Quote from: chrisw1 on August 05, 2016, 11:22:00 AMI don't really buy into this thing about players being deliberately shit, spineless and not caring etc. A lot of that gets said about various players on here, but I'm sure each and every one of them wanted to win matches and not go through the sort of season we endured last year. You don't get to play anywhere near this level without a decent attitude and heart.With that said, there is no doubt that Micah and Gabby (and several others) were very, very poor last year. They lost form & confidence and it was a downwards spiral. I think Gabby is a busted flush for Villa. I'm not sure if the fans will accept Micah back, but deep down I think he could probably do a very decent job for us a right back at this level.For the amount that they get paid, fans expect the players to give the appearance of caring and making the effort.In my long years in people-development, the loss of motivation and active disengagement is almost-always the result of crap management and / or a toxic culture.In the case of these players, Matteo & Clarke either need to find the motivational 'key' to them or accept that they need to be moved on. My guess is that we 're close to finding out which way it'll swing: come August 31 and the closing window they'll either be sent out on loan, sold or kept. If kept, it'll be because the management feel they can extract value out of them.
I don't really buy into this thing about players being deliberately shit, spineless and not caring etc. A lot of that gets said about various players on here, but I'm sure each and every one of them wanted to win matches and not go through the sort of season we endured last year. You don't get to play anywhere near this level without a decent attitude and heart.With that said, there is no doubt that Micah and Gabby (and several others) were very, very poor last year. They lost form & confidence and it was a downwards spiral. I think Gabby is a busted flush for Villa. I'm not sure if the fans will accept Micah back, but deep down I think he could probably do a very decent job for us a right back at this level.
You don't get to play anywhere near this level without a decent attitude and heart.
Quote from: chrisw1 on August 05, 2016, 11:22:00 AM You don't get to play anywhere near this level without a decent attitude and heart.But Richards didn't play anywhere near prem level last season. His attitude and heart last year would have seen us relegated from whichever league we were playing in.
I have no doubt he's a fine athlete of sorts.A central defender for a professional football team - never!One of the worst I've seen at VP in over 50 years.
Perhaps it was because they had made it as a professional footballer they now had free rein to enjoy not having to work so hard. That's the hard bit done, now which way to the Mercedes showroom/pie shop/knocking shop?
He strikes me as the sort of Billy Big Bollocks who had been there and done that in one good season at Citeh. Then thought all he had to do was turn up for us grateful people each week to automatically qualify as captain and our adulation would know no bounds.When it transpired that a lack of quality players making him look much better than he ever was found him out and much worse found his overall appetite for hard work out. The very epitome of our awfulness.
Quote from: Mister E on August 05, 2016, 11:31:06 AMQuote from: chrisw1 on August 05, 2016, 11:22:00 AMI don't really buy into this thing about players being deliberately shit, spineless and not caring etc. A lot of that gets said about various players on here, but I'm sure each and every one of them wanted to win matches and not go through the sort of season we endured last year. You don't get to play anywhere near this level without a decent attitude and heart.With that said, there is no doubt that Micah and Gabby (and several others) were very, very poor last year. They lost form & confidence and it was a downwards spiral. I think Gabby is a busted flush for Villa. I'm not sure if the fans will accept Micah back, but deep down I think he could probably do a very decent job for us a right back at this level.For the amount that they get paid, fans expect the players to give the appearance of caring and making the effort.In my long years in people-development, the loss of motivation and active disengagement is almost-always the result of crap management and / or a toxic culture.In the case of these players, Matteo & Clarke either need to find the motivational 'key' to them or accept that they need to be moved on. My guess is that we 're close to finding out which way it'll swing: come August 31 and the closing window they'll either be sent out on loan, sold or kept. If kept, it'll be because the management feel they can extract value out of them.or that no one else will take them.
Quote from: kippaxvilla2 on August 05, 2016, 02:23:34 PMHe strikes me as the sort of Billy Big Bollocks who had been there and done that in one good season at Citeh. Then thought all he had to do was turn up for us grateful people each week to automatically qualify as captain and our adulation would know no bounds.When it transpired that a lack of quality players making him look much better than he ever was found him out and much worse found his overall appetite for hard work out. The very epitome of our awfulness.See, threads on here are full of this sort of rhetoric, repeated so often it is treated as fact. 'Spineless, cowards, thieves, gutless, lazy etc etc.' The perceived wisdom is they all pretty much wanted to be shit and did it on purpose. I just don't buy this. I strongly suspect they wanted to be successful, but for various reasons were woefully short of confidence and form. Don't get me wrong I absolutely agree that the majority of them were very poor last year and I totally understand the anger against them - I have it myself. I just don't think they were deliberately shit or cowards etc as many people seem to infer.
Quote from: chrisw1 on August 05, 2016, 02:36:56 PMQuote from: kippaxvilla2 on August 05, 2016, 02:23:34 PMHe strikes me as the sort of Billy Big Bollocks who had been there and done that in one good season at Citeh. Then thought all he had to do was turn up for us grateful people each week to automatically qualify as captain and our adulation would know no bounds.When it transpired that a lack of quality players making him look much better than he ever was found him out and much worse found his overall appetite for hard work out. The very epitome of our awfulness.See, threads on here are full of this sort of rhetoric, repeated so often it is treated as fact. 'Spineless, cowards, thieves, gutless, lazy etc etc.' The perceived wisdom is they all pretty much wanted to be shit and did it on purpose. I just don't buy this. I strongly suspect they wanted to be successful, but for various reasons were woefully short of confidence and form. Don't get me wrong I absolutely agree that the majority of them were very poor last year and I totally understand the anger against them - I have it myself. I just don't think they were deliberately shit or cowards etc as many people seem to infer. I'm finding it very difficult to understand how you attempt to defend the indefensible. Being Captain it is his responsibility to go out onto the pitch and lead by example, he did that and was sh*t, so were the team. As Captain it was his responsibility to bring together all the players regardless of nationality, he failed miserably even setting up a clique with the French players exempt. Working with a number of other players whose names were reported at the time as Guzan, Agbonlahor, Lescott, Clark to break the system Garde was trying to implement. Gutless and spineless is just what he was, I feel that he went out on the pitch and coasted through the games and tried to give an impression of trying when in fact he couldn't give a f*ck.
You may be right Chrisw1 in that he never set out to be shit. It's just that he didn't seem to care that he was.