briny_ear

I think Graham Taylor announced his policy of more shots from anywhere on the pitch in the Birmingham Mail, so no dressing room secrets from me! The point was that his predecessor Gregory (allegedly) trained his players only to shoot when they were within close range of the goal and had a good chance of scoring.

Agreed. The shooting was largely abysmal. Somehow it reminded me of GT MkII - I remember when he came back he told the players to shoot on sight, with excruciating results.

Sounds like he needs to bulk up for added strength. P'raps should get some tips from Gabby...

Presumably all of them being either first or second in the league is a bit of a difference as well, no? I can see that might help a little. :wink:

Great. So three Villa lads who left to fulfil their dreams of CL football have tonight crashed out of the Europa League. Might as well have stayed put (apart from the crazy wages they are now on of course).

Unless things are being managed very badly indeed, agency staff should cost less because no down time (i.e. only employ them exactly when needed) no payroll costs and no long term employment commitments.

Good to see Ash getting his chance to live the European dream. Now I'd just like to see Citeh go down & my evening will be replete.

I think I've finally grasped the point of this thread. It is clearly part of a bet to see if Villatalk can be reduced to a laughing stock in a few short pages. Arguments I particularly like are: He looks crap on Youtube :confused: He won't be any good because people said Bradley would be good and he wasn't :confused: :confused: An Ajax fan says he isn't much good :confused: :confused: :confused: Congrats to romavillan and VillaAlex who just watched him actually play a game and saw he was quite good in very difficult circumstances. You do realise you're putting the bet at risk, though, don't you?

I think some people may have been unduly influenced by a youtube video that was made about his performance for Australia against Holland about 3 years ago, which picked out a number of errors, missed passes, etc. I have no idea how fair a representation this was of how he actually played in the game - as we should be all too aware things can be manipulated very easily on Youtube clips. Anyone interested in going to the Socceroos website can see how he has performed in more recent matches in Australia's World Cup qualifying campaign, where he has scored some good goals and made assists. Have a look at the home game to Oman in particular (the above link should lead to it).

Can't remember the exact calculation (I'm sure someone will quickly enlighten me since we seem to have a high level of accountants amongst the Villa faithful ) but don't you need to add around one third extra to salary for things like NI/pensions/HR costs? I think that might help the figures along towards the £83m. Also, as others have said, we employ vastly more staff than many other PL clubs - there was an interesting discussion a couple of years ago about how we compare with Spurs who have a much smaller payroll. I asked General K about this once but I don't think he understood the point.

Well, it's good of you to reveal your blind spot/prejudice with such clarity. That seems to put an end to the prospect of any reasonable discussion .

When a manager makes tactical substitutions it is usually to change the shape of play, and that does not necessarily mean taking off players who are perceived by the fans to be performing badly. Bringing on Weimann and taking off our only out and out winger would have been a bit dumb and also what we needed towards the end was effort - not something N'Zogbia was giving too much of. When fans boo substitutions in this way they often expose their own naivety and lack of understanding of the tactics the manager is trying. I don't really care about complete speculation about what the score could have been if N'Zogbia had stayed on. The fact is that the subs were made, they worked and we won. Credit has to go to McLeish for that however painful some fans might find it.

The poor innocent fool...

Where are you getting your stats from, Trent? The BBC web site tells a slightly different story. It's hard to argue that we didn't dominate this game and in the end got a deserved win.

On the substitutions, face it guys, it was Big Eck 10 fans 0 on the judgement front. When you sing to a manager, "You don't know what you're doing" there is always the risk I suppose that all 3 subs will combine to create an excellent winning goal and leave you with egg on your faces.

On Rodgers, I would say let's see how things look at the end of next season. No doubt he has done well this season but sometimes newly promoted clubs do that and then fade when the novelty wears off. I wonder if his mates Pep and Jose sent him messages of condolence when he left Reading in December 2009 with a 26% win rate & with the club 2 points away from the relegation zone?

The way he went for the ball when he scored on Saturday, you just knew he was going to score come what may. He has a real killer instinct in front of goal. I've just been watching the highlights of the Reserve game against Norwich and it was the same there. I really hope he can build on this and become a regular first team striker for us. We could be in for a treat if he can make it at premier league level.

Well said, JV. I don't think much to McLeish but he got things right on Saturday and it was a pleasing win we can surely all celebrate.

Agreed. And the classless McLeish is still criticising the fans on a false basis. He was not chastised by the Holte End for bringing on Weiman - most Villans have been crying out for him to get a chance and love to see our youth coming through - he was chastised for taking off the Zog who was our most creative, attacking and threatening player whilst leaving on Gabby and Albie who had both had poor games. McLeish knows this but chose to try and point score and I now detest him as a person (for this and similar pathetic interviews/comments over the last few months) as much as I dislike him as a manager. As I've already said in the match thread, I've only seen the Match First highlights and I suppose they could have edited out all the great football that N'Zogbia played. But as far as I could see he wasn't doing anything special. Ireland was having far more influence on the game and at least Gabby and Albrighton had shown they knew where the goal was.

Los moderadores no representan una amenaza, ya que han crecido fiesta hinchado y en posición supina sobre los frutos grasos de poder. ¡Viva la revolución! ¡Viva la estupidez! ¡Tengo una naranja! ¿Por favor, puede dirigir su yo a un hotel de 5 estrellas? Voy a la playa, y yo estoy tomando una bola de inflatible. ¿Por favor avisar al portero que no es la rana en mi bidé? Yo he vencido al profesor de robot y este es mi baile de la victoria. FFS, Gareth. I've just fought off an all-day hangover but you have made me laugh so much my head is throbbing again.

Agree with darrenm. Also, I think Albrighton was just trying harder. Thought N'Zogbia had some nice touches but he looked a bit half-baked and uncommitted to me. The reason we won was because we had some young players on the field who don't know when they're beaten and play their hearts out until the very last minute.

Pienso los mods se han algo de limpieza a hacer esta noche!

Well I don't think it mentions top 4 success, and there's no denying AM did win a cup, with an inferior club. Even if all he does is steady the ship and keep us safe in mid table, the point that it's making about getting off AM's back is a valid one. The word Messiah doesn't appear in the article anyway. I was probably misled by this bit If that's not saying McLeish can do better than MON and if "great things" doesn't mean a trophy and/or a top 4 place it's just badly written. Let's just settle for the fact that McLeish can keep the ship steady while RL slims down the wage bill to the level he now has the stomach for. Any temptation to generate support for McLeish by seeking to criticise the MON era, as I take this article to be doing, is divisive and pointless. Houllier tried that without much success. MON was trying to do what RL wanted during his three seasons with us but Lerner now wants something different, so there isn't much basis to compare.

Deliberate? Sadly not. :oops: Got a bit of a hangover.

Great article and well thought out as to why we are currently sitting where we are, and it is not because of McLeish. Unfortunately I'm not sure the McLeish haters would let the actual facts get in the way of their belief that he is the devil reincarnated! Is this really a "great article"? I may have misunderstood it but it seems to be arguing that MON wasn't the man to take Villa to Cup and top 4 success but Mcleish is the man to do it. This is completely deluded nonsense. While I don't go along with much of the anti-McLeish stuff that gets posted on here these days, there is very little evidence so far that he will do anything other than steady the ship and keep us safe in mid table. After last season's relegation scare I welcome that but I can't really see McLeish as the new Messiah who will lead us out of the trophy wilderness.