largelugs

Not quite that young but one to watch is 23 year old Garry Bocaly, who currently plays RB for Monpellier..He has played all 6 games so far this season and already has 2 assists..Makes you wonder why we bought Hutton, with players like this on the circuit.

makes you wonder how great Deschamps is if he released him from Marseille

Thou shall not question thy water carrier!!!

:shock: :shock: :shock:

His successful start to the season is all he needs to be judged on

I'd play a strong side, rest any carrying knocks like Warnock, Petrov and Bent, after that play as strong as possible, and use it to drop any that are seriously underperforming, ie N.Zog at the moment. Might use it as a chance to use more attacking tactics to try and build on the solidness so far.

Given (seems to have got over initial injuries, if still niggling, rest)

Hutton Dunne Collins Baker (presuming Clark is not fit)

Jenas (if not, Gardner/Johnson) Delph

Albrighton Ireland Bannan

Gabby

Bench N'Zog, Delfounso, Herd (if fit), anybody else who is hanging around before kick off.

Petrov, Warnock, Bent all carrying injuries, got to look after them, the squad is too small to take risks.

He's got a groin injury, rest him for gods sake and give him time to recover instead of making it worse!

According to McLeish, he had an injection at half time and he was surprised he made it out at all.

Some will still say he's half arsed though.

Let''s forgive Cahill for cheating!!

Delph's first touch nearly deflects Rodwells shot into an open goal... :shock:

First touch? he blocked a shot!

Houllier took a defence that were very solid. He fell out with Collins, Dunne, Warnock and Young (as shown by his comments about why he relocated to London).

There were plenty of rumours about the players being unhappy with the coaching and tactics and that they brought this up with Houllier and he dismissed them. The players looked a shambles on the pitch at time, not due to a lack of effort, they clearly didn't have a clue about what they were supposed to be doing. The defending at set pieces clearly shows his. With good coaching even very average defenders can become fairly solid.

Houllier's comments about not being able to sort it until the summer clearly shows his intentions of replacing the players. Even if that was his plan, to alienate players and make it public knowledge that you don't want them is a recipe for disaster.

I'm not Collins biggest fan but i hope he goes on to prove Houllier wrong along with Dunne and Warnock.

Should start a book on who will be the first player to get fed up of Suarez and cripple him? Shawcross? Henry? Bardsley? Barton.....

It seems like Redknapp is at odds with Levy over Modric.

Judging by his latest quotes Redkanpp wants him sold, I don't know if it's just because he's a disruptive influence or because of that rumoured clause where Redknapp gets a cut of transfer fees.

If Modric is going to sulk and tell everyone he doesn't want to play like he apparently did in the dressing room before yesterday's game then Spurs are better off taking the money on offer with a player in exchange.

In hindsight they should have done what we did and sold up early in the summer, then they could have had a settled preseason and a more solid start to the campaign this time around.

I think that things are going to get a lot worse between Levy and Redknapp. Despite all his self promotion, Harry is not going to push Spurs any further forward and their flirtation with the Champion's league was very brief.

Harry has been talking himself into the England job for some time now and i doubt that Levy is going to give him the money to spend knowing he will piss off. Harry is also clearly frustrated by the wages limits at Spurs and will constantly use this as an excuse.

Also, Levy is clearly a business man and Harry's record at every other club shows that his transfers in the long run are a financial mess. He will leave a lot of older players with a much reduced sell on value, the only exceptions being Walker and Sandro.

rard Houllier claims he will not be able to fix Aston Villa’s leaky defence until the end of the season.

Houllier blamed the zonal marking system he inherited from Martin O’Neill for the defeat.

Villa’s defending from set-pieces was abysmal and Houllier said: “We were naive from set-pieces and it’s not the first time we have conceded from them.

“The players have had certain habits for four years and I’m not going to change them in the middle of the season.

Read more: http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/news/Gerard-Houllier-has-blamed-Aston-Villa-s-leaky-defence-on-former-manager-Martin-O-Neill-article711438.html#ixzz1WQ0Gu72y

Can you really blame Dunne and Collins?

Houllier took a defence that was generally sound and tried to change how they worked, he wrote off individual players and by all accounts spent very little time on defensive training.

steaknchips, Herd put in at least 3 crosses into the box today? Two of them were excellent and gave their defence all sorts of trouble.

I was being sarky because Warnock(as an experienced LB) offered nowhere near what little Herd offered on the other flank..In other words our kids are performing "BETTER" than our has-beens.

Sarcasm doesn't work on this site

Equally, the kids are NOT working better than our has been's. How many kids are there in the starting 11? The kids, other than Clark are not yet up to a full season in the Premier league, hence the reason AM wants to bring in some additional experience.

Steve the kids are not playing because McLeish wants to play it safe with experience. The kids, if let lose will attack and play with alot more creative punch and pace..Albrighton down the wings? Bannan in the centre? Clark going through for heads on goal? Makoun playing through balls to the attacking players? We have all seen it as Villa fans and know it can be done..

Yet when they all played against Hereford they struggled.

Defoe = a goal scored evey other game - guaranteed, he's one of the most prolific strikers of his generation.

A tremendous forward player....

Yet he has only managed to get into double figures for goals scored 3 times in the last 10 years.

........ the last ten seasons...

...from his wiki page. Since 2000 he's got into double figures on 6 occasions.

I can't find the stats at the minute but he's got a ridiculous goals to mintues played average - it's something like a goal every 114 minutes, better than a goal every other game.

He's a phenomenon, a goal scoring machine. Like him or not he's a tremendous goalscorer.

He averaged a goal every 369.75min last season in the premiership.

He had an excellent season in 09/10, scoring 18 in 34 premiership games (although without the 5 against Wigan in the 9-1 victory its not as impressive) but apart from that his record is not the record of a tremendous goal scorer.

Reserve squad tonight is:

VILLA: Siegrist; Nelson-Addy, Williams, Baker, Lowry; Carruthers, Johnson, Hogg, Cameron; Burke, Weimann. Subs: Taylor, Barrett, Caira, Ward, Donacien

So no Hogg, Baker or Lowry tomorrow, but Herd if he's not injured.

That squad has 3 players in who had to be taken off in the last game with injury, and Given who clearly has a couple of niggling injuries.

No chance.

4285 down on last season, a tiny away following, bit different from the 8k you want us to believe, or would that not be sensational enough to prove your point.

All to do with McLeish, nothing to do with the economic climate, Randy's new financial policy, holidays...

Great performance today, shows how badly Houllier managed him that he couldn't even make the squad last season. Interesting to see him having a special warm up with one of the coaches before the game, his injuries led to a massive drop inform before that he didn't recover from.

Gabby got injured by Robinson leaping on him!

I don't think it was that, Salgado raked down the back of his ankles right on half time (intentional too).

Anyways, Collins played well I thought, as did Delph and was pleased to see Petrov being a lot more positive with this passing.

Delph MOTM.

Gabby was already injured when Salgado did that, thanks to Robinson landing on him. He was hobbling around with a bad ankle when Salgado deliberately went for him to ensure his ankle was knackered.

Nasty, spiteful tackle full of intent, but not worthy of a foul, let alone a yellow card.

Have taught a girl called Anna who's mum remarried a Mr Rack..

Don't think it will be an issue, no matter how much the media want it to be.

Got the physical attributes needed and can't fault his commitment. However, he lacks positional discipline and comes charging out for balls he can't win far too often, both in the air and on the ground.

Got to be a nightmare to play beside.

Carlo Ancelotti is like the football equivalent of getting an unlimited all-access pass to Spearmint Rhino with unlimited booze.

He'll tease with things we're not used to getting, but when we wake up he'll have gone and we'll suffer a serious hangover for a while?

So you would have Rafa back?

Would you have Rafa back over Kenny?

I wanted Rafa back before Kenny was appointed.

I'm thrilled with Kenny though. If he called it a day, I'd definitely want Rafa back.

Give me 10 points on why he should be our manager. You could sell me.

He's explained his reasoning clearly enough, even if most of us don't agree with it. I'm sure you could find 10 points in his posts.

Anyone would think you were just posting to wind him up.

But Rafa didn't compete really did he? I mean he was up there in a few seasons but he took a side which won the champions league and took it to 5th in 5 years. And in that time he added a world class striker to the side. liverpool fans bleat on about the board but they don't manage what happens on the pitch. That squad should have easily been able to get champions league. So if he can't get champions league with a side like that how's he going to get it with our's? And then you add into that the fiasco at Inter. He took another champions league winning side and took them to 6th in a sub-standard serie A.

Of course the board manage what happens on the pitch.

When your manager and top players sign contracts on the proviso that they'll soon be joined by more world class players, how can they be expected to stay motivated when it transpires they were lied to?

There reached a point when Liverpool stopped being run by football people and started being run by financiers with the remit to reduce debt whilst making the club as attractive as possible to potential investors/buyers. For the whole of 2010, nobody was interested in what was happening on the pitch. The bank wanted their money back, the owners wanted their profit, the supporters wanted the owners gone and the players wanted to leave.

And in the middle of it all was Rafa.

Don't get me wrong - I'm sure he made mistakes at Liverpool. But there is a mountain of mitigation.

Do you think he would have the hunger and passion to start a long term project again, or do you think the last few years has taken a lot out of him?