Recircle

9 minutes ago, Kuwabatake Sanjuro said:

[W]hen things were not going well for Gerrard in his first 2 seasons at Rangers he would regularly throw his players under the bus rather than accept blame himself. 

Shaming players into performing better isn't very progressive management.

Yeah, I saw that, but didn't know what to make of it, because the loyalty of a fan and the loyalty of a player (which is more complex/ambiguous) can't be the same sort of loyalty.  I didn't think what he said was dumb, just too vaguely articulated.

1 minute ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

He thought he had the job but then realised we weren't interested. 
 

He strikes me as the sort who wouldn’t leave a team in the lurch mid-season, but if he could secure an interview I think he'd impress.  Taking Leipzig to runners-up and sixth place finishes in the Bundesliga surely trumps winning the SPL against a Celtic side listing like a torpedoed boat under Neil Lennon.  People cite the two 9-0 defeats, but Southampton had players sent off early in both of those (in the match against United, three of the goals against them came after they'd been reduced to nine).  Awful scorelines, yes, but with somewhat mitigating circumstances.  I think he's ready for the step-up in expectation that moving to Villa would bring.

Is Hasenhuttl still on the edge of the frame or has he ruled himself out?

8 hours ago, Mr_Dogg said:

Grealish shouldn't be commenting at all. 

If he hadn't, all the Grealish haters would've been condemning the self-centeredness or whatever of his silence .  They're always looking for an angle to condemn what he does or doesn't do.

9 minutes ago, WallisFrizz said:

Oh god, he’s got an interview hasnt he?

 

Looks as though it'll take place in a Neville Johnson furniture showroom.

21 minutes ago, hippo said:

Either way. I'm confident it won't be Gerrard.

I hope you're right. I might be wide of the mark, but I get the impression that Gerrard is closer to the Roy Keane school of motivation than the Arsene Wenger school.   I can't see quiet, intense characters like Buendia and Bailey (who are still bedding in) responding that positively to Stevie G's locker-door thumping '"THIS DOES NOT F***ING SLIP" calls to action. 

28 minutes ago, leemond2008 said:

Has anyone suggested the great Olof Mellberg yet? 

Olof's at the wheel? On second thoughts, perhaps not.

1 minute ago, DJ_Villain said:

What's your point?

That it was understandable and not unreasonable for him to leave when he did, and that those who will never have the sheer talent that causes them to have to make difficult choices like that (which would be most of us) shouldn't judge him too harshly.

6 hours ago, DJ_Villain said:

I’d argue he owed [Smith/Villa] at least one more season 

Some would've been saying "just one more season" to him over and over until he'd aged himself out of likely getting a chance to play in the Champions or Europa Leagues.  Footballers have to secure their reputations while they're still working, because unlike visual artists (whose work always exists in the present), once they've retired, the chance of them getting upgraded to 'historically significant player' on the back of people poring over old footage is pretty slim.  (Playing for a narrowly defeated team in a Champions League final or a World Cup or Euros final/semi-final trumps, profile-wise, playing for the winning team in a Championship play-off final - the 'Gazza's tears' WC semi-final effectively shows this.)

1 hour ago, AshVilla said:

Done himself no favours tbh.

Opened his villa account with a goal then decided to go on international duty at the circus in Brazil when everyone advised against it.

Been playing catchup ever since.

 

Wanting to play for your country is one of the more solid indicators of a player's drive and ambition (for one thing, it shows that they possess the urge to play high-level football without a bloated club pay-check acting as an incentive), and it's hard to think of a great player down the years who hasn't had the strong desire to turn out for his national team.  I'd be more bothered if Buendia didn't show this desire, regardless of how much of a tall-order achieving the goal might seem to others.

15 minutes ago, Zatman said:

He played the Championship which was as many midweek games 

That's true, and the games would've been physically very demanding.  But they wouldn't have drained him in terms of momentum and confidence, because of his natural playing level relative to that of a lot of Championship players (plus he was two or three years younger then).

19 minutes ago, Jareth said:

In the fours, is not good enough for [Grealish] - its looking like a really poor move on his part, driven by ego. 

It hasn't been a spectacular start for sure, but for it to seem an outright poor move, Villa have got to start doing the business with their half of 'the equation' and get moving back up the table (if Villa lose tomorrow and Leeds beat Norwich, the latter will draw level with Villa - and Watford - on points).

10 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

No!

Fair enough.  Are you going to reveal the source, so we can judge how substantive the claim is?

1 hour ago, foreveryoung said:

Rumour has it, Pep has give him a bit of dressing down about his lifestyle and to concentrate on his football. 

If that's based on an article that ran a few days ago in the Birmingham Mail, they've spun it a bit, since Guardiola's basically just pointing out that Grealish is having to adjust to the demands of playing Champions League matches midweek (" We spoke about [the new demands] and how he has to live when he's not here, with resting, sleeping.  What he's done so far is excellent..").  Doesn't particularly sound like a 'dressing down'; he's essentially saying: this is what 'stepping up' to the next level means and requires.

Didn't he pose for that photo session before the end of last season?

I still think he's forcing the foul a fair bit of the time.  He's just hard to dispossess, since he'll either happily advance towards a defender or 'hover', inviting the challenge, but in any case reducing a defender's operational space, which automatically makes any challenge look less controlled and considered.

One or two in here seem in a hurry to write off the City move as pointless/disappointing, but to be fair to Grealish he's still in the transitional phase.  This is a simplification, but I think Guardiola is currently proscribing Grealish's play a bit, putting a hold on the natural, free-roaming stuff, in order to turn him into a more altruistic and sacrificing player.  Once these other qualities have been added and become second nature, he'll allow Grealish's old instincts back into the mix, and what you'll then have is substantially the old player, but with a broader and more adaptable set of abilities; viz.: he'll be a more complete player.  

7 minutes ago, Tomaszk said:

Yes, I mean exactly that.

I don't expect booing to put him off his game but he does seem to want to remain in Villa fan's good books.

One of the most effective things Villa fans could do on the day is to 'kill him with kindness' - if they applauded or shouted genuine compliments when he went on a little run or pushed a nice pass through, it might make a bit of guilt well up in him and blunt his drive!

1 hour ago, Tomaszk said:

He's going to have to be the bigger man when he comes back to Villa Park. Because he's going to get it from some fans, he needs to accept that.

If we take the lead, he'll be getting it both barrels from everyone. Wouldn't be surprised if that riled him into doing something silly like the dafty he is.

Players with talent and self-confidence are well used to that sort of stuff; they expect it and often seem to use it to raise their game.  He's already said he's used to opposition fans singling him out,  and the noise of Villa fans booing him won't register any differently with him while he's focused on playing the match.  If Villa fans wanted to mess with his head, they'd probably do better to respond with tepid indifference whenever he's on the ball, but I imagine many won't be able to resist jeering and booing him. I think the bigger danger for him as a 'dafty' will be reacting will too much joy if he provides a couple of fine assists or nicks a goal, which would turn even the more mature and magnanimous Villa fans against him.

At one point against Leicester Grealish had snuck into a gap between defenders as Silva drove forward centrally with the ball, and was in the perfect position to collect a threaded through ball and fire a close-range shot, but Silva chose to hit-and-hope instead and Schmeichel made a fairly regulation save.  You could tell Grealish was annoyed, but he's not established enough at City yet to remonstrate with greedy teammates.  Watching him limiting himself to a disappointed little sag of the shoulders when he was clearly itching to have a moan at Silva was funny.

17 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

It's because he is good.

If he wasn't any good nobody would give a crap.

Opposition fans are scared of him.

Yep.  People mock and jeer what they fear.

1 minute ago, beachboys1 said:

what did smith call him

He apparently called Grealish "an encyclopaedia of football", or so an interviewer alleged in a Grealish interview that cropped up during the Euros.

10 minutes ago, nepal_villan said:

Given the fact he doesn't know what an encyclopedia is, I'm guessing the latter.
 

To cut him a bit of slack, I always took that reply ("I don't know what that means") to mean he didn't know what Dean Smith meant by calling him that, not that he didn't know what the word itself meant.

Wonder if he'll be wearing his Euro 2020 and Community Shield losing finalist's medals around his neck.