Pre-Season Friendlies 2012

[Mazrim]

Work to do but encouraging as well.

[Olneythelonely]

Some positive signs, but defensively we still look very, very poor.

[not3bad]

Werder Bremen 3
Villa 3

AVTV stream: minus 1 billion

[Matt Collins]

My main concern is the defence. Vlaar looks good. Clark looks good until someone throws the ball into the box, when he doesn't really look like a centre back. And with the general absence of height in the side, that's a big concern going into the season.

Big Sam would have been licking his lips looking at that performance, defensively. We could easily have shipped 5 or 6.

[Ron Manager]

The second half has been quite revealing: I think it's shown the risk of not having more seasoned EPL players on the side.
We've looked a little panicky and naive at times.

But overall, some positives.

Tim Henman was always taking the positives. No wonder he never won the Wimbledon title!

Is it true we had one corner(and scored) and they had ten! A worrying stastistic.

[Toronto Villa]

It's a work in progress but it won't be dull this year. 3 goals scored would have taken 5 games last season under TSM.

[PGW]

I'm not so sure about Ron, defended low balls into box really well but like Clarke went missing when high balls were played in. I'm not gonna lose any sleep yet as they both have to settle into a partnership together. My biggest fear is the love affair between PL and Fabian Delph i do worry when he is on the ball especially in defensive situations but then probably played the ball of the game through to Benty!!! Roll on next week.

[Pete3206]

Big Sam would have been licking his lips looking at that performance, defensively. We could easily have shipped 5 or 6.

Perhaps he might be thinking about how busy his own defenders might be next week.

[London Villan]

"That ball is arrowing like....like...err...one of Steve Backley's javelin throws."

Woodward getting in the olympic spirit.

Just the 20 years too late...

[PaulWinch again]

Going forward looks good, at the back needs work. I personally think we need at the very least a left back, centre mid and a striker.

[Monty]

Yes the defence looks suspect, but compared to last season where all we did was try and artlessly block opposition attacks without mounting any of our own, I much prefer this style. We pass nicely and quickly, we go for it from the start, we press hard and high up the pitch, and we look like we're having a bit of fun out there. For now, I'll take risky, mad 3-3s over suicide-inducing 0-0s every day of the week.

[Edvard Remberg]

Big shout out from Woodward for Edvard of this parish there.

What was that? didn't hear anything. About the "Ahmadi" and not "ACCCHmadi"?

[olaftab]

Well that was fun however defence still has big problem. Vlaar has the movement of an oil tanker and no proper fullback solution. Delph and KEA were better in the first half and we lost some control with Delph switching to LB.
After watching this I feel a little less confident about the coming season.
Now Bremen awaits!

[Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air]

"That ball is arrowing like....like...err...one of Steve Backley's javelin throws."

Woodward getting in the olympic spirit.

Just the 20 years too late...

Yes Backleys long retired.  Cant wait for Gabby to be back, Jack will be comparing him to Jessie Owens. 

[Dante Lavelli]

Going forward looks good, at the back needs work. I personally think we NEED at the very least a left back, centre mid and a striker.

What do you mean by “need”?  I do not think that the current squad will get relegated and buying those extra players will not get us into to europe (IMO).  I am interested to hear why people think we need these players as I think we might be better buying them once more players are off the wage bill and hopefully we’ll have improved so we can tempt better players.