Con

Randy at the half-time teamtawk told him he was doing fine and to pick himself up and go again. That would have been inspiring to be told that, that would. we should keep the towel. useful addition to the squad.

I was thinking of the wheel of karma. You remember the "Sob on the Tyne" banner when we last relegated Newcastle? It's now their turn to relegate us.

"It's a big wheel and it always turns. No fan can be hurting more than me and we must win them back. No matter what happens, we must stick together." - PL What's up with the big wheels? Cryptic message?

If we did not concede the most opportunities on goal in the PL we would stand a better chance of winning games because while those defensive stats are not good, there are a number of clubs much worse than us. Our keeper could be doing better but is not the worst. Players are putting their bodies on the line to stop the shots before they reach him. Main problem is the sheer number of shots we have allowed the opposition to take on our goal. IMO this is caused by low possession % (always on the defence) and bad defensive organisation. I have another table below. This one indicates that the players work hard to close down shots on goal (long shots conceded not the worst) and that we don't concede a ridiculous number of goals from headers (not in the bottom five). We're actually one of the strongest teams in the air. We have conceded the majority of goals from inside the penalty area: which points toward bad defensive organisation. Also - as everyone knows - the statistics show we are weak at tackling. That cannot help our possession %. So, I think all these statistics so far point to where our problems are: 1. Lack of possession, because: a ) We do not tackle enough b ) Defenders do not pass to the midfielders enough 2. Lack of defensive organisation. a ) We concede a relatively high amount of goals inside the penalty box b ) Though we are strong at heading we are not organised enough for the "second phase"

Okay, let's move on to a different selection of statistics. I'll comment on it later. What do you think? Don't respond with just "we're shit" anyone can say that. Try and analyse it somewhat.

Here's long ball accuracy for the defence. Dire. Clark: 51% (78) Vlaar: 48% (86) Lowton: 49% (103) Baker: 58% (41) Herd: 35% (40) Bennett: 38% (31) Stevens: 36% (14) Lichaj: 24% (17) El Ahmadi is the team's best long ball kicker at 82% (24) Bannan has kicked the most long balls 65% (130) Error - get your facepalm gifs. out I deserve at least 1 midfield has kicked 40% long balls. when calculating the percentage I accidentally used total midfield crosses not total midfield long balls. The figure for the defence was correct. They have kicked 52% of our long balls. This is still far too many, but the midfield have only kicked 3% and 9% fewer long balls than their counterparts at Man Utd and West Brom. This suggests that the defence do kick too many long balls and the midfield should kick more of them (so the defence should pass to the midfield more often), but that it's not as dramatic as before the error. The analysis stays the same but it becomes less important.

Clearances are not counted as a long pass. I don't put a negative spin on good statistics. I interpret them in the most simple way possible. You have to do this because it's impossible not to assume things when drawing conclusions. If you want to put a negative conclusion on good statistics, it inevitably requires a tortuous, convoluted argument i.e. about every pass must be a hospital balll. I could fire back to you the reason the midfield play hospital balls, as you suggest (I don't believe they do), is because of lack of movement among the defence. We can make a tower of cards out of the assumptions used to put a negative spin on good statistics. That is why I would prefer to treat the statistics as they are, interpret them in the most simple way, and apply this rule equally. If I want to know why the defence don't pass to the midfield enough I'd look for other statistics to support a different interpretation to mine (they're trying too hard to do everything themselves). So - Westwood is as good as Sidwell, Sandro, Carrick at passing, long balls and crosses. No negative spin needed. If we had Sidwell, Sandro, Carrick in our team this year instead of Westwood, in terms of passing, crossing and long balls it wouldn't have made any difference to points on the board (I realise defensive stats may differ, which can affect shots at our goal, but this doesn't explain why our defenders don't pass to the midfield when we have the ball).

When we are on the attack and the defence is near the middle circle, it shouldn't be difficult to find one of our CMs. I don't think their movement is that bad. They're not hiding. If the defence cannot immediately find a CM should play keep ball until one appears. No great rush. No, I don't think it would. There is a separate column for crosses. It wouldn't go under both columns so it would have been a cross. Midfield is not completely blameless. They should demand more. Ultimately this is the responsibility of the manager. I agree it's happened less but has happened more recently as the defence has started to panic. A passing game requires that our defence remains calm and passes on the responsibility of the attack to the midfield. After Bannan was subbed, the way we played in the second half wouldn't have beaten a pub team. No organisation, just retardedly hoofing it "in the mixer". I'm convinced the players are better than that. The midfield has had to take pretty much all the criticism so far this season. Weak and bullied and "Championship class" is the mantra. There is some truth in the fact we need a stronger defensive-capable midfield option, but otherwise the stats show our midfield is Premiership class. All of them. Westwood, the 22 year-old playing League Two football last year, has posted the same passing, crossing, long ball stats as Sidwell, Carrick and Sandro. I'm not going to take seriously anyone who claims he is a Championship player. If we had more possession, and more attacks, I think our midfielders would have more assists and goals, although N'Zogbia and Ireland are our more attacking midfielders, so I'd expect production from them before Delph, Bannan and Westwood.

I think you're right. The defenders are concious of conceding goals and want to make amends. They want to right their wrongs themselves, by personally making the attacking ball. They've got to stop doing that. It's a team game. The midfield services the attack, not the defence. That can't be true. Only 27% of our long balls come from the CMs, 52% come from the defence. At Man Utd and West Brom midfield contributes between 40-50% of long balls, so either our midfield is not hitting enough long balls or the defence is hitting too many. It's the latter. You want your midfielders to be hitting the long balls, because they are more accurate passers. Lowton and Bennett have dreadful long passing and crossing statistics compared to our midfield. They are classic ball hogs who try to do everything themselves, and end up messing up. Yep, I know that. Most grounds are similar in size though. The long ball doesn't require a team. It doesn't require much organisation. Get it in there. If you miss it the first time, get the rebound and hit it in. This is what our defence has resorted to so they can feel like they're doing something useful rather than conceding goals all the time. No imagination, which is why they should not be in charge of the attack. Not much point training passing and movement if the defenders by-pass the midfielders with long diagonals to Benteke or hoofs from CB to the same place.

Very interesting question. Don't have that stat directly. Closest we could get to it could be number of defensive blocks plus goals conceded. What do the defenders do when "blocking", if not blocking a shot on goal? Villa have made 104 blocks, over 23 games, and conceded 44 goals. That's 6.4 shots per game. WBA 94 blocks and conceded 32 goals over same period. That's 5.5 shots per game. To take another team at random, Tottenham 55 blocks and 28 shots, 3.6 shots per game. http://www.squawka.com/teams/aston-villa/stats What are your thoughts on this? I will make a table out of this "shots" data.

1. We have low crosses per game because we have low possession, low advanced possession in the final third. One reason for that is the defenders keep losing the ball before our midfield can build up a patient attacking move. 2. Exactly what I said. Our defenders. They hit 52% of them. View table at start of thread. Midfielders only hit 27% of them. 3. If the defence passed short into midfield more often, and were more disciplined and kicked the ball long less, that would be a start. These reasons support my arguments the defence is to blame for the defence and especially the attack.

Don't have that data. I can tell you we have conceded 18% (8) of our goals to headers, whereas WBA have conceded 9.4% (3) to headers. For comparison, Swansea have conceded 37%, (10) and Newcastle 29% (12) of their goals to headers, so we are not the worst at defending high balls into the box. Surprisingly set piece specialists Stoke have conceded 26% (7) of their goals to headers. So maybe our set piece defending, although dire, is not actually the most pressing aspect of our defending to work on at this time? There are gaps everywhere... Don't know. I don't understand you... could you explain this?

Nothing wrong with being mad is there? Prejudiced? True-ish. Buy better players, things would be a lot easier. But there are always things you can do to make good players play better. And winning is not just about great individual performances, it's team effort. Swansea are the epitome of that. Even their ballboys take one for the team. BTW if that wasn't true you couldn't improve players, you wouldn't need football managers. If he didn't score any goals despite having all of that... he would be a bad striker. Ultimately statistics are the baseline for judging players. What other baseline is there? Astrological sign? There was once a French national football coach who picked teams based on star signs. Maybe there is something to it. You can widen the goalposts. You can keep increasing the number of areas the players need to perform in until they fail and you are proved right because in the end none of them are Steven Gerrard. We don't have Ultimate Midfielders. Uber CMs. No we don't. Not claiming they are and not saying I wouldn't want to buy them. My point was simply that they are Premiership level players. Domination - how meaningful is this concept if you don't refer to a statistic? I would call high possession % "domination" but as I've said, if your defenders waste possession by hoofing it long over the midfield, there's not much the midfield can do about it. I've attempted to provide an explanation for our bad scoring and defending statistics. It's the defence. They have been trying to take over the responsibility to attack with their bad skills from our more skillful midfielders, and do not concentrate enough on their primary job in defence, such as at set pieces.

He was far back because that was where the space was. Bradford was defending very deep. It wouldn't have been sensible to stand in the middle of a group of their players. He probably wouldn't have been given the ball if he did that either. When you say "get up the pitch" you are not describing something in his job description, at least that game. Bradford were sitting deep. We should have passed around the sides more to get in behind (or more corners) but the players were often too impatient and kept lobbing over diagonal balls - only from much closer-in than they were lobbing them in the second half, after Bannan was subbed.

You are describing what he did in the first 45 minutes. He was mostly invisible because he was doing his job, receiving, distributing. We created 7 chances in the first half and had we 7 chances in the second, we might have won the game.

Yes, Clark is in that mould. But they should be paired with a traditional defender (IMO). Rio Ferdinand is a playmaking centre half. A superb passer. However, he usually passes the ball to one of the midfielders for them to kick the attacking ball. They should not literally try to be the teams primary playmaker, they use their skill to find the midfielder. You need one of the CBs to have ball skill so you don't end up with two Collins, Huths or Ivanovic's doing a dumb and dumber act. That would be interesting, no I don't have that stat. Someone tell me if they find it anywhere.

No, I didn't say there wasn't a better passer. He is currently the best crosser in the Premier League, on that list, and among all other players with a large enough sample size. This could change over the rest of the season, but that is how it stands now. I wouldn't say that. They're playing different positions which affects the passing data. The table I presented compares players playing roughly the same position. There is a higher difficulty level passing in the CM than at CB, so you cannot directly compare this statistic. CM is usally surrounded by opposition players on all four sides - opposition wing, midfielders and strikers. CB usually only has to face an opposition striker when they pass. You can, however, compare the long ball and crossing passing statistic between players because this is an attacking ball, rather than a normal passing ball.

He said we'd pick ourselves up and go again.

It's not insane, it's the facts. A lot of CMs in the PL pass and cross better than Lampard. The only reason we think Lampard is a better passer and crosser than lesser-known X is reputation. What makes Lampard better is his experience and goal-scoring threat. This makes him the more effective midfielder despite his lower passing and crossing ability. Fortunately for the Chelsea team there are other great passers around him so that doesn't become a liability.

Clark cannot do and should not be trusted to do the job of a midfielder. It's not as though you are describing a new position in football. There are deep lying playmakers at other teams, including the top teams. I keep making the same point. Leon Britton is lighter and shorter. No assists. Hardly misses a match for Swansea. No, Bannan is not exactly the same game. Point is, doesn't matter what size they are if they fit in with the rest of the team.

I didn't understand your point. I'm not comparing him to Baines, who is a LB. Baines is not even on the list. I'm also not suggesting our midfielders are better than Lampard. However, they are currently better at passing and crossing than Lampard. Lampard gets in the Chelsea team because he's a goal threat. Didn't have that he wouldn't play.

They're not capable of simple passes. If you leave the skill work to your defence you are asking for trouble.

The back line is molly-coddled by the fans. They are the problem in the defence and the attack, because they don't provide support for the midfield - whether Bannan is playing or when he is not playing and someone else is. The statistics show the midfield is Premiership quality. Not the best in the league of course, and could use another player, but to focus on the midfield is to miss the real problem. We need a DM. Nobody is even debating this. Doesn't mean we can't judge the existing players on their own non-DM qualities. When you do that, they're good players.

All Darren Bent does is side foot the ball from 5 yards into the net. Your nan could do that too. If you look at the above table, there are a lot of players on 1 assist. There is an element of luck in registering an assist. Key passes stat is more revealing of a player's creativity. Look at the numbers of Gerrard and Carzola.

This table may surprise you. He's not the worst player in the Premier League. With these stats he could get into another squad higher up the PL table. Ignore reputations, or lack thereof in Bannan's case.