McAllister, Cowans & the new Back Room staff

[pauliewalnuts]

Words from Sid Cowans are very encouraging about the early days under Houllier

“Training is different to what we were doing under Kevin. Mr Houllier has brought his own ideas in – a lot of it is about possession – keeping the ball. If you look at the foreign players, you can see why they are so good at keeping possession of the ball. That is critical.

A-fucking-men to that.

won't it be nice to see the possession stats in our favour for a change? I enjoy watching counter attack once in a while, especially with the wheels in our side, but give me constant pressure with the ball at our feet over that any day.

Of course it will.

There's nothing wrong with the counter attacking game, just as there's nothing wrong with wing play. The problem is when that is all you ever do.

MON's side never gave even the feintest of nods towards keeping the ball, making the ball do the work. That, I think, more than anything is the reason we were never going to get any further with him - you can't be amongst the very best teams in the country if you don't apprecaite the importance of keeping the ball.

[pauliewalnuts]

   What has "bollocksed" the season, is the boards inability to appoint a manager before the end of the transfer window.

  MON left, it would/should have been an ideal opportunity to get a new manager in, with the funds from the Milner sale, to invest in better players than we currently have, and if possible, move some out.We did'nt, and for me the bigger question is why did MON go, and why did'nt we get a manager in until after the transfer window.

  Worrying times for me as a Villa fan, if we had appointed a Jol/Hiddink/Moyes/Hughes, we would have got an extra 5'000 in the last 3 home games.Thats an extra £200k per game.Short sighted thinking in my eyes.

Oh, and lest we forget: MON stitched us up - there was nothing spontaneous about his departure, IMHO; he left spitefully and vindictively at a time most likely to impact on our early-season performance and limiting our ability to find a qualified replacement.

Has this been proven?? K Mac said in an interview that MON had been helping him after he'd left which doesn't support this argument at all.

That's the weakest of ripostes.

He fucked off at no notice at the worst possible time, and took pretty much the entire football apparatus with him.

The fact he rang KM and gave him some tips (probably "don't bother with subs, they're overrated" and "just keep doing the same thing for 90 minutes" judging by the way things panned out) is nothing like evidence enough to counteract the shit storm he stirred up.

[WALTERS WARRIORS]

Have a much better feeling about the combination of this management team than the out dated tactics of the previous group. With the emphasis on work rate. And the inability of changing a game when everyone in the ground could see what was needed. Now with a European vision through the eyes of a proven premiereship manager and a Villa legend assisted by a respected player/manager (Mcallister) there is a new hope at Villa park and i feel good ..........

[Rip Van We Go Again]

The fact he rang KM and gave him some tips (probably "don't bother with subs, they're overrated" and "just keep doing the same thing for 90 minutes" judging by the way things panned out) is nothing like evidence enough to counteract the shit storm he stirred up.

'See if you can still get Jenas for £10m'