Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: dave.woodhall on April 07, 2014, 01:55:26 AM
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http://thebirminghampress.com/2014/04/one-way-or-another/
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Great article I have to say. And I'm not even after a pay rise.
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Which was it then ?
Broken into or towed away ?
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He has no semblance of an idea I'm afraid. He never seems to be able to generate a positive result when you most need it. Everything seems to be on a wing and a prayer with Lambert. I honestly believe we stumble upon our victories rather than having been engineered by his tactical genius. We've got another duck egg here, budget or not.
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I would disagree on the playing football bit. We have tried to pass it around and play it out from the back recently. However the players are:-
- Not good enough to do this well as little real movement or pass and go.
- Giving the ball away closer to the goal so more chance of goals against.
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The final sentence says everything there is to say.
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The final sentence says everything there is to say.
Yep.
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I would disagree on the playing football bit. We have tried to pass it around and play it out from the back recently. However the players are:-
- Not good enough to do this well as little real movement or pass and go.
- Giving the ball away closer to the goal so more chance of goals against.
I want this notion that the players aren't good enough to move off the ball to be squashed, to be honest. One of Everton's substitutions yesterday was McGeady on for Naismith. We know what those players would look like at, say, West Ham or Norwich or, dare I say it, Villa, but under Martinez at Everton they're excelling at the short passing and moving.
The point is that simple off-the-ball movement isn't something which comes naturally because it's not and individual thing - it has to be done as a team. At its best, like Sacchi's Milan or Pep's Barca, it's an amazingly complicated machine where if one goes there the other goes here and someone else pops over there in never-ending gap-filling motion. But it doesn't have to be that complicated - it just has to be competent, and done as a team, something which only comes through training, and there's no evidence that there is anything approaching this down BH.
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I felt awful after the Villa game on Saturday and then even more gutted watching Everton play on MOTD with Martinez.
Good luck to Everton , I like Martinez . if only ..... thou a little jealous
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I felt awful after the Villa game on Saturday and then even more gutted watching Everton play on MOTD with Martinez.
Good luck to Everton , I like Martinez . if only ..... thou a little jealous
Cant argue with that Dave and feel exactly as you mate.
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Good point Montbert
I went to watch Crewe pay a few uears back when Gradi's retirement was first mooted.
They went a goal down early against a physical Carlisle side. They didn't panic, stuck to what they had learned in training and ran out 5-1 winners. And they played without fear.
Other than against the big teams Villa play with a lot of fear.
The training methods must be shambolic. That said some of the regulars are frankly not good enough.
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Good point Montbert
I went to watch Crewe pay a few uears back when Gradi's retirement was first mooted.
They went a goal down early against a physical Carlisle side. They didn't panic, stuck to what they had learned in training and ran out 5-1 winners. And they played without fear.
Other than against the big teams Villa play with a lot of fear.
The training methods must be shambolic. That said some of the regulars are frankly not good enough.
I think it's probable that some of the regulars aren't good enough. The trouble is, we won't know which ones are until they've been given a go under a manager who trains them properly.
As for Crewe, look at how Westwood's off-the-ball movement has declined under Lambert. When he first arrived Gradi's lessons were still clear in his memory, and his reading of the game and ability to find space almost Petrov-esque. His movement into space is still better than most of the rest of the team (useless on its own, of course), but has obviously declined through lack of practice.
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I'm unsure that there have been too many good performances for it to be a coincidence. Man City at home is the type of performance nine times out of ten would not have yielded a win, similar to Southampton away. Even the two pens at Arsenal and Will i am's sending off against Chelsea were huge gimmes. I think we've played really well for 90 minutes once all season, at Stamford Bridge. The mediocre and shit far outweigh the great and the good.
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I'm unsure that there have been too many good performances for it to be a coincidence. Man City at home is the type of performance nine times out of ten would not have yielded a win, similar to Southampton away. Even the two pens at Arsenal and Will i am's sending off against Chelsea were huge gimmes. I think we've played really well for 90 minutes once all season, at Stamford Bridge. The mediocre and shit far outweigh the great and the good.
This. Southampton away was daylight robbery. We have been absolutely awful 9 times out of 10. Look at the sides beating us: Palace, Fulham (x2), Stoke (x2), West Ham...Awful.
I do disagree with you on the home performance against Chelsea though. I thought we were excellent that day.
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I felt awful after the Villa game on Saturday and then even more gutted watching Everton play on MOTD with Martinez.
Good luck to Everton , I've wanted him for some time
Me too.I felt awful after the Villa game on Saturday and then even more gutted watching Everton play on MOTD with Martinez.
Good luck to Everton , I like Martinez . if only ..... thou a little jealous
Me too, I wanted him here as our boss a while bacv. I did also want Lambert so what do I know? Well actually, maybe more than Lambert ;)
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Blood quotes!
Good article Dave
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Another good article Dave.
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With this boards track record of managerial appointments the words Neil and Lennon scare me greatly!
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I've quite deliberately stayed away from here for 48 hours. Another article that is spot on.
There is something rotten at the core of club at the moment. Despite everything, I'm not yet convinced it is actually Lambert. The more I reflect on it, the more I'm convinced that O'Neill walked because he knew before any of us that Lerner had given up on whatever his motive was when he bought the club. The core of the problem lies with the owner, his eyes on the ground who don't know the ins and outs of the football world and, frankly, a support who turn on the manager and yet are not prepared to organise on a Liverpool-esque basis to oust an American owner who is slowly strangling the life out of the club.
Whether Lambert can redeem himself over the last few games remains to be seen. I doubt it. However, regardless of who is in the dugout come August, nothing much will change at B6 whilst we have an absentee landlord who bought us, on what increasingly looks like a rich boy's whim, and now really can't be bothered to do what is necessary in terms of providing the investment that a Premier League club regrettably needs simply to stand still.
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I've quite deliberately stayed away from here for 48 hours. Another article that is spot on.
There is something rotten at the core of club at the moment. Despite everything, I'm not yet convinced it is actually Lambert. The more I reflect on it, the more I'm convinced that O'Neill walked because he knew before any of us that Lerner had given up on whatever his motive was when he bought the club. The core of the problem lies with the owner, his eyes on the ground who don't know the ins and outs of the football world and, frankly, a support who turn on the manager and yet are not prepared to organise on a Liverpool-esque basis to oust an American owner who is slowly strangling the life out of the club.
Whether Lambert can redeem himself over the last few games remains to be seen. I doubt it. However, regardless of who is in the dugout come August, nothing much will change at B6 whilst we have an absentee landlord who bought us, on what increasingly looks like a rich boy's whim, and now really can't be bothered to do what is necessary in terms of providing the investment that a Premier League club regrettably needs simply to stand still.
My only issue with this is it just doesn't tally with the figures, what is it now over £100m of debt converted to equity and another £90m of loans just written off. I just think it's too easy to say he doesn't care and he's not interested as he keeps providing the investment, the big issue for me is who he entrusts to ensure that money is spent wisely and I'm afraid Faulkner, as good as he's been on the commercial side, just doesn't cut it for me as a Football man. Where Lerner is culpable is his trust in Faulkner to run all aspects of the club and also whatever harebrained recruitment policy they and the other members of the board follow when recruiting new Managers. This trust in the cut of a mans jib rather than his ability to coach, train, manage, organise and tactically think is the biggest cause of problems at this club, the only time they got it vaguely right was appointing Houllier but they gave him the wrong job!! Montbert for all his modern football hipster persona has got it spot on when calling for a revolution at Bodymoor Heath and the way this club prepares it's players.
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Excellent article. The fact that no "promising youngsters" are getting anywhere near the team, for me, just makes it all the more depressing.