Barry "Messi" Bannan - again

[saunders_heroes]

Bannans no enforcer whatever that happens to mean nowadays,
 but his height and stature is imaterial to the sort of player he is, we are not stuck in the 70's where every central midfielder has to be built like a Dave Mackay

if you look at world football today most of the best players in the world are 5 foot nothing

That's all well and good and would be relevant if Bannan was actually giving us performances worthy of the faith a lot have in him. He isn't good enough, and it doesn't matter how short or tall he is.

[Chris Smith]

Bannan is inconsistent, that might be a result of being asked to fill a variety of roles, but at his best he offers a spark that none of the rest of them do. The key, as ever, is finding the right blend to being out the best in him. I'd hope that we persevere with him.

[Monty]

Bannan is inconsistent, that might be a result of being asked to fill a variety of roles, but at his best he offers a spark that none of the rest of them do. The key, as ever, is finding the right blend to being out the best in him. I'd hope that we persevere with him.

Agreed, he's offered far more than the likes of Albrighton and as much at least as Clark, Baker and the now-popular (with good reason) Delph. If we had a Sissoko in midfield with him and Westwood we might see more from him.

[john e]

Bannans no enforcer whatever that happens to mean nowadays,
 but his height and stature is imaterial to the sort of player he is, we are not stuck in the 70's where every central midfielder has to be built like a Dave Mackay

if you look at world football today most of the best players in the world are 5 foot nothing

That's all well and good and would be relevant if Bannan was actually giving us performances worthy of the faith a lot have in him. He isn't good enough, and it doesn't matter how short or tall he is.

i agree with you there
if you dont think he's good enough thats fair comment, but to just say he's not big enough is rubbish in modern day football.

i think he could be good enough and agree with Chris about perservering

[Merv]

if you look at world football today most of the best players in the world are 5 foot nothing

Most of the best players in the world are 5ft nothing? Are they? Can think of a few attacking players - Messi, Iniesta, Silva. I think most is stretching it. The debate about Bannan's physique isn't about his ability, it's his unsuitability for the role he's often asked to fill at Villa this season. You don't need to be built like a tank to play centre-midfield, but he's particularly lightweight and a better footballer the further he's moved away from that zone 30 yards from our goal and just past the halfway line.

As I say, I like him, but we're not using him correctly a lot of the time.

[Clampy]

Whenever i've seen him for the reserves, which is not often i admit, he's always had a free role and tended to drift around the pitch and has looked very good. Maybe that's the way forward. Asking him to play Delph's role on saturday was never going to work, especially with us being on the back foot at the time.

[OCD]

I think the only time you can make an argument about height would be if everyone else was a similar height. In which case defending set-pieces would be a bigger nightmare than it already is.

[DerHammer]

What exactly is the point of this guy?

He can't pass
He can't tackle
He doesn't run

I have never seen such poor distribution from a player, why on earth can't a manager who plied his trade as a midfielder see this?why?!!!

[paul_e]

Our game fell apart when he went off last night.

I'm not suggesting he was personally responsible but more that we were a better team with him than without him.  Despite that he seem to be be taking the most criticism, I'd love to know why Villa fans collectively hate him so much.

Last night was another example where he played 20-25 perfectly good passes and 2-3 poor ones and is being villified for giving the ball away constantly and being incapable of passing.

[Walmley_Villa]

He did and usually does work hard and always wants the ball. Unfortunately as you say he gets picked up for all its mistakes by the crowd and is a target. Bringing strikers on and taking the supply line off was madness.

[Apyadg]

example where he played 20-25 perfectly good passes and 2-3 poor ones and is being villified for giving the ball away constantly and being incapable of passing.

Someone accused him of only ever using 'hollywood passes', and since then everyone only ever picks those out.

There was a bloke stood behind me in the upper Holte last night. After a misplaced pass, he came out with the Hollywood pass bullshit, a few minutes later, Bannan played a simple 6 yard pass, and got abuse from the same bloke for not moving it forward quickly enough.

As an aside, the pass he made in the first half, I think it was to N'Zogbia was fantastic. It was a good 40 yard diagonal ball over to the far right, perfectly placed, landed right at his feet. The dickhead behind me was silent for once.

[DerHammer]

Our game fell apart when he went off last night.

I'm not suggesting he was personally responsible but more that we were a better team with him than without him.  Despite that he seem to be be taking the most criticism, I'd love to know why Villa fans collectively hate him so much.

Last night was another example where he played 20-25 perfectly good passes and 2-3 poor ones and is being villified for giving the ball away constantly and being incapable of passing.

He appeared to make a few more mistakes than that, when he kept it simple with square balls across the middle then that was fine. However, anything slightly more complex than that & it was completely wayward & a waste of a pass.

[VILLA MOLE]

He did and usually does work hard and always wants the ball. Unfortunately as you say he gets picked up for all its mistakes by the crowd and is a target. Bringing strikers on and taking the supply line off was madness.

what was the formation when we made the subs 3 2 1 and 4 centre forwards all in the D, no width Gabby did not go wide.  we need to be able to pass quickly which we do not do.  we dwell on the ball and that gives the opposition time to get back.  I do not know if it is a combination of confidence and movement but we just do not do it

[paul_e]

Our game fell apart when he went off last night.

I'm not suggesting he was personally responsible but more that we were a better team with him than without him.  Despite that he seem to be be taking the most criticism, I'd love to know why Villa fans collectively hate him so much.

Last night was another example where he played 20-25 perfectly good passes and 2-3 poor ones and is being villified for giving the ball away constantly and being incapable of passing.

He appeared to make a few more mistakes than that, when he kept it simple with square balls across the middle then that was fine. However, anything slightly more complex than that & it was completely wayward & a waste of a pass.

As mentioned in the post above you, he played one wonderful pass out to Nzogbia on the right, he also played a couple of really nice balls in to Bennett to set him free down the left.

What he did get wrong was over-hitting a few corners, which is a big worry, but our whole squad is appalling at corners at either end of the pitch so it's harsh to single him out as the cause of that as some seem to want.

I can genuinely only think of 3 times he gave the ball away (excluding the corners).  I think taking him off was a big mistake, the team was better for him being there.

One of the biggest problems he's going to have though is confidence, it's hard to keep your confidence high if every misplaced pass or overhit corner is greeted by a ripple of 'get him off, he's shit' from the crowd.

I think we should look to move him on, not because he's not good enough but because too many fans have made him their scapegoat for everything that's wrong with us.  Clark is suffering from a similar backlash at the moment.

[Mr Speedy H]

Our game fell apart when he went off last night.

The reason our game fell apart after Bannan's substitution is because we had too many forwards on the field with no idea. If you think about it, when you replace a midfielder with an attacker, that position is then going to be moved way up pitch.

Li'l Barry was useless last night. The only passes he can play with any confidence or accuracy are those where he is unchallenged, passing to another unchallenged player less than 15 feet away. Why he's still getting the time I don't know. The only reason I think is that possibly PL see's a little of himself in him, and he can mould him to be a mini-me?