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Author Topic: Ashley Westwood - Sold to Burnley  (Read 231945 times)

Online Simon Page

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Re: Ashley Westwood - Sold to Burnley
« Reply #1365 on: February 21, 2020, 06:52:11 PM »
So thank you for your utterly reply and the bizarre attempt to defend a dire player like Westwood. Nice attempt at sarcasm, though.

Nice attempt at English. Poor attempt at self-awareness.

Offline nigel

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Re: Ashley Westwood - Sold to Burnley
« Reply #1366 on: February 21, 2020, 06:56:32 PM »
Dire player.

Makes you wonder how the numerous managers who really rate him get work in football and you don't. Thank Christ there was no shortage of similar geniuses to tell him how shite he was. I look forward to the fraud charges against him for continuing to fool the Premier League.

He's played for the worst Villa side in our history and Burnley, who if you've drunk enough and squint hard enough almost look like a football team.

I watched/suffered every single game Westwood ever played for us. 147 times.

He scored a lovely goal at the Stripey Filth. Which was nice. But it didn't make up for his lack of goals, lack of creativity, inability to pass a ball forwards (Norwich away for Gabby aside), beat a man, have any pace, any strength, aerial ability. He was good at pointing though.

So thank you for your utterly reply and the bizarre attempt to defend a dire player like Westwood. Nice attempt at sarcasm, though.

I know that’s your opinion, Ads, but I don’t think he was that bad a player.
I had him as a 6.5 - 7 out of 10 type of player. Nothing spectacular, but, nothing disastrous either.
I’d liken him to Butch Wilkins. Nothing special, but always available for the ball and a nice easy pass to the ones that can make it happen.
At the time we weren’t a very good team and I think a lot of players just didn’t complement each other.
Of course, this is just my opinion 👍

Offline Damo70

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Re: Ashley Westwood - Sold to Burnley
« Reply #1367 on: February 21, 2020, 06:59:46 PM »
In the past I have always been pretty highly rated at work but in my latest job I have had my first experience of trying to do it as well as I can whilst having managers who constantly tell me I am doing it wrong (& I mean constantly).

It’s gradually left me unable to think straight, not able to remember simple facts, procedures or tasks, unable to make a simple decision. In fact, from being really well thought of in my previous job which was similar, they have not only made me FEEL like I am no good at it, they have made me ACTUALLY no good at it.

Constant criticism does take your mental health apart, and your ability to be competent goes with it.

The truth is that this treatment of players robs us of talent.

I sympathise with you there Amfy as I had a similar experience about 12-13 years ago. I was working in a joint venture and had 2 bosses, one of whom was very political and did everything to make a landgrab for more than 50% of the team, with me somewhere in the middle.

Basically it got to the point where everything I did I was double and treble thinking and no longer trusting my own judgment. I disliked the company anyway so was able to leave within 8 months of joining, but for a while i was plain miserable, even at weekends.

I hope you manage to sort this out. When I left I was out of work for a while but much happier, though I appreciate you may not have the luxury of being able to douse your boss in pigshit and resigning.


In over a decade in the betting industry I managed a big, busy and highly profitable betting shop, was assistant to various district managers regarding interviewing, staffing rotas and disciplining, was on the staff council and also worked on racecourses for the company. I was the person the area manager for the whole of the Midlands asked to deal with the local press regarding the foot and mouth outbreak and it's repercussions for the company. I got on very well with most of my district managers (the person I answered directly to) and reasonably well with a couple of others. My last district manager was the guy who employed me in the first place as a trainee cashier and who had returned to the same patch. Instead of appreciating me and the pressure I took off him as his predecessors had he seemed to resent how important the 'trainee' had become. He waged a snidy campaign over a period of months which made my working life a misery. Eventually after him giving me no support whatsoever after a violent armed robbery in which I was assaulted I went on the sick for the maximum time I could of six months and then quit.

Offline Ads

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Re: Ashley Westwood - Sold to Burnley
« Reply #1368 on: February 21, 2020, 07:01:18 PM »
So thank you for your utterly reply and the bizarre attempt to defend a dire player like Westwood. Nice attempt at sarcasm, though.

Nice attempt at English. Poor attempt at self-awareness.

How many times did you watch him?

Does anybody else have anything they can draw from the memory bank beyond the goal at the Albion or the through ball at Carrow Road?

Offline saunders_heroes

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Re: Ashley Westwood - Sold to Burnley
« Reply #1369 on: February 21, 2020, 07:02:05 PM »
Dire player.

Makes you wonder how the numerous managers who really rate him get work in football and you don't. Thank Christ there was no shortage of similar geniuses to tell him how shite he was. I look forward to the fraud charges against him for continuing to fool the Premier League.

He's played for the worst Villa side in our history and Burnley, who if you've drunk enough and squint hard enough almost look like a football team.

I watched/suffered every single game Westwood ever played for us. 147 times.

He scored a lovely goal at the Stripey Filth. Which was nice. But it didn't make up for his lack of goals, lack of creativity, inability to pass a ball forwards (Norwich away for Gabby aside), beat a man, have any pace, any strength, aerial ability. He was good at pointing though.

So thank you for your reply and the bizarre attempt to defend a dire player like Westwood. Nice attempt at sarcasm, though.

Agreed. He was fuckin shit. Having a player as dreadful as he was playing so many games summed us up as a club during that awful period in our history.

Offline Ads

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Re: Ashley Westwood - Sold to Burnley
« Reply #1370 on: February 21, 2020, 07:03:45 PM »
Nigel, I found myself just laughing at his inability to be good at anything but pointing. Man City away, pissing it down (just for a change) getting drummed and there he is, pointing and there I was, laughing. When dross like that has played the thick end of 150 games for us, was it any surprise we were absolutely shit for several years.

Offline saunders_heroes

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Re: Ashley Westwood - Sold to Burnley
« Reply #1371 on: February 21, 2020, 07:04:00 PM »
I still have nightmares of those shitty floaty corners he kept throwing at us. Wanker.

Online Simon Page

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Re: Ashley Westwood - Sold to Burnley
« Reply #1372 on: February 21, 2020, 07:04:13 PM »
Jesus man. In a discussion about the mental health implications of people constantly having a go in an over the top, unnecessary fashion, this is what you choose to add. It's not an act is it? You really are the way you come across.

Offline Ads

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Re: Ashley Westwood - Sold to Burnley
« Reply #1373 on: February 21, 2020, 07:10:51 PM »
Jesus man. In a discussion about the mental health implications of people constantly having a go in an over the top, unnecessary fashion, this is what you choose to add. It's not an act is it? You really are the way you come across.

I said he's dross, because he was. I saw every single minute he ever played for us, live. I think I'm entitled to form an opinion that he was shit.

You're the one whose flounced on trying to have a pop at me, with a post oozing with sarcasm and vacant of any substance worthy of defending him beyond the utterly vapid "well this manager can't be wrong". You've then followed with another pop. *shrugs*


Offline saunders_heroes

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Re: Ashley Westwood - Sold to Burnley
« Reply #1374 on: February 21, 2020, 07:11:39 PM »
In any other period of our history a player as shit as he would have been found out after 10 or so games and shown the door. The fact that he played well over 100 league games for us tells us everything regarding the state of the club in that period. A total mad house.

Offline Ads

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Re: Ashley Westwood - Sold to Burnley
« Reply #1375 on: February 21, 2020, 07:13:26 PM »
Absolutely. 4th division rubbish, but he was cheap which suited Lerner after he just gave up trying. A terrible player.

Offline brontebilly

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Re: Ashley Westwood - Sold to Burnley
« Reply #1376 on: February 21, 2020, 07:14:40 PM »
Dire player.

Makes you wonder how the numerous managers who really rate him get work in football and you don't. Thank Christ there was no shortage of similar geniuses to tell him how shite he was. I look forward to the fraud charges against him for continuing to fool the Premier League.

He's played for the worst Villa side in our history and Burnley, who if you've drunk enough and squint hard enough almost look like a football team.

I watched/suffered every single game Westwood ever played for us. 147 times.

He scored a lovely goal at the Stripey Filth. Which was nice. But it didn't make up for his lack of goals, lack of creativity, inability to pass a ball forwards (Norwich away for Gabby aside), beat a man, have any pace, any strength, aerial ability. He was good at pointing though.

So thank you for your reply and the bizarre attempt to defend a dire player like Westwood. Nice attempt at sarcasm, though.

Agreed. He was fuckin shit. Having a player as dreadful as he was playing so many games summed us up as a club during that awful period in our history.

Far better players than Westwood sunk without trace at the club at the time. Some of them are regulars at champions league clubs now. It points to a far bigger problem than a crap coach or two. The culture of the club was obviously rotten to the core at the time.

I was at Cardiff for what I think was one of Westwood's last games for the club. He started in the middle with Gary Gardner and they were both hooked at half time. I doubt either played much for us again, Tishbola actually came on and was decent the same day. Bruce signed the likes of Hourihane and Lansbury a week or two later. The club was as close to a rock bottom low as possible then.

Westwood has done very well to turn his career around to be holding his own in the top division at Burnley since. No world beater for sure but he saw off Drinkys challenge for his place easily. Seems a lot more abrasive and confident these days. Fair play to him. He had potential but just got lost in the Villa Park vortex.


Online Simon Page

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Re: Ashley Westwood - Sold to Burnley
« Reply #1377 on: February 21, 2020, 07:36:13 PM »
Absolutely. 4th division rubbish, but he was cheap which suited Lerner after he just gave up trying. A terrible player.

And this is the problem with your assessment. I've seen plenty at the Villa who I don't rate, including but by no means limited to or bookended by Westwood. But when you denigrate him, beyond all logic and evidence, as "4th division rubbish" when he clearly, demonstrably isn't, you show yourself to be less an objective critic ("I said he's dross, because he was") and just someone with a ridiculously, comically, unjustified high opinion of your own brilliance.

Normally that would be the norm for a football forum. To do it in the context of Westwood and other posters talking about the effect of such hyperbolic, bile-spouting criticism lies somewhere between spiteful and attention-seeking.

Offline pauliewalnuts

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Re: Ashley Westwood - Sold to Burnley
« Reply #1378 on: February 21, 2020, 07:51:18 PM »
Absolutely. 4th division rubbish, but he was cheap which suited Lerner after he just gave up trying. A terrible player.

And this is the problem with your assessment. I've seen plenty at the Villa who I don't rate, including but by no means limited to or bookended by Westwood. But when you denigrate him, beyond all logic and evidence, as "4th division rubbish" when he clearly, demonstrably isn't, you show yourself to be less an objective critic ("I said he's dross, because he was") and just someone with a ridiculously, comically, unjustified high opinion of your own brilliance.

"Clearly, demonstrably isn't 4th division " is not objective, though, it is subjective, and that is all it ever can be. Footballers can be judged by hundreds of criteria or combinations of, and each of us will rate varying criteria differently. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Arguing about footballers accounts for probably 80% of the posts on this site.

What I don't agree with is people giving players shit when they're out and about / living their life off the pitch. That's way over the top, and much as I think the likes of Westwood and NRC were crap for us, I'd never have been anything less than unfailingly polite had I encountered them 'in the wild'. I also never feel the need to scream obscenities at them during a match, either, for that matter. I'll never like that.

I'd also add that, whilst I disagree with Ads far more often than I agree, in saying things like this:

Quote
you show yourself to be less an objective critic ("I said he's dross, because he was") and just someone with a ridiculously, comically, unjustified high opinion of your own brilliance.

you're doing exactly the same thing you are accusing him of.

Offline Ads

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Re: Ashley Westwood - Sold to Burnley
« Reply #1379 on: February 21, 2020, 07:58:54 PM »
You came on bounce with the ridiculous grasping to authority. Presumably nobody can criticise Drinkwater because he's won the league or because a Premier League manager once thought he was good enough?

I hold a strong opinion about Westwood. For me he was the poster boy of our decline. From his first touch hoofing the ball clear at home to Swansea late on to his last, his moments of quality (there were two) were fleeting. Signed from the 4th division, it's where I wish he'd stayed. I've already listed the qualities he lacked; pace, ability to beat a player, play the ball forwards, tackle, strength, goals, creativity. What did he do? What did you see that I did not?
« Last Edit: February 21, 2020, 08:00:43 PM by Ads »

 


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