Eric Lichaj

[damon loves JT]

I like Eric and I hope he does well. But his position is one where your mistakes are always more obvious than the things you get right.

Look at Gary Neville (yes, I know). Made the difficult things look easy, and made flashier players look better. That's the job.

[Surrey Villain]

I thought Eric had no worse a game at Citeh than anybody else.  For Houllier to single him out for pilloring was very unfair.
It was significant that Marc Albrighton stood up for Lichaj against Houllier and was promptly dropped!  It appears that you can't say anything against the man or you will be ostracised.  And we thought O'Neill was the one with an ego!

[darren woolley]

I think if he keeps improving he could be a good player for us but we will just have to wait and see.

[Phil from the upper holte]

I thought Eric had no worse a game at Citeh than anybody else.  For Houllier to single him out for pilloring was very unfair.
It was significant that Marc Albrighton stood up for Lichaj against Houllier and was promptly dropped!  It appears that you can't say anything against the man or you will be ostracised.  And we thought O'Neill was the one with an ego!

You know this for sure do you?

[villasjf]

I think Eric and kyle will be good players in time, walker looks great bombing forward but then gets caught out defensively, his first job is to defend then get forward when he has cover behind him.

[BannedUserIAT]

I like the guy and think he has a very bright future. Hopefully at Villa.

He, like Bannan, Clark and Albrighton are still young and still learning their craft. As such, they have to work that much harder than the senior players to reach the stage where it's difficult for the manager to drop/rest them.

I also suspect that Houllier will listen very carefully to Sid Cowans and I'm sure he'd much rather see Lichaj brought into the first team gradually, taking what he's learnt back to the reserves to consolidate his experience.

I kind of like that he's pissed off with being dropped. If he was happy to sit about in the reserves then I'd be worried.

[Mister E]

Probably a better defender than Walker but still learning. Walker's a little too cavalier for my liking.

[pablopicasso_10]

Have you ever known a good full back to stand out? It is one of these positions where slow and steady wins the race. The only right back I remember standing out recently is Glen Johnson with his attacking intent and ability to cut inside and score and that comes at the expense of the defensive diligence and intelligence necessary to play full back. Lichaj has that at least.

After a bright start I'm starting to get a bit concerned with Walker.

dont get me wrong, i dont think he is rubbish, but i have not seen anything in him that makes me think he will make it as a top pro....

looking at quality full backs, the best do have something about them, baines, a cole, evra, sagna, etc, all have something about them that makes them excellent...

he can do a job, but if we want to improve, we need more than that....

clark, bannon, albrighton, gardner, and delfouneso have something about them (some more than others), possibly baker and weimann too (and below that, the likes of graham and grealish even more potential), but the likes of hogg, herd, lichaj, lowry, etc, are players that i think will be seen as not good enough for us over the next few years, and end up at lower quality clubs than the villa...

and thats the way it should be...

but, thats just my personal opinion, and i could be totally wrong... time will tell...

[Surrey Villain]

I thought Eric had no worse a game at Citeh than anybody else.  For Houllier to single him out for pilloring was very unfair.
It was significant that Marc Albrighton stood up for Lichaj against Houllier and was promptly dropped!  It appears that you can't say anything against the man or you will be ostracised.  And we thought O'Neill was the one with an ego!

You know this for sure do you?

It was reported as much as any internal bustup so no I don't know this for sure as much as anything else we read but Lichaj was publically criticised by Houllier I thought unfairly and was dropped.  The fact that Albrighton seems to have been relegated to the bench also adds credence to the story.