peterw

why people bother. I mean. really.

Had plenty of chances and never took them. he just didn't 'kick-on'. Good luck but not god enough for where we want to be.

I'm not sure how he is justifying any criticism since the games restarted. teams have noticeable targeted the left side, not because of Targett but because he often is exposed due to out attacking usually coming down the left leaving gaps. He was excellent against Chelsea and was often 2 against one. newcastle pulled the same tactic out but we coped with it better because they didn't have the Chelsea players to expose  it. 

yes targett and Jack combine brilliantly down the left but its also a weakness. Targett has been one of our better players in the last 3 games and wins a phenomenal amount of balls in the air. 

agreed. the two players who have really stood out have been targett and Luiz. i think hause also deserves plaudits for his defending. Goal against Newcastle aside...

Whereas it is correct that technical players may not stand out in the lower leagues, players also tend to have longer on the ball than they do in the Prem.

10 hours ago, Keyblade said:

Saint Maximin had him on toast. Midtable version of Bale vs Maicon out there. He's a good player though.

Not really - Maximin had a 20 minute spell where he was unplayable. other than that I think Targett, and Luiz, marshalled him well.

18 hours ago, Junxs said:

I've already mentioned the players who I thought were good enough when we got relegated, but you're not accepting them. You really need to specify what you class as a youth player, seems as soon as they've played for the first team they no longer qualify as youth players in your book? 

I know we bought Traore, but he was a teenager when we bought him and made his full professional debut whilst here, you could argue 90% of youth players are brought in from somewhere, do you class Barry as a youth player for us? (both of them). Gary Cahill was brought in from AFC Dronfield, does he count as "our" youth player?

Not sure how else to explain it to you. A youth player that we let go. Not sold on, not that was in and around the first team, just let go. Released. Didn't want anymore. Didn't think would make it as a first team player with us. I've said it 3 times now.

konsa was picked against Sheff U to counter their height at set-pieces, I presume against Chelsea it was simply to allow us to sit in. given that we will more then lokely have more space v Newcastle I'd expect Guilbert or Elmo to start.

then no.

4 minutes ago, Junxs said:

I was replying the the bit in bold where you said you couldnt think of one, still not sure I agree with your view of when a youth player is no longer a youth player. We let Albrighton and Traore go before they were established first team players but you disagree on that either way Albrighton still came through our academy. I think if you look at the top 2 divisions and see how many came through the academy from Villa there's a decent amount.

Well on a thread about a youth player that can't break through to the first-team and is being cut; and I would have thought my view of what is and isn't a youth player is pretty universal. Otherwise all players are just youth players that are now in first teams. Albrighton was in the first-team squad every week and played regularly, Traore was bought.

I think you misunderstand my point, its not about academy players coming through, but those that we have cut that have come back to bite us on the ar*e for having done so, by making it big elsewhere. That we have cut players who are mostly plying their trade in the Championship and below demonstrates my point. How many would you want back?

Its also the problem have having Konsa at right back. He will provide nothing going forward so the onus is on Targett to try and get forward and Chelsea did try and target that space. That said both goals come from Konsa's side.

I think it would be better to play against a team ceding possession and ground to us. That way we'd have Jack on the ball in positions we'd like to see him. He alone is better than anything that Newcastle have, and if McGinn can get some more legs into his game we'd be a totally different proposition than seen in the last couple of games.

1 minute ago, The_Steve said:

Just another product of mismanaging youth, loan him out years earlier and if he's not developing, cut him. He's 22 and barely played any football until his loan with Coventry, I do feel bad for him. A clean break is good.

22 and just touched the fringes at Villa. Not deemed good enough so let go. if he was 19 or 20 we'd keep, but we have plenty a few years younger that are at the same level or progressing better by all accounts. Under Lerner/O'Neill the academy were criticised for stockpiling youth/reserves just to win things rather than helping them progress into the first-team. I see nothing wrong with the current philosophy of giving them targets of when they should have reached our first team squad regularly before they are cut.

Just now, Junxs said:

Albrighton? Traore? depending on how far back you are going.. Cahill? Sturridge?

There were plenty that could have done a job in the championship too, Callum Robinson, Jordan Graham looked really good at Wolves until the horrific injury. Jonathon Hogg helped Huddersfield get promoted and stayed in the team the following year in the prem, could have saved money spent on Jedinak and Whelan. Ciaran Clark promoted with Newcastle, likewise Joe Bennett with Cardiff. 

Albrighton was already an established first-teamer, and Traore (also a first-team player) wanted to go so not comparable to a youth-player not in the first-team squad. Clark also. A for your Hogg's and Bennett's (again, Bennett was bought and in the first-team, just deemed not good enough) where are they now? As I said, there always players who can find a club that will find a role for them, none of the clubs/players you have mentioned have hardly showed up our youth coaching and policy though.

1 minute ago, TRO said:

It seems contradictory to progress, and development and players settling in.....when we are better in the early periods of the season.

we should be better now, if settling in and acclimatisation is a legitimate claim.

most teams are always in a state of flux, its a part of the game, its dynamic, not static.

I think we make too many excuses, to keep ourselves on side....some hometruths are needed for us to improve.

Undeniably Wesley was getting better before his injury, at Burnley, for the first time we actually looked like a team and looked like we could be a very good team. Settling in doesn't just happen overnight - it took Bergkamp something like 2/3 months before his first league goal for Arsenal for example. it doesn't happen overnight even for the best. The other thing to bear in mind that in almost all positions we were looking to bring in young players who we identified as those that would develop. The signings of Luiz, Wesley, Engels (to a degree), Heaton were heralded with some fanfare as it showed that we looked like we had a plan and meant business.

Sadly, for one reason or another it has hit the buffers from January onwards. Sometimes its difficult to fix a slide and not easy when you are chopping and changing as players lose form. I'd put it down to a mixture of circumstance, the players, and Smith's inability to raise them. i don't think that is justification to sack him though.

Mom?

He only allows space because he gets pulled in, its down to jack to cover that space, too. Which in itself is the problem. jack should be further up the field and not doing the donkey work at the back. 

5 minutes ago, TRO said:

You would not of got away with that claim at the start of the season. They would have laughed at you.

just tell me what team can afford to spend £140 million to stabilise in coming up, that was a god send....we just puffed it up in smoke.

The euphoria was massive, when we come up, no mention of poor foundations....only Tammy was the real blow in losing and we thought we had found his replacement, supported by how quick out the trap we was to sign him.

If we keep failing to get solid players in, we will continue to have this level of turnover of players....its not  one poor summer, its been happening in previous seasons, too.

We didn't come up too soon.....The squad is so thin on the type of players, who can help us stay in this league....that is the real problem.

Its foresight, judgement and organisation.....that is lacking.

In their joint interview at the start of the season Purslow and Smith both said they were planning for promotion this season and if anything we went up a season early. 

The quote states that he hasn't had a recent offer, not that we hadn't discussed anything with him at anytime. he does like tidy and Cov fans rate him, but only for the level he is currently at. If we do go down next season i wouldn't be turning to O'Hare. He, and the others mentioned (Doyle-Hayes, Hepburn-Murphy) have had plenty of time to show they can break through at Villa but haven't. not many players have come back to bite us on their arse when we let them go, I'm struggling to think of one. Some get released and slide down the pyramid, some find a home where they can fit into a system (hogg/stevens/robinson), but there are none who we've let go who have exposed our youth academy.

26 minutes ago, TRO said:

They wasn't established when they came up.....based on your comments, teams just book a one season ticket and disappear down their hole.....rubbish.

The plan should be, you come up like Wolves and Sheff Utd and build on it.....based on solid foundations.

We have well and truly cocked up and based our model on sand as opposed to concrete.....we have simply blown it.

The philosophies of Villa and Norwich have proved to be fanciful.

Hardly fanciful. The planning, or philosophy if you prefer, was for us to build last season and push on this season with a more solid foundation. Winning ten games on the bounce, although welcome, gave us the momentum to go up. We went up without the solid base needed - the spine was a - 3rd choice keeper/on loan central defenders/McGinn/and an on loan forward. Through jack into the mix and that's what we had. 

Most sides going up have that solid base and were it not for Solskjaer hedging his bets and Chelsea's transfer ban it is likely that we would have kept hold of Tuanzebe and Abraham. We didn't and we had to go out and re-build in 6 weeks and try to get them working as a team. Up to Christmas it seemed to be working fine but then we fell off a cliff figuratively and we are struggling to get back on top of it.

If buts and maybes and we'll never know how much losing Heaton/McGinn/Wesley hurt us but I'm guessing when you're trying to build and build a 'philosophy' it doesn't help. We may need to go down to keep building and to come back stronger. it as happened before and I expect that's what will happen this time.Should Smith go? Maybe, but I'm not sure who could come in to realistically change it. Plenty of names are bandied about but we should try and and remain as calm as possible. If Smith goes its likely that Terry will take over in the interim unless someone is lined-up, and a top coach won't come in before the end of the season just to see where we end up.

Which leaves us with the usual candidates that may keep us up/ may not. But one thing for sure is that they'd impose their philosophy. In the space of 3-4 weeks or so. I'd stick.

Huh huh. You said fingered.

3 hours ago, villalad21 said:

Why not Elmo? He has got a good cross in him 

Probably for the extra height at set-pieces, at both ends.

The quandary is that he is a very good defender. However, his passing is very lazy at times and we get caught out by it. I don't recall him taking the responsibility on himself to find a forward player down the channels with a long-pass. I also thought he should have done a lot better with his 4 (I think) chances at corners. I like Hause because I think he plays better than he other centre-halves when he's there, but those errors hurt us, and him. But he was preferred to Engels so unlikely to see him dropped.

3 hours ago, villalad21 said:

Spent 140 mill on a Championship side.

Really hurts my heart. The waste

Have you only been supporting us for a couple of months or on the wind-up? Considering around 30m was spent on making loanees full-time players, and having to replace Tuanzebe & Abraham what else we were going to do the squad was woefully light all over for the premier League and we had to spend to try and create a team in the space of around 6-8 weeks. Had we not have done it we'd be bottom with 5 points and then you'd be claiming we should have at least to have had a go at it and spent some money.

Looking at the shte side that went down in 2016 if we hadn't been so bad Gueye, Amavi, Veretout, J Ayew,  may have become the players they are now but for a vibrant Villa. i have the same feeling that relegation in this year will see us in around 3 years wishing we had have stayed up and seen the best of Engels, Luiz, Wesley and maybe even Nakamba.

Dave. in accounts. Such a dick.