hippo

3 minutes ago, PaulMcGrath_5 said:

 

Feck me - bozzie with yellow teeth !

Where have the years gone.

32 minutes ago, nick76 said:

I have no issue with that, I just worry that our attacking play seems like we haven’t worked together, we aren’t clicking, continuing from last season.  I look at our talent and see creativity and forgetting hammer and tong, I would just like to see good play between the players, creating space, creating better/clear cut chances. I’m seeing similar things to last season attacking wise where there doesn’t seem to be a plan attacking wise apart from the basic.  I hope I see better over the coming games.

Agree.

I can't shift this idea from my head that relying on the full backs for width isn't going to work.

3 minutes ago, Tommo_b said:

Curious, what style of football do people want to see?

People complain that Brighton’s style is boring, Man City robotic, Burnley turgid.

I would guess people want Liverpools style? 
 

I enjoyed our football last season, but alas I was only watching on tv, might be different in the stands. 

Personally I want to see progression - I don't want to see us go a goal up and then see out the game. I d like to see a bit confidence that we can get a second or even 3rd goals.

We seemed to play within ourselves at times last season.

5 minutes ago, nick76 said:

Yeah I would say we are.  Maybe because our record was poor last season but we aren’t an exciting to watch at all at the moment.

The VP crowd didn't seem enthused last season. The atmosphere was terrible at times.

Tbf when a new manager comes in his first job is to tighten things up. Which Stevie G did - bit dissapointing we seemed to regress after that. Especially with 2 top notch players like Countinho and Digne added.

3 minutes ago, Woody1000 said:

See Hippo, this is totally sensible and fair.

Where has this guy been?

I'm always sensible. It's just taken you a while to grasp it

2 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

Fair play, as do I .

I was thinking about this last night but hesitant to post .

I was thinking that, with SG, we might not get the most expansive football or super fast progress, but a slower, more solid and disciplined slow ascent ,.plus hopefully a winning mentality.

More Chelsea and less Liverpool.

To be honest it's one of the reasons why I'm not really excited watching Chelsea play, as I think they are quite boring, but effective. ( Not a Chelsea fan obviously so no desire to Labour through)

You'll notice that, we don't tend to win or lose by large margins usually under him.

Hopefully that was partially due to personell and trying to grind out results though.

We have enough attacking talent to be able to wreak havoc to alot of back lines

 

Problem is that if you are a dour team - you have to be a winning team.

If it's all 1-0 0-0 0-1  - etc - it makes any  defeats less tolerable.

I'd be quite happy with 10th - but I would like a bit more panache 

8 minutes ago, nick76 said:

Yeah they’d already talked about that during the game.  It’s preseason training they overload players to improve fitness, they do it all the time in preseason, every year, every club, the tops clubs do.  Preseason is predominantly getting fitness to a high level while also bonding and players ideas, tactics and goals into the players.  This isn’t anything new!  Even at my substandard level of football when I used to play, in preseason we just ran and ran until we couldn’t run anymore, then we’d do sprint training drills and then more running, and then play a friendly games to get match fitness.

The attacking issues wasnt just down to fitness. I keep going back to the word cohesion, something we lack as an attacking force.  On top of that we were playing Brisbane Roar, not exactly the world class team of defenders.

Tbf he does have a point. You don't just overload and get fitter - your recovery is as important as well.

So imo if players were trained to overload on a day prior to a match - it would be unwise for them to go hammer and tong in a match the day after.

On 20/07/2022 at 16:03, maqroll said:

He's not a Gerrard signing and probably wouldn't have ever been a Gerrard signing, and because of this we can expect to see him on the bench more than we ever want to.

I think he will start. 

No knowing what will happen in the remaining pre season games - but if the first game were Saturday I think he be a nailed on starter.

8 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

One of the reasons I'm nowhere near as worried as some seem to be.

Whatever happens, we  are in a better position than we were previously.

Whether that be for this manager, or another.

Both on and off the pitch.

Is anybody really worried ?

We look to have made a couple of decent additions in key positions - with a high probability of more to come. We have some pretty easy fixtures to start 

Common consensus on here seems to think we will 10th or above which is acceptable.

Personally I just hope we are bit expansive and exciting to watch  

1 hour ago, Zatman said:

 is a difference between hoping he fails and expecting him to fail and I am in the latter

Depends what failure is. As I have said with the considerable backing of NSWE I'm expecting around 10th next season.

Success or failure is then in hands off the board judgement.

On 21/07/2022 at 17:56, Vive_La_Villa said:

They’ve recruited 2 so far. One got us promoted first time in asking, kept us up and a league cup final and then midtable. 

The second you are talking about as if it’s inevitable he will fail.

Where have I said that.

I'm saying if we finish 15th there's still a good chance he keeps his job.

How is that talking inevitable failure ? - I've said imo we will finish around 10th - and we will beat Bournemouth opening day.

Seems a bit of paronia on this thread .

(Don't think of a blue elephant!)

2 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

I find it unreal a championship club hasnt come in for AEG. He is very good at that level.

It's probably money. We were a big club in the championship. I don't see an equivalent sized club there right now.

31 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

Gerrard saying the squads bloated and then need players out the door. Those players have been spoken to. You would imagine guilbert, el ghazi, hause, JPB, and possibly traore are those that gerrard is alluding to

So sell before we buy.  Can't see many takers for the above players tbh.

19 minutes ago, tomsky_11 said:

Our opening 10 games of last season saw 18 personnel changes to the starting line ups and only two ever present players, with a switch from 4 to 3 at the back, and then back again. Injuries, covid and suspensions were the main causes of this.

Compare that to the previous season and the amazing start we had: 6 changes total in just two positions, nine ever present players and a consistent formation.

These things make a difference. See West Ham last season. Great start, in which they rarely had to move from their first choice xi. A few key injuries at the back and there results had a significant drop off.

Fair enough.

I was only talking the Gerrard era.

Oh and covid is still a thing. 

4 minutes ago, tomsky_11 said:

Lol what does this even mean? Please, tell me how it works and how our results under Smith are in any way reflective of Gerrard?

I haven't said that.

Most scorelines in the PL  are the prem are tight. Because we narrowly lost 7 selected matches last season doesn't mean we will win them this season. 

Some players will step up this season and have a great season - others will fail to hit the heights of last season.

Imo we got off pretty lightly with injuries last season. Again imo 2 of the most injured players (Bailey + Traroe) were unlikely to feature in Gerrards full back width driven system anyway.

Gerrard has been here 8 or 9 months now. In that time he will have accumulated many hours on the training pitch with the players - again imo the extra 4/5 weeks in July / Aug  arent likely to be significant.

You have to average things out - for every new player that's hits the ground running - there will be one that's a takes a while longer.

So yeah I'm hoping for improvement - but so are fans and head coaches of other clubs.

Every club is trying to make improvements for next season - not just villa. It's an incredibly competitive division.

4 minutes ago, tomsky_11 said:

Oh come on, you can't seriously think these are reasonable and comparative arguments. We're talking about how this team has performed under Gerrard but let's throw in 7 losses under different management and with all the other issues at the time. Or taking a smaller isolated sample of results under Gerrard and suggest that's more reflective than his entire tenure to date, because a smaller data set is obviously more use than a larger one? That's basically like me going "Gerrard's first 11 games? 17 points. 58 over a season. 7th nailed on."

Do you have any idea how modern football works ?

You seem to get your 'knowledge' from a Roy of the Rovers comic lol

1 minute ago, tomsky_11 said:

In that list of games posted above there's at least 3 or 4 that changed for the worse following late subs. And even if that wasn't the case, the point that we are improved by having better squad depth is surely still valid?

This is clearly referring to the six months or so of playing under Gerrard last season, and now further dedicated time with existing and new players alike to build on that. I obviously didn't use enough words to make the point...

As in hopefully this season we won't have the multiple availability issues we had last season, especially like at the start of the season under Smith.

Even if the results stay on par with last season we are looking at around 9th. And the gap to at least 7th isn't a big one from there. For me we've done enough already with the signings we've made to be in with a good shot of bridging that gap, while no other teams we will be competing with in that part of the table have done more so far. If we can build on last season's positives and avoid any major negatives eg. injury issues, losing key players just before the season, then 7th is gettable.

Let's wait and see.

Hope we don't get all those injuries that we got last season - that was awful

So it looks like the daily mail get there girl.

Frightening the power the media have.

18 minutes ago, tomsky_11 said:

Plenty that I've already mentioned. For a start, player for player we'll be better than last season. Expect Kamara to be huge for us. Carlos also. We should have even better control of games because of those two. Improved depth in squad as well, less likely to see late collapses if we've got more suitable bench options. We've still got over a month of the window left and I don't expect we're done signing yet.

Beyond that, key retained players have got six months in Gerrard's system to build on, a full preseason to work with now, last season's signings being more settled (Bailey already looking more lively in preseason), Ramsey progression and then hopefully a bit more luck with injuries, in game decisions, etc. because definitely didn't feel we had the rub of the green very often last season.

I really think you are getting carried away with a load of words.

I m sure someone posted on here - we didn't have that many late collapses last season.

AFAIK - Pre Season started Early July - so the players have an extra 4 or 5 weeks getting to grips with Gerrards system - not six months.

Luck with Injuries ? - You mean bailey and Traroe stay fit ? (more of a problem would be fitting those players into a system where full backs provide width)

Don't get me wrong Im not expecting us to flop next season - 10TH would be reasonable IMO.

But Im not expecting a massive uptick in results .

It's prep for the opening PL games. 

Gilbert and Sanson very unlikely to be involved. Don't get the mystery to be honest.

11 minutes ago, villa82 said:

Need to sell some players soon. 23 players in action today. We also have a team like this:

——————-Steer————

Guilber, Feeny, Hause, Young

————-Nakamba——————

—-Sanson———CC

JPB———————-El Ghazi

—————Davis———————

problem is you can't force sales. there has to be a willing buyer and the player must want to move.

9 minutes ago, duke313 said:

Difficult situation for SG, who do you drop? the biggest name in the team and mate, or the teams record signing and (probably) best player?

Yep Friendship and big name reputation v a player who nearly always produces the goods on the pitch. 

1 hour ago, tomsky_11 said:

This is just a list of results that entirely ignores how these games actually went. All the defeats bar Wolves were top 7 teams. And all bar Arsenal were close.

West Ham - At least even for 70 mins until a change of shape and the Yarmalenko goal, more shots, more possession, some exceptional Fabianski saves.

Wolves - individual errors for goals (multiple players falling over, own goal), more shots, more possession, exceptional late save from Sa.

Spurs - Should have been two or three ahead at half time but for poor finishing and Lloris having incredible game. That second half doesn't happen with Kamara and Carlos in the team.

Leicester - We set up for counter attacking. Leicester barely had a sniff. We were only team that looked like winning this one.

Burnley - a penalty and world class Pope saves got them a point. We were otherwise completely dominant against team still fighting for something.

Liverpool and Man City - one goal defeats against two of the best sides in the world, both chasing for the title, where we threaten both and both argueably turned following late, not like-for-like substitutions.

Even if that is true - what makes you think we are going to be on the other side of those fine margins next season ?

1 minute ago, Tomaszk said:

Hmm.

Doing that thing when we play with midfielders as full backs, full backs as wingers and one player in midfield.

Shame.

yeah - what could possibly go wrong

2 minutes ago, CarryOnVilla said:

So that half was like the entire of last season?

Pinned back to taking pot shots from outside the box and if we do manage creat a decent chance we fluff it up… 

A half break or even a quarter break catches the whole team off guard and we are struggling to defend.

 

It almost sounds like the pre season hasn't transformed us