Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: kieron on May 15, 2016, 06:04:46 PM
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The Aston Villa annual season review by main focal topics of discussion throughout the 2015/16 season. What were the top 3 issues that significantly contributed to our downfall?
In no particular order:
Sherwood
Garde
Lerner
Bernstein
Black
Grealish
Lescott
Adama
Fox
King
Amavi
Gabby
Richards
Guzan
Bacuna
I’m sure there are many, many other anecdotes / chapters for inclusion that we can attribute to our relegation this year, but these are the main ones off the top of my head at time of writing.
Feel free to add / remove accordingly.
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Leicester City away.
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You can't pin it on one thing, despite the obvious overseer of doom at the top.
It's been the biggest clusterfuck since Sodom and Gomorrah, with extra fire and brimstone at the end. A debauched self-annihilation.
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Leicester City away.
It was certainly a pivot-point.
Dim Tim takes the can for this; although the rot clearly started before the FACF his rant against the players at Leicester was a big mistake.
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1) No idea from those at the very top
2) Player discipline
3) Starting the season no where near match fit
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Leicester City away.
I truly believe if we had won this, we wouldn't have been relegated and Leicester wouldn't have won the league
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How the fuck did Micah Richards ever play for England and win a championship? He's absolutely terrible. Guzan, Bacuna, Agbonlahor, Lescott, Clark, Westwood, Sissokho all play most weeks when we can all see that they are super shit players. Without a takeover, the best we can hope for is a Manager like Grayson, with a 20mill spend. TBF, Grayson might do ok, but we need to be serious about who we appoint if we want to get back quickly. If Lerner is still the owner come July/August, we'll become another Championship also ran. What a complete and utter shitfest Lerner has created. Sell up, or we face years of mediocrity.
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Leicester City away.
I truly believe if we had won this, we wouldn't have been relegated and Leicester wouldn't have won the league
I don't. Our downward spiral started five years ago. Leicester's ascent began in the final third of last season. The die was already cast by that game.
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double post
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The answer is simple. If you keep selling your best players and replacing them with worse ones then sooner or later you get relegated. Getting rid of delph/Benteke/cleverly, although not in the same class as the likes of Young Barry and Milner, was the final tipping point that turned us from mediocre to terrible. Add in the bobbins bought from here and abroad to replace them and there's your answer.
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I wish someone would tell us the answer is simple!
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It's not just about not buying players as good as the ones you've sold. On paper our squad had more talent than at the very least the three promoted teams. The biggest failing was the inability of management staff to have them organised, fit and fighting for each other week in week out from the get-go
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It's been an utter disgrace in every possible way and it needs a monumental turn around at all levels of the club to sort us out for next year.
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The problems started before the season, if you don't have the Management pulling together you get the mess we were in.
Lack of direction, organisation, fitness, tactics, motivation, pride and leadership on and off the pitch.
Lerner left Fox to run the show and he clearly was not up to it.
A clusterfuckup.
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It's not just about not buying players as good as the ones you've sold. On paper our squad had more talent than at the very least the three promoted teams. The biggest failing was the inability of management staff to have them organised, fit and fighting for each other week in week out from the get-go
not sure i agree. They COST more but more talented? As the angry Geordie blokes points out on that video, we and them threw a fortune at players while the likes West ham and Leicester got the likes of mahrez and payet. Anyway in my opinion we entered the season without a prolific goalscorer or ANYONE who could do the Delph/Cleverley roles competantly. Any team will struggle if they don't buy a goalscorer or dominant midfielders
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If Gabby had put away that simple chance at Palace when 1 on 1 , if Guzan had lumped it rather than rolling it, if Richards hand not missed sitter of the season against Sunderland, if we'd have held on for 5 more minutes against Leicester. Who knows. Before the surrender there were a number of ifs and buts.
It's been coming, 5 years in the making. If we'd have stayed up, we'd only be back here again without change at the top. We have lack direction and a driving hand at the wheel for too long.
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Yes Ads you are right, if we would have Delph and Benteke we would have just about survived like we have in the past, then this mess would have been put off for another season. This clubs needs a revolution.
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If Gabby had put away that simple chance at Palace when 1 on 1 , if Guzan had lumped it rather than rolling it, if Richards hand not missed sitter of the season against Sunderland, if we'd have held on for 5 more minutes against Leicester. Who knows. Before the surrender there were a number of ifs and buts.
It's been coming, 5 years in the making. If we'd have stayed up, we'd only be back here again without change at the top. We have lack direction and a driving hand at the wheel for too long.
The lack of direction goes on doesn't it? Hollis is happy to admit he knows nothing about football, Brian Little is only an advisor. Even if Lerner doesn't sell, the infrastructure at the club really needs sorting quickly. We really are in the shit aren't we? Never has a pre-season been so important for Aston Villa Football Club.
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The problem begins and ends at the door of wherever in the States the bunker is in which Lerner is holed up. This was a relegation waiting to happen and over a period of years he has done nothing to prevent it, instead brought about the inevitable by either personally selecting or sanctioning a succession of botched appointments both in the boardroom and the dressing room.
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If Gabby had put away that simple chance at Palace when 1 on 1 , if Guzan had lumped it rather than rolling it, if Richards hand not missed sitter of the season against Sunderland, if we'd have held on for 5 more minutes against Leicester. Who knows. Before the surrender there were a number of ifs and buts.
It's been coming, 5 years in the making. If we'd have stayed up, we'd only be back here again without change at the top. We have lack direction and a driving hand at the wheel for too long.
The lack of direction goes on doesn't it? Hollis is happy to admit he knows nothing about football, Brian Little is only an advisor. Even if Lerner doesn't sell, the infrastructure at the club really needs sorting quickly. We really are in the shit aren't we? Never has a pre-season been so important for Aston Villa Football Club.
As i said the reason we got relegated was simple, so's the solution. Someone who can score in the championship is not that hard to find. Midfielders who can win the ball, dominate games - this is not a type of player who is rare. We had Westwood, Grealish, Gana, Vertout, gil etc. Not a single player who can put his foot in or posessed of a bit of bottle amongst them. Buy 1 or 2 this summer and i'm sure some of those named will flourish playing with them
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Thank god it's over. Let's just hope and pray we have new owners pretty soon with a bit of drive an ambition that'll take us back to the PL where we belong. These last 6 years have been humiliating and a total stain on the club's history.
Hopefully this time 12 months we're going up as champions.
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The answer is simple. If you keep selling your best players and replacing them with worse ones then sooner or later you get relegated. Getting rid of delph/Benteke/cleverly, although not in the same class as the likes of Young Barry and Milner, was the final tipping point that turned us from mediocre to terrible. Add in the bobbins bought from here and abroad to replace them and there's your answer.
Benteke and Delph both wanted to go and Cleverly was only on loan......as you should be aware of!
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worst shite ive seen in 50 wankers
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The problem begins and ends at the door of wherever in the States the bunker is in which Lerner is holed up. This was a relegation waiting to happen and over a period of years he has done nothing to prevent it, instead brought about the inevitable by either personally selecting or sanctioning a succession of botched appointments both in the boardroom and the dressing room.
Although I agree we need rid of Lerner I stand by my opinion he has been very badly advised, re Fox and others.
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The answer is simple. If you keep selling your best players and replacing them with worse ones then sooner or later you get relegated. Getting rid of delph/Benteke/cleverly, although not in the same class as the likes of Young Barry and Milner, was the final tipping point that turned us from mediocre to terrible. Add in the bobbins bought from here and abroad to replace them and there's your answer.
Benteke and Delph both wanted to go and Cleverly was only on loan......as you should be aware of!
Doesn't matter why you sell them, you still don't replace them with noticeably worse players. We sold Benteke for 32m and replace him with TWO strikers for the total of 14m Both obviously not good enough. We then presumably used the rest of the Benteke and Delph money to waste on the likes of Gana and Vertout. Both clearly not of the required standard. What happened this season was inevitable even taking away the players piss poor attitudes. Even with them applying themselves we'd have still been in the relegation places but probably relegated a bit later,
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Losing and not replacing Delph was massive for me.
We've spent the entire season playing sideways and backwards!
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Losing and not replacing Delph was massive for me.
We've spent the entire season playing sideways and backwards!
Sideways and backwards was some of the better stuff we played - the comedy defending has been off the scale this season!
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I very much doubt that the third goal we conceded at Sunderland will ever be surpassed in its levels of utter incompetence. It defied belief.
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True Des but we ran it close a few times. Bournemouth at home when they scored following our throw in etc
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worst shite ive seen in 50 wankers
Is that the title of the season review DVD?
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Before this thread descends into another black hole of doom and gloom I think there is a good chance we may look back on the 2015/16 season as the best thing to happen to us since the 80's. Anything less than the absolute clusterfuck would have seen us bumbling along like we have for the last few years. Things being so bad will probably result in the owner leaving, the club being restructured internally, new owners in, a fresh board with a villa hero at the heart of it, a new manager and coaching team, tired, old players being shipped out, poor players being sold, a chance to rebuild the squad from the ground up, a new philosophy for buying players.
I honestly think we are at the dawn of a new era for the club which wouldnt have come about had we survived.
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I wish I had your optimism, but unless the club is sold it'll be more of the same - costs will continue to be cut, nobody with the slightest drive or ambition will join in the boardroom, on the coaching staff or in the squad, the piss-takers and incompetents will stick around and pick up the easy money, and anyone who wants to make something of their career will leave and be replaced by cheaper, inferior models, or chancers who spot a score to be made.
We've been circling the drain for years, we've finally been sucked down the plughole, and unless Randy goes, I fear all that awaits is another drain.
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Before this thread descends into another black hole of doom and gloom I think there is a good chance we may look back on the 2015/16 season as the best thing to happen to us since the 80's. Anything less than the absolute clusterfuck would have seen us bumbling along like we have for the last few years. Things being so bad will probably result in the owner leaving, the club being restructured internally, new owners in, a fresh board with a villa hero at the heart of it, a new manager and coaching team, tired, old players being shipped out, poor players being sold, a chance to rebuild the squad from the ground up, a new philosophy for buying players.
I honestly think we are at the dawn of a new era for the club which wouldnt have come about had we survived.
I agree...relegation is the catalyst for Lerner to reduce his price expectations and hopefully get him over the line to complete a sale to a new owner with Villa's best interest at heart.
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I very much doubt that the third goal we conceded at Sunderland will ever be surpassed in its levels of utter incompetence. It defied belief.
That was a special monent for sure. Some crackers against Liverpool too.
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Before this thread descends into another black hole of doom and gloom I think there is a good chance we may look back on the 2015/16 season as the best thing to happen to us since the 80's. Anything less than the absolute clusterfuck would have seen us bumbling along like we have for the last few years. Things being so bad will probably result in the owner leaving, the club being restructured internally, new owners in, a fresh board with a villa hero at the heart of it, a new manager and coaching team, tired, old players being shipped out, poor players being sold, a chance to rebuild the squad from the ground up, a new philosophy for buying players.
I honestly think we are at the dawn of a new era for the club which wouldnt have come about had we survived.
I agree...relegation is the catalyst for Lerner to reduce his price expectations and hopefully get him over the line to complete a sale to a new owner with Villa's best interest at heart.
Sorry to be miserable, but I'm worried about who Lerner flogs us to. And the longer it drags on, the more I worry that he'll sell to any old crook with the required cash. let's face it, he's fucked up everything else he's touched at the club so why should we have any confidence that he'll even sell us correctly. I hope I'm wrong, but I can't help feeling that we're more Portsmouth than Man City
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Man City in the cup, they score from our corner without having to do anything.
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Bacuna setting up Shane Long with a no look 50 yard through ball.
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Sorry to be miserable, but I'm worried about who Lerner flogs us to. And the longer it drags on, the more I worry that he'll sell to any old crook with the required cash. let's face it, he's fucked up everything else he's touched at the club so why should we have any confidence that he'll even sell us correctly. I hope I'm wrong, but I can't help feeling that we're more Portsmouth than Man City
A valid concern for sure considering Lerner has got almost every executive appointment wrong, except perhaps Hollis - who thankfully is the one advising him on the sale. At this point Lerner has lost so much money on us that I don't think a few million here or there make a difference and I hope this releases him from financial pressures and facilitates a sale to the group with Villa's best interests at heart.
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I wish I had your optimism, but unless the club is sold it'll be more of the same - costs will continue to be cut, nobody with the slightest drive or ambition will join in the boardroom, on the coaching staff or in the squad, the piss-takers and incompetents will stick around and pick up the easy money, and anyone who wants to make something of their career will leave and be replaced by cheaper, inferior models, or chancers who spot a score to be made.
We've been circling the drain for years, we've finally been sucked down the plughole, and unless Randy goes, I fear all that awaits is another drain.
Pretty much how I see it.
But we live in hope, there is an underlying enthusiasm for this club which could be reignited.
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Well weve had 5 years of almost non stop terrible football, humiliations, defeats and bullshit, we haven't lost too many supporters, give us something to get behind and I can see us roaring the team back. Can you imagine Burton facing a packed Holte fully behind new players and with hope, those sort of teams wouldn't know what's hit them.
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Well weve had 5 years of almost non stop terrible football, humiliations, defeats and bullshit, we haven't lost too many supporters, give us something to get behind and I can see us roaring the team back. Can you imagine Burton facing a packed Holte fully behind new players and with hope, those sort of teams wouldn't know what's hit them.
Great post, totally agree. This summer is arguably the most important in our history. Might sound dramatic but if Randy stays in charge, yeah, we might get back eventually, but we face more of the same cost cutting and not competing, leading to yo yo life between the divisions.
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It's not just about not buying players as good as the ones you've sold. On paper our squad had more talent than at the very least the three promoted teams. The biggest failing was the inability of management staff to have them organised, fit and fighting for each other week in week out from the get-go
There was a 1/2 hour interview with Kasper Schmeichel last night over here.
At one point the interviewer asked him how could they have achieved what they did with the squad they'd got.
I can't remember word for word, but basically they all got on, they all respected each other, they all trusted one another and it had been impressed on them from the players who'd been there at the lowest point what it meant for the city and the fans to even have a club at all. So when you went onto the pitch, you knew that there's be 20 odd team mates and coaching staff ready to give you a right going over if you decided to play Billy Big Bollocks or give yourself the afternoon off.
That and they got the tactics pretty much spot on in every game.
Somehow I can't imagine that there's been anyone laying down those kinds of standards for anyone else since Petrov.
Even decent performers like Delph and Benteke, I can't envisage being too demanding of team mates, more being worried about their own game.
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In actual fact VID it gave every impression that the squad was so destroyed by personal animosity the players hated each other on and off the pitch. The big splits appeared to be along two axes, pro and anti Sherwood and pro and anti "foreigners".
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Good to see that UKIP-style attitudes have helped to relegate us.
Never mind, eh? Wave that Union Jack!!
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Good to see that UKIP-style attitudes have helped to relegate us.
Never mind, eh? Wave that Union Jack!!
I think Randy decided we were better off out of Europe some years ago.
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Good to see that UKIP-style attitudes have helped to relegate us.
Never mind, eh? Wave that Union Jack!!
I think Randy decided we were better off out of Europe some years ago.
Who'd have thought you'd have something in common with our wayward billionaire?😜
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All of them for one reason or another.