Villa's style of play

[not3bad]

It's really weird how people can't seem to air a view that we're playing some piss poor football without being shot down with the 'well we've won games' cry.

What, you mean you air a view and then someone with a different view disagrees with you?  Disgraceful!!!

well yes i suppose so. but i honestly don't believe the people saying that we don't play some god awful stuff actually believe it themselves. its like the result means everything is okay and therefore no one can question the actual quality and the bigger picture

I think individually Villa have some good players, the main thing we've struggled with this season, is the cohesion between those players.  I think that can and will improve as the season goes on and players either become used to each other or regain the form they've been slow to recapture this season so far. 

But the one thing that is a lot more difficult to coach into a team is the kind of spirit that saw Villa refuse to be beaten on Saturday.  That's why I think looking on the bright side is not the unreasonable view.

[paul_e]

It's really weird how people can't seem to air a view that we're playing some piss poor football without being shot down with the 'well we've won games' cry.

What, you mean you air a view and then someone with a different view disagrees with you?  Disgraceful!!!

well yes i suppose so. but i honestly don't believe the people saying that we don't play some god awful stuff actually believe it themselves. its like the result means everything is okay and therefore no one can question the actual quality and the bigger picture

When was the last time the people posting the comments about the playstyle posted something positive though?  That's the issue, we've just beaten the title favourites after coming from behind twice and people want to bitch about the fact that we didn't do it by playing like the dutch team from the 70s.  Everyone knows we're not the finished article and I don't think anyone is trying to say otherwise but some people seem determined to state that we're absolutely shit regardless of whether the facts back that up.  2nd half on saturday we played some very effective, probing football, but both yourself and bronte have completely ignored that when commenting and instead focused on the first half where we were a bit backs to the wall.

the issue is if someone is positive about the club you lot jump on them as soon as there is anything bad and then get offended when the positive people do it back.

[sirlordbaltimore]

When was the last time the people posting the comments about the playstyle posted something positive though?  That's the issue, we've just beaten the title favourites after coming from behind twice and people want to bitch about the fact that we didn't do it by playing like the dutch team from the 70s.  Everyone knows we're not the finished article and I don't think anyone is trying to say otherwise but some people seem determined to state that we're absolutely shit regardless of whether the facts back that up.  2nd half on saturday we played some very effective, probing football, but both yourself and bronte have completely ignored that when commenting and instead focused on the first half where we were a bit backs to the wall.

the issue is if someone is positive about the club you lot jump on them as soon as there is anything bad and then get offended when the positive people do it back.

Well, i'll happily take that on board.

If you are asking for postives from a 'playing perspective' rather than a result one, i can't think of any.

I don't think the defence look good. Does anybody?
I don't think the midfield look good as a unit.
and without Benteke i don't think the attack looks good at all

So without lying it'd be hard to come up with any positives from the playing side of things

The results against Arsenal, Norwich and Man City have been hugely POSITIVE. But that's not what i'm talking about

[London Villan]

We do have problems keeping the ball and we are very good at giving it away when the player in possession isn't under any pressure... we don't help ourselves sometimes. That's the frustrating part.

It's like taking and defending corners. These are parts of the game you can practice, but it looks like our players don't do anything with corners from one matchday to the next. If we had player on the post on Saturday then they would have stopped Dezcko's header.

[eastie]

When was the last time the people posting the comments about the playstyle posted something positive though?  That's the issue, we've just beaten the title favourites after coming from behind twice and people want to bitch about the fact that we didn't do it by playing like the dutch team from the 70s.  Everyone knows we're not the finished article and I don't think anyone is trying to say otherwise but some people seem determined to state that we're absolutely shit regardless of whether the facts back that up.  2nd half on saturday we played some very effective, probing football, but both yourself and bronte have completely ignored that when commenting and instead focused on the first half where we were a bit backs to the wall.

the issue is if someone is positive about the club you lot jump on them as soon as there is anything bad and then get offended when the positive people do it back.

Well, i'll happily take that on board.

If you are asking for postives from a 'playing perspective' rather than a result one, i can't think of any.

I don't think the defence look good. Does anybody?
I don't think the midfield look good as a unit.
and without Benteke i don't think the attack looks good at all

So without lying it'd be hard to come up with any positives from the playing side of things

The results against Arsenal, Norwich and Man City have been hugely POSITIVE. But that's not what i'm talking about

So you see no positive in having a couple of new full backs who attack well and defend better than the last two, or the fact Vlaar and Clark look back on form - the improvement of Delph and the fact kea has discovered his form at long last ?

Yes we have faults but are still work in progress and improvement can be seen if you want to see it.

[Toronto Villa]

I think we got lucky playing rope-a-dope at the weekend. It's a very, very dangerous way to play against teams that have very talented players. However that's not to say that we managed to weather the storm against all odds and came back to win in somewhat convincing fashion when you consider the very few clear cut chances Man City had in the second half.

It's ok to admit that we were lucky. There are going to be plenty of times during the season where we will be hugely unlucky for one reason or another. It's already happened a few times this season and it will again. Admitting that we got away with one despite the win isn't being negative at all.

[PaulWinch again]

It's really weird how people can't seem to air a view that we're playing some piss poor football without being shot down with the 'well we've won games' cry.

NOBODY has said we haven't won games, and to my knowledge NOBODY has said we haven't beaten some good sides.

But what has that got to do with also saying we HAVE played some fucking awful football at the same time ?

You don't always get what you deserve in football, i'm sure most of us are old and ugly enough to know that by now.

I think we play a mixture of good and very poor stuff, but that's reflective of our current position. We're trying to build a team and we'll have some good days and some bad, but hopefully over time it'll improve on a consistent basis.

[sirlordbaltimore]

So you see no positive in having a couple of new full backs who attack well and defend better than the last two, or the fact Vlaar and Clark look back on form - the improvement of Delph and the fact kea has discovered his form at long last ?

Yes we have faults but are still work in progress and improvement can be seen if you want to see it.

I don't see Luna as much better defensively than Bennett. I think they're both equally as ropey in that department.

I think Bacuna has a had a couple of very positive right back showings, then again i liked Lowton too. You could probably make one very good right back from the two combined. I prefer Lowton going forwards and i prefer Bacuna defensively, which appears to be the wrong way round.

Although i'd agree Vlaar has improved a bit, to me that's from say a 4/10 to a 6/10. He still gives me very little confidence as the lynchpin of our defence or as a captain.

Clark is Clark. Potentially very good but with a great knack of dropping a clanger every now and again. Ditto Baker but with less potential.

Overall i'd say our defence is about a 5/10. There can't be many supporters who'd rate them higher i'm sure. And this zonal marking thing from corners ... they were lined up like a bus queue on Saturday and Man City still managed to score twice

[danno]

We defended eleven corners reasonably well.

This season in terms of the amount of corners we've had to defend Norwich had 7 Man City had 13.
Liverpool and Newcastle 2 a piece. Chelsea had one. Arsenal four.

So that's 2 goals conceded from 29 corners this season.

Man City won a lot of corners on Saturday and we almost paid for it.

But overall I think a case could be made that we've improved in that area.

[aj2k77]

Spirit wise ya can't knock them there's obviously some real commraderie at the club between players, staff and fans and has been for the last 12/18 months.

[paul_e]

When was the last time the people posting the comments about the playstyle posted something positive though?  That's the issue, we've just beaten the title favourites after coming from behind twice and people want to bitch about the fact that we didn't do it by playing like the dutch team from the 70s.  Everyone knows we're not the finished article and I don't think anyone is trying to say otherwise but some people seem determined to state that we're absolutely shit regardless of whether the facts back that up.  2nd half on saturday we played some very effective, probing football, but both yourself and bronte have completely ignored that when commenting and instead focused on the first half where we were a bit backs to the wall.

the issue is if someone is positive about the club you lot jump on them as soon as there is anything bad and then get offended when the positive people do it back.

Well, i'll happily take that on board.

If you are asking for postives from a 'playing perspective' rather than a result one, i can't think of any.

I don't think the defence look good. Does anybody?
I don't think the midfield look good as a unit.
and without Benteke i don't think the attack looks good at all

So without lying it'd be hard to come up with any positives from the playing side of things

The results against Arsenal, Norwich and Man City have been hugely POSITIVE. But that's not what i'm talking about

we've played 6 games, 4 against sides that most people have predicted for the top 6, and have a positive goal difference and 9points, if our defence, midfield and attack are as shit as you seem to think how has that happened?

Positives:

The most expensive team in the history of the game managed 2 shots on target from inside the box - that suggests our defence was very good in open play, a fact you've completely ignored.
Our midfield were competitive all 2nd half and stopped them putting us under much pressure at the end.
Weimann was quiet but earned an important free kick for the equaliser and scored the winner, that's a clear sign of a quality striker.
We scored from a right-back playing a slide-rule through ball to a midfielder who ran beyond the strikers, something we've not been doing anything like enough.
Delph continues to show that he's developed into a very good midfielder, Sylla continues to show that he has the makings of being a very good workhorse in midfield, Luna and Bacuna have shown they can be very effective full backs, both in defence and attack.
We have as good a team spirit and attitude as anyone in the league and our players are all working for each other.

They're just from Saturday.

For a 1 man team (in attack) as you suggest it's interesting that we've had 6 different goalscorers to share 9 goals in 6 games.  Add in the cups and it's 8 different scorers in 8 games, by the way.

To simplify, if you don't want to look for positives you won't see them unless we play amazing football and win 10-0 and there is literally nothing to be negative about.

[sirlordbaltimore]

We defended eleven corners reasonably well.

This season in terms of the amount of corners we've had to defend Norwich had 7 Man City had 13.
Liverpool and Newcastle 2 a piece. Chelsea had one. Arsenal four.

So that's 2 goals conceded from 29 corners this season.

Man City won a lot of corners on Saturday and we almost paid for it.

But overall I think a case could be made that we've improved in that area.

I agree we may well have defended the others fairly well, but the marking for the two that they did score was totally amateurish. It wasn't the luck of the draw and that they were bound to score from one eventually, it was just rank bad defending. Goals On Sunday picked up on it quite brilliantly

[sirlordbaltimore]

The one genuine 'positive' bit of football i've seen us play this season as team was Delph's goal against Rotherham. That was football.

I can get behind that as 'a style of play'. What i can't get behind is people claiming that players running around a lot and niggling away is 'progress' on the pitch.

But everyone's different. And this thread is about our 'style of play' not results.

[paul_e]

The one genuine 'positive' bit of football i've seen us play this season as team was Delph's goal against Rotherham. That was football.

I can get behind that as 'a style of play'. What i can't get behind is people claiming that players running around a lot and niggling away is 'progress' on the pitch.

But everyone's different. And this thread is about our 'style of play' not results.

Barcelona are based around  "running around a lot and niggling away" as much as they are passing, getting that side of the game right is more important than getting the nice passing triangles in place, particularly in the premier league. Just look at the number of goals that result from winning the ball and countering compared to the number that come at the end of lovely passing moves.  So yes, getting the work without the ball right does count as progress and we are significantly better at it than we were last season so we have progressed.

[not3bad]

When was the last time the people posting the comments about the playstyle posted something positive though?  That's the issue, we've just beaten the title favourites after coming from behind twice and people want to bitch about the fact that we didn't do it by playing like the dutch team from the 70s.  Everyone knows we're not the finished article and I don't think anyone is trying to say otherwise but some people seem determined to state that we're absolutely shit regardless of whether the facts back that up.  2nd half on saturday we played some very effective, probing football, but both yourself and bronte have completely ignored that when commenting and instead focused on the first half where we were a bit backs to the wall.

the issue is if someone is positive about the club you lot jump on them as soon as there is anything bad and then get offended when the positive people do it back.

Well, i'll happily take that on board.

If you are asking for postives from a 'playing perspective' rather than a result one, i can't think of any.

I don't think the defence look good. Does anybody?
I don't think the midfield look good as a unit.
and without Benteke i don't think the attack looks good at all

So without lying it'd be hard to come up with any positives from the playing side of things

The results against Arsenal, Norwich and Man City have been hugely POSITIVE. But that's not what i'm talking about

So you see no positive in having a couple of new full backs who attack well and defend better than the last two, or the fact Vlaar and Clark look back on form - the improvement of Delph and the fact kea has discovered his form at long last ?

How about the fact that we were complaining that the midfield weren't chipping in with any goals and two goals came from midfield on Saturday?