Villa v Leeds Post-Match thread

[dave.woodhall]

We have two European Cups between us too don't we?

No. Leeds have never won the European Cup.

That's not how they tell it.

Just looked it up. The Fairs cup was not much to shout about and not recognised by fifa as a European trophy. But im sure Leeds fans will claim it as the European cup which is laughable really. And Leeds do seem to have a lot of media friends who can wait to get over excited about them.

Wasnt the fairs cup basically open to all of the big cities in europe with no qualifcation required hence small heath playing in it

Only for the first few years. From 1968 it was based on league position. 

[The Edge]

The Edge, I was taking the mick, I know they've not won the European Cup, the sad twats.

Oh ok. Fair enough

[Ads]

The Inter City Fairs Cup was for cities not individual sides at first.

The Noses represented Birmingham rather than BCFC. We told them to fuck off.

[old man villa fan]

After 5 years of crap football and a mess of appointing 4 different managers, yes I'm glad we're winning games and being competitive again (even if we haven't always played well)...

We've rarely played well, which is the issue for Paul, myself and a few others.

Baby steps, I know.  After the complete turd that is the past five years.  But with the quality of player we were able to keep in in the summer combined with the financial clout that enabled us to buy some of the best players in this division, we should be more convincing at this level. Even with the well documented weaknesses in certain positions.

Our style of play shouldn't be viewed as an optional extra either; the icing on the cake or something to merely provide additional entertainment. It's weird, but the better a team plays in terms of creating chances and controlling the game in general, the more matches they tend to win.

We are scratching out results at the moment. And there is a place for that too. But it creates a feeling that we can't keep on getting away with it.

I'm with you and paul_e in that I am pleased we are getting results but worried that we are not improving and every game seems to be on a knife-edge.  We are having a bit of good fortune at the moment which we didn't have earlier in the season (how many times did we hit the woodwork) but it could easily go the other way.

The weaknesses I see in the team at the moment are (i) poor distribution from the back (ii) poor use of the ball from right back when in very good positions (iii) giving the ball away too easily in the middle of the park by misplaced passes, over ambitious passes, playing easy balls to players in worse positions that then puts them under pressure and simply by bad control of the ball (iv) not being able to work the ball through the middle of the pitch (v) not getting players into the box when we are attacking (vi) poor crossing (vii) not being able to hold the ball up in central forward positions.  Those weaknesses have been with us all season and I am not seeing us improving on them.  The one thing I have seen an improvement on is being tighter at the back which I put down to having the right foot and left foot combination in central defence, Amavi's pace that gets us out of trouble at times and Jedinak adding protection in front of the back four (he is not brilliant but has plugged a hole which Westwood was never strong enough to do).

It is difficult to buy players of the right quality in January and I think it will be very hard for Bruce.  Yes, he can buy players but I fear he may buy for the sake of it, rather than buying in crucial areas that significantly improves us.  Midfield has to be the first priority, followed buy a right back.  I believe that these two positions can significantly improve us and improve the performances of other players in the team.  It may be easier to bring in higher quality players on loan rather than buying and then think again at the end of the season.

[Clampy]

After 5 years of crap football and a mess of appointing 4 different managers, yes I'm glad we're winning games and being competitive again (even if we haven't always played well)...

We've rarely played well, which is the issue for Paul, myself and a few others.

Baby steps, I know.  After the complete turd that is the past five years.  But with the quality of player we were able to keep in in the summer combined with the financial clout that enabled us to buy some of the best players in this division, we should be more convincing at this level. Even with the well documented weaknesses in certain positions.

Our style of play shouldn't be viewed as an optional extra either; the icing on the cake or something to merely provide additional entertainment. It's weird, but the better a team plays in terms of creating chances and controlling the game in general, the more matches they tend to win.

We are scratching out results at the moment. And there is a place for that too. But it creates a feeling that we can't keep on getting away with it.

The weaknesses I see in the team at the moment are (i) poor distribution from the back (ii) poor use of the ball from right back when in very good positions (iii) giving the ball away too easily in the middle of the park by misplaced passes, over ambitious passes, playing easy balls to players in worse positions that then puts them under pressure and simply by bad control of the ball (iv) not being able to work the ball through the middle of the pitch (v) not getting players into the box when we are attacking (vi) poor crossing (vii) not being able to hold the ball up in central forward positions.  Those weaknesses have been with us all season and I am not seeing us improving on them.  The one thing I have seen an improvement on is being tighter at the back which I put down to having the right foot and left foot combination in central defence, Amavi's pace that gets us out of trouble at times and Jedinak adding protection in front of the back four (he is not brilliant but has plugged a hole which Westwood was never strong enough to do).

But despite all those weakness you mentioned, we're still in touch with the play off after a dodgy start. As for suggesting Bruce might buy players for the sake of it, what evidence do you have of that?

[old man villa fan]

After 5 years of crap football and a mess of appointing 4 different managers, yes I'm glad we're winning games and being competitive again (even if we haven't always played well)...

We've rarely played well, which is the issue for Paul, myself and a few others.

Baby steps, I know.  After the complete turd that is the past five years.  But with the quality of player we were able to keep in in the summer combined with the financial clout that enabled us to buy some of the best players in this division, we should be more convincing at this level. Even with the well documented weaknesses in certain positions.

Our style of play shouldn't be viewed as an optional extra either; the icing on the cake or something to merely provide additional entertainment. It's weird, but the better a team plays in terms of creating chances and controlling the game in general, the more matches they tend to win.

We are scratching out results at the moment. And there is a place for that too. But it creates a feeling that we can't keep on getting away with it.

The weaknesses I see in the team at the moment are (i) poor distribution from the back (ii) poor use of the ball from right back when in very good positions (iii) giving the ball away too easily in the middle of the park by misplaced passes, over ambitious passes, playing easy balls to players in worse positions that then puts them under pressure and simply by bad control of the ball (iv) not being able to work the ball through the middle of the pitch (v) not getting players into the box when we are attacking (vi) poor crossing (vii) not being able to hold the ball up in central forward positions.  Those weaknesses have been with us all season and I am not seeing us improving on them.  The one thing I have seen an improvement on is being tighter at the back which I put down to having the right foot and left foot combination in central defence, Amavi's pace that gets us out of trouble at times and Jedinak adding protection in front of the back four (he is not brilliant but has plugged a hole which Westwood was never strong enough to do).

But despite all those weakness you mentioned, we're still in touch with the play off after a dodgy start. As for suggesting Bruce might buy players for the sake of it, what evidence do you have of that?

Improve on some of those weaknesses and we would easily be in the play-off position.  Improve on all and we would be pushing for automatic promotion.  There is always room for improvement but we seem to have hit a plateau in our improvement.

Quite clearly I have no evidence of Bruce doing that as he hasn't bought anybody yet.  Top managers are clearly focused on how to improve their teams but as we have seen for too long at Villa, managers have not addressed which position should be the first to be addressed.  From memory, MON's purchase of Young and Carew was probably the last time this happened, other than when we bought Bent.

[paul_e]

But despite all those weakness you mentioned, we're still in touch with the play off after a dodgy start. As for suggesting Bruce might buy players for the sake of it, what evidence do you have of that?

Being in touching distance of the play offs is great and Bruce deserves credit for the results to get us there, no one is denying that.  What I'm saying, and think omvf and kevin agree, is that now we're moving into January he needs to address performances because we can't play as badly as we have done recently for the rest of the season if we want to force our way into a chance of promotion.  I get that some people are willing to separate results from performances so long as the results keep coming, I understand that view and I can see the value to it but I can't do that.  I see performances as a 'guarantee' of getting results and my concern is that we don't seem to have any guarantees right now.

I think there's also some misunderstanding on here of what I mean by performances.  I don't expect us to turn into barca, I'm not sure I even want us to but I do want us to play the numbers.  I want us to make chances, I want us to have players in the box when we put crosses in, I want us to have the ball in areas of the pitch where teams are scared to put tackles in (especially on Jack who is comfortably the most fouled player in the league).

We are where we are with loads of problems to address, lets start working on some of them and see how much further we can go, we all know (or at least should) that most of this squad is too good to not be challenging for automatic promotion so until our form is consistently top 2-3 in the league we're not reaching our potential.

[Clampy]

But despite all those weakness you mentioned, we're still in touch with the play off after a dodgy start. As for suggesting Bruce might buy players for the sake of it, what evidence do you have of that?

Being in touching distance of the play offs is great and Bruce deserves credit for the results to get us there, no one is denying that.  What I'm saying, and think omvf and kevin agree, is that now we're moving into January he needs to address performances because we can't play as badly as we have done recently for the rest of the season if we want to force our way into a chance of promotion.  I get that some people are willing to separate results from performances so long as the results keep coming, I understand that view and I can see the value to it but I can't do that.  I see performances as a 'guarantee' of getting results and my concern is that we don't seem to have any guarantees right now.

I think there's also some misunderstanding on here of what I mean by performances.  I don't expect us to turn into barca, I'm not sure I even want us to but I do want us to play the numbers.  I want us to make chances, I want us to have players in the box when we put crosses in, I want us to have the ball in areas of the pitch where teams are scared to put tackles in (especially on Jack who is comfortably the most fouled player in the league).

We are where we are with loads of problems to address, lets start working on some of them and see how much further we can go, we all know (or at least should) that most of this squad is too good to not be challenging for automatic promotion so until our form is consistently top 2-3 in the league we're not reaching our potential.

But Bruce himself has said after some games that we've been lucky. Even the other night, I think he said a winner for us would have been unjust.

We needed points on the board when he came in and we've got them. For me, that was the most important thing going into January. No, we haven't played well in every game, but we played better  football under RDM and where did it get him?

[Clampy]

After 5 years of crap football and a mess of appointing 4 different managers, yes I'm glad we're winning games and being competitive again (even if we haven't always played well)...

We've rarely played well, which is the issue for Paul, myself and a few others.

Baby steps, I know.  After the complete turd that is the past five years.  But with the quality of player we were able to keep in in the summer combined with the financial clout that enabled us to buy some of the best players in this division, we should be more convincing at this level. Even with the well documented weaknesses in certain positions.

Our style of play shouldn't be viewed as an optional extra either; the icing on the cake or something to merely provide additional entertainment. It's weird, but the better a team plays in terms of creating chances and controlling the game in general, the more matches they tend to win.

We are scratching out results at the moment. And there is a place for that too. But it creates a feeling that we can't keep on getting away with it.

The weaknesses I see in the team at the moment are (i) poor distribution from the back (ii) poor use of the ball from right back when in very good positions (iii) giving the ball away too easily in the middle of the park by misplaced passes, over ambitious passes, playing easy balls to players in worse positions that then puts them under pressure and simply by bad control of the ball (iv) not being able to work the ball through the middle of the pitch (v) not getting players into the box when we are attacking (vi) poor crossing (vii) not being able to hold the ball up in central forward positions.  Those weaknesses have been with us all season and I am not seeing us improving on them.  The one thing I have seen an improvement on is being tighter at the back which I put down to having the right foot and left foot combination in central defence, Amavi's pace that gets us out of trouble at times and Jedinak adding protection in front of the back four (he is not brilliant but has plugged a hole which Westwood was never strong enough to do).

But despite all those weakness you mentioned, we're still in touch with the play off after a dodgy start. As for suggesting Bruce might buy players for the sake of it, what evidence do you have of that?

Improve on some of those weaknesses and we would easily be in the play-off position.  Improve on all and we would be pushing for automatic promotion.  There is always room for improvement but we seem to have hit a plateau in our improvement.

Quite clearly I have no evidence of Bruce doing that as he hasn't bought anybody yet.  Top managers are clearly focused on how to improve their teams but as we have seen for too long at Villa, managers have not addressed which position should be the first to be addressed.  From memory, MON's purchase of Young and Carew was probably the last time this happened, other than when we bought Bent.

Asking Bruce to push for automatic promotion was always going to be a tough ask after the start we made.

Someone made a good point elsewhere. Every time time some people looks at the league table and see's us still mid-table, they blame Bruce rather than the start we made.

[old man villa fan]

But despite all those weakness you mentioned, we're still in touch with the play off after a dodgy start. As for suggesting Bruce might buy players for the sake of it, what evidence do you have of that?

Being in touching distance of the play offs is great and Bruce deserves credit for the results to get us there, no one is denying that.  What I'm saying, and think omvf and kevin agree, is that now we're moving into January he needs to address performances because we can't play as badly as we have done recently for the rest of the season if we want to force our way into a chance of promotion.  I get that some people are willing to separate results from performances so long as the results keep coming, I understand that view and I can see the value to it but I can't do that.  I see performances as a 'guarantee' of getting results and my concern is that we don't seem to have any guarantees right now.

I think there's also some misunderstanding on here of what I mean by performances.  I don't expect us to turn into barca, I'm not sure I even want us to but I do want us to play the numbers.  I want us to make chances, I want us to have players in the box when we put crosses in, I want us to have the ball in areas of the pitch where teams are scared to put tackles in (especially on Jack who is comfortably the most fouled player in the league).

We are where we are with loads of problems to address, lets start working on some of them and see how much further we can go, we all know (or at least should) that most of this squad is too good to not be challenging for automatic promotion so until our form is consistently top 2-3 in the league we're not reaching our potential.

But Bruce himself has said after some games that we've been lucky. Even the other night, I think he said a winner for us would have been unjust.

We needed points on the board when he came in and we've got them. For me, that was the most important thing going into January. No, we haven't played well in every game, but we played better  football under RDM and where did it get him?

Don't you agree though, that we are at a point when performances should be improving as the players have now had half a season to get up to speed with playing with each other.  RDM did not have this luxury and everything was on the fly.

[Clampy]

But despite all those weakness you mentioned, we're still in touch with the play off after a dodgy start. As for suggesting Bruce might buy players for the sake of it, what evidence do you have of that?

Being in touching distance of the play offs is great and Bruce deserves credit for the results to get us there, no one is denying that.  What I'm saying, and think omvf and kevin agree, is that now we're moving into January he needs to address performances because we can't play as badly as we have done recently for the rest of the season if we want to force our way into a chance of promotion.  I get that some people are willing to separate results from performances so long as the results keep coming, I understand that view and I can see the value to it but I can't do that.  I see performances as a 'guarantee' of getting results and my concern is that we don't seem to have any guarantees right now.

I think there's also some misunderstanding on here of what I mean by performances.  I don't expect us to turn into barca, I'm not sure I even want us to but I do want us to play the numbers.  I want us to make chances, I want us to have players in the box when we put crosses in, I want us to have the ball in areas of the pitch where teams are scared to put tackles in (especially on Jack who is comfortably the most fouled player in the league).

We are where we are with loads of problems to address, lets start working on some of them and see how much further we can go, we all know (or at least should) that most of this squad is too good to not be challenging for automatic promotion so until our form is consistently top 2-3 in the league we're not reaching our potential.

But Bruce himself has said after some games that we've been lucky. Even the other night, I think he said a winner for us would have been unjust.

We needed points on the board when he came in and we've got them. For me, that was the most important thing going into January. No, we haven't played well in every game, but we played better  football under RDM and where did it get him?

Don't you agree though, that we are at a point when performances should be improving as the players have now had half a season to get up to speed with playing with each other.  RDM did not have this luxury and everything was on the fly.

I've already said that we haven't played as well in some games as we should and Bruce will probably tell you that himself. As it is, we're in there with a shout going into the second half of the season and that's really all that mattered when Bruce came in.

[paul_e]

But despite all those weakness you mentioned, we're still in touch with the play off after a dodgy start. As for suggesting Bruce might buy players for the sake of it, what evidence do you have of that?

Being in touching distance of the play offs is great and Bruce deserves credit for the results to get us there, no one is denying that.  What I'm saying, and think omvf and kevin agree, is that now we're moving into January he needs to address performances because we can't play as badly as we have done recently for the rest of the season if we want to force our way into a chance of promotion.  I get that some people are willing to separate results from performances so long as the results keep coming, I understand that view and I can see the value to it but I can't do that.  I see performances as a 'guarantee' of getting results and my concern is that we don't seem to have any guarantees right now.

I think there's also some misunderstanding on here of what I mean by performances.  I don't expect us to turn into barca, I'm not sure I even want us to but I do want us to play the numbers.  I want us to make chances, I want us to have players in the box when we put crosses in, I want us to have the ball in areas of the pitch where teams are scared to put tackles in (especially on Jack who is comfortably the most fouled player in the league).

We are where we are with loads of problems to address, lets start working on some of them and see how much further we can go, we all know (or at least should) that most of this squad is too good to not be challenging for automatic promotion so until our form is consistently top 2-3 in the league we're not reaching our potential.

But Bruce himself has said after some games that we've been lucky. Even the other night, I think he said a winner for us would have been unjust.

We needed points on the board when he came in and we've got them. For me, that was the most important thing going into January. No, we haven't played well in every game, but we played better  football under RDM and where did it get him?

and as is often quoted on here "don't tell me, show me".  Him seeing that things aren't going well is a step up from from Lambert but until he starts address the problems (and not all of them had to wait for the transfer window) he's really doing little more than confirming what we can see.  It's a start and the results are earning him the time to fix things but they don't stop those things from needing to be fixed.

[Clampy]

But despite all those weakness you mentioned, we're still in touch with the play off after a dodgy start. As for suggesting Bruce might buy players for the sake of it, what evidence do you have of that?

Being in touching distance of the play offs is great and Bruce deserves credit for the results to get us there, no one is denying that.  What I'm saying, and think omvf and kevin agree, is that now we're moving into January he needs to address performances because we can't play as badly as we have done recently for the rest of the season if we want to force our way into a chance of promotion.  I get that some people are willing to separate results from performances so long as the results keep coming, I understand that view and I can see the value to it but I can't do that.  I see performances as a 'guarantee' of getting results and my concern is that we don't seem to have any guarantees right now.

I think there's also some misunderstanding on here of what I mean by performances.  I don't expect us to turn into barca, I'm not sure I even want us to but I do want us to play the numbers.  I want us to make chances, I want us to have players in the box when we put crosses in, I want us to have the ball in areas of the pitch where teams are scared to put tackles in (especially on Jack who is comfortably the most fouled player in the league).

We are where we are with loads of problems to address, lets start working on some of them and see how much further we can go, we all know (or at least should) that most of this squad is too good to not be challenging for automatic promotion so until our form is consistently top 2-3 in the league we're not reaching our potential.

But Bruce himself has said after some games that we've been lucky. Even the other night, I think he said a winner for us would have been unjust.

We needed points on the board when he came in and we've got them. For me, that was the most important thing going into January. No, we haven't played well in every game, but we played better  football under RDM and where did it get him?

and as is often quoted on here "don't tell me, show me".  Him seeing that things aren't going well is a step up from from Lambert but until he starts address the problems (and not all of them had to wait for the transfer window) he's really doing little more than confirming what we can see.  It's a start and the results are earning him the time to fix things but they don't stop those things from needing to be fixed.

The fact that he knows that we've been lucky in some games is good, like you said. As for the problems he needs addressing, there's not that many of them really. Fine tuning and some more convincing wins is what's needs, along with some new players.

[old man villa fan]

But despite all those weakness you mentioned, we're still in touch with the play off after a dodgy start. As for suggesting Bruce might buy players for the sake of it, what evidence do you have of that?

Being in touching distance of the play offs is great and Bruce deserves credit for the results to get us there, no one is denying that.  What I'm saying, and think omvf and kevin agree, is that now we're moving into January he needs to address performances because we can't play as badly as we have done recently for the rest of the season if we want to force our way into a chance of promotion.  I get that some people are willing to separate results from performances so long as the results keep coming, I understand that view and I can see the value to it but I can't do that.  I see performances as a 'guarantee' of getting results and my concern is that we don't seem to have any guarantees right now.

I think there's also some misunderstanding on here of what I mean by performances.  I don't expect us to turn into barca, I'm not sure I even want us to but I do want us to play the numbers.  I want us to make chances, I want us to have players in the box when we put crosses in, I want us to have the ball in areas of the pitch where teams are scared to put tackles in (especially on Jack who is comfortably the most fouled player in the league).

We are where we are with loads of problems to address, lets start working on some of them and see how much further we can go, we all know (or at least should) that most of this squad is too good to not be challenging for automatic promotion so until our form is consistently top 2-3 in the league we're not reaching our potential.

But Bruce himself has said after some games that we've been lucky. Even the other night, I think he said a winner for us would have been unjust.

We needed points on the board when he came in and we've got them. For me, that was the most important thing going into January. No, we haven't played well in every game, but we played better  football under RDM and where did it get him?

and as is often quoted on here "don't tell me, show me".  Him seeing that things aren't going well is a step up from from Lambert but until he starts address the problems (and not all of them had to wait for the transfer window) he's really doing little more than confirming what we can see.  It's a start and the results are earning him the time to fix things but they don't stop those things from needing to be fixed.

The fact that he knows that we've been lucky in some games is good, like you said. As for the problems he needs addressing, there's not that many of them really. Fine tuning and some more convincing wins is what's needs, along with some new players.

i respect your optimism but I listed what I believe to be 6 fundamental weaknesses.  My worry is that Bruce only sees it as fine tuning and does not address enough of the issues to get us promoted and have a platform for the PL, only get us to the play-offs.  Convincing wins will only come from a vastly improved midfield.

[Whiney MacWhineface]

The fact that he knows that we've been lucky in some games is good, like you said. As for the problems he needs addressing, there's not that many of them really. Fine tuning and some more convincing wins is what's needs, along with some new players.

My feeling is that we're a decent midfielder away from making lot more click, so for example someone who can link up with McCormack and bring him more into the game.

And yes, I know we've spent (seemingly) eternity just one or two players away from breaking out - with the exception of the last few years when we've mostly been 11 players away from breaking out. But we're a long way from playing the worst football ever.