Summer 2013: Villa Transfers, Speculation, Suggestions and Rumours

[Percy McCarthy]

The Bent goals guaranteed us staying up in 10/11 and 11/12. We could give him away tomorrow and his signing would have paid for itself.

Gabby kept us up in 11/12 by being on fire til (ironically) Bonfire Night and winning us plenty of points. He set up most of Bent's and scored as many himself.

10/11 I'll give you, although Gabby did score the 'staying up' goal, away at West Ham, after which we'd have stayed up had we not got another point. As he did at Norich of course last season.

[Merv]

Wasn't one of the new additions to the coaching team over the summer a defensive coach?

I might have actually just imagined that, though, so may be wrong.

Aye. Scott Marshall, formerly of Arsenal and their renowned back four/five.

[onje_villa]

Scott Marshall was a midfielder surely?

[TheSandman]

That website run by an artist who takes suggestions of unlikely cultural scenarios, perhaps sporting too and illustrates them needs to see this and we can make it real. Can't remember his name but it's Plumbutt Cooper's favourite thing on the internetz.

http://jimllpaintit.tumblr.com/

[supertom]

Scott Marshall was a midfielder surely?

Full back apparently. I honestly can't remember him playing, but he only had 25 games for Arsenal in 7 years.

[PeterWithesShin]

The Bent goals guaranteed us staying up in 10/11 and 11/12. We could give him away tomorrow and his signing would have paid for itself.

Gabby kept us up in 11/12 by being on fire til (ironically) Bonfire Night and winning us plenty of points. He set up most of Bent's and scored as many himself.

10/11 I'll give you, although Gabby did score the 'staying up' goal, away at West Ham, after which we'd have stayed up had we not got another point. As he did at Norich of course last season.

Or the fact Gabby couldn't hit a barn door after Bonfire night was the reason we struggled in 11/12? 

[Concrete John]

That website run by an artist who takes suggestions of unlikely cultural scenarios, perhaps sporting too and illustrates them needs to see this and we can make it real. Can't remember his name but it's Plumbutt Cooper's favourite thing on the internetz.

http://jimllpaintit.tumblr.com/

Seriously - Jim'll Paint It??

[eamonn]

Yeah, his name is Jim but he's no kiddy-fiddler.

[Percy McCarthy]

The Bent goals guaranteed us staying up in 10/11 and 11/12. We could give him away tomorrow and his signing would have paid for itself.

Gabby kept us up in 11/12 by being on fire til (ironically) Bonfire Night and winning us plenty of points. He set up most of Bent's and scored as many himself.

10/11 I'll give you, although Gabby did score the 'staying up' goal, away at West Ham, after which we'd have stayed up had we not got another point. As he did at Norich of course last season.

Or the fact Gabby couldn't hit a barn door after Bonfire night was the reason we struggled in 11/12?  ;)

Fuck, we should have sacked him instead of TSM. What have we done?!

;)

[Sexual Ealing]

This was mentioned last year, but i'd rather spend a substantial amount of money on a brilliant defensive coach than bring in another defender that isn't up to it.

The last "Defensive Co-ordinator" that I remember was Mark Lawrenson at Newcastle. Did that work ?

I was thinking that. Do any other teams have a dedicated coach just for the defence?

[SoccerHQ]

Not too sure it's that straightforward.

His Norwich side, in their first season up, conceded more away goals than anyone that season with the exception of the relegated sides and QPR, and more home goals than anyone other than the relegated sides.

he obviously did something right to get them there in the first place, and then keep them there, but I don't really see anything to suggest his teams have ever really defended that well.

Yeah as I've said elsewhere Norwich didn't even have the best defensive record when they romped league one or were promoted from the championship, it's not a strength of Lambert's management it's fair to say.

That said would it really be much different to 07/08 (4-4 at Chelsea and 4-4 at Spurs amongst others or 08/09 (5-0 at Liverrool, 3-3 at home to Everton). Conceded plenty of goals that season (and that was with Laursen in there) but our very effective attack got us plenty of wins so I see the same happening here.

In the first half of last season we weren't actually that bad defensively, look at the run from October 20th to December 22nd:

1-0 Fulham
1-1 Norwich
0-1 Sunderland
2-3 Man. United
5-0 Man. City
0-0 Arsenal
1-0 Reading
1-1 QPR
0-0 Stoke
1-3 Liverpool

O.k we were playing some dross in that period but that's a 10 game sample of the season including a few games when we were playing the dreaded 5 at the back. Take away 30 minutes of brilliant individual Hernandez finishing and when we collapsed at City after that ridiculous penalty award and it shows you a spell when we actually weren't conceding a bucketload of goals, 12 goals conceded in 10 games.

Certainly Chelsea completely destroyed that and we've been conceding 2 goals a game on average since.

That said we'll be playing teams who have powderpuff attacks so we can outscore them. For example if the best Crystal Palace can do is resign Kevin Phillips and sign Carlton Cole then I'd be confident even we can keep a clean sheet against them.

[Dave]

Don't forget mighty Dwight Gayle.

[pauliewalnuts]

That said we'll be playing teams who have powderpuff attacks so we can outscore them. For example if the best Crystal Palace can do is resign Kevin Phillips and sign Carlton Cole then I'd be confident even we can keep a clean sheet against them.

It feels like such a long time since we kept a clean sheet, I'm doubtful we ever will, to be honest.

The outscoring thing is fine, but think how much better off we'd be if we could defend, as well.

[SoccerHQ]

Well we were much better defensively for years under Gregory but we drew a shedload of games which stopped us getting any higher than 6th I think?

That's the crux of it isn't it, if we could defend properly then we'd be winning every week and challenging for the league. Easy peasey.

But would defending better as a unit mean Gabby and Weimann having to track back much more and so meaning Benteke is more isolated upfront and less chances?

Personally I prefer to see us scoring goals and we won enough games in the second half of the season to suggest that's the model worth preserving with as plenty of teams in the league won't have forward lines like we do.

I'd also hope that Luna is better defensively at LB than Bennett is and I'd be amazed if Okore isn't a better centre half than Ciaran Clark so that would mean 50% of our back 4 improving.

[supertom]

I'd be happy to only concede one a game to be honest. Do that and you'd fancy us to get 2-3 against a lot of clubs.