Aston Villa v Tottenham Hotspur Post-Match Thread

[villan1975]

Hiring TSM was possibly the craziest Villa managerial appointment ever.

On the back of a glowing reference from Siralex.
Vomit inducing.

No possibly about it at all it was unequivocally the stupidest decision of all times.

[villan1975]

Did Lerner not sanction the overrated players on high wages?
Did Lerner not appoint houllier and Mcleish who both flopped?
Is Lerner not the man with whom the buck stops ?
Is he not the man who should be showing leadership rather than bing absent?
We're Lerner and his sidekick not the men to talk about champions league ambition ?
Yes too bloody right he has to carry a lot of blame clampy!

Not a Lerner fan by any stretch but the summer he and Faulkner are in credit for the way they went

about the business of getting rid of TSM and bringing in PL. He did also back his man to some extent.

Should they get any credit for it?
They righted a huge wrong of their own making.
In fact it's too early yet to say they have got it right.

Not suggesting yet they got it right or wrong, PL is probably the best of the options we had available

to us at that time.

[paul_e]

When I saw Parker coming on, I thought to myself that he's just the sort of player we need.

Instead we have to contend with the likes of KEA and bomb scare Holman.

Holman reminds me of those blokes you see fighting for the rebels in the various conflicts in middle east. Rushing from  one building to another aimlessly giving the impression of "fighting" without inflicting any damage to anyone! (looks good on CNN and Sky News)

To me that fits Ireland much better.

[onje_villa]

I will defend my view that our potentially good players lack motivation.

Answer me this question if you think they are properly motivated.

If Lambert can trot out the stock cliche that we must pick ourselves up and go again AFTER humiliating thrashings, when the damage is done, why can't he, or one of his assistant or the team captain get that same message of pick yourselves up and go again on to the field of play when they go a goal down?

I have been to most of the league and cup games this season, including all the home games and the constantly recurring theme is caving in.

My opinion, based on may years of watching many Villa games is that the capitulation arises through lack of leadership and lack of experience.   The last manager packed the sides with green, untested players because he was on a mission to save money.   Those young players should have been eased into the side alongside more confident experienced players but for financial reasons they were not and they have suffered for it, the most notable case being Marc Albrighton.

If players are nervous and uncertain and prone to lose concentration the way it is corrected is to motivate them.   I do NOT mean wind them up to go and kick lumps out of the opposition, I mean reassure and direct and encourage them.   That is motivation not shouting and bawling and kicking the kit bag.

Paul Lambert is not young and inexperienced, he has performed to the very highest level.   It is his job, a job he is very well paid to do, to correct Fabian Delph flying into tackles like a human rotovator or Karim El Ahmadi ball watching or Barry Bannan running flat out from side to side of the pitch instead of up and down it and Stephen Ireland to stop playing the game as though he is a ballet dancer at the barre in front of a mirror.

My definition of that function is motivation.   To make the player do the right things at the right time DURING THE GAME.

A football manager has three primary functions.   To get the players.   To coach the players.   To direct the players how and where they will play in a game.   That third function I describe as motivation.   That is the way I see it.   I respect your views, please respect mine.

Brian you write eloquently and I'm always glad to hear your thoughts but I don't agree with it being down to motivation. Motivation gave us our Liverpool performance where we flung ourselves at everything and counter-attacked our way to an away win but lack of quality has shone through in so many games this season. And it's not just these last two games.

I thought we were distinctly average against Stoke (I know others disagree), I thought we were appalling against Reading, QPR. Home to Norwich I wanted to cry out of disbelief at how poor we were.

I think getting your players motivated can lift you at times, sort of like a trump card, a cup tie, a backs-to-the-wall display but it won't get you performing consistently and matching the likes of Chelsea, Tottenham and Man Utd.

I must also point out that despite yesterday being one of the very worst performances I've seen by any side, I still whole-heartedly back Lambert. I just trust him, trust his judgement and I think and hope we'll see a reaction in the shape of a quality midfielder in January.

[Clampy]

Hiring TSM was possibly the craziest Villa managerial appointment ever.

On the back of a glowing reference from Siralex.
Vomit inducing.

No possibly about it at all it was unequivocally the stupidest decision of all times.

I can't argue with that.

[Bad English]

It's definitely up there with Hitler invading Russia, having the new Wembley in Wembley, and making a seventh series of Dexter.

[nick harper]

When I saw Parker coming on, I thought to myself that he's just the sort of player we need.

Instead we have to contend with the likes of KEA and bomb scare Holman.

Holman reminds me of those blokes you see fighting for the rebels in the various conflicts in middle east. Rushing from  one building to another aimlessly giving the impression of "fighting" without inflicting any damage to anyone! (looks good on CNN and Sky News)

To me that fits Ireland much better.

To me, Ireland is often maligned unfairly and I know he polarises opinion on here. I couldn't understand why he didn't start last night given the lack of quality in the side. I would have thought he was ideal to play in behind Benteke rather than Holman. He does have an eye for a pass and makes things happen - expectations in the crowd are raised when he's on the ball. And by all accounts, he's the best trainer at the club.

He needs a run of games, instead of being in and out all the time. I said at the start of the season, with the lack of experience and quality in the squad, that he had to get Ireland and N'Zogbia into defined roled in the side as they are our big players - they've done it elseqhere. A combination of bad luck, injuries and Lamber's pragmatic approach has stopped this happening.

[olaftab]

I'm using my battery up scrolling down millions of quotes; I really hope we win on Saturday as the more we lose the bigger the quotathon, or so it seems.

I like the ones that start off with  1 liners and replies are also short. I am into geometry and can make lots of triangles, squares, rectangles , prisms and pyramids.
Sometimes you can make parallelograms  and trapezoids by stretching the screen...jolly.... hours of fun.

[eastie]

It's definitely up there with Hitler invading Russia, having the new Wembley in Wembley, and making a seventh series of Dexter.

You forgot about Gail platt marrying Richard hillman!

[villan1975]

It's definitely up there with Hitler invading Russia, having the new Wembley in Wembley, and making a seventh series of Dexter.

Giving Jim'll Saville a kids program.

[olaftab]

It's definitely up there with Hitler invading Russia, having the new Wembley in Wembley, and making a seventh series of Dexter.

And the 4th (up to now) modification of the great Moor Street Interchange. May be you have not been through it but than again most of us who use it every day have not either.

[onje_villa]

Oh and Eastie, that day we 'won at Anfield' which you've brought up several times this morning, it got us 3 points, which was more telling than the team we beat.

You brought the Liverpool game into it on page 18 clampy, as some sort of defence to Lerner.

Yes three valuable points, but the facts are we have scored less than any other team , have the worst goal difference on the league, have won 3 home games on a year and 3 away games on a year , but you regard it as a mini- crisis ?

On top of that we have concede 12 goals in 2 games and been lucky not to lose by more- a squad of young , inexperienced lads and a few overpaid overrated under performers- but why worry eh clampy?

Bloody hell man wake up and smell the roses!

All those problems but still 3 points outside the relegation zone make it slightly less of a crisis than some people are implying.

A win over Wigan and it's barely a crisis at all.

Would we all love to be doing better and have a squad full of superstars, of course, but does having the youngest squad in the league learning together whilst currently doing enough to stay in the league not count as something?

Just playing devils advocate a little here but the reality is we're nowhere near as bad as some people seem to have us pegged right now.  We need experience in the window, I think everyone can see that, and we need to get the injury list down a little but 2-3 decent signings in January (a left sided attacking midfielder/forward, a defensive midfielder with some presence and an attacking midfielder who can score and create goals) would make a huge difference.

Despite conceding 12 in 2 I don't think it's a good idea to look at replacing the defence, getting Vlaar, Baker and Dunne fit will be enough to see us through to the summer then we'll have had a good look at Clark and Baker to know if they are good enough (I think they are personally and that the problems have been around them) and Dunne will leave so we can decide how to replace him.

We really need to sign someone who can shield the defence better and we need to be a little less naive defending against the oppositions wide players.

Chelsea did us by keeping Moses and Hazard high up the pitch, this meant we either pinned back our fullbacks and formed a back 5 or we pushed Baker and Herd wide and went 3 on 3.  If we chose the former their fullbacks had too much, drew out our midfield and left big gaps for Mata, if we chose the latter they murdered us one-on-one.

What we should have done was, defensively, revert to a back 4, with 1 full back moving forward to line up against their full back and the centre back on that side shuffling over.  Then Holman or Weimann could tuck in front of the other full back and create 2 banks of 4, with the other of that pair dropping a little deeper in the central role to stand on top of Luiz.  Given how well they played we'd probably have lsot anyway but we'd have looked much more solid and certainly wouldn't have taken a pasting.

Against Tottenham we started with a similar problem, but they didn't have the quality centrally to make us pay so we simply revert to a 5 and 'shut up shop'.  They had lots of corners and half chances but weren't creating anything clear cut.  It did mean we had nothing going forward though.  The change is shape was then the right thing to do but wasn't done correctly.  As part of a 3 Herd being drawn to the ball isn't much of a problem, Clark can step over and cover the gap, but without Baker as well Herd shouldn't have stayed central, swap him and lowton and we'd have looked much more solid.  Delph and KEA just don't keep the ball well enough, not so much due to their individual passing accuracy but rather their ability to offer an outlet to the player with the ball.  By reverting to those 2 we had very little structure in the central area.  Holman went left and disappeared, he offered nothing going forward but also nothing in terms of defensive cover in front of a very inexperienced left back, who was facing a lightning quick right winger and a workhorse right back who is better in attack than defence.

Finally Herd (at right back) and KEA should've been tasked with handing marking Bale between them.  All 3 of his goals came from him drifting inside and not being picked up, our right back and midfielders should've been aware that Bale does that constantly and planned to mark him when he did.  The chimp-faced taff is nothing like as good as he's made out to be but given time and space he will score goals and we gave him lots of each for the entire 2nd half due to poor organisation.  Herd was doing that tracking in the 5 and did a good job but we looked totally unprepared in how to defend against him in a flat 4.

I'd say both games centred around some very naive tactics where we really weren't prepared to play against the wa the opposition.  Chelsea I can forgive more as they called our bluff, if they hadn't scored early it might've turned out very differently.  Not knowing how Bale runs off the wing and how to counter it was just negligent for me.

Interesting tactical analysis, good post

[fredm]

Talking about Lambert and motivation, I saw a bit of the interview with Ruddy on Football Focus the other day.  He was asked about any difference between Lambert's style and Houghtons (sp?).  He replied that Lambert tended to leave a lot of the coaching to the others (Culverhouse etc) and he did the motivation aspect.  When I heard him say that I thought about having heard that Lambert had modelled himself on MON.

[brian green]

I am a bit drained on the topic of motivation.   Perhaps I should not have raised it.   It seems to have come down to how you interpret what "motivation" means.   To those who see things differently from me to motivate a player is to charge him up to go out and play at or above his full ability.   To me it means forming a bond with a player so that he can be directed to play the way you want him to and in so doing correct the faults in his game which are causing the team problems.   To me it is not about running through brick walls.   It is about running where there are no brick walls.   It is a question of definition.

[E I Adio]

This reminds me very much of the mid sixties, even worse perhaps. The club then had five good or very good players in Withers,Sleewenhoek,Burrows Woosnam and Hateley. The others just made up the numbers. They were not good enough and we were relegated.

Strange that you should make this analogy. I was thinking exactly this yesterday.