Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Villa Memories => Topic started by: supertom on November 22, 2013, 12:59:11 AM
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Enjoy. I do miss the big man I must admit. I'd almost forgotten just how good some of his goals were. Unplayable on his day. Shame he'd get to a point in a match where the knees or back would n't stand up to much more, and he sometimes struggled to play 4-5 games on the spin because of fitness and niggling injuries.
Good times.
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He started 106 (further 28 apps from the bench) games for us in all comps and scored 52 goals. That's a quality record.
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Wonderful. And to think we only got him because Houllier wanted Baros.
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Like most of our strikers seem to end up, he was 1 in 3 in the league. Unplayable on his day and world class, although the 1 in 3 could also apply to months he was any use to us.
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Loved his penalty taking style
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I'll always remember 2 games when it really mattered, and he really was unplayable - The 5-1 demolition of SHA where he scored 2 and they couldn't live with him, and the 2-1 win at the Yawnthorns where he literally won everything in the air, scored one, and I think hit the post twice.
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Possibly the difference between Big John (and indeed Benteke now) compared to some of our other CF's over the years such as Japes and more recently Benty, is that even when he wasn't playing very well, be it not looking interested, or the back giving him jip, his physical presence always caused the opposition problems and he could create space for others. I'm not sure even when Carew was off the boil, any center half could say they coasted in a game against him. Perhaps in the few games he played after O Niell fakked off.
Again, with Carew it could take just one hopeful ball in and he could get his noggin on it and put it away.
Again, his league record, although it reads 1 in 3, he only started 89 out of 113 matches. Granted down to his erratic form and more erratic fitness, but if we're talking goals to minutes, he'd be right up there in terms of Villa front men I reckon.
Inexplicably O Neill for a large chunk of 09/10 opted for Heskey over Carew in the league. Even on occasion when big John would come on and score, it did take a while (as it sometimes can) for O Neill to realise that Heskus wasn't offering any goal threat. I think had Carew played more that season he'd have crossed 20 goals in all comps. I think he had 17 in the end.
I think the biggest shame about Carew though is just the fact that on his day he could destroy anyone he wanted. When the body and the mind were up for it he was unstoppable but we didn't see that as much as we might have liked. Still, we were the one major club that really did take to Carew who had been nomadic to say the least. I think when he's looking back over his career outside of his home country, he'll think of us with the most fondness. Absolutely brilliant rapport with us fans.
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Like most of our strikers seem to end up, he was 1 in 3 in the league. Unplayable on his day and world class, although the 1 in 3 could also apply to months he was any use to us.
I thought overall he wasn't far off 1 in 2 in the league.
Pretty sure he reached double figures for us in the 3 full season between 07-10 and it's not like he played all the games with the various injuries he had.
Overall a good player for us, I remember him fondly.
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Inexplicably O Neill for a large chunk of 09/10 opted for Heskey over Carew in the league. Even on occasion when big John would come on and score, it did take a while (as it sometimes can) for O Neill to realise that Heskus wasn't offering any goal threat. I think had Carew played more that season he'd have crossed 20 goals in all comps. I think he had 17 in the end.
Carew had a great end to that season. From the middle of March he scored twice v Wolves, 1 against Sunderland and at Chelsea all in 7 days, once at Pompey and once at Man. City.
I don't think the trust between MON and Carew was ever the same after the lapdancing incident and there was a rumour going round he pulled out very late from playing in Moscow which I don't think went down at all well.
Probably what distorts his goalscoring record is not scoring at all for us in 10/11 (he left that January for Stoke) as he didn't like Houllier very much.
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Yeah Carew had a bit of a reputation for loving the London nightlife.
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He wasn't perfect and there were times he didn't look arsed but that brought back some very happy memories.
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Yeah Carew had a bit of a reputation for loving the London nightlife.
He's a striker though ... they're always looking to score.
Watching that video makes me miss Young too. Could you imagine him linking up with Benteke now?
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Yeah Carew had a bit of a reputation for loving the London nightlife.
He's a striker though ... they're always looking to score.
Watching that video makes me miss Young too. Could you imagine him linking up with Benteke now?
I could actually. Those were the days when he'd beat a man and could cross with either foot. He gave fullbacks a torrid time.
If we loaned him in and got him anywhere close to his best again, Benteke would be lapping up the service. I don't think he'd come back here to be honest, nor do I think we'll see Young back to that sort of form again. In both cases, that's a shame.
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That solo goal against Bolton(?) was immense. That's Benteke class right there. ;D
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My son and I caught up the the big man when he was over here in Cyprus for an international.
Very warm words for the club, I got a strong sense that in his own way he did fall in love with AVFC.
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Chris Samba used to visibly wilt at the sight of him.
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Young, Gabby, Big JC, Laursen and Petrov all in one team, no wonder we were good!
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Isn't he one of the few villa players since 1992 to get two hat tricks for us, one against Reading in the cup and that wonderful second half display against Newcastle in 07/08 when we came from 1 nil down to win 4 -1 which is still one of fave matches to have been at in the last few years.
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He scored one against Palace in the Fa cup the round before Reading aswell.
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His record in the FA Cup was 11 goals in 10 appearences (8 starts). That we never made it past a semi while he was here was a shame really.
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Loved him and he loved us
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His record in the FA Cup was 11 goals in 10 appearences (8 starts). That we never made it past a semi while he was here was a shame really.
Yeah the Palace game was the midweek before the league cup final, he didn't start the final, Heskey did which again was probably an error as Carew had that big game mentality.
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That Newcastle 4-1 game is one of my favourite games since 2006. Actually, that season, 07/08, is probably my favourite of the Lerner era.
The 'expectation' wasn't quite there yet so we were thrilled with some wonderful wins, some great players, a high finish and I liked the kit. 2008/09 and 2009/10 were somewhat disappointing by comparison. Up to Moscow I felt we could break the top four's stranglehold then the first doubts in the management surfaced and never went away. By 2009/10 we all knew Man City had arrived, Spurs were coming and we had hit a glass ceiling with MON.
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His record in the FA Cup was 11 goals in 10 appearences (8 starts). That we never made it past a semi while he was here was a shame really.
Yeah the Palace game was the midweek before the league cup final, he didn't start the final, Heskey did which again was probably an error as Carew had that big game mentality.
I know. It frustrated me. By the time he came on, which is often the case with an MON substitution, it was too little too late. He's a big game player. Some strikers are okay in some regards but don't score many against the bigger clubs. Carew could score against anyone on a given day.
Heskey is similar to McLeish for me. Good guy. No grudge against him personally, but he shouldn't have been signed and represented a bleak period in our club on the whole. You could see in the space of O Neills last 18 months that Heskey was gradually becoming more favoured ahead of Carew. But as erratic as Big John could be (on and off the pitch I guess), you're still trading off 10-15 league goals a season for about 3 on a good year for Emile. Not only that but Carew would get more assists too, making the "team player" tag for Emile further obsolete.
The Emile signing to me basically confirmed that the top 4 would always be just out of reach and that eventually the better players would move clubs to achieve it. Then Heskey essentially headlines the sort of level of team quality he normally does, which in recent times had been at clubs in the bottom half. And it turned out that way, eventually the squad came more down to Heskey level too as the likes of Barry, Milner, Downing and Young all left. It's obviously not Emiles fault but he became something of a poster boy for a period of implosion. Furthermore it always felt on the cards even from the point O Neill joined. I always had this niggling feeling that at some point he'd sign Emile Heskey.
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I liked Carew but I don't remember him scoring against the big boys - did he ever score against Man U, arsenal, Chelsea et al?
His second half performance at Reading was probably his best for us but my favourite was against the Blues in 2008 where he mangled them. I also think he gave us extra defensive ability at set pieces, something we lost after MON left.
One personal disappointment was that he didn't use his physique more against Terry. He never seemed to be able to dominate him, or evn slyly break his nose.
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If he was more consistent he'd have been world-class, and come nowhere near us. He also looked like a monster yet never seemed to impose himself, and was always having niggling injuries.
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I liked Carew but I don't remember him scoring against the big boys - did he ever score against Man U, arsenal, Chelsea et al?
His second half performance at Reading was probably his best for us but my favourite was against the Blues in 2008 where he mangled them. I also think he gave us extra defensive ability at set pieces, something we lost after MON left.
One personal disappointment was that he didn't use his physique more against Terry. He never seemed to be able to dominate him, or evn slyly break his nose.
He scored against Utd and Chelsea (we lost both, including that 7-1 tonking). Man City, Spurs (albeit before those two were top 4-5). Also famously tore Real Madrid apart before he joined us (He's scored 3 against them during his time at Lyon).
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Without scoring he was also terrific in the 4-4 draw at Chelsea on boxing day 2007 and also Arsenal at VP a few weeks beforehand.
Yeah 07/08 was a fun season. Didn't we score 70 league goals that year. We also conceded a fair few once Carson lost his confidence after the England game.
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I really liked Carew, on his day he was brilliant for us. How many goals did Ashley set up too? Blimey he was also absolutely outstanding for us at times. I wish he stayed here and I'd have him back if he could recapture that form. I'm sure I could forget about that dive once for goals started going in again from his deliveries.
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Yeah that video indicated what good service our forwards had, almost everything was set up by Young, Barry or Gabby.
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Yeah that video indicated what good service our forwards had, almost everything was set up by Young, Barry or Gabby.
To think it wouldn't be out of the realms of possibility to have had all three back here over this season, had we got Barry on loan, and were to take AY on loan in Jan. They're not the same players granted, but if they can get even close to that form again then the likes of Benteke would be rolling in goals.
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Thanks for posting