Welcome Roberto Di Matteo and Steve Clarke

[berneboy]

How can BBC get the scoop even before it's on the official Villa site?

They're on a tea break.

Because Jack WOODWARD also left AVFC today so reporting of this non existent too!?

I'm sorry jack has left. I know he was sometimes amateurish but he was always positive and one of us.

[dave shelley]

And as I said, he could have turned it down.

yeah and that would have left us where? Lerner in his tracksuit?

There would have been no difference in playing style, might even have been an improvement.  This is turning into a puerile argument.  You think he couldn't have done anything better, I think he's a prick!  Best leave it at that.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

How can BBC get the scoop even before it's on the official Villa site?

They're on a tea break.

Because Jack WOODWARD also left AVFC today so reporting of this non existent too!?

I'm sorry jack has left. I know he was sometimes amateurish but he was always positive and one of us.

You know it's a good day for the Villa when on H&V you start reading warm, kind messages about young Jack Woodward.

[sickbeggar]

And as I said, he could have turned it down.

yeah and that would have left us where? Lerner in his tracksuit?

There would have been no difference in playing style, might even have been an improvement.  This is turning into a puerile argument.  You think he couldn't have done anything better, I think he's a prick!  Best leave it at that.

I think given the authority he could have done  things differently but that wasn't his job. His job was to steer the sinking ship onto the rocks with the least casualties possible because the crew had mutinied and the last 2 captains are sailing away in a lifeboat. We've had months of  people on here saying this or that player is poison, and yet Black was supposed to stick kids into that dressing room.?Or maybe he was supposed to banish all the senior players to the reserves? Again use your common. sense. If he'd dumped say bacuna into the reserves for being shit, then this time tonight he's out because like it or not RDM will make his own decisions on the players. So banishing "insert hate figure here" to the reserves would be pointless and he and the players knew it. Give him credit for at least calling some of the wasters out.

[Nunkin1965]

Black took a job that no-one else wanted and with no chance of it turning out to his advantage. For that he has my respect

Well, as far as I'm concerned he could have:

a) Turned it down.

b) accepted it with a view to honing his managerial skills.

c) Most importantly of all as far as I'm concerned.  Tried to mix things up by changing tactics, introducing young and promising players thereby proving to supporters that he was aware that for some, the money they had paid to watch his shit could have been better spent elsewhere.

For that, he can fuck off, and when he gets there...

Agreed.

How does Kevin Toner feel about being given a shot at the first team? About 20 feet tall I'd guess. But bizarrely he was the only one tried because week after week Black went mind numbingly negative in his team selections.

[paul_e]

The worst thing about that being that the normal situation with bringing kids in means you give the more attacking ones more time because their energy and enthusiasm can make up for inexperience and yet he pretty much refused.  2-3 times he gave a young attacker a few minutes and they looked positive, then the next game he ignored them on the bench.  It was just bizarre.

[The Edge]

They would be barking mad to employ Black.  Utterly quackers.

They probably wouldn't winalot. Sorry.

[Dave]

The worst thing about that being that the normal situation with bringing kids in means you give the more attacking ones more time because their energy and enthusiasm can make up for inexperience and yet he pretty much refused.  2-3 times he gave a young attacker a few minutes and they looked positive, then the next game he ignored them on the bench.  It was just bizarre.

I'd say the worst part was either the outright lies that he told or the disdain that he had for the careers of Toner and Lyden.

He said that the reason he couldn't play the younger players was the atmosphere from the crowd and the risk that it posed for a young player. And then played the above two anyway.

So either he didn't think the crowd was that poisonous after all and he was just making a shit excuse for his own terrible team selections, or he genuinely did think that and threw those two players to the wolves regardless.

I'm obviously certain that it's the first of those two choices, but either way he's an arsehole who we are well rid of.

[sickbeggar]

The worst thing about that being that the normal situation with bringing kids in means you give the more attacking ones more time because their energy and enthusiasm can make up for inexperience and yet he pretty much refused.  2-3 times he gave a young attacker a few minutes and they looked positive, then the next game he ignored them on the bench.  It was just bizarre.

bizarre in what way? fuck me if we'd had a long tradition of introducing young promising players in garde/Sherwoods/Lambert/etc time i could understand it. Apart from Cahill who was good straight away and sold on pubeheads "i'm never wrong" philosophy its hardly been one star after another coming off the production line. Even Albrighton who went onto better things was absolute shite for ages even though some of us were hoping he'd regain his old form. Why is there suddenly loads of ace young players apparently coming through when we're complete bobbins? A curse on him if Black was stopping a group of superstars from getting their chance to shine but i doubt it

[old man villa fan]

The worst thing about that being that the normal situation with bringing kids in means you give the more attacking ones more time because their energy and enthusiasm can make up for inexperience and yet he pretty much refused.  2-3 times he gave a young attacker a few minutes and they looked positive, then the next game he ignored them on the bench.  It was just bizarre.

bizarre in what way? fuck me if we'd had a long tradition of introducing young promising players in garde/Sherwoods/Lambert/etc time i could understand it. Apart from Cahill who was good straight away and sold on pubeheads "i'm never wrong" philosophy its hardly been one star after another coming off the production line. Even Albrighton who went onto better things was absolute shite for ages even though some of us were hoping he'd regain his old form. Why is there suddenly loads of ace young players apparently coming through when we're complete bobbins? A curse on him if Black was stopping a group of superstars from getting their chance to shine but i doubt it

1st Team careers have to start at some time and the step change from U21 to 1st Team is an important part of a player's development.  You will never find out if a player can make it if you do not give him that chance.

[Phil from the upper holte]

Managers don't always take training do they?

Was Woodward laid off?

[sickbeggar]

The worst thing about that being that the normal situation with bringing kids in means you give the more attacking ones more time because their energy and enthusiasm can make up for inexperience and yet he pretty much refused.  2-3 times he gave a young attacker a few minutes and they looked positive, then the next game he ignored them on the bench.  It was just bizarre.

bizarre in what way? fuck me if we'd had a long tradition of introducing young promising players in garde/Sherwoods/Lambert/etc time i could understand it. Apart from Cahill who was good straight away and sold on pubeheads "i'm never wrong" philosophy its hardly been one star after another coming off the production line. Even Albrighton who went onto better things was absolute shite for ages even though some of us were hoping he'd regain his old form. Why is there suddenly loads of ace young players apparently coming through when we're complete bobbins? A curse on him if Black was stopping a group of superstars from getting their chance to shine but i doubt it

1st Team careers have to start at some time and the step change from U21 to 1st Team is an important part of a player's development.  You will never find out if a player can make it if you do not give him that chance.

true but i've never heard this accusation aimed at garde/sherwood/lambert/etc.. . No-one complained that they were doing fuck all to bring young players through in fact, this time last season a lot were happy we were buying them from abroad from Barcelona and the likes

[paul_e]

The worst thing about that being that the normal situation with bringing kids in means you give the more attacking ones more time because their energy and enthusiasm can make up for inexperience and yet he pretty much refused.  2-3 times he gave a young attacker a few minutes and they looked positive, then the next game he ignored them on the bench.  It was just bizarre.

bizarre in what way? fuck me if we'd had a long tradition of introducing young promising players in garde/Sherwoods/Lambert/etc time i could understand it. Apart from Cahill who was good straight away and sold on pubeheads "i'm never wrong" philosophy its hardly been one star after another coming off the production line. Even Albrighton who went onto better things was absolute shite for ages even though some of us were hoping he'd regain his old form. Why is there suddenly loads of ace young players apparently coming through when we're complete bobbins? A curse on him if Black was stopping a group of superstars from getting their chance to shine but i doubt it

1st Team careers have to start at some time and the step change from U21 to 1st Team is an important part of a player's development.  You will never find out if a player can make it if you do not give him that chance.

and there are very few genuinely 'free' games where there is no pressure on the team.  We had 4-5 of them and Black refused give anyone a chance other than the 2 that he was largely forced to by injuries.

[old man villa fan]

The worst thing about that being that the normal situation with bringing kids in means you give the more attacking ones more time because their energy and enthusiasm can make up for inexperience and yet he pretty much refused.  2-3 times he gave a young attacker a few minutes and they looked positive, then the next game he ignored them on the bench.  It was just bizarre.

bizarre in what way? fuck me if we'd had a long tradition of introducing young promising players in garde/Sherwoods/Lambert/etc time i could understand it. Apart from Cahill who was good straight away and sold on pubeheads "i'm never wrong" philosophy its hardly been one star after another coming off the production line. Even Albrighton who went onto better things was absolute shite for ages even though some of us were hoping he'd regain his old form. Why is there suddenly loads of ace young players apparently coming through when we're complete bobbins? A curse on him if Black was stopping a group of superstars from getting their chance to shine but i doubt it

1st Team careers have to start at some time and the step change from U21 to 1st Team is an important part of a player's development.  You will never find out if a player can make it if you do not give him that chance.

true but i've never heard this accusation aimed at garde/sherwood/lambert/etc.. . No-one complained that they were doing fuck all to bring young players through in fact, this time last season a lot were happy we were buying them from abroad from Barcelona and the likes

See paul_e's post that followed as I was just about to comment the same.

[OCD]

There hasn't been a blueprint on how to integrate young players into the first team squad for some time. We've been crap for about 6 years with some very poor, unprofessional older heads around and before then, O'Neill would rather spend a fortune on established Premier League players who were on their last big contract.

Over the next few years we need a strong core of professional, older heads who are prepared to encourage and lead younger players. Start having some success and then look to start bringing in good, promising players into a decent side.