AstonMartin82

 

So that is 4 managers at Palace that haven't picked Bannan, 5 if you include Millen's two spell's as caretaker.

Like I said in the pulis thread, all Warnock being in charge means, for Bannan, is that the list of managers that don't consider him good enough will grow.

 

5 managers at Palace. At least 4 at Villa.

 

Weird how none of them can see how good he is.

 

Plus all the Scottish managers that put Morrison ahead of him.

Good article about Tom here:

http://www.teamtalk.com/blog/16129/9469843/Villa-s-Cleverley-must-discover-new-path

 

Tom Cleverley has time and the tools to turn his career around after marking his Aston Villa debut with victory at Liverpool, writes Adam Bate.

 

"Cleverley had no physique, was wiry as hell, but he was as brave as a lion, had good feet and could score a goal."

 

It's fair to say that Sir Alex Ferguson's assessment of Tom Cleverley hasn't always struck a chord with supporters of Manchester United and England. His account of a 2010 conversation with then United chief executive David Gill feels particularly pertinent in light of his Old Trafford struggles.

 

"David Gill said one day, 'What are you going to do with Cleverley next year? He's scoring a lot of goals at Watford.' My answer was, 'I'll tell you what I'm going to do, I'm going to play him, to find out whether he can score goals for me as well as Watford.' Could he score six for me?

 

 

"If Cleverley could score six goals from midfield, he would become a consideration. The demarcation line was always: what can they do and what can they not do? The can-do question was: can they win me the game? If they could score six goals, I could ignore some of the negatives."

 

After 79 appearances in a Manchester United shirt, Ferguson and the rest are still left waiting for that sixth goal. Indeed, in 35 matches for club and country last season, Cleverley came up with just one of them - against Aston Villa, the club with which he now hopes to reignite his career on loan.

 

Football can be a fickle business and there is nothing unique about a young player losing his way. And yet, the case of Cleverley feels particularly curious given that the typical explanations of injury and inopportunity are not obviously applicable in this instance.

 

Instead, this is a 25-year-old player apparently still searching for his identity. "My job goes under the radar at times," he told the Daily Mirror earlier this year. "I am not a player who's going to beat three or four people and stick it in the top corner or go round tackling people like Roy Keane."

 

 

Lost his England place to Jordan Henderson

 

For a player booed at Wembley in March and the victim of an online petition calling for his international axe, it rather demands an answer to the question - what are Cleverley's strengths? After all, while it's evidently possible to dismiss the qualities of tackling, dribbling and goalscoring in a single sentence, that trio of talents are highly regarded by football fans for a good reason.

 

Jack Wilshere caught the eye on Saturday with a robust midfield performance for Arsenal in which he won possession of the ball 12 times in the match, providing one of the game's highlights as he sauntered past Gael Clichy before finishing beyond Joe Hart. Tacking, dribbling and scoring. Pah.

 

But Cleverley has other qualities. The ability to retain possession is something he prides himself on. "I watch Spanish football a lot. If they pass the ball sideways but keep possession, the fans clap them. Their attitude is that as long as you have got the ball, the other team can't hurt you.

 

"I know the mentality is different here but sometimes I have got to not listen and play my game because I feel I'm doing the best thing for the team. I feel I've been made a scapegoat a little bit. A few people in the media certainly seem to have a perception of me not doing much in the team."

 

Problem

 

The problem for Cleverley is the risk that his perceived strength can become an affectation. Last season he ranked among the top 20 Premier League players for passing accuracy and passing accuracy in the opposition half. But when it came to making a difference, an issue emerged.

 

Of the 36 players with an 84 per cent pass success rate in the opposition half, just seven created fewer chances. Of those, only Jose Canas and Leon Britton scored fewer goals, while eight-goal Lukas Podolski and the much-maligned John Obi Mikel were the only two with fewer interceptions.

 

It all adds to the nagging suspicion that Cleverley had turned ineffective into an art form - playing for playing's sake. At a club like Manchester United where the onus is usually on the team to make things happen, particularly amid the travails of last term, it had become a toxic combination.

 

 

Celebrating Gabriel Agbonlahor's winning goal with his new Aston Villa team-mates

 

Intriguingly however, it is precisely this ability to keep hold of the ball that could become so useful to Paul Lambert and his Aston Villa team. For while Wilshere took the plaudits for his effervescent performance in the early kick-off, the Arsenal man did have to settle for a draw. Meanwhile, Cleverley's Villa are celebrating an unlikely three points after a 1-0 win against Liverpool.

 

It wasn't just the fact this was Cleverley's first career victory at Anfield that will have felt novel. For all United's struggles last season, they still averaged over 55 per cent of the ball. This was a taste of life at Villa, a team that ranks among the bottom three for possession both last year and this.

 

Hard graft without the ball is a necessity in this side and the early signs on his debut were positive. The Premier League tracking data reveals that in his 86 minutes on the pitch, Cleverley made more high-intensity sprints (50) than any other player on either team. Tracking runners. It was a battle.

 

And it could have been a chastening experience. As recently as November it was Cleverley in the England starting line-up to face Germany with Jordan Henderson on the bench and new team-mate Fabian Delph barely in Roy Hodgson's thoughts. But this was no time to mope.

 

Here he was doing the dirty work in a Villa shirt, tracking back with 20 minutes remaining to dispossess Henderson as the visitors scrapped for the points. No Villa player won more duels.

 

 

Tom Cleverley passing & defending: Tackles (red), Interceptions (green), Duels won (black)

 

Possession was at a premium for Lambert's side, but Cleverley did more than anyone to help retain a certain calmness to proceedings. His pass completion rate was 85.0 per cent - the next best by a Villa player was 77.4 per cent. In the opposition half, Cleverley's rate was 85.7 per cent despite no team-mate bettering 70 per cent. He lost possession less than any other midfielder on the pitch.

 

This is the control that Lambert will be hoping Cleverley can provide and he appears confident that smoothness in possession could be just the start. "I know he's a top player," he told reporters this week. "He has natural ability in abundance and that's something you do not lose.

 

"I feel we needed somebody like him - he's got goals in him and can hit the penalty box. I'll try and fit him into the way we're playing and once he's out there he'll play the game with his own eyes. He still has great potential to kick on in his career."

 

Cleverley might not see himself as the next Roy Keane and he could well fall short of the goalscoring targets set by Paul Lambert. But working with these two quality midfielders might yet be the making of him. There's a player in there somewhere. Tom Cleverley just needs to find him.

He'll fit into any team in League One mate. The reason? Because that is his standard.

Dropped.

 

The boss added: “I thought Kevin Doyle and young Jonny Williams did alright (coming off of the bench).

“Jonny was full of enthusiasm and we tried to be positive with the subs.

“I thought Bannan did well for Scotland but I just fancied Jonny today to play.

 

http://www.newsshopper.co.uk/sport/11472397._/

Dropped from the squad again today. Yet another manager judges Bannan not good enough. Lost count of how many that is now.

Always enjoy the pre-season positivity around the place.

Fact is though, in around 9 hours time we'll start killing one another and it won't stop until roughly this time next year.

Enjoy the next few hours because it will be your happiest and most peaceful for a very long time.

 

 

 

 

“Roy was probably the biggest influence on my career,” Fletcher added. “He would come down hard on me if I ever did anything wrong but he made me realise what it meant to be a Manchester United player. I can remember coming in from training one day and checking my mobile phone for text messages. Well, that was it. He absolutely hammered me, all the way into the gym. He was a great influence, really. If Roy had a go at you, he did it because he cared. He was the best captain you could wish for. He would tear you to shreds on the pitch if you gave away the ball, ‘get your effing touch right, effing this, effing that’ but, as soon as you got into the dressing room, it was over. He was a winner. I’ve met dedicated professionals but he had something else.”

Darren Fletcher on Roy Keane.

Personally I think he is exactly what some of our players need.

This approach works for some, though I fear it to be the exception rather than the rule. There is no doubt he drilled people hard and wanted the best the whole time but in our dressing room I feel he is going to alienate more people than he drives to success.

Yet the person he knows him and knows our dressing room clearly thinks otherwise.

 

 

Hardly makes him immune from making mistakes.

 

 

No but personally I'd rather wait and see than assume I know better than him about the workings of our dressing room.

 

I stated what I feel will happen. I haven't stated that I know better. If no one is allowed to speculate as to what they think will happen what's the point in even having a forum.

 

If one of the best players the premier league who has won the lot gives you a bollocking I think you can accept it as he knows what needs to be done to be a winner. We have a talented squad that badly underperformed last year and if the players can't learn from Keane then that says more about the player than the coach.

I'm not sure that's true. I don't think it's enough to just say "I was a great player so listen to me."

If that was the case then surely all the best managers and coaches would be past top class players.

 

Indeed.. "I was therefore I am" line doesn't quite cut it for me.

 

 

“Roy was probably the biggest influence on my career,” Fletcher added. “He would come down hard on me if I ever did anything wrong but he made me realise what it meant to be a Manchester United player. I can remember coming in from training one day and checking my mobile phone for text messages. Well, that was it. He absolutely hammered me, all the way into the gym. He was a great influence, really. If Roy had a go at you, he did it because he cared. He was the best captain you could wish for. He would tear you to shreds on the pitch if you gave away the ball, ‘get your effing touch right, effing this, effing that’ but, as soon as you got into the dressing room, it was over. He was a winner. I’ve met dedicated professionals but he had something else.”

Darren Fletcher on Roy Keane.

Personally I think he is exactly what some of our players need.

This approach works for some, though I fear it to be the exception rather than the rule. There is no doubt he drilled people hard and wanted the best the whole time but in our dressing room I feel he is going to alienate more people than he drives to success.

Yet the person he knows him and knows our dressing room clearly thinks otherwise.

 

Hardly makes him immune from making mistakes.

“Roy was probably the biggest influence on my career,” Fletcher added. “He would come down hard on me if I ever did anything wrong but he made me realise what it meant to be a Manchester United player. I can remember coming in from training one day and checking my mobile phone for text messages. Well, that was it. He absolutely hammered me, all the way into the gym. He was a great influence, really. If Roy had a go at you, he did it because he cared. He was the best captain you could wish for. He would tear you to shreds on the pitch if you gave away the ball, ‘get your effing touch right, effing this, effing that’ but, as soon as you got into the dressing room, it was over. He was a winner. I’ve met dedicated professionals but he had something else.”

 

Darren Fletcher on Roy Keane.

 

Personally I think he is exactly what some of our players need.

This approach works for some, though I fear it to be the exception rather than the rule. There is no doubt he drilled people hard and wanted the best the whole time but in our dressing room I feel he is going to alienate more people than he drives to success.

14 games without a win? Whoa! That is Lambertesque!

Only it's not is it?

And the likes of Roy Keane going 14 games without a win with Ipswich in that league is the eqivilent of someone taking over Everton in the PL and going 14 games without a win. It truly is exceptional in a world of exceptions.

 

Woeful record as a manager and shown on numerous occassions just how out of touch with players and supporters he is.

No he hasn’t.

How is taking a bottom of the table championship side to the premier league a woeful record?

 

Taking a team that had huge investment after losing their first four games of the season (and weren't bottom) to the Premier League isn't an amazing achievement. The likes of Iain Dowie's achievement at Crystal Palace was about 100 times more impressive (and doesn't exactly make him a good manager either...). He then had a below average season in the Premier League followed by an awful start to the next and he walked away when the going got tough. He then took over at Ipswitch Town, signed numerous Premier League players, and started a season going 14 games without a win. Yes, 14 games. Then walked away from that job. I'd say that his success in management is well below average / woeful.

Can't see any redeeming features in this guy at all... the fact that he is controversial and doesn't care who he pisses off strangely seems to endere him to many. To me though he comes across as a spoilt brat who walks away from situations that he can't control (has happened at every crossroads in his career) and upsets numerous people along the way. How this qualifies him as a competent assistant manager at Aston Villa I'll never know.

Woeful record as a manager and shown on numerous occassions just how out of touch with players and supporters he is.

That is even before you take into consideration that he is one of the biggest pricks you could possibly meet within football.

Our players are going from a bullied culture in Karsa and Culverhouse to this. I wonder what they think of this appointment. Can't say I'm overly impressed. At all.

Meh, the present is always way more emotional than the past in football. How many times a season do we say this is the most important game in the last decade? Must be at least 10 games a season!

I read an article in Private Eye about Garcia that heavily implied he's Blatter's stooge and has a past history of finding wrongdoing where his paymaster wants it to be found.

I can't find it online but its an interesting read. I can't say I'd be surprised a Fifa led investigation into Fifa might not be the most impartial.

This?

 

Massive bribes

Blatter hurriedly hired former New York US attorney Michael Garcia to investigate. Garcia will perhaps, some time, deliver a report into whether the crooks at Fifa trousered massive bribes to award the tournament to the Gulf billionaires. But why did Blatter choose Garcia as his well-rewarded “independent” investigator?

Asked about Garcia’s record as a Wall Street crime-buster and his closeness to the Bush White House, Columbia University law professor Scott Horton commented: “The one thing that could be predicted with utter confidence on the basis of Garcia’s professional career is that he would zealously protect whoever appointed him and paid his bills. He might actually go after corrupt figures, but only to the extent it served the agenda of the person who appointed him.”

 

Eat your heart out, Kim Jong-un

And so it has turned out. One of Garcia’s tasks has been to investigate allegations that Blatter handled a CHF1m bribe (£400,000 at the time) from a marketing company intended for the dodgy former Fifa president Joao Havelange. Blatter had to admit handling the money but said he had no idea it was a bribe. That’s what we are told Blatter said, because neither transcript nor electronic recording of Garcia’s no doubt rigorous interrogation of his paymaster will be made available.

Before hiring Garcia the serpentine Blatter rewrote Fifa’s laughable “ethics code” to ensure that evidence collected in Fifa investigations cannot be revealed. Eat your heart out, Kim Jong-un. Even the date and place of this performance are suppressed.

These are all questions that Greg Dyke could ask in Sao Paulo. Nobody in world football wants to go to sweltering, booze-free Qatar, stepping over the corpses of Nepalese slave labourers. It’s a tough one for slippery Sepp, because if Qatar is cancelled attention will turn to how the oligarchs acquired the 2018 World Cup for Russia. The Fifa lowlifes who “looked after” Qatar likely did the same for Russia. Post-Crimea, an open revote could give it to England, a strong contender in the 2010 vote. Go Greg, go!

Clicky

Platini is now, maybe slightly surprisingly, not supporting Blatter:

 

Michel Platini, one of football’s most powerful men, chose the opening day of the World Cup to publicly withdraw his support from Fifa president Sepp Blatter, declaring that the sport’s troubled governing body required a “breath of fresh air”.

Blatter is set to run for a fifth term as president despite the latest swirl of corruption allegations surrounding the organisation he has headed for 16 years.

But Platini, president of Uefa, is marshalling European federations against his former ally and yesterday was the first time he has spoken out against Blatter. The Frenchman will decide after the World Cup whether he will stand against Blatter in next year’s presidential election.

It leaves the football world deeply divided with Europe on one side and the rest of the game’s federations on the other, still in the Blatter camp on the evidence of this week’s Fifa Congress in Sao Paulo.

“I am supporting him no longer. I have known him for a long time, I like him, but I’m not favourable to him having another term,” said Platini in Sao Paulo. “I think Fifa needs a breath of fresh air. I share the European position. A new mandate for him would not be good for football.”

Blatter was re-elected unopposed in 2011 and promised it would be his last term, but his intention to stand again has become increasingly clear over the last couple of years.

He told congress this week that his “mission was not finished” and in return it voted against introducing age or term limits for the presidency.

During the congress Blatter condemned the British media as “racist” over investigations into corruption linked to Qatar. That angered several leading Uefa members, including England.

So far Jerome Champagne, a former Fifa executive, is the only declared candidate for the 2015 election but Blatter is certain to run and Platini will decide in August.

The delay allows Platini to assess any fallout from Michael Garcia’s report into the awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar – delivered to Fifa after the World Cup – and the allegations of corruption that surround it. Platini voted for Qatar.

“It is an option,” said Platini when asked if he would run for Fifa president. “But it is not because of Blatter that Michel Platini would stand. And it is not because of Sepp Blatter that Michel Platini would not appear. My only concern is what I want to do.”

 

 

Why do people assume that just because someone is rich that must mean they don't care about losing money?

I think if you are rich then you don't look to the Premier League to become richer. You look to the Premier League for global recogination and status and to back that up you must be willing to make losses to some degree.

I think the people who are after making money in football are probably looking at the Championship clubs and hope for a cash windfall by getting promoted.

Obviously I could be wrong because to understand a rich mans mindset and logic you have to be a rich man. Which I am very not.

 

 

FIFA is no different to the Mafia. One of the funnier quotes:

 

He said Fifa needed to combat “anything that smacks of discrimination and racism”.

 

Villarreal were fined just £10,000 the other day for a fan throwing a banana at a player, this is still going on in this day and age yet isn't being stamped out. Focus on what is going on down in the stadiums Mr. Blatter. Utter tool.

 

Absolutely. Using FIFA's logic a rich owner spending their money on a football team is 4,900 times worse than racism.

 

(Man City £49m fine / Villarreal £10k fine)

 

Is that not UEFA?

 

UEFA is a confederation of FIFA so approved, signed and sealed by FIFA (I believe).

FIFA is no different to the Mafia. One of the funnier quotes:

 

He said Fifa needed to combat “anything that smacks of discrimination and racism”.

 

Villarreal were fined just £10,000 the other day for a fan throwing a banana at a player, this is still going on in this day and age yet isn't being stamped out. Focus on what is going on down in the stadiums Mr. Blatter. Utter tool.

Absolutely. Using FIFA's logic a rich owner spending their money on a football team is 4,900 times worse than racism.

(Man City £49m fine / Villarreal £10k fine)

He was talking to Fifa delegates in a place in the world who will feel victimised by the West whilst trumpeting support for his next election next year.

He was going to say and do anything that these guys wanted to hear. The fact he got a standing ovation suggests it worked.

Anyway, since Splatter has started talking about racism shall we start talking about sexism?

How many women are on the boards or executives of Fifa and Fa's around the world?

What are Fifa doing to change this incredibly sexist mentality?

The fact he is owed money discredits him a little bit...

 

I don't have any issues with Russia winning their bid... up and coming footballing nation with a strong domesic league and clearly the infrastructure to host it. I might not like the decision for them getting it but there are no real concerns on them being able to host it.

 

Qatar on the other hand... possible the worst place on the planet to host it? Absolutely farcial decision.

I should think that there is a strong possibility the Russian bid was rigged if the Qatar one was. It doesn't really matter to me if they are more suitable hosts if the process was unfair. I never understood how England's bid could have got such little support.

 

England were bidding for the European 2018 World Cup, not the 2022 one which has to be held on the other side of the World... the Sunday Times has millions of documents regarding FIFA and the vaiorious FA's around the world. If they were going to concentrate on one of the 2 World Cups to discredit and try to get a revote done on it would be the 2018 one due to Englands involvement.

Now whilst I'm sure the Russian bid wasn't squeaky clean the fact that there is little publicity regarding their bid compared to Qatari's would suggest that there isn't anything near as sinister in the 2018 vote as there was in the 2022.

This fact is also very inconvienient for Blatter as he has batted previous negative publicity regarding the voting system away by using the England sour grapes notion. Now he has resorted to the racism card instead.

hmmm, so he's willing to state racism exists with no proof but deny corruption with overwhelming proof.

Sign of a guilty conscience.

I don't have any issues with Russia winning their bid... up and coming footballing nation with a strong domesic league and clearly the infrastructure to host it. I might not like the decision for them getting it but there are no real concerns on them being able to host it.

Qatar on the other hand... possible the worst place on the planet to host it? Absolutely farcial decision.