Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: kippaxvilla2 on March 13, 2016, 11:34:55 PM
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http://m.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/35800024
Some reasonable points.
Match of the Day 2 analysis
There was an article in the Birmingham Mail this week where former Aston Villa manager John Gregory said the club should have signed me in the summer - and 78% of their fans agreed with him.
I think Gregory has said that on numerous occasions, though, and the percentage of Villa fans to agree has gone up each time - when he first said it last summer, it was only about 20%.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing but the reality of it is that, as great as I think I am, I don't think even I am good enough to play in that side and keep Villa in the Premier League.
Seriously, though, I think everyone knows how bad Villa are at the moment, especially their own fans.
I have criticised the running of the club a lot recently when I have been on BBC Radio 5 live and this piece is not going to go through all their off-field problems again.
Instead, when I analysed their defeat at home to Tottenham as a pundit on Match of the Day 2 on Sunday, I wanted to look at what is happening on the pitch, and see if there were any positives to be taken from their performance.
Forward thinking full-backs works for Spurs, but not Villa
One of the first things I wrote down in my notes when the game started was that Villa's back four is better offensively than it is defensively.
By that I basically mean their full-backs on Sunday, Alan Hutton and Aly Cissokho, were great at going forward, but not so good at getting back.
That is fine if you have got cover - Tottenham were doing exactly the same with Kyle Walker and Danny Rose bombing up their flanks but they had a holding midfielder, Eric Dier, who dropped in to give them a back three if Villa counter-attacked.
If your full-backs push on, it also exposes your centre-halves. Again that was not a problem for Tottenham because Toby Alderweireld and Kevin Wimmer are young and fast, but it was an issue for Villa
Joleon Lescott has been a solid defender down the years but his lack of mobility is now very clear to see and his partner Jores Okore also struggled.
They needed a midfielder to come in and help them out with an extra body, but they were not getting that support, and they were often left wide open.
As I will discuss on the show, Harry Kane's positioning and movement caused Lescott and Okore problems all game because he never allowed them to mark him.
He stood in the middle of them, because he knew their lack of pace meant he could stay on their shoulder and keep them both occupied on his own. Neither of them could step up and man-mark him because they each had to give cover to their full-backs when they attacked.
The way Villa were set up meant there was space for Tottenham to exploit down the wings and that is exactly how they scored their first goal.
Just before Dele Alli took the quick free-kick, Hutton gambled and moved forward, which left him on the wrong side of Kane. He could not get back, and neither could Ashley Westwood who was limping and unable to cover.
Villa do not play to Gestede's strengths
Villa are not just bottom of the table with the worst defensive record, they have scored the fewest goals too. Watching them on Sunday, I could see why finding the net has been such a problem.
Their team against Spurs had two strikers in it but one of them, Jordan Ayew, was on the left of midfield.
I played with Ayew at Marseille and he is a central striker, either on his own or with a partner, but he was being asked to be a left midfielder and get up and down that flank.
Villa's other striker, Rudy Gestede, was playing in his correct position up front. He is a big striker who is good in the air and he can be effective but only if he gets the right service.
The problem was that his left midfielder was Ayew, who is never going to look to get outside Tottenham's full-back and get crosses in, and on the right was Carles Gil.
Gil is left footed and is not going to put in crosses either - he is great at coming on as an impact player late in games and upping the tempo but playing in that position he is like a five-a-side player who likes to cut in from the right on to his left foot.
So, they have got a striker whose strengths are heading and causing mayhem in the box, but they picked two wingers who don't cross the ball, and also do not provide much defensive support to their attacking full-backs. The mind boggles sometimes.
Hope for the future - but in the Championship.
Villa had some chances in the second half and, on another day, they could actually have nicked a point.
Realistically, though, that was only down to Tottenham's poor finishing and some good saves by Brad Guzan. Otherwise, the game would have been over at half-time.
The league table does not lie at this stage of the season and Villa are where they are for a reason.
From what I saw on Sunday, it is mainly because they do not defend well, especially as a team.
They need to start rebuilding, and I think there were a few green shoots of recovery on Sunday with 17-year-old forward Andre Green coming on for the last half-hour.
I have said before that they should give their kids a chance. They have always had a good academy so why not use it, because how much worse could the first team really get?
Hopefully things will change off the pitch too. Brian Little and David Bernstein joining the board is a good start, but it is going to be next year, when they are in the Championship, that they will see any effects.
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Really fair assessment. But if he can see it, why can't our coaching staff? Gestede needs service etc.
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I read that and thought he might be a good outside bet as a manager to get us out the Chumps league, and then remembered what a f#cking basket case he is.
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http://m.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/35800024
Some reasonable points.
Match of the Day 2 analysis
There was an article in the Birmingham Mail this week where former Aston Villa manager John Gregory said the club should have signed me in the summer - and 78% of their fans agreed with him.
I think Gregory has said that on numerous occasions, though, and the percentage of Villa fans to agree has gone up each time - when he first said it last summer, it was only about 20%.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing but the reality of it is that, as great as I think I am, I don't think even I am good enough to play in that side and keep Villa in the Premier League.
However bad we are, whatever his ability may be as a footballer, I would never ever want this prize arsehole to play for Villa.
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Yeah Sheffield because we like our prize arseholes just to be incompetent players, not nasty people as well. If half our players gave a quarter of the effort Barton puts in nasty character aside, we would be in a lot healthier position.
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Really fair assessment. But if he can see it, why can't our coaching staff? Gestede needs service etc.
i have wondered for the last 5 years what we actually do in training. it took 3 years to work out that westwod takes a shit corner
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Really fair assessment. But if he can see it, why can't our coaching staff? Gestede needs service etc.
i have wondered for the last 5 years what we actually do in training. it took 3 years to work out that westwod takes a shit corner
Yeah, I have had a real thing about this. Our inability to exploit or defend set pieces has been a particular feature of our shiteness.
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He may be a prize arsehole, but I think we will need at least one or two arseholes next season. At present we don't seem to know our arsehole from our elbow.
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"So, they have got a striker whose strengths are heading and causing mayhem in the box, but they picked two wingers who don't cross the ball, and also do not provide much defensive support to their attacking full-backs. The mind boggles sometimes"
Tactics and Garde have played like this to my continual bemusement...
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yep, we have to take the biased goggles off - this incarnation of one of football's greatest clubs is shit. But as history demonstrates, it won't always be shit.
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I don't buy this Gestede would be fine with better service. With better service he would be marginally less bad. He is a truly awful, slow, weak, nervous striker. Among the worst I have ever seen.
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something you could say about almost everyone though Brian, this season.
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Does calling him Joseph make him sound cleverer an' stuff? Nice bullet points in his notes, mind.
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It's hard to disagree with anything he says and, sadly, it doesn't reflect well on Garde.
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I don't buy this Gestede would be fine with better service. With better service he would be marginally less bad. He is a truly awful, slow, weak, nervous striker. Among the worst I have ever seen.
Scored a lot of goals in the championship though.
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I don't dislike Barton these days, he seems to have grown up a bit and certainly understands the game better than most pundits.
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Yeah Sheffield because we like our prize arseholes just to be incompetent players, not nasty people as well.
Precisely. Glad you agree. And we've got enough of those already.
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We're going to need one or two Bartons next season - not him per se but players of his ilk, otherwise we're going to get chewed up in that league. You've got to earn the right to play first.
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Sure you were expecting this Sheffield but no I do not agree, I believe at times over the last 4 or 5 years we as Villa fans have become very, looking for the right word, but up our own arses may have to do, when it comes to player selection and those who wear as being fit to wear the shirt.
Players that have been linked on the transfer speculation threads over the years and the screams of not fit to wear the shirt, total arse hole him and we have gone and picked the very nice and polite but absolutly shite Westwoods of this world, I may hate his character but give me a centre half in the John Terry mould, a midfielder like Barton, a forward like Costa and you can guarantee we would not be where we are now and prima donnas like Gabby and Richards would be playing where they should be now at non league level.
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Sure you were expecting this Sheffield but no I do not agree, I believe at times over the last 4 or 5 years we as Villa fans have become very, looking for the right word, but up our own arses may have to do, when it comes to player selection and those who wear as being fit to wear the shirt.
Players that have been linked on the transfer speculation threads over the years and the screams of not fit to wear the shirt, total arse hole him and we have gone and picked the very nice and polite but absolutly shite Westwoods of this world, I may hate his character but give me a centre half in the John Terry mould, a midfielder like Barton, a forward like Costa and you can guarantee we would not be where we are now and prima donnas like Gabby and Richards would be playing where they should be now at non league level.
No, I was being a little tongue in cheek!
I completely get where you're coming from, and agree we need someone with a bit of steel in the midfield and a leader in defence. There are plenty of such players out there who don't behave like Barton and Terry though.
I don't think it's up our own arses to want players who have a character commensurate with the history and (former) standards of this great club. And yes, we have far too many players who don't live up to that already. There's no reason to add another. You might want the club to be associated with racial incidents and thuggery, I don't.
And as an aside, if Barton is still such a top notch player, why is he playing in the Championship?
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Barton can hardly be held accountable for the actions of a relative if that's the 'racial incident' you mean.
He's done some unpleasant things in his past but seems to have matured, personally I think he'd be ideal for us,can just see him asking Westwood what the fuck it is he keeps pointing at.
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Barton can hardly be held accountable for the actions of a relative if that's the 'racial incident' you mean.
He's done some unpleasant things in his past but seems to have matured, personally I think he'd be ideal for us,can just see him asking Westwood what the fuck it is he keeps pointing at.
He is a good pundit because he says it as it is. On R5 he was calling Fox a clown for the comments on increased revenues being important etc
Agree, that he would be good for us next season
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Regardless of his moral attributes, I would get him down B6 doublequick.
He obviously knows his onions and I suspect he has a liking for us.
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He's got it spot on about us.
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When he was jailed I remember a couple of 5 Live reporters speaking in glowing terms about him, they said if you were to ask any football journalist who they enjoyed interviewing and most of them would say Barton as he was always so honest, likeable and no topics were off limits unlike the automatons that are all media trained and watched by their club's press officers.
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When he was jailed I remember a couple of 5 Live reporters speaking in glowing terms about him, they said if you were to ask any football journalist who they enjoyed interviewing and most of them would say Barton as he was always so honest, likeable and no topics were off limits unlike the automatons that are all media trained and watched by their club's press officers.
Barton did a fan Q&A session whilst he was at Newcastle and it was almost painfully honest. A mate forwarded me the summary and he came across as very funny and opinionated. I find it hard to reconcile his on the nail pundit persona with the twattish on the pitch behaviour as I like the former and dislike the latter. He is a breath of fresh air though.
And his assessment of us sounds pretty accurate.
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I don't dislike Barton these days, he seems to have grown up a bit and certainly understands the game better than most pundits.
As most know, he was a nasty piece of work on the pitch. But off it, he speaks a lot of sense, isnt partisan, unlike a lot of the "pundits"
I hope he finds the niche he wants to be in. As for if he had been signed for us - hindsight is great, and you dont know what the side would be like with him, but his experience would have been great, and his temper has mellowed.
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I don't dislike Barton these days, he seems to have grown up a bit and certainly understands the game better than most pundits.
As most know, he was a nasty piece of work on the pitch. But off it, he speaks a lot of sense, isnt partisan, unlike a lot of the "pundits"
I hope he finds the niche he wants to be in. As for if he had been signed for us - hindsight is great, and you dont know what the side would be like with him, but his experience would have been great, and his temper has mellowed.
My thinking of Joey Barton changed when I found out that he was a fan of The Smith's.
Despite some of his poor choices in the past he does seem to be different to the stereotypical footballer and I found myself listening to what he had to say.
The article about us is spot on and I like the fact he is not afraid to say things as they are.
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I wouldn't have had him here in a million years. He didn't exactly help QPR to stay up either, and they had better players than we currently do. That said, he's completely spot on.
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Barton can hardly be held accountable for the actions of a relative if that's the 'racial incident' you mean.
I was talking about John Terry.
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Barton has always been erudite and honest by footballer standards. That hair trigger temper on and off the pitch though.
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It's quite easy to spot what is not right, we all do it. The hard part is how do you fix it.
Take Barton's comments on Hutton, Cissoko, Ayew and Gill. Who are the alternatives at the moment. Sinclair on the left and Ayew inside, possibly. Fullbacks, Richards or Bacuna for Hutton, we've been there. Richardson for Cissoko, no way.
Until Grealish and Sanchez are fit, there are very few options in midfield. Many have said that Richards, Gabby and Bacuna should not play again. This is the situation Garde is faced with.
As I see it, we have options in central defence and that is about it. The only untried option is to bring in a couple of young players.
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I genuinely believe if we had gone bargain basement in January and made two basic signings in Barton and Rickie Lambert we would have been watching the Newcastle game with a lot more interest tonight. Might not be what we would have wanted, might be no more than just about average but both would have given us something more than we have for, what, a couple of million quid?