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edit: wrong thread.

What a game. Newcastle look very solid this year. Something about their squad that our's is missing, I just can't put my finger on it (apart from the excellent CM pairing of course). Also Coloccini's distribution from the back is something our CB's should take not of, especially Collins. Totally calm, and not afraid to try adventurous passes.

Delph's passing isn't too bad, it's his first touch that's absolutely horrendous almost every time. I used to think it was because of where he was playing on the pitch, but these are basic things he's getting wrong. Even when he was out on the left for a short spell, it was the same thing.

Not exactly. Our last 2 games (well, 1.5) our attack looked quite poised. And Gabby wasn't even playing for half of our win against Blackburn. I get what you're trying to say, our manager is sort of average, and you'd like what appears to be a world beater. Frankly, I don't see how we'd ever attract one, but it's silly to knock people who are content with what we have at the moment.

Yeah, it's ridiculous. At least use a kipper for a change. Caught between trot and tout :oops: .

Wow, how wide of the mark can you be? Tactically limited, dour and uninspiring with an average managerial record. I couldnt give a crap who he managed before, or indeed manages after, I just want him out of the villa. For someone who speaks a lot about 'trouting the same lines', you seem to be doing the same with this 'tactically limited' stuff. Care to explain why he's such a bad manager? For what it's worth, I still think you'd be having a moan should someone with an 'excellent managerial record', who was absolutely exiting got off to a similar start to AM.

The only person I'd literally shed a tear if he was sold is wee Barry. Gabby, I'd just be really disappointed.

Except that Randy Lerner isn't exactly Sheikh Mansour.

So McLeish is just here to find another manager?

Or because the players chose to ignore AMcL's negative boring tactics and came up with their own. As ridiculous as this sounds, this sort of reasoning was actually used after the QPR game :shock: .

Actually, the word doing the rounds is that Eck had worked up a Three Stooges routine with Arteta, but the moody Spaniard didn't want to have his eyes poked at and wussed out.

Is it in the game against Azerbaijan? Edit: Nevermind, it was against Scotland...digging for highlights now.

Aguero and Balotelli injured, plus Villareal and United to face after us. I doubt we'd see a full strength City team. We should try to go for this one.

If we're going to go for it, I'd like to see us line up like this: ---------Gabby---Bent--------- Ireland------------------N'Zogbia -------Bannan-----Petrov--------- -------------Back 5-------------------- If not, I think we'll go with this: Gabby-----Bent------N'zogbia ------------Heskey------------- ------Delph------Petrov--------- ----------- Back 5---------------

This. I bet he's absolutely ecstatic that he might get to line up against Xavi and co. no matter the result.

He's twenty-one; give him a little more development time and he'll polish up. Frustratingly enough though, I reckon by the time he's in his mid-twenties and has become the sort of incisive, productive midfielder some of us think he can become, he'll be doing it at a club other than Villa. I'm not slating him, it's just a part of his game he needs to work on. Apart from that he's brilliant. Wee Barry, MOTM for Scotland yet again (imo).

Bannan playing great for Scotland. He needs to be less wasteful though.

Sorry but throwing Herd into the CM for this one is arguably one of the most random, crazy ideas I've ever seen on VT. Good work fella Isn't Herd a natural CM?

Anderson improved immensely this season. He always seemed to have the potential in previous seasons, but for some reason he had always looked average. This season he's probably one of the first names on the teamsheet, and has been consistent to boot. A pretty fair comparison to Delph imo. Something's holding him back, but the potential is still there, and you see it in bursts throughout a game.

He had a couple of brilliant (no that wasn't a typo) touches yesterday, the most memorable being the one for Warnock along the touchline. He made a couple of great late runs into the box as well, so this whole 'he's been playing shite' nonsense is overblown. He had a solid 6-6.5/10 game, and if anyone deserves to be criticized for their performance it's Hutton and Delph.

Who the **** voted for Hutton ?

Would love to see this against Wigan. ---Gabby-----Bent------N'Zogbia--- -------Ireland-------Bannan------- ---------------Jenas---------------- Some of the interplay between Bannan and Ireland was excellent against QPR, and I think Ireland deserves another start.

The first half we were absolutely terrible. Couldn't string more than 2 passes together. All we were doing was clearing the ball and hoping Gabby would be on the end of it. I posted this in the match thread during half-time. Wow. I tend to be one of the more optimistic supporters, but good grief what an embarrassing first 45. Granted the last 5 minutes showed more promise, but I think there is a real problem that needs to be addressed. The weird part is, as much as we like to think it's AM's tactics to just hoof the ball upfield from defence, I don't think that's the case. There was this one shot of AM absolutely incensed, yelling at the players to keep the ball on the floor. I think there are 2 problems here. 1 being James Collins. He's not confident enough to play a pass on the floor most of the time, and just ends up clearing the ball rather than chesting it down and keeping it. And 2, we don't have a midfielder who makes himself available to the defenders to pick the ball up from them. Since our defenders can't pick a pass to them, it's imperative that the midfielders make themselves available. This is another reason why I think it was a poor decision to let go of Makoun. He was that link from defence to attack, while also being creative. I feel bad for Delph because it isn't his game to play the deep lying midfielder who collects from the defence. He's looking quite poor because of it. We are crying out for a Tiote like player, and only then do I think we'll see the best of him. Second half we looked like a team who could actually play football. This was no doubt down to AM's team talk as we looked a completely different side. It also kinda buttresses the opinion that it isn't really AM's tactics that make us play the way we do. It's more down to the players. I think Petrov had his most solid game of the season. None of the annoying Petrov'isms today, just solid passing...looking to get forward most of the time. N'zogbia. Good grief. Nothing comes off for the lad. I think it's time he was dropped for Albrighton. Most of our promising attacks broke down at him. Oh and Ireland was good enough to get another start. That is all.

Wow. I tend to be one of the more optimistic supporters, but good grief what an embarrassing first 45. Granted the last 5 minutes showed more promise, but I think there is a real problem that needs to be addressed. The weird part is, as much as we like to think it's AM's tactics to just hoof the ball upfield from defence, I don't think that's the case. There was this one shot of AM absolutely incensed, yelling at the players to keep the ball on the floor. I think there are 2 problems here. 1 being James Collins. He's not confident enough to play a pass on the floor most of the time, and just ends up clearing the ball rather than chesting it down and keeping it. And 2, we don't have a midfielder who makes himself available to the defenders to pick the ball up from them. Since our defenders can't pick a pass to them, it's imperative that the midfielders make themselves available. This is another reason why I think it was a poor decision to let go of Makoun. He was that link from defence to attack, while also being creative. I feel bad for Delph because it isn't his game to play the deep lying midfielder who collects from the defence. He's looking quite poor because of it. We are crying out for a Tiote like player, and only then do I think we'll see the best of him. Sorry for the tl;dr btw.