Teale's 'tache

7 minutes ago, DJBOB said:

There's a lot in that and I know Unai asked for a lot but as soon as we set out the way we did, I knew it was rather inevitable what would happen. It seeps into the players mentality to just "hang on" and try to get a point.

For me - I'd have rather got smashed playing the way we know we play rather than get smashed playing something even the players didn't fully believe in.

I get that they're tired and fatigued but the last thing I would want to do if I was exhausted is somehow play a completely different system and style (cautious, defensive) instead of the one I've played all year.

So for as fatigued as we are, Unai didn't help the players out with his choices.

And I can only hope that it was just a one time thing. Just thinking back - the reversion to the 532 has always ended in disaster. Lambert switching to the 532 was waving the white flag despite the one good performance (Liverpool away with the Weimann backheel). I don't remember in the championship years since Bruce doesn't care about tactics but the same thing then happened under Deano. Went with his 5 back to try and accommodate all his inform CB's (Mings, Hause, and Konsa at the time) and despite getting a win at United away - it all fell apart after that. Gerrard may not have switched to a 532 but he definitely defaulted to a "keep it tight, hit it long" strategy once Beale left and he forgoed playing it out the back.

I don't agree with @Risso's conclusion but Spurs match pissed me off more than getting hammered by Newcastle and Liverpool to start the season, our kind of half-ass displays Sheffield at home and any number of cup games and even getting beat again by Newcastle and United at home.

So I just sincerely hope it was a gamble by Unai and we're back to normal service despite all our injuries and suspensions.

I feel for Unai, he's rolled with the punches and had to think on his feet since before a ball was kicked this season pretty much.

Plan A, the stuff we worked on in pre-season, most of that was out of the window with the Mings/Buendia/Ramsey injuries. Plan B served us well for a good while, as long as we had the players to play it, but without Kamara plan B is going to need to be adjusted or we are going to need a Plan C, I think that is where we are now and for the next few league games at least trying to find a solution that doesn't involve McGinn either. It's easy to say go out swinging, but we need to see the bigger picture, there's a good chance we do not have the energy levels/personnel to do that to a fresh Spurs team right now, which could possibly have ended in a worse scoreline. I prefer to be attacking, but it can't be for the sake of it, a good manager knows when pragmatism is required as well.

Maybe Unai has overthought it, maybe he did 'get it wrong' but at the moment he's trying to cook a recipe while missing several ingredients, he's going to get it wrong sometimes. 

I just hope he can find us yet another way and end what has been an incredible season on a high.

Spurs went into that game with a few advantages, a near first choice and fully fit first 11, all with plenty of extra rest throughout the season when compared to us. They also knew what they had to do, they had to win, plain and simple, and so their game plan was very clear.

On the other hand, we were decimated by injuries, tired and we seemed to be more concerned with not losing, a draw would have been fine for us, I don't think it was the intention of Unai for us to have that mentality, but that's how it seemed to play out in the end, confused minds can create confusing performances.

It's a bad result, a poor performance and a brain fade from our captain that adds to our current list of woes. However, things can change quickly in football, Spurs do not have an easy run of games coming up, and we have 10 games to put it right, that's over a quarter of the season, and there will be plenty of twists and turns before the end.

I just think we are really missing Kamara, we're finding it difficult to have the level of control in games we want without him, Emery is trying different things to resolve it (hence the switch to the back 5 which didn't work), there doesn't seem to be a straight forward easy fix but I back him to land on something eventually, it's just going to take a little time.

We've lost some momentum, and it can be difficult to get that back sometimes, but a good result/performance on Thursday could be just the thing to give us a boost. I'm sure the players are hurting and want to put it right.

Every match is an opportunity to get back on track. Get a few players back from injury/suspension and go on a bit of a run and we'll be grand, all is far from lost.

We just need to keep our discipline, our composer, and trust Mister Emery to find us a way.

It's a red for me, in slow motion it looks a little harsh, but full speed he's just gone and kicked the guy in frustration with no chance of getting the ball. You can't do that.

I understand why he's frustrated, I'm not digging him out for it, hopefully he comes back stronger for the break and smarter. In the meantime we've got a hell of a job dealing with his absence.

Not a good day to have a bad day.

1 hour ago, TRO said:

We need to cut out the first ball.

Not sure I agree with this. Without Mings, we don't really have the tools to go and win that first ball regularly. We don't have that Laursen/Teale type whose main joy in life is heading the ball.

However, there's more than one way to defend a ball into the box, what we can and should be doing better is, competing/nudging/putting under pressure the player that is going to win that first ball and then making damn sure we are winning the second ball, we aren't doing either of those things well enough at the moment.

I have some sympathy with the set piece coach in that he's had a constantly revolving cast at the back to work with, we aren't the biggest team, and he's been missing his main weapon in Mings for the entire season, but we do have to find a way to be more switched on for these set pieces.

36 minutes ago, fightoffyour said:

Unless the lion is yielding hammers then I reckon so

4 minutes ago, est1874 said:

People did ask for it to be more fierce...

17 minutes ago, TRO said:

Oops....go easy on me.

73 today.

Happy birthday! 

5 minutes ago, allani said:

I agree with a lot of what you say.  However, I think where I see it slightly different is that I believe Emery would see winning La Liga with Villareal or the PL with us as a much, much bigger deal than winning it with Barcelona or Man City.  I mean "anyone" could win La Liga with Barcelona.  But winning the CL with Villareal would be beyond special.  I just think all the time there's a chance of competing here, there's actually fewer clubs that he'd leave to join than we might think.  And yes maybe I am looking at it through claret and blue tinted glasses - but at the moment I do think there's a chance here to do the things he wants to achieve and (importantly) the time to do it.  But either way I'd be more surprised about him leaving more a massive club like those you mentioned than I would if he left for a club closer to our kind of level.  For example, maybe Atletico (supported by ambitious owners) would be a bigger threat than Real.  Winning titles with Atletico would elevate him to a level of eliteness higher than winning them with Real.  But again the number of clubs in that category is probably pretty small - assuming things continue to go well here.

I agree that he'd take more satisfaction from winning something big without a supposedly big club, but at the end of anyone's career what matters is what you have won, who you've won it with is very much a secondary concern.

I think Emery is an incredibly ambitious individual, but he's also not the type to burn bridges along the way, he's not morally bankrupt like some 'winners', so I don't see him walking away leaving us in a bad way or anything like that.

However, I'm sure he's figured out already how much longer he feels he has left in his career to achieve the goals he wants to achieve, the closer he gets to the end with goals not met the more likely it becomes he looks elsewhere to achieve them.

I love the guy, he's incredible and I hope he can achieve everything he wants here, our owners certainly seem willing to provide him with whatever it takes, fingers crossed we keep progressing.

29 minutes ago, allani said:

I disagree with the first point and to an extent the second.  He's been to Arsenal and he's been to PSG and he knows that at those types of clubs you get interference from above (owners, etc saying who they want to buy and how they want to play) and below (players who think they are bigger than the team).  He works much better where he has control - to manage the team as he wants and with players who will listen to him and do what he wants them to do (or at least try to).  I think that's clear from what he has "demanded" to come here - he's got complete control over the team, he's got the coaching team he wants, he's got a DOF (for want of a better term) who he's completely in synch with in terms of the type of players that he wants (ability and personality wise).  Everything is perfectly set up for him with the arrangements here.  It's very unlikely that he'll get that anywhere else - at Utd, Real Madrid and Barcelona he'd almost certainly have big name players bought just to make the owners look good without any idea of how they will fit in.  (The same applies to Monchi - I think he's seen that he was made the scapegoat at Roma where the owners basically told him what players they wanted him to sign.)

Obviously, his reign at manager is reliant on three things.  Success on the pitch (i.e. the club need him to be helping us achieve the best we can AND he will want to be competing for honours), support off it (i.e. we need to be giving him the tools to try and do what he wants us to be able to do) and his personal life. 

However, Emery seems to be one of those guys who would take more personal satisfaction from winning say the Europa League with us than winning the Champions League with Man City.  That's not saying that he's not ambitious - almost the opposite.  I think privately he wants to be THE reason why the club is successful and not the fact that they are the team with the most money.  Of course, he would never say that - it will always be about the team, the club and the fans coming together to achieve things together.  He's tried the "biggest" club thing at PSG and I don't think he enjoyed it.  That said - we did of course manage to convince him to come and join us and leave a team where he was delivering success.  But I do think that was partly down to the PL and having the chance to come back and prove himself here.  So I think we were a unique opportunity at a very specific point of time.

My current thinking is that he will stay here for a while (4 or 5 more seasons), he'll make us competitive in the PL and have a few cup adventures with us and I think we will land some form of silverware.  We (and he) will be regarded as a huge success and the model of a well-run club with a proven track-record of over-achieving.  Then I think he'll eventually decide that he's achieved everything he wants and he'll go back to Spain and become manager at a smaller team, closer to home and take pleasure in guiding them to the best period in their history which might just be promotion to La Liga and staying in the division.  He probably won't win as many titles as Pep but like I say I think he'd prefer to look back at his career and point to every title he does win, every season in which his team is competitive and the meaning that that had to the club and the fans.  He's in it for the honour not the glory (although of course he wants to win things too!).

I don't think it needs to be that deep.

Emery is a winner, he wants to win things, if not here, then elsewhere.

To any Spanish manager, the opportunity to manage institutions like Barcelona and Real Madrid is a massive honour and one that is very difficult to turn down, no matter what state they may be in, any restrictions they may face or how good they currently have it. How many British managers would turn down the opportunity to manage Liverpool or Man Utd? I think it's probably a round number if you ignore club allegiances. If he's offered the chance he will rightly consider it.

I see this often on this forum where the fans see 'massive' issues, Emery doesn't look at things that way, he sees solutions, he sees the opportunity to improve. We look at Barcelona and think it's a basket case and he'd be crazy to go there, Emery sees ways to fix it, backs himself to be the one that saves them. We know he didn't achieve what he wanted at PSG or Arsenal, but he's come back to the Premier League to correct the Arsenal one, I have no doubts he'll want to correct the PSG one before the end of his career as well. 

I believe he wants to win the Champions League, it is the pinnacle of club management, no manager retires without one and is considered truly elite, he was close with Villarreal, but he left them to come here and build something strong enough to go a step further and win it. If it looks like he can't win one here eventually he'll go somewhere he can.

I'm not saying he wants to go, I don't think that's his plan at all, like you say he's laid down roots here, and he's building something. It's obvious his short to mid-term plan is to stay here, so I don't think he'd easily walk away. I just think we'd be a little naive to assume he's going to be here for the next 5-10 years no matter who comes in for him or what progress we've made. I hope he will still be here because if he's still here in 5 years time it means we've been successful and are battling for the biggest prize.

1. Mile Jedinak
2. Mile Jedinak
3. Mile Jedinak
4. Mile Jedinak
5. Mile Jedinak

I've no idea, I guess it depends on who comes calling and when. I'm sure he'd find it hard to turn down the likes of Barcelona or Real Madrid, no matter how entrenched he may be here.

I think he wants to win the Champions League, and I think he'd love to do that here, but if progress slows and that becomes increasingly more unlikely then those offers to leave will become more tempting.

I don't want to think about him leaving, I just want to enjoy it while he's here. But, one day he will leave, that's just life.

Good luck to whoever takes over after him though, not only is it an impossible act to follow on the pitch, but imagine staff upheaval as they all follow him to wherever he goes...

3 minutes ago, Follyfoot said:

Looks like his average is 3/4 years in any one job which is a worry but we do seem to be fluffing his bed

5 hours ago, NurembergVillan said:

I'm going to recuse myself from this topic for the time being. As and when the club or brand formally share something I'll chip in with my £0.02 worth.

The only thing I'll add is that both Villa and the brand are going to be taking the relationship and the projected direction of the club very seriously. Champions League teams get Champions League service.

We'll take them to the cleaners...

2 minutes ago, S-Platt said:

So Hecks badge on the shirt will just be the Lion and Aston Villa underneath in theory.  I could live with that.

We don't 100% know yet, and in fairness, the Purslow/Dragon Rouge badge also had a version called 'Lion Unleashed', which would have been just the text, lion and star, I think.

Whatever we end up with, a solo lion or lion with text will likely be used in some cases, maybe not on a kit to begin with, but as the brand grows, it will be used everywhere more frequently.

1 hour ago, BOF said:

It probably was a communication issue, but in that situation the centre back sometimes has to take command and get rid of the danger. He allowed Emi to take command when Emi was 3rd favourite to that ball. Which is why I think Lenglet chose weakly. He deferred to someone in a worse position and we conceded a goal from it. Had he put his boot through it, as he was closest to the ball, then we wouldn't have conceded the goal.

The thing is Lenglet is left-footed, facing his own goal and that cross from our right would have to be cleared with his weaker right foot, so it's not quite as simple as 'put your foot through it' because it's very easy to get it wrong and slice it into your own net. If Emi has called for it then Lenglet was probably happy for him to take charge of that particular situation. It's a situation I expect other teams to try and exploit with us having two left-footed center backs, low crosses from the right are going to cause us issues.

I think if Emi leaves his line in that situation he has to clear out everything, ball, forward, defender, whatever, but he's misread it slightly and doesn't get there. Lenglet I think should be trying to lean in and put off the forward more, even if Emi has called for it, and Cash should also do better to stop the cross.

So, I don't think the blame should fall onto one individual, but it is a situation we need to be wary of as I think we'll be tested with it more going forward.

I think it is important we protect our right-hand side at the moment, playing with two left-footed centre-backs any low cross into the box from that side will require them to clear the ball with their weaker foot, or get into an awkward position to clear with their left whilst facing their own goal, either of which is a recipe for disaster.

I think this caused part of the confusion that resulted in the Fulham goal. I'd expect other teams to have taken note of that and be looking to take advantage.

So hopefully Matty Cash's recent uptick in form continues and we can maybe work him a little more support from the midfield to strengthen that area.  

6 minutes ago, tomav84 said:

As I said before, there's been more than one confirmation from reputable people who know current club staff that have confirmed it to be accurate.

You may choose not to believe them...that's your prerogative. 

Isn't this literally the definition of hearsay? Which is not admissable in court because it isn't reliable.

1 minute ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

I'm going to say this again as I feel it got lost earlier.

Ben Hatton is the ACTUAL Chief OPERATIONS Officer, meaning he will be the one hands on, and actually implementing things, and reporting to Heck.

Why is he not being equally scrutinised? Wouldn't he be the one more closely in contact with staff, delegation and " in the field " decisions etc?

It's a very good point, and I'm sure if it all turns out to be true he'll be on his bike along with Heck.

People already have an axe to grind with Mr Heck over other things though, so it's not surprising he's the one being singled out, ultimately he's the senior guy, and most public-facing, so he was always going to be the one taking the brunt of the blame.