romavillan

wait what? bent is having difficulty getting in the side because of how much he offers outside of the box, PL wants everyone to work hard as a unit when we don't have the ball. Berbatov wouldn't have come here in the first place, but even if he did he's not exactly going to fit in with the work ethic is he? don' tget me wrong bent and berbatov would be a good partnership, but not for us right now. no way because we just aren't set up to play with 2 players up front who don't help to get the ball back.

delph, bannan, herd and GG have time on their side to prove you wrong about their quality. i doubt all 4 will prove to be top drawer footballers. if only 2 are, we'll be fine. anyway, how long is KEA out? and how long is GG out? (edit: GG we won't see all season)

i'm sure randy just can't sleep at night knowing that there's a keyboard warrior out there who won't give him a break. we've gone horribly backwards in the last couple of seasons as a result of him doing what everyone is now crying out for him to do, spend metric fucktons of cash on players and wages to try and break the top 4. it didn't work and got us financially **** with a squad of overpaid average players that no-one wanted to buy after they'd been mismanaged and played shit under houllier and AM. instead of being all butt hurt about randy **** things up i'd say fair play in that he gave it a good go and spent shedloads of his own cash chasing the champs league dream. not his fault he backed the wrong managerial horse as it were. just out of interest were there people on here crying out that randy was a clearing in the woods when we were in the final of the carling cup? i don't think i was on the forums then. i mean, were there people who moan about randy now after he's spunked tons of money and is trying to sort things out and get us set up properly with PL and do things the right way in the long term interest of the club, moaning back then when the cash was flying? i bet they weren't, but genuine question all the same.

he'll be missed, i think he always makes himself available to help out and be a simple pass for whoevers on the ball, he breaks up play well and keeps the ball for us. i'd like to see delph play there with herd maybe but it'll probably be bannan. how long is GG out for?

we weren't that bad against spurs to be honest, if we'd taken our chances we'd have probably got a point. way, way, way, better than last years effort. we had a shit 15 mins int eh second half against southampton after earning our lead in a decent first half. getting SI back will be good as it gives us a bit more quality, i kinda hope bannan will eventually be giving him some competition or a fit GG maybe. anyway, richard, when did you meet him and what did you chat about!

i hope that isn't the case and i don't think lambert would want him out the door either to be honest. he made him captain and didn't get the response he was after so he benched him for benteke and he comes off the bench and scores. i reckon he'll start the next one as benteke missed his chance to claim a starting place, bent will be given the same chance. Similar to what happened with given if you ask me, if guzan had come in and not been top quality then given woudl be back in. competition for places, good for us i nthe long run!

hey Richard, second time i've seen you say that, and the penny has just dropped.... soooo, when did you meet him and what did you chat with him about? what did he say?

"get overrun in midfield" - keep seeing this. we had 75% over ten minutes against a very, very well drilled baggies side. we constantly have more of the ball than the opposition, how the feck do you do that when you are being overrun in the middle of the park???

i take it you got your numbers from here? http://www.whoscored.com/Regions/252/Tournaments/2/Seasons/3389/Stages/6531/PlayerStatistics/England-Premier-League-2012-2013 he doesn't come out very badly, when you look at interceptions, tackles, passes. pass completion surprisingly isn't as high as you'd think. anyway, even going by the cold hard stats which i'll admit were worse than i'd have thought, he's a competitve player already and not lost at this level. which for someone who's only played a handfull of games in this league is pretty good going really, especially in a team that is going through a revolution in terms of culture and playing style. leaving the stats behind, from what i've seen this season, he's often the player to break down opposition position and then keep possession for us by moving it around quickly. we didn't have that last year. so still big thumbs up for me.

interesting reading, but even the above stats don't scream out that he's out of his depth at this level. i'd expect his stats, along with the rest of the squad to improve though as PL gets them performing better as a unit. anyway, i like him and things woudl be a hell of a lot worse in the middle of the park for us without him!

i don't think cattermole is a better ball winner, KEA is a pretty good ball winner in my opinion, has a great engine and always presses when we don't have the ball and has a very good tackle on him. comparing him to makele and essien is a little unfair.

totally agree on the MON point, but i reckon the PL project's level of being competitve is aiming to be more than mid table to be fair. won't happen straight away but i think RL will back him enough for us to acheive some decent mid term goals. getting the attendences up by winning football matches playing good football for a start for example. this will help the club to increase revenue elsewhere too apart from the getting more in prize money in the premier league. then we can kick on from there with the means to sustainably give PL more money to get to the next level. tottenham did it without paying the likes of heskey 60k a week. lets see what RL does in jan and next summer to help the project on a bit more before asking for him to sell up. even if a nutcase arab wanted to buy villa and invest hundreds of millions in the squad we'd be screwed by FFP and would be living waaaay out of our means in terms of revenue and that is dangerous.

can't believe there's voices against him to be honest. he covers the hard yards every week, wins the ball back and doesn't give it away. what's not to like in a defensive midfielder?

I hope he's here for a while longer to keep backing PL and at least see through the project of making us competetive again without paying out ludicrous wages that woudl have bankrupted us without his help. If he manages to do that he merits seeing it through a bit further for the next push on too. be carefull what you wish for.

i reckon bent will start the next game for us, he gave benteke a chance which he must have earned in training and with his goal. he just **** up 2 very good chances which after the match PL said one should have gone in and it could easily have changed the game. i'd read that, along with given being benched etc. as benteke will be back on the bench and see if a newly motivated bent can start scoring regularly again...

You've got to remember though that the mdfield yesterday was a change to try and match tottenham, so not the usual midfield. i don't think we're as badly off in midfield as all that and PL is managing to get decent performances from players that a lot of people had written off. i've really, really, liked how PL has us playing in the middle, well all through the team really, in the way we put pressure on the ball as a unit. it's not easy to do and a couple of the sucker punch goals we've conceded has been to do from holes being left from pressing the ball and other parts of the team not reacting and covering. it'll come though and we should be patient. whilst we're obviously not about to go on a 7 game winning streak with the fixtures we have, the two week break will do us good and i reckon we'll pick up the points we need and maybe shock a couple of the big teams we've got coming up...

good work much less late 90s feel to it good you've kept the fluid layout idea, maybe look at using some media tags or a diff css for when the browser is really narrow to shrink the profile images down. on the whole though massively more readable and much much easier on the eye in terms of how much info is presented in the space. everything is an improvement that you've done though, editors, layout, back end of user accounts etc looks way better. well done.

we'll be fine in the long run this season, we should have scored at least one today and did really well first half. another week it'll go for us. not sure we need a midfield destroyer either, we put pressure on the ball really well and look to be pretty good at getting it back and keeping it. less so today becuase PL didn't go with the narrow midfield to combat tottenham's width. to be fair untill they scored we looked pretty good away from home against a really good team.

Guzan: 7 Vlaar: 7 KEA: 7 Delph: 6 Bannan: 6 Agbonlahor: 6 Holman: 7 Lowton: 6 Ireland: 6 Benteke: 6 Albrighton: 6 Clark: 6 Bennett: 6 Bent: 6 Given: 6 Lichaj: 6 N'Zogbia: 5 where 10 is maradonna and 1 is your mom.

i'm optimistic we're showing signs of progress with every game, and i don't think we're anywhere near the level PL can reach with this group. i expect this month to be more of the same, some downs and some surprising ups too in to the bargain. we'll be a couple of places higher than we are now come the end of the month, then bring on the big guns coz we'll shock a couple of them!

looked good today, very good at times. on the booking though, he won the ball true enough. even as recently as 10-15 years ago that would have been classed as a great tackle. it's not 10 years ago though, it's now, and he caught the player after he'd won the ball with his studs up, if he'd gone in with both feet it was a red, even if he won the ball first. not saying it's right, but that's just how it is. so glad to see him looking like a player again. the PL effect seems to working well on a lot of our players that people were giving up hope on.

i think he's made given think hard, train hard and concentrate. the fact we aren't sure who will start is great and a good bit of management by PL. means we'll get a better given or a better guzan. either way, good stuff by the manager. same goes for gabby, if he starts and doesn't give a performance like tonight he knows he'll be on the bench for a while. i think it'll be bent and gabby if we go 2 up top. how great that we are rotating and keeping players hungry. looks like PL is a very very good manager in terms of competition for places. albrighton coming back will only help too. delph putting a good showing in the midfield helps here too. all looks good to me. we will be inconsistent whilst we are getting used to what PL wants to do and becuse we have a very very young squad. the future is looking good though. we haven't seen carruthers have a go yet either, or grealish or DJ. UTV.

cheers for that, followed it on the beeb on a phone in a restaurant up the road from here outside rome and NO-ONE could understand what i was so distraught and then excited about. fiorentina v juve was on int he place... so chuffed, we need to follow this with a win in the league but this is good. even a man city team with 10 changes in has quality all the way through it. we bossed the possession over 120 mins. something an AM side could only dream of. UTV.

bookies have us as narrow favourites. i'd like to think PL has a plan up his sleeve for swansea, we might be more direct than we have been although i'd love us to be making them chase shadows rather than us!

brings back memories! i remember it having a west ham corner and a gooners corner too. was great atmosphere in there fo rthe 3pms. eveyrone packing their wives off to the market down the road and watching the game. top pub. dunno if still there or not but the yucatan between dalston and stoke newington used to show all the games and just up from dalston the marquis of lansdown (if still called that) was another turkish/kurdish owned pub that used to show all the footy it could, serie a and spanish too.