FC Groningen vs Aston Villa

[Dave Cooper please]

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[UK Redsox]

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Is this the pre-season version of The Orange Dot ?

[Clark W Griswold]

I'd like to see us go like this next season, with everyone fit;

--------------Guzan-----------------
----Vlaar---Senderos---Okore------
-Bacuna----------------Richardson-
--------Delph-----New Player------
---------------Cole------------------
--------Benteke----N'Zogbia-------

Subs:
Given
Clark
Hutton
Westwood
Gabby
Bent
Kozak

Bent in for Benteke until fit.
Provided we get a good new player in for the midfield, thats a decent line up.

[supertom]

Whether they're friendlies or not doesn't matter. You should never send out a side, competitive or not, as disjointed and clueless as Lambert has. It's not merely the results, it's the fact that the players looked like they've got no idea what they're supposed to be doing.
A manager can maintain as much as he wants that it's purely about fitness. But it isn't just about that. You have training for fitness. Pre-season games are also about intergrating new players, systems, trying to establish what your strongest side is going into the new season.
Based on pre-season so far, even considering the victories, Lambert probably has no idea. We've played too many different systems. We've also never put out what you'd call a genuine best 11, or anything close. We've mixed it up between first 11 players and also-rans too much. The side we put out at Chesterfield would have taught us absolutely nothing worthwhile for the new season.

He needs to focus on a couple of systems at most. Thus far I reckon he's tried about 3-4, maybe even more. We've now got 3 games left. It's time to shit or get off the pot.

Nothing good has really come out of the last two games. If it's all about fitness, why even bother setting up games against another side? Just put two Villa 11's against each other at Bodymoor heath. You use friendlies to establish who's looking good, and what systems you want to play.
In my view he's wasted the last two games completely. We showed absolutely nothing of note in both games, except that we look as pathetic, disjointed and downright bloody useless as a footballing side as we did during last seasons run in. It doesn't bode well for the new season.

[pauliewalnuts]

Apparently the team flew out there the morning of the match.

I imagine that didn't help.

[pbavfckuwait]

Anybody who watched that yesterday and is not worried, pleas explain to me why and before
"It is all about fitness"
"The result does not matter"
"We will be ok when we get the 3 players in before the end of August'
Fitness is important and peaking at the right time is also very important, but there are certain players that appear to be carrying quite a bit of excess and as a professional athlete should not be and it does nothing for your health or fitness to lose that very quickly, they have been back in training nearly a month.
The result doe not matter, but it is crucial that you seem a team play with shape and cohesion, that will not happen at AVFC as we have a manager who is one of stubborn, stupid, inept tactically or no man manager, in fact he is all of them.
Three players at least, well I hope one of those is Mesi, because I think we are nearer to needing 6 or 7 just to be bottom of the rest above the relegation places.
Friendlies do not matter unless you are a team that finished last season on one of the worst runs for ever, set a home record for the amount of defeats and were really not very good. Those players confidence is brittle enough, without more pain being inflicted and there was a number of occasions yesterday when certain Villa players were getting rather pissed off with how easy it was for the opposition and their tackling showed that.

[supertom]

Apparently the team flew out there the morning of the match.

I imagine that didn't help.

Probably not, but then that's down to the clubs scheduling.

[Ron Manager]

I'd like to see us go like this next season, with everyone fit;

--------------Guzan-----------------
----Vlaar---Senderos---Okore------
-Bacuna----------------Richardson-
--------Delph-----New Player------
---------------Cole------------------
--------Benteke----N'Zogbia-------

Subs:
Given
Clark
Hutton
Westwood
Gabby
Bent
Kozak

Bent in for Benteke until fit.
Provided we get a good new player in for the midfield, thats a decent line up.

I would have Hutton in place of Bacuna and Clark as the defensive midfielder.

[Clark W Griswold]

To be fair ST, a lot of the distractions this summer has possibly made many temporarily forget about the fact that even with a ropey looking squad, we still have done even worse than you would have expected under Lambert. The description of this match is a reminder, but not much will be done while we're for sale. If you look at the squad with everyone fit, we should be turning out much better performances than last season, but with Lambert i'm not confident we will.

[Clark W Griswold]

Hutton might end up slightly more solid than Bacuna but i think Bacuna would make an outstanding wing back.

[supertom]

To be fair ST, a lot of the distractions this summer has possibly made many temporarily forget about the fact that even with a ropey looking squad, we still have done even worse than you would have expected under Lambert. The description of this match is a reminder, but not much willbe done while we're for sale. If you look at the squad with everyone fit, we should be turning out much better performanced than last season, but with Lambert i'm not confident we will.

A better manager could probably turn this squad into mid-table. Lambert of course will lead us into struggle sadly.

[supertom]

Hutton might end up slightly more solid than Bacuna but i think Bacuna would make an outstanding wing back.

Bacuna's been really poor in pre-season. I think in terms of form and readiness, Hutton gets the nod at the moment. Bacuna really needs to kick on this season. If he stagnates as Westwood, Lowton, and Sylla for example, he'll go nowhere.

[Clark W Griswold]

I agree (about Lambert).

[Matt Collins]

Listen to van gaal talk about man utd's pre season and tell me performances are irrelevant. He's using the games to establish a new shape, pattern and confidence.

Are we doing any of these things? I still haven't got a fucking clue who's going to play where, in what shape, whether we've found a way of playing that compensates for the loss of kozak and benteke

I hope lambert does but I'm not confident. We've got to stack up some points in our first three games so we need to hit the ground running.

[Nastylee]

If we'd won all our games so far then people wouldn't be expecting anything other than a struggle, saying the opposition are rubbish or what can you learn from playing a League 1 side. The fact is we got beat by Chesterfield fielding a side that no way resembles our first team yet some fans are intent on making a big issue from it. Yesterday, we got beat by a side that looked much fitter and further down the line in their pre-season preparations. Like winning the friendlies wouldn't make us world beaters, losing a few doesn't make us shite either. Some of the comments on here are laughable, may I suggest Prozac.

I didn't watch the game but did read some comments from their manager yesterday morning saying that they would be fitter than us they started training earlier and had already played a competitive game so the outcome was to be expected. These games are entirely about fitness, results one way or another are irrelevant.

The issue with that is the two competitive games they've played this season they drew and lost to Aberdeen!

I've barely followed this pre season at all and am not looking forward to next season at all. That said I'll be at Walsall on tuesday so will have a look at how shambolic we look there.

Which obviously means we are worse than Aberdeen. Abderdeen's level of fitness would have exceeded ours by virtue of the fact they're playing competitive matches in July. Newcastle lost to Malaga, Man City lost over the weekend to Olynpiakos and United beat Real Madrid. Do you think any of those results will have a bearing over the season?