50% Villa: Assou-Ekotto on not becoming us

[Toronto Villa]

I agree with you a lot of the time brian, but not where Makoun is concerned.  I don't think he's very good at all.

Was he ever really given a chance?

Maybe he didn't show enough in training to be given a chance.

I just think had Houllier stayed, yes, we'd likely have lost a few names, but he'd have got in players to take advantage of the things Makoun can do as opposed to what he can't. I was quite enjoying our club being legitimately linked with potentially talented and technically gifted players from the continent.

[curiousorange]

I don't give a shit what this guy says. Anyone who plays for Tottingham automatically becomes persona non grata for me anyway; if he was any good a better team would have signed him long ago.

[brian green]

I agree with Toronto.   I too was alive to the prospect of being linked with players from the continent rather than from Scotland.   Even more stimulating was the prospect of links with african players.

It seems pretty self evident that Africa is a potential mine of talent but you have to dig for the biggest diamonds and when you think you have found one you have to cut and polish it.   You do not know whether you have got a Drogba or a Salifou until you have put the time and work into them.

Makoun did look rubbish on a number of occasions but I thought he showed a few flashes of brilliance which merited being given more time by us.

If we were awash with midfield talent his being shipped out might be more excusable but with our present very predictable paper thin midfield it was a good old fashioned plain and simple mistake.

[Chris Smith]

Among the new players we'd be seeing this year had Houllier stayed would be the replacement for Gabby. He might have had good ideas about how the game should be played but the bloke had the man management skills of Joseph Stalin.

[AV82EC]

Among the new players we'd be seeing this year had Houllier stayed would be the replacement for Gabby. He might have had good ideas about how the game should be played but the bloke had the man management skills of Joseph Stalin.

Or to be balanced the players, particularly senior defenders are a bunch of unmanageable arseholes, who seem to think they run the team.

The truth of course lies somewhere between the two.

[brian green]

Unlike you Chris to make assumptions without evidence.   Gabby would have been unhappy under Houllier but sold?   I am not so sure.

I never wanted Houllier not that my wishes count for anything but in his litany of faults in my book he was a smart arse and it manifested itself in him trotting out English to display his linguistic trendiness rather than to make reasoned argument.   Hence his back to back statements that Fonz was too skinny to be a proper striker and Gabby was to muscular to be a proper striker.

I liked the idea of an outward looking manager at Villa, one who could see beyond the Trossachs.   Just not Houllier.   To be fair, if he had been a healthier, younger man I do believe the signs were there that, given time, he would have proven the Houllierphobes like me wrong.

[Chris Smith]

Brian, I'm basing it on Gabby's comments about being unhappy with Houllier and that he considered leaving.

He didn't seem to rate the player and might have seen it as a way of funding his own signings.

[brian green]

Yes Chris, point taken.   My point was that Gabby's loyalty is quite exceptional in this day and age.   No criticism intended.

[LeeB]

Brian, I'm basing it on Gabby's comments about being unhappy with Houllier and that he considered leaving.

He didn't seem to rate the player and might have seen it as a way of funding his own signings.

I love Gabby, but time may well suggest that that was the right course of action.

[KevinGage]

Had Houllier remained we might have gained Cabaye, Argentine international Evan Banega and the CB Spahic, who ended up at Seville instead.    Wasn't there also that lad who went to Celtic in the end? Wagamama or summat.

There was also the likes of Fofana and Oriol Romeu  -deals he tried to do last winter that we may have revisited.

Would some of that lot -plus Makoun solved our problems in the middle of the park?  Possibly.  It remains to be seen how he would have coped with the loss of Ash (and most likely)  Downing though-  that's a conundrum that would challenge any manager.

GH had his faults,  but he did seem to have a more expansive approach to transfers at least.  Walker blossomed with us on his watch too. Shame Spurs seem to be getting the benefit of that.  Houllier was always going to ostracise players and polarise opinion - I think he's done that pretty much anywhere he's gone.  But maybe it's the better professionals - the players who have a decent work ethic who respond to his methods more.

[eastie]

Truth hurts when we see in black and white how most of football sees us.

Agreed.

[Chris Smith]

Kevin, how would we have paid for that lot? The financial constrains would still have been there.

[KevinGage]

Most of them went for pretty modest fees (by English standards).   Spahic went for 2 million Euros, Cabaye closer to 4 million et.c

[Risso]

Most of them went for pretty modest fees (by English standards).   Spahic went for 2 million Euros, Cabaye closer to 4 million et.c

That's assuming that we could afford those players, and that they'd have wanted to play for us.  For all of Houllier's supposed continental links, the players he brought in were Bent, Walker and Makoun, and it was only the English players who did well.  He also bought a right load of shit at Liverpool.  As Chris rightly points out, he was an awful man manager as well, so I really do think that had he stayed we'd have been in the shit, and that we'd not have a better side than we do now.

[Brend'Watkins]

I don't give a shit what this guy says. Anyone who plays for Tottingham automatically becomes persona non grata for me anyway;

Agree. 

The fawning over Spurs for the last few days has been back to it's usual sickening best.  They beat QPR at home, that's QPR , not Barcelona, not Real Madrid, not even anyone half decent.