romavillan

Top manager who needs time to sort out the shite that villa have been in the last 2.5 years.

We have to stick with him and see this through come what may

totally, he sounds confident that if we stick to our guns in terms of what he's tryign to do with the playing staff then we'll start to turn this around. i'd go along with that, results have been really disappointing but we've shown signs that we could turn in to a good footballing side, which after last season is a **** miracle.

He's come into a mess of a club but he's not doing much to help himself at the moment.

This ridiculous diamond style midfield does not work.

martin jol sounded pretty scared by it, listen to his post match interviews. he felt he was forced into what coulg be considered a negative change to combat the numbers we had in midfield and especially ireland "always looking for space". he said he felt releived to get a win out of todays game too. doesn't sound that ridiculous to me to be honest, sounds like a massive improvement on last years woefull ineptitude in keeping the ball for more than 2 consecutive passes.

You might refer it to 'short termism.' I actually refer to it as building stability within a team which has struggled for two seasons now due to not having the right quality in the right positions for our team to be effective offensively and defensively. By then introducing lower league and inexperience into that equation could only add more indecision within the team and the squad as a whole and thats what we're getting at the moment.

Its actually a question of balance. We already had young players trying to find their feet in the first team such as Bannan, Weimann, Delph, Herd and so on and for me it was time to supplement those players with battle hardened Premiership quality rather than lower league and Premiership inexperienced players.

Diame was on a free and the others i have mentioned would have cost our budget but i do believe the majority would have been less concerned about our Premiership safety and my worry is that, if, our results continue to slide, will the confidence of the fans and players slide with it?

looks like you have no confidence already to me. there would have been zero value in going for established prem players, we tried that or have you forgotten? in order to attract them to villa you have to pay over the odds wages, especially now we aren't pushing for european places etc. give PL and his new signings some time to actually play a bit. westwood has palyed 45 mins or so ffs!

he's not listed on physio room, but i don't know if they're always accurate with what htey have online.

Seemed to play ok last night from what I saw. Admittedly I didn't see the whole game and there were a couple of the usual two-footed lunges but hopefully he might have caught someone's eye last night and he might be on a wish-list for some clubs January transfers.

jan would be a good time to movehim on when hopefully the buying club are a bit more desperate and we can get some better value.

Not strictly true seeing as he appointed them.

i meant MON with that as he received the massive funds, houllier and AM are totally his fault i agree and they oversaw the rapid decline but were left with progressively worse mess from the attempt to break the top 4.

Or Berbatov who was exactly the type of forward we needed to play in behind Bent. Or Jordan Rodes who in my very humble opinion has better potential than Benteke.

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.

Gosh when you mention all those names I realise just how poor our midfield is, really not prem quality in terms of the majority of our CM's. Still reserving judgement on KEA as he impressed me against Newcastle and Everton but has also been very ordinary in several others.

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'll give him a break when I thinks he deserves one.

He's run the club terribly and we're down where we were under Doug, I think our reputation is probably just as bad as when Doug was in charge.

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've been rubbish against spurs and against southampton 2nd half the only common denominator is Stephen Ireland was missing. We need him back desperate. He's the best midfielder. I know some people don't like him but he always plays the simple ball. When we get him fit again we'll pick up points.

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 think we are benching Bent to force his hand and request a transfer so we don't have to pay a loyalty fee to him or whatever it is. I don't mind, we have paid a lot of compo this past 2 seasons. He doesn't suit Lamberts tactics IMO but I worry who Lambert would bring in to replace him.

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!

Me three, top bloke really really engaging personality and a fabulous manager.

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.

Your right. Comparing to those is very unfair so for the purposes of demonstration I have included a couple of players playing at what id consider our level at the moment in similar positions (included Arteta for good measure). note these are per game average stats

Tackles Passes Dribbles

Schneiderlin (Southampton) 4.8 53.8 .2

Faurlin (QPR) 3.8 69.5 0

Granaro (QPR) 2.8 51.4 .8

Bradley Johnson (Norwich) 2.9 46.3 .9

Mikel leigertwood (Reading) 2.8 42.4 .1

James Mccarthy (Wigan) 3.1 52 .2

James McArther (Wigan) 3.7 56.8 .5

Nzonzi (stoke) 3.3 39 .3

Claudio Jacob (West Brom) 3.7 45.9 .1

Arteta (Arsenal) 4.6 94 1.7

Karim El Ahamidi (Aston Villa) 2.3 47.4 .4

The majority of the above are not from top tier teams. I feel for useful comparison we should compare him only against opposition players and not our own because the point im making is not that he isnt better than what we have, but that so far he hasn't been up to scratch. I see peoples point about allowing for time but based on the above, anyone that thinks hes been great so far needs to consider what similar opposition players are doing as these are who he is competing with on a weekly basis.

KEA has the worst tackling statistics versus all of the above. Missing the mark significantly. This highlights his defensive frailties i eluded to earlier. Has only marginally outscored 4 of the above on the passing stakes. Not what I expect to see from our great link man (delph actually outscores him on this and pass accuracy). He does outscore a number of dribbles but this isnt exactly what he is there for. The list above isn't exhaustive obviously but for me it highlights he hasnt been "great for us" is underperforming in line with his competitors and more is needed from him week in week out like everybody else.

Apologies for formatting, harder than expected

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!

The fact that we are getting run through midfield time and time again despite the fact that we have 3 players playing centrally in Delph, him and holman. He isnt a defensive midfielder. A defensive midfielder is Nigel De Jong, Essien, Makele. Cattermole is a better ball winner for gods sake. Hes a deep lying midfielder if anything at the moment except without the passing range of a Arteta, carrick, huddlestone or James McCarthy. Theres a massive difference between these two midfield positions.

He plays short 5 yard passes backwards, sideways and occasionally forwards. He never pings a ball to feet of Holman, Gabby or others to facilitate a quick break. Delph has clearly been told to sit deeper when hes started with him and the gap KEA is leaving between himself and Holman when we have the ball is far too large. If we break slowly with these 5 yard passes it gives opposition time to scurry back and get shape to defend, if this is the way hes going to play he needs to get higher up the pitch to support holman in attack as we become overrun in attack by their players who have retreated. Seen it time and time again and the move breaks down.

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?

Hope he sells up soon. We will never be more than mediocre with this plonker in charge!

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.