least have a go.
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"They are a selling club now and selling clubs don't reach the top four."
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Stopped reading when he called AMC a good manager.
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Its a lazy article.Not quality players? You could argue that a strike force of Gabby, Bent and N'Zogbia is as good as we are going to get, probably the best since Little, Gray and Deehan.Add to that players like Bannan and Herd and Jenas and we have a good team in there.We lost as we did on Monday because ot the manager.The team he put out, the message to the players everything about Monday was appauling.
I don't mind losing, but at least have a go.
I concur.
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No wonder you're so one eyed Compass if you refuse to read any opinion that does't agree with your own.
Opinion being the key word.
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No wonder you're so one eyed Compass if you refuse to read any opinion that does't agree with your own.
Opinion being the key word.
He isn't a good manager. It's a well known fact. If he was a good manager he wouldn't have 2 Premier relegations and finished Rangers 3rd in a 2 horse race. It's like calling SAF a bad manager when he really isn't.
And I think it's kind of funny you continue to pick out my posts when you post the most controversy opinions like defending McLeish's tactics without even watching the Spurs match just to stand out from the crowd.
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"They are a selling club now and selling clubs don't reach the top four."
or top 6.
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He's right in some respects but it comes across very much as an article written by someone who's dipped into the story, checked all his facts in who we've sold and how much we've spent and totally missed the main gripe of the fans. I don't think anyone expected AM to match the performance of the moneybags MON era but we certainly have enough to be aiming higher than the standard AM achieved at Blose. And that's the problem - most of us expected us to get beat by spurs but not to go into the game looking to keep the score down to double figures, which is why he's got more grief than he did for the Citeh game.
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"They are a selling club now and selling clubs don't reach the top four."
or top 6.
Might as well give up hope this season, see you guys next season.
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He's not wrong with much of what he says. The thing is for a supposed expert pundit his article lacks an in-depth and insightful analysis of how things got to this.
I'm well aware of our place in the world and I'm well aware that Spurs have a better side than us (in spite of the fact their matchday side actually cost less to assemble) and would have beat us 99 times out of 100 regardless of what we did. I just wished that the journey was a little bit more exciting and rather than shite, overpaid players like Hutton and Heskey we used youngsters. A few weeks ago someone on here coined a rather excellent metaphor. Houllier was the Captain of the Titanic and McLeish is the tugboat captain taking us on a rather slow, dull cruise around the harbour. It's not the fact that we expect success within the harsher financial regime. We would just like a slightly more enjoyable mediocrity. Which considering the value of players we have in our squad is the least we can expect.
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It is very depressing to see in print.
When we were being called a selling club 2 or 3 years ago, most of us were up in arms, but quite comfortable in the knowledge that the so-called experts were all wrong and that we knew our club better than them.
Now ? yes, the truth does hurt.
We were competitive three years ago that is the major difference.
Precisely.
Our fall from grace is nothing less than spectacular.
It's not even that long. ''Three years'' is what's always bandied about on here but it was just over 18 months ago that we were challenging for the top four, in the semis of the FA Cup and having just lost the Carling Cup Final in controversial circumstances.
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There was an interview with gareth bale in a paper this week and they touched on the hutton/Cuellar marking job. His reply was "I'm used to it but Wigan was the worse" That sums us up really- we're now adopting the tactics of Wigan - clubs that know they'll get beat at spurs and just want to keep the goal difference down to give them a chance in the relegation mini-league.
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He's right in some respects but it comes across very much as an article written by someone who's dipped into the story, checked all his facts in who we've sold and how much we've spent and totally missed the main gripe of the fans. I don't think anyone expected AM to match the performance of the moneybags MON era but we certainly have enough to be aiming higher than the standard AM achieved at Blose. And that's the problem - most of us expected us to get beat by spurs but not to go into the game looking to keep the score down to double figures, which is why he's got more grief than he did for the Citeh game.
He is only right about the obvious player sales. The rest is just a poorly constructed, one dimensional, contradictory argument about Aston Villa's expectations. Lawrenson knows nothing about this great club or our supporters.
I do not expect a lot from AM, but even his so called defensive qualities have been questionable lately.
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allegedly written by an ex-footballer who was of course renowned for his finesse on the pitch as much as he is now known for his academic insight into all things football.
Don't know whether you're being sarcastic but he was actually renowned for his finesse on the pitch; as reasonably cultured CB.
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He has said what Faulkner should say and that would leave no one under any illusions.
The funny thing is that Faulkner's comments seem o have caught the manager off guard going by his comments to the press. He is probably thinking 'F**kin' ell, this isn't what they said when they appointed me! Back then it was, 'Just don't get relegated'.'
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What a load of rubbish.
"Pushing for top half" my arse.
Now, yes, by mid January pushing for the bottom 6 or worse.
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He has said what Faulkner should say and that would leave no one under any illusions.
The funny thing is that Faulkner's comments seem o have caught the manager off guard going by his comments to the press. He is probably thinking 'F**kin' ell, this isn't what they said when they appointed me! Back then it was, 'Just don't get relegated'.'
If Big Eck feels the job description has changed, he could always resign on a point of principle...
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He's right, but this paragraph (one sentence long) ought to attract a prison sentence for its appalling inanity:
Lerner has taken one look at Villa and seen that he is losing good money after bad - spending hand over fist and not getting any return on his investment.
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"They are a selling club now and selling clubs don't reach the top four."
or top 6.
Might as well give up hope this season, see you guys next season.
...in the championship.
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The truth hurts but lawro is bang on the money!
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As for "selling club", I've still not seen a definition of what it means, despite the phrase being frequently bandied about willy nilly. In my opinion it's just a convenient phrase normally used as a way of intellectualising an insult.
I thought 'The Modric to Chelsea' Story was a classic example of the difference between a selling and non selling Club.
Old Waxface stick to his guns and Modric is still at Spurs now and I can see them finishing above Chelsea this season. Had Modric been a Villa player we'd have taken the cash without a second thought.
That's the difference right there.
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As for "selling club", I've still not seen a definition of what it means, despite the phrase being frequently bandied about willy nilly. In my opinion it's just a convenient phrase normally used as a way of intellectualising an insult.
I thought 'The Modric to Chelsea' Story was a classic example of the difference between a selling and non selling Club.
Old Waxface stick to his guns and Modric is still at Spurs now and I can see them finishing above Chelsea this season. Had Modric been a Villa player we'd have taken the cash without a second thought.
That's the difference right there.
Is about right. You could similarly argue that the shift for us was when we resisted Liverpool for Barry, but then capitulated feebly with Milner the following year. You could be more positive though - Barry and Young were both at the end of long deals and at stages of their careers where moves from almost any club were likely. Milner was a loss but Downing was ther first time I can ever remember us actually getting a truly good deal selling a player.
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The truth hurts but lawro is bang on the money!
How?
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We cannot realistically compete with the finances of the big 6 and now can look at 7th as being the best we can hope to achieve- a heavy dose of realism is needed by some people .
I do not blame mcleish as it's not his fault his crown jewels were sold but we are now in a group of clubs chasing 7th to 12 places at best and I feel that may be the case for some time to come.
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Cannot disagree with a single word of the article.
Of course there are plenty who will not like it, because :-
1) The truth hurts. You can only have success with money, and we do not have enough of it.
2) The article is by Lawrenson. So whatever he says you will disagree with.
3) The article is not critical of Mcleish. Lets face it, if any other manager had come in had the identical set of results and performances they would not have received the same level of criticism.
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The problem is not so much being a so-called selling club, it's about how you use the money when you are more or less obliged to sell. Spurs lost Carrick, Berbatov and Defoe a few seasons ago but they reinvested the money in quality, supplemented it with some additional spending, and ended up a better team who did get in the top 4.
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I hate the expression "selling club" it's a load of bollox and I will explain why.........
Every club will sell players at various stages of their careers. Even the likes of Manure (Beckham & Ronaldo) do it.
The clubs at the top end of the league will cherry pick and raid upcoming teams that may threaten their position at the top end of the league (ie Man Citeh buying Barry & Milner and Manure buying Ash Young). Having lost those players from the squad weakened us greatly and saw off any chance we had of challenging at the top.
Unless you can offer huge wages and the chance of challenging regularly for silverware you will always fail to hold onto players in the end.
This applies to every club in the premier league.
The top few could see we were on the verge of upsetting the status quo so ripped the heart out of our team.
I feel it will be a while before we have a similar opportunity to challenge at the top end unfortunately.
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Cannot disagree with a single word of the article.
Of course there are plenty who will not like it, because :-
1) The truth hurts. You can only have success with money, and we do not have enough of it.
2) The article is by Lawrenson. So whatever he says you will disagree with.
3) The article is not critical of Mcleish. Lets face it, if any other manager had come in had the identical set of results and performances they would not have received the same level of criticism.
Nonsense.
1. - "The truth hurts" What does that even mean? The only hurting truth is the negative style of football we are playing. You have missed the point, it is not all about money on the pitch.
2. - The article is flawed, and the generic rubbish is spouted about "money". How is setting up a team effected by finances? We have players who are capable of being positive with the ball, but the manager's style is opposed to that idea.
3. - I beg to differ. If we played in a dull fashion it would be criticised, and it has been in the past under different managers.