Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: dave.woodhall on October 26, 2015, 12:07:18 AM
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http://thebirminghampress.com/2015/10/strange-days-indeed/
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The last paragraph sums it all up well. He deserved the plaudits for a number of things last season, but he never built on it and when the going got tough instead of accepting his share of responsibility he blamed everyone else. We won't miss him.
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Very glad he's gone but I was equally delighted when Lambert went and look how that turned out. After a succession of poor appointments the next one has got to be right.
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Accurate summary.
Results were woeful. Sturke 'The Mighty Reds YNWA' Chelsea Albion and Swansea were all struggling too when they played us.
Zero points.
Good bye and Good Riddance albeit several weeks too late.
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I think he was booted for the media leaks and general disharmony, as much as the results.
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I said before the game to my Dad - 'that's not a team sheet , it's a suicide note'.
Saturday was the closest I have ever come to walking away - and that was before the game had even kicked off.
For that reason alone - thank God he has gone.
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Press leaks were a two way street thou, have we forgot we got told he had 2 games to save himself and sure enough that's what happened, that was not Dim Tim telling his mates that one.
But I say fair play to the club for that, if you have a guy in your employ leaking to the press and he is not doing the business, leak to your own sources, that for the first time in years shows the Villa maybe catching up with modern day cut throat football.
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Hoist by his own petard.
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Yes Dave, couldn't agree more, 4 points from 10 games seems to go over the head of the likes of Jermaine Jenas etc when they are finding all the excuses under the sun for him. With the final 2 (humiliating) league results last season on top it's actually 4 points from 12 games.
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https://youtu.be/gBCdlBrgEmE
...most peculiar mama (couldn't resist, cracking track)
ps. how do you embed these links so you don't have to click on the link to see the clip?
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About right, but how do we get the board to understand that they must stop shopping at the cheap end of the high street, and try shopping at a more reputable store?
ultimately its they who have messed up.
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https://youtu.be/gBCdlBrgEmE (https://youtu.be/gBCdlBrgEmE)
...most peculiar mama (couldn't resist, cracking track)
ps. how do you embed these links so you don't have to click on the link to see the clip?
Take the last part of the link so in your case: gBCdlBrgEmE
Add it inside youtube tags
[youtube]gBCdlBrgEmE[/youtube]
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Only disagree in one respect Dave - I think the squad is awful. We've repeated Lambert's fishing expedition from a few years ago except this time we didn't luck out with a Benteke, and all we've landed is Tonevs and Lunas. And the odd Bowery.
I don't remember a time, even in the mid-eighties, when we didn't have one single player any of the top clubs would be interested in. But here we are.
The odd flash from the likes of Gana, Amavi, Grealish indicates one or two of them *might* make a Premier League player in time, but none of them has done it consistently for so much as a whole game, let alone a string of them. The rest are just has beens or never wases.
Tim *was* terrible, but the club has got to stop trying to run some weird hybrid of Moneyball and Championship Manager. It's not working. Unfortunately it's probably too late.
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nly disagree in one respect Dave - I think the squad is awful. We've repeated Lambert's fishing expedition from a few years ago except this time we didn't luck out with a Benteke, and all we've landed is Tonevs and Lunas. And the odd Bowery.
I agree with that absolutely. I don't think we're the worst team in the division, but we certainly are amongst the three worst.
Keeper is ok as a shot stopper but distribution and 'leadership' are shockingly bad.
Fullbacks - Hutton can't attack and Amavi can't defend.
Centre halves - error and injury prone. At least one howler per game. At least one of the three sat on the treatment table each week.
Midfield - Doesn't blend whatever way you mix it. Either creates nothing, or too wide open. No matter what combination is tried.
Forwards - you can perm any combination of Gabby, Gestede, Kozak, and they still won't score enough to keep a side up.
Players we have look ok in patches individually, but as a unit, they fail utterly.
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Good read Dave.
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Couldn't agree more.
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nly disagree in one respect Dave - I think the squad is awful. We've repeated Lambert's fishing expedition from a few years ago except this time we didn't luck out with a Benteke, and all we've landed is Tonevs and Lunas. And the odd Bowery.
I agree with that absolutely. I don't think we're the worst team in the division, but we certainly are amongst the three worst.
Keeper is ok as a shot stopper but distribution and 'leadership' are shockingly bad.
Fullbacks - Hutton can't attack and Amavi can't defend.
Centre halves - error and injury prone. At least one howler per game. At least one of the three sat on the treatment table each week.
Midfield - Doesn't blend whatever way you mix it. Either creates nothing, or too wide open. No matter what combination is tried.
Forwards - you can perm any combination of Gabby, Gestede, Kozak, and they still won't score enough to keep a side up.
Players we have look ok in patches individually, but as a unit, they fail utterly.
I am in the same camp, whilst Sherwood was a crap manager and should have got more points, I think this squad lacks basic competance at this level from Goalkeeper to attack.
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Press leaks were a two way street thou, have we forgot we got told he had 2 games to save himself and sure enough that's what happened, that was not Dim Tim telling his mates that one.
But I say fair play to the club for that, if you have a guy in your employ leaking to the press and he is not doing the business, leak to your own sources, that for the first time in years shows the Villa maybe catching up with modern day cut throat football.
The week before the '2 games to save his job' came out I said he had 3 games to get to his best team and 3 games to start to get them playing. It was pretty obvious and I don't think it needed a leak from the club.
It was clear that he either hadn't a clue what his best team was or he had no intention of trying. Either way, he had to go before more games were wasted.
I still believe we have a half decent squad. We have only lost one match by more than one goal, although we have played quite a few weaker teams. With some strengthening at Christmas and a decent coach with a modern game plan, we can stay up.
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nly disagree in one respect Dave - I think the squad is awful. We've repeated Lambert's fishing expedition from a few years ago except this time we didn't luck out with a Benteke, and all we've landed is Tonevs and Lunas. And the odd Bowery.
I agree with that absolutely. I don't think we're the worst team in the division, but we certainly are amongst the three worst.
I really don't know how you can come to that conclusion based on ten games in which the new recruits have been so dreadfully mismanaged. The weak link was Sherwood, and he's gone. I'm sick of reading lazy articles about how much weaker we are than last season; this new bunch are players with Premier League, Europa League and international experience, not lower league punts like in previous years. We even had to fight off rivals to sign some of them. Of course we miss Benteke, but the others? Isn't Richards a clear upgrade on Baker? Isn't Ayew more accomplished than Weimann? Amavi better than Bennett? As I said, it's too early to judge considering how they've been managed, but on paper I'd say we're stronger than we have been for a few years. We'll see what happens, but I reckon under a manager with some tactical nous and an ounce of intelligence, rather than Scrappy Doo, we might see a half decent football team emerge. I don't think we're a top half squad, but I'm pretty sure we're not a bottom three one.
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No one can convince me that Watford, Bournemouth, Sunderland and Norwich have better squads than us.
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A very clear and fair summary of the situation as always.
Now that the fog of Sherwood's removal is clearing, I am left with two strong impressions. Firstly I agree with PWS that our squad has a great deal of ability in it that has simply been untapped by Sherwood. My second point leads on from that and touches on DW's pertinent question of how did it all go so wrong so quickly for Sherwood?
The answer I believe lies his his inability to resist the temptation to be perfidious, provocative, bloody minded. He knows what he ought to do but uses the making of decisions not to address problems but to assert himself. The perpetuation of his own view of himself and the need to buttress that view causes him to blunder. It is not dissimilar to MON's preoccupation with protecting his "brand". Tim Sherwood ultimately was devoured very quickly by his own ego, aided and abetted by his love affair with the media. A Harry Redknapp not yet having grown Redknapp's crocodile hide.
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The majority of the signings have shown glimpses of ability so there is clearly something there. What we do not know if we have the right mix to make a decent side despite, or perhaps because of, Sherwood trying several different combinations. His replacement will need to quickly identify what he has and turn them into a team. I just hope he can do it quickly.
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nly disagree in one respect Dave - I think the squad is awful. We've repeated Lambert's fishing expedition from a few years ago except this time we didn't luck out with a Benteke, and all we've landed is Tonevs and Lunas. And the odd Bowery.
I agree with that absolutely. I don't think we're the worst team in the division, but we certainly are amongst the three worst.
Keeper is ok as a shot stopper but distribution and 'leadership' are shockingly bad.
Fullbacks - Hutton can't attack and Amavi can't defend.
Centre halves - error and injury prone. At least one howler per game. At least one of the three sat on the treatment table each week.
Midfield - Doesn't blend whatever way you mix it. Either creates nothing, or too wide open. No matter what combination is tried.
Forwards - you can perm any combination of Gabby, Gestede, Kozak, and they still won't score enough to keep a side up.
Players we have look ok in patches individually, but as a unit, they fail utterly.
I am in the same camp, whilst Sherwood was a crap manager and should have got more points, I think this squad lacks basic competance at this level from Goalkeeper to attack.
And it is precisely there where good coaching makes the difference. A good coach makes a team better than the sum of it's parts.
By the end Sherwood had managed to get the whole squad to balance out as a nul equation.