Aston Villa v Tottenham Hotspur Post-Match Thread

[Ron Manager]

Do you know, I was struggling to remember what Randy Lerner  looked like this morning so little have we seen of him over the past two seasons, still thats probably an age thing. I do know what Doug looks like because he is at every game. But forget that, Lerner is not able, or willing, to put sufficient funds into the club to make a noticable change in our fortunes. Which leaves us in the position of teams like Fulham,West Brom,Everton and Southampton having to find players around the world who are cheap and can fit into a system.

We had great hopes when Lambert arrived that he would have the contacts, especially in Germany, to find this type of player. Players with technical skill and intelligence. We, or rather I, was wrong.

Take Benteke out of the equation and we havent seen too much. Okore maybe will be a top flight pro in time but we dont know that for sure.

If he had the money it would be interesting to see who he would buy. I just dont know if Lambert is making progress . We should have a clear view by Christmas and I hope we are not going to be disappointed.

[fredm]

Our improvement at the end of last season appeared to me to coincide with us becoming more aggressive and playing higher up the pitch, meaning we were harassing the opponent as soon as he got the ball.  This season we do not appear to be doing this as much, in fact on sunday when Lloris had the ball Gabby and Andi were running backwards into our half of the field to mark their wingers!  This resulted in their defence and Sandro having a free option of what pass to pick as they were under no pressure whatsoever.

This, to me, is the biggest disappointment - us playing a containing game from the first whistle and hoping to hit teams on the break.  Ok we are perhaps not conceding as many goals this season but the stats still show that we do concede virtually every game and then we are usually playing catch up to try and equalise.

[dave.woodhall]

In the eras of Brian Little and Ron Atkinson there was a more level playing field. It was much more feasible to go out and buy players capable of performing at the top end of the table.

Big Ron bought players with PL experience in his tenure. No wonder we hit the ground running.

No he didn't. Name me one player with any Premier League experience that he bought.

[sirlordbaltimore]

Our wins are flukes and our draws/defeats are the 'real' us. Nice one.

Well, with your hand on heart. Which games do you think more honestly reflect our sides performance this season ?

Arsenal/Man City or Hull/Newcastle ?

To me it's the latter. To you maybe it's the former. Does that mean we can't have a difference of opinion as fellow Villa supporters ?

[dave.woodhall]

Our wins are flukes and our draws/defeats are the 'real' us. Nice one.

Well, with your hand on heart. Which games do you think more honestly reflect our sides performance this season ?

Arsenal/Man City or Hull/Newcastle ?

To me it's the latter. To you maybe it's the former. Does that mean we can't have a difference of opinion as fellow Villa supporters ?

The fact that we've had as many good performances as bad ones would indicate that we're inconsistent rather than good or bad.

Is anybody stopping you from having this "difference of opinion"?

[sirlordbaltimore]

Not as such no, but in terms of you can't say we've played awful if we win without some folks erupting then yes. Some people can't separate the two discussions as seen over recent months. The style of play thead went from being about our 'style of play' to a 'how can you say we played bad when we won' quite quickly.

But I am interested to know which of those suggestions in post above you think sum us up best ?

[sirlordbaltimore]

No he didn't. Name me one player with any Premier League experience that he bought.

Staunton ?

[dave.woodhall]

Not as such no, but in terms of you can't say we've played awful if we win without some folks erupting then yes. Some people can't separate the two discussions as seen over recent months. The style of play thead went from being about our 'style of play' to a 'how can you say we played bad when we won' quite quickly.

But I am interested to know which of those suggestions in post above you think sum us up best ?

I've told you - inconsistent.

[sirlordbaltimore]

No he didn't. Name me one player with any Premier League experience that he bought.

Staunton ?

actually, come to think of it that technically not Premier League is it

[MarkM]

According to Wiki BFR's second place for us in the first PL season is the highest ever for an English manager in the history of the PL [equalled by Keegan]

[aj2k77]

In the eras of Brian Little and Ron Atkinson there was a more level playing field. It was much more feasible to go out and buy players capable of performing at the top end of the table.

Big Ron bought players with PL experience in his tenure. No wonder we hit the ground running.

No he didn't. Name me one player with any Premier League experience that he bought.

Staunton, Parker, Cyrill? Unless you're referring to the top flight being called another name?

[Deano's Mullet]

The Premier League only started in BFR's second season. BFR bought lots of experienced FIRST DIVISION footballers  - Dalian Atkinson, Kevin Richardson, Ray Houghton, Dean Saunders, Cyrille Regis, Garry Parker, Earl Barrett in his first two seasons alone - and we later ended up with John Fashanu, Andy Townsend and Phil King. That's one thing that was levelled at BFR when it started to go wrong for him, the average age of his experienced team was 30+. Brian Little came in and introduced a more youthful side - the only real experienced players in the side were Townsend, McGrath, Bosnich and Yorke (although the last two were still in their twenties at the time).

[aj2k77]

It doesn't matter what it was called it was still the top flight.

If they changed the name in December to the SKY champions fest and we purchased Suarez would you seriously claim he has no experience in playing in the SKY champions fest division....

[Ads]

We have scored more goals, conceded fewer goals having played 5 of the top 5. Ironically, our poorest display came against Newcastle at home and our best in a game we also lost, but were robbed in.

We’re unsurprisingly inconsistent and mid-table as a consequence. This is an improvement on the past two seasons.

[dave.woodhall]

Pedanticism over, the one major advantage BFR had over any other Villa manger, ever, was that he was able to immediately sell a player for one of the highest fees ever then paid anywhere in the world. He also, and this is incredible to think even now, suckered Celtic into paying way over the odds for Cascarino. It was like Spurs not only having the Bale money, but also selling Adebayor for another £20 million. He also, let's not forget, had an average first season and a relegation-standard final twelve months. For all the money he spent, Ron only gave us 18 good months.