ermie123

Tasty stuff.

Fair enough you have valid points, but i'm dreading the Barnsley game.

20 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

Right now I don't want to go back. 

But, if I have to, I'd like to see this:

-----------------------Johnstone-----------------------

------------Chester----Elphick-------Baker----------

Hutton/Bree------------------------------------Amavi

----------------Lanbury-----Bjarnason---------------

-----------------------Grealish------------------------

---------------Hogan-----------Kodjia---------------

 

 

Why Grealish?   He doesn't do anything.

Relegation is not a million miles away from what i saw yesterday and if the same performance and result happens against Barnsley then the writing will surely be on the wall!

I really don't think that Ipswich "fluked it" at all.  Being at the match i and several others around me could see it coming in the second half and the half progressed it seemed inevitable.  The young player they had Lawrence i think played a very astute game and it was him who we thought was most likely going to score of anyone on the pitch.  They bossed the midfield for most of the game.  Our defence now looks very nervous and it infects the rest of them.  This bunch of players need some serious coaching to get them to play as a team and i can't see it happening at present.

I went to yesterdays match travelling up from South Wales.  On watching the game and doing it intentionally from a neutral view I could see the differences in both teams play and i also reflected back on the games against Brentford, Forest and Wolves.  One thing that stood out was the way that they were all comfortable with the ball and made great efforts to get it back.  As opposed to Villa whose players seemed to have this idea that it was something to be avoided and when they did have it to hoof it (apart from Lansbury).  

The other teams also played as a team and did put the effort in and it would appear that Villa players do not actually put in a shift!  

In regard to Kodja yesterday he did start passing, but his service from the others was so woeful he may as well go back to doing it himself, that also includes Hogan who cut a very forlorn figure yesterday.  He must be wondering just what (at the moment), joining Villa is going to do for his career.

On numerous occasions Villa players got the ball back and then gave it back to the opposition, which was very frustrating.  Taylor, Hutton and Baker being the worst three.  In regard to the formation the 532 yesterday Hutton was so far up the pitch, with Taylor being so far down the pitch highlighted the disjointed nature of the team.  Lansbury is an attacking midfielder, but was playing just in front of the defence, which meant that there was no attacking midfield.  

What should have happened yesterday in particular was Lansbury be up the pitch as say a N10 and the other two being support for both defence and attack.  The wing backs should have been based on the half way line and moved up the pitch in tandem, which stretches the opposition.  The three centre backs should be further up the pitch and not being so deep.  This would mean the play would have nearly all have been in the opposition half and not ours.  I think its called defending from the front.  

There is also something that others have seemingly not picked up on and it is this.  When the opposition have a corner ALL the Villa players are back defending, which meant that when the ball went up the pitch it just came straight back!  This has been going on for a few seasons now and is ridiculous. 

Throw ins also appear to be a problem as when do get a throw in nobody wants the ball.  Whoever takes it is looking for someone to come for it and nobody does.  Its pretty basic football that Villa fail to do.

Suffice to say i left Villa Park feeling very frustrated, freezing cold with the highlight of the day being the chicken balti pie and the extra one i kept to be eaten on the way home.  

9 hours ago, Chicken Field said:

What's wrong with Villa? does Villatalk have a word limit, as there is so much wrong here that it would take days to write. 

I personally believe that our problems started back in the MON days. Lerner was new to the game, decided to not hire any football people to help him run the club and let O'Neill do just as he wanted, sign the players he wanted on the contracts he wanted. Even though O'Neill did a decent job, I feel that with the money he spent, he should have achieved much more. And we can see how long it took for us to get rid of the high earners he had put on long and huge contracts, for instance Warncock, Cuellar, Richard Dunne and so on. Lerner allowed MON to get our wage bill out of control, making us lose an astonishing amount of money every year. A football club and any business cannot be run like that. But, our real problems started after MON. And especially in our manager choices. We went from MON, counter attack, quick wingers little possession to Houllier, slow build up play, a lot of possession to McCleish, the most defensive manager in the world, hoof ball and 11 men behind the ball to a, imo, very unlucky Lambert. During the time between MON and Houllier, we also made some truly discusting signings, that really cost us a lot of money, for instance, N'Zogbia, Bent (Might have saved us that season, but was so expensive and wasted so much of our wage bill for so many seasons), Given , Hutton (who we are still stuck with today), Ireland and Makoun. Which is basically all the signings we made during that period. On to Lambert.

I actually like Lambert, he had an impossible job, he spent little money and more importantly, the players he signed were on extremely low wages, most were misses, but there were some hits. Lambert had an impossible job and I think he himself gave up during the last season. We fired him and went with an unproven, unstable, gung-ho, no tactical sense, Sherwood. Sherwood, granted, did a good job keeping us up and also got us to a FA cup final, but we should have fired him after the final, it would have been criticized by the media, but Sherwood was a disaster, we were awful in the last few matches in the season (Just as bad as last season), he had never bought a single player in his life and we allowed him to buy an entire new team. (People can blame Fox and co. as much as they like by interfering, but in the end, their signings were much better than Sherwood's), Sherwood basically bought, Richards, Lescottt and Gestede by himself, absolute joke signings. 

The season was a fiasco, no need to dwell further into it, as EVERYONE in the club was to blame, the players, the managers (though, I do feel Garde would have done well in the right circumstances) and the board room and the owner. 

Now, to this season, we are bought by Xia, I really really like Xia, but feel he is going exactly the same way as Lerner, putting in so much money with no plan whatsoever, which may cost us very dearly in the future, the parachute payments will stop soon. I personally though that RDM was the right choice, but boy was I proven wrong, worst transfer window by any team in the history of English football, people often laugh at Mark Hughes at City, but this was muuuuch worse. We went for players with good statistics, it was obvious no one in the club had ever seen them play before. We bought players without a bigger picture in mind and worse of all, we bought all the players one week before the window closed. I honestly believe that we should try to sue RDM for the money he wasted. (if the player had good statistics and/or had been promoted in the past two seasons, we would try to sign them).

I think Xia was naive, he thought we could buy all the championship stars and fly to the top, but it has been proven time and time again, a club does not work with 11 stars, you can have a few, the rest have to hard workers. Then enter Bruce, my god. 

I was not in favor of Bruce, but I did see and acknowledge that we had little to no other choice. Again, Xia went for the statistics instead of going for someone that fitted our players. He went for the manager with the most impressive resume, who was available, similarly to the summer signings, where we simply went for the top 5 topscorers in the championship from the season before. Football is not that easy. 

My problems with Bruce:

Bruce plays no tactics whatsoever. He believes only in putting the 11 best players out there. He did start well, but most managers do, it's what people call the honeymoon period. Players get excited and want to impress the new managers. We started well result wise, but the performances were dreadful. And they are just getting worse and worse. Bruce, similarly to McCleish, believes the most important thing, is to keep the clean sheet. He does not want to control games, he puts all his faith that our attackers will have individual moments of brilliance, which to be honest, has got him most of his points, Kodija won the game vs QPR on his own, Grealish scored an amazing goal to win one game etc. One moment that made my blood boil was vs Nottingham, it was 1-1, Lichaj had the ball on the right side and we had 8.. EIGHT !!! players in the box defending, Hogan was just outside the box and Kodija was up front on his own. The plan is to win the ball and attack quickly, we even attack so quickly that Bruce decided that we should just hoof the ball, as this is the fastest way to get the ball forward, the problem with hoofing the ball when you have 8 players in the box defending, is that you have NO ONE TO HOOF IT TO. Even if we try to keep possession, we have no one to pass to, as everyone is standing in and around the box, it is so easy for the opposition to pressure us. Also, message to Bruce, when we are having a difficult time scoring, don't play 5 at the back, without wingback, as we wont start scoring when everyone is defending. The midfielders are so deep, that they may as well be defenders. He brought Gabby back, which is a sack-able offense IMO and STOP USING HUTTON (God bless his soul, he does try, but he is the worst football player I have ever seen), I would rather see a youth player playing.

Then on to Bruce's signings. He buys Hourihane and Lansbury, Hourihane is a box to box midfielder, he likes to attack, he likes to roam from his position, but he is not allowed to, he is being asked to play more or less as a defender. Lansbury, amazing passes, but, exactly the same problems as Hourihane, plays in defense and only has one and sometimes two players in front of him, so his passing options are limited. He buys Hogan, a small hard working striker and only hoofs the ball to him, he is never going to win headers. and worst of all, he loan Johnstone, why oh why?, we god rid of an inexperience error prone goalkeeper, just to replace him with the EXACT same player, only, he is a worse shot stopper. And not to forget Amavi, Amavi has been a liability in defense, but one of our more creative attacking players, we switch to what I was hoping was a 352, but turned out to be a 532, this should mean our fullbacks are allowed to roam forward, and makes them less responsible defensively, the perfect role for Amavi, but no, he is dropped. ARRGH.

Bruce, if you are going to play counter attacking hoof ball, then don't buy small strikers and don't buy technical midfielders, ask Pulis if you can borrow some of his hard tackling midfielders and a target man, so that we have someone to aim our hoofs to.

But, it is not all Bruce's fault that we are playing so badly at the moment, the balance of the team is ridiculous, before this window we had Hutton on the right, defensive right back with no technical ability and we had the complete opposite on the left in Amavi, an attacking fullback that is useless defensively. We haven't had a left winger for about 5 years and no good right wingers in the same time and we have only poachers up top, who feed of crosses. There is no balance in the team whatsoever.

The biggest problem with Lerner and now Xia, is that they do not have a bigger picture in mind. Every time we fire a manager, we have to start all over again. We need to implement a playing style, that even the managers have to adopt to. We need our club to be better than our managers. When the team has a style, we can buy players and hire managers that fit that style, meaning that if we lose a manager or a player, then we know exactly what we need to get, to replace them.  Also, we need to start playing more attacking football, use the strengths that we have, possession football and good performances bread confidence into players. having 20% possession each game and still lose, breaks all the confidence that the players have. 

I also believe that, we need to think like a championship club, we cannot buy all the stars. we need to buy championship players. The parachute payment will stop, and we are royally F%cked when it does, as we AGAIN, have so many players on such big contracts that no one is going to want to buy from us. I honestly believe, that if we are not promoted next season, we will be in serious financial troubles.

So my advice would be, start implementing a playing style, only buy players that fit that playing style, only hire managers that fit that playing style. Bruce has no playing style, hence I want him gone, if he gets another few seasons, then we will end straight back here, with just the same problems as before. Bruce is a S¤ite MON copy. Who thinks only short term. We need to, for the first time in 60 years, think long term.

I could go on for days, but I am just getting more and more p¤ssed as I am writing, I need to stop. Rant over

Very well put.  I went to yesterdays match travelling up from South Wales.  On watching the game and doing it intentionally from a neutral view I could see the differences in both teams play and i also reflected back on the games against Brentford, Forest and Wolves.  One thing that stood out was the way that they were all comfortable with the ball and made great efforts to get it back.  As opposed to Villa whose players seemed to have this idea that it was something to be avoided and when they did have it to hoof it (apart from Lansbury).  

The other teams also played as a team and did put the effort in and it would appear that Villa players do not actually put in a shift!  

In regard to Kodja yesterday he did start passing, but his service from the others was so woeful he may as well go back to doing it himself, that also includes Hogan who cut a very forlorn figure yesterday.  He must be wondering just what (at the moment), joining Villa is going to do for his career.

On numerous occasions Villa players got the ball back and then gave it back to the opposition, which was very frustrating.  Taylor, Hutton and Baker being the worst three.  In regard to the formation the 532 yesterday Hutton was so far up the pitch, with Taylor being so far down the pitch highlighted the disjointed nature of the team.  Lansbury is an attacking midfielder, but was playing just in front of the defence, which meant that there was no attacking midfield.  

What should have happened yesterday in particular was Lansbury be up the pitch as say a N10 and the other two being support for both defence and attack.  The wing backs should have been based on the half way line and moved up the pitch in tandem, which stretches the opposition.  The three centre backs should be further up the pitch and not being so deep.  This would mean the play would have nearly all have been in the opposition half and not ours.  I think its called defending from the front.  

There is also something that others have seemingly not picked up on and it is this.  When the opposition have a corner ALL the Villa players are back defending, which meant that when the ball went up the pitch it just came straight back!  This has been going on for a few seasons now and is ridiculous. 

Throw ins also appear to be a problem as when do get a throw in nobody wants the ball.  Whoever takes it is looking for someone to come for it and nobody does.  Its pretty basic football that Villa fail to do.

Suffice to say i left Villa Park feeling very frustrated, freezing cold with the highlight of the day being the chicken balti pie and the extra one i kept to be eaten on the way home.  

On 2/11/2017 at 00:22, VILLAMARV said:

So, if we're working off the interpretations of communism being at the opposite end of the single axis scale to right wing extremism (Note not Fascism) then again we are having to accept the limitations of the terminology. The political ideology of 'pure' communism is different to the examples used throughout human history in practicality, neither Russia nor China have ever run a system based on 'pure' communist ideology.

Communism is little more than a term for egalitarianism, by the time Marx and Engels come along it is the move away from egalitarianism in their thinking that distinguishes Marxism from the theoretical ideology that is 'pure' communism. Lenin adapts Marxist thinking around a democratic centralism around the time of the Bolshevik Revolution (Founded as the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party) and the birth of the Soviet Union. By Stalin's time he coined the term Marxist-Leninism which was his recognised sociopolitical and economic ideology. Stalinism is more about Stalin's own path in power than any ideology. Death Squads, Show Trials, Purges, Oppressing Dissent and so on. There is an argument from Marxists that says the USSR was more of a State Capitalist system rather than a Communist one due to the 'ownership' of the state. See also variations on the Communist theme - Trotskyism, Left or Christian or Anarchic or Council Communism, Marxist Liberalism and so on.

Marxist - Leninist - Maoism (or Maoism for short) basically applies the same Marxist-Leninist theory around an agrarian society rather than an industrial one. 

Fascism however does not necessarily follow a predesigned ideology moreover that it is based heavily around Nationalism. In fact many of the European fascists including the one you mentioned borrowed heavily from Marxist theory while espousing 'a new, third way'. And whilst the comparisons with Communism don't hold up with the European Fascists acceptance towards private ownership, private profits, class and capitalism not to mention the superior race, the overall state ownership model does. The governance by the state on individual human rights including using secret police, attempting to control religeon, use of propaganda, the dictatorial one party model, the devotion to ideology and state, the abolition of unions and workers rights are all common traits between the 4 ex leaders you mention and the individual mix of ideologies and political theories in play.

The point being that you cannot use Hitler (Fascism) vs Stalin (Communism) and expect to connect them together. The brackets are not clarifying or supplanting useful information anymore than Bobby Charlton (England) vs George Best (N. Ireland) is.

Analogy wise - choosing which piece of excrement is 'better' or 'worse' than the other is surely a pretty futile exercise. Unless you're really into skat I suppose. To do so based on some death toll figures from who knows where is truly farcical. You'd need an axis for time served in office for one to work out their deathsperday ratio and what about assists? Or is it extra weighting towards Stalin for going toe-to-toe with Hitler and 'winning'? Unfortunately I think the complex nature of political ideology in oppressive dictatorships is a bit tricky to boil down to a championship style league table. Or do 2,3 or even 4 wrongs now make a right?

As for Poland @ermie123 again it just over simplifies the situation. Stick the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact / European Appeasement / The Winter War / Munich Agreement / Polish Guarantee on your reading list. And then spare a moment to consider Chamberlain's reluctance to fight two wars at the same time.

As for on topic it does have Chairman Mao in the title.

Very well put and food for thought.

23 hours ago, Xela said:

Wasn't his phone tracked to a route than a bin wagon took to a landfill site? He may have fallen asleep in a bin and ended up in the back of the wagon 

Probably, but i know it has vanished from the news excuse the pun.

1 hour ago, Chindie said:

Setting aside the obvious rod and line...

A couple of things.

Hitler's notoriety comes from our involvement with him. He was the 'baddie' in the biggest event of the last century and we were directly opposed to him. It's not a shock his evil sticks more in the mind than Stalin, who was on our side at the time and then wasn't so directly and immediately our problem.

And anyone that knows anything of 20th Century world history is quite aware of Stalin's death toll. He's viewed as a butcher.

Quite a few people holiday in Cuba. And increasing numbers go to North Korea.

I'm not really sure what point you're making or why it's in a thread about Labour. Who are about as far from Stalin's Soviet philosophy as they can get before switching 'wings'.

On the imediately our problem theme didn't they attack Poland at the same time so we should have declared war on them as well?

After all i identify as being a dog, but people kick off when i poo on their grass!

11 minutes ago, sharkyvilla said:

I'm starting to think ermie is @useless (we miss you) but without the comedic genius bit

Probably

1 hour ago, snowychap said:

What on earth are you going on about?

Who knows, i'm stuck on how many genders there are in humanity as according to some in New York there are 63 so far (and counting).

I find it weird that Hitler (fascism) is demonised yet Stalin (communism/socialism) is not.  I think history nails it as Hitler was in championship in comparison to Stalin, Lennin and Mao.  Funny as well that none of the communists/socialists spend their holidays in North Korea or Cuba.

This is dead now

I will leave this now as i did think there may have been some reasonable debate, but alas the keyboard warrior has taken over.

1 hour ago, VILLAMARV said:

The thing is as @OutByEaster? has been pointing out in another thread, the simplistic terms of left and right are really not applicable to modern day politics.

The terms "Left" and "Right" originated out of the French Revolution, and at that time were applicable to where you sat in their Assembly. Pro monarchy on the right, revolutionaries on the left. In the UK we picked it up between World Wars in the 1930's and I would say from a British perspective up until the 1970's they were pretty clearly defined in the political arena. Conservative voters were right, Labour voters were left and moderate Liberals in the middle. Since then we have seen a period of sinistrisme where everything is being pulled towards the centre ground. Some would argue that since the birth of 'New' Labour we've lurched, like the US, to being a centre-right country. 

Klaus von Beyme suggested 9 categories described most European political parties but found rural and ethnic parties hard to place on a single axis scale. The other 7 however went in this order from (extreme) left to (extreme) right:

LEFT ---communist---socialist---green---liberal---christian democratic---consevative---right wing extremist--RIGHT

So to go back to your original question your perception of left and right (left=communism/right=fascism) is comparing the two extremes. Hence you reach the conclusion that all extremism is good for is killing people. Something most people would probably agree with you on.

What those terms specifically refer to is hard to pin down with any accuracy but there are common defining factors along a sliding scale for example Anarchy - Monarchy, Large state - Small state. Collectivism - Individualism.

Political scientists would say these days that the political spectrum along one axis just doesn't go far enough. And attempts have been made to add axes or dimensions. You could look up the 'Nolan Chart' when an American turned it into a box by adding a 'freedom' dimension. This has been extrapolated upon by the Russian 'Vosem Chart' with 3 axes of Corporate and Individual economics and civil liberty. The political compass was the one made famous by facebook a few years back. Which draws quite a bit from the 'Pournelle Chart'. They (political compass) have UK politics looking like this (from 2015):

These days the terms have been bastardised through political language and common discourse as well as the political shift of parties like Labour in the UK and leads people like @Keyblade to say this in the US bolitics thread.

Not that it's different over here at times, *bloody hippies* *generation snowflake* *bleeding heart liberals* etc etc etc

But then some might argue that pitting the majority against each other is quite handy for the ruling classes. Of course others would obviously call you a fool and a communist to think that.

Thank you very very much for that.  And yes divide and conquer has always been good for the people in power as it distracts people from what is really going on in the world and of course owning most of the media is always a boost for them. 

10 minutes ago, coda said:

Mmmmm lost me again?

11 minutes ago, hogso said:

I believe it's the guy from Manic Street Preachers who went missing years ago, and has since been officially presumed dead. As he was semi-famous there's a whole bunch of info on his wiki about the circs of his disappearence.

For some reason I get his story mixed up with that of the original Feeder drummer.

Oh right now i get it sorry about that.  Yes that's also a very disturbing case as is the chef lady in York who has vanished, totally bizarre.  You would think that in today's hi tech world people cannot just vanish off the face of the earth.

Whatever happened to the free market.

I'm lost now that's too cryptic for me. 

Has anyone looked at any of this?  Its about people inexplicably going missing in wilderness areas near enough all over the world and now even in urban areas.  The people doing the research strictly follow a criteria in all the cases.  For instance they exclude any links to mental illness, crime ect.  The main man is David Paulides who is an ex police officer and is very insightful and also only brings up the evidence and does not give any reason for why the people vanish.  You can see a lot of the presentations on youtube and also hear a lot on coasttocoastam, wheredidtheroadgo ect.  I find that on reading the books and researching the evidence that is available the whole thing is brain numbing in the extreme.  For instance there are documented cases of children aged 2/4 years old walking 20/30 miles before being found and having crossed mountain ranges.  This happens all over the world, not just America.  One case involves a man running up a hill, checking in at the top with the race organisers and then running down again, one way up and one way down, but never getting down and no evidence of anything, he just simply vanished?  Absolute crazy stuff that beggars belief!  There is a website called www.canammissing.com  The Australian cases are very interesting as well as the UK and American ones.  For instance what has happened to the RAF man who recently went missing in Bury St Edmunds? (i think thats the right place).  CCTV saw him go in down an alley with only one exit, but not come out again?

I would love someone to explain to me what exactly is the difference between a left government and a right government and also a far left and far right government is.  Also whats the difference to a extreme far left and extreme far right government.  All i seem to know is left is communism and right is fascism and as history tells us communism killed way more than fascism so it appears that the only thing any of them are good at is killing people. 

Perhaps its a case of the keeper being unsure of the centre backs and the centre backs being unsure of the goalkeeper and therefore its never going to be right until they get together and work it out, concentrating on their weaknesses.  Then they can become an effective unit concentrating on their weaknesses as a unit.   The strengths look after themselves.  Its like building a wall if you don't sort out the weak points first then no matter what the strengths are it will fall down as is happening now.  Its very similar to doing a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats).  

So we know what the strengths are:height, tackling 

The weaknesses are the lack of confidence in each other and as a unit to do the correct things and be an effective unit

The opportunities are admitting that there are problems and therefore taking steps to rectify them and admitting that nothing is perfect and mistakes will happen, but the opportunity is their to fix them.

The threats are there for all to see if they don't do the former then the latter is never going to change.

If your car cannot go up the hill very well in 4th gear and for because of your stubbornness you don't drop down a gear then the car will always struggle and eventually it will breakdown, sounds simple but that's my analogy.

Taking the forwards off and putting wide men on was like having loads of bread but having nothing in the middle to make a sandwich!  And to think he played under Alex Ferguson!  There is no "never give up mentality" at this club anymore.  Most of the players we have had recently are actually crap.  The only people to have shined today were Bree, Hogan and Lansbury, the rest were crap!