What have we learnt from the first preseason game?

[paul_e]

What I learned from it:

Azaz is a better player than I expected, I suspect he'll go to a championship club for the season.
Kesler looks like he might be ready to cover for Cash, and Young as insurance makes it a simple chocie to keep him around and look to move Guilbert on.
Chrisene doesn't look quite as far along, he's got loads of potential but he needs some senior football.
Seb revan looked lost for a big part of the first half, hopefully was just nerves and he can be much better than he showed.
Feeney looks like a fantastic prospect, high hopes for him.
Cam is a great finisher but he was struggling to get into the game, not really his fault but a sign that we need him to train with the first team squad a lot more.

Sanson has everything to be a regular for us, that he isn't suggests the problem isn't with what he does on the pitch.
Carlos looks a top class defender, him and Mings could become an excellent pairing.
Not much to say on the other seniors, I don't think any of them did anything to change existing opinions on them, there were however some signs of fantastic link up play between Watkins, Ings and Buendia.

I don't think we can read anything into how Gerrard wants to play from it, 10 changes at half time and both teams being a mix of kids and seniors meant a lot of the play was off the cuff and the laack of familiarity was the biggest negative (as mentioned specifically about Cam who was the biggest victim of it).

[Flin5tone]

+5 substitution rule will be MASSIVE to how well teams do in the 22/23 season. Anwar El Ghazi proved himself to be a A* professional and contributed to a comfortable victory. We should not be letting players of his calibre leave for pittance when we will need positive players coming from the bench.

I think selling Trezeguet will come back to haunt us ,let's hope we don't make the same mistake with Anwar , two players who have had BIG game changing contributions over the past few years. He should be rewarded with a new contract not left out in the cold .

As for others

Cameron Archer looked very comfortable and everyone else was OK , hard to tell against Walsall . The Australian tour will be VERY interesting as I imagine villa support will be very limited and obviously Leeds have a big following in that part of the world so we will be up against it that's for sure

[dave.woodhall]

Why the bollocks should Leeds have more support there than us?

[Risso]

Hangover from the Kewell/Viduka years?

[frank]

I disagree with this though as my feelings were the opposite. Gerrard was trying to implement or force his Rangers style of play on the players that weren’t suited or unaccustomed to it. It’s a balancing act as each manager has his own style but there was no gradual transfer of formations. Instead of looking at the skill sets of the players and picking a formation / tactic that they were comfortable with, it was straight into the Rangers tactic imo.

I agree with this. For the first several months Gerrard was praising the players for buying into his coaching team's style of play. The fact that we didn't make significant progress last season rather proves your point that the squad he inherited wasn't suited to that way of playing.

[dave.woodhall]

Hangover from the Kewell/Viduka years?

We had Brett Holman and Shane Lowry.

[Exeter 77]

Hangover from the Kewell/Viduka years?

We had Brett Holman and Shane Lowry.

As well as Bosnich and latterly Jedinak.

[Londonvilla]

What I learned from it:

Azaz is a better player than I expected, I suspect he'll go to a championship club for the season.
Kesler looks like he might be ready to cover for Cash, and Young as insurance makes it a simple chocie to keep him around and look to move Guilbert on.
Chrisene doesn't look quite as far along, he's got loads of potential but he needs some senior football.
Seb revan looked lost for a big part of the first half, hopefully was just nerves and he can be much better than he showed.
Feeney looks like a fantastic prospect, high hopes for him.
Cam is a great finisher but he was struggling to get into the game, not really his fault but a sign that we need him to train with the first team squad a lot more.

Sanson has everything to be a regular for us, that he isn't suggests the problem isn't with what he does on the pitch.
Carlos looks a top class defender, him and Mings could become an excellent pairing.
Not much to say on the other seniors, I don't think any of them did anything to change existing opinions on them, there were however some signs of fantastic link up play between Watkins, Ings and Buendia.

I don't think we can read anything into how Gerrard wants to play from it, 10 changes at half time and both teams being a mix of kids and seniors meant a lot of the play was off the cuff and the laack of familiarity was the biggest negative (as mentioned specifically about Cam who was the biggest victim of it).

Good points

[Flin5tone]

It's very well known that Leeds have big support in Australia.  Will probably outnumber us 70-30 from what I understand. 

[cdbearsfan]

DISGRACE!

[Hillbilly]

Why the bollocks should Leeds have more support there than us?

It's a hangover from the limited televised football in the 70's I've been told. There's a generation that got captured because Leeds were a big noise at the time. It surprised me when I settled here a few years ago how many of them there are.

[Flin5tone]

Thank you for certifying that Hillbilly.
Possibly could be 80-20? Or even worse. This won't be a good look for us as a club.

I know there's lots of jokes around regarding Leeds support but in certain parts of the world they have incredible backing that outnumbers ours even with them being in the Championship for so long .

We need to break into other markets,I understand and our supporter base in England is looking VERY strong.  Maybe we can get some Liverpool / Gerrard fans to wave a claret and blue scarf for us so it don't look so one sided support wise.

We will probably take max 50?from the UK with a majority heading out to Rennes instead. The club should have put a package together for individuals who wanted to go but don't have the confidence in booking a big trip DIY . Think they have missed a trick there. I'm not the only one worried either

[dave.woodhall]

I must admit, the thought that another club might, possibly, have more supporters than us at a friendly on the other side of the world will keep me awake tonight.

[Hillbilly]

There's plenty of Villa going up from Melbourne. I don't think we'll be under-represented. Hopefully this will be a weight off Mr Woodhall's mind and he can wrestle with whatever other nightmares keep him awake at night.

[Dave P]

Hangover from the Kewell/Viduka years?

We had Brett Holman and Shane Lowry.

As well as Bosnich and latterly Jedinak.

And Chris Herd