KentVillan

Asking Hoddle what Kane did in a previous life

His whole we’ve replaced Grealish with Bailey, Buendia and Ings thing doesn’t look quite so desperate anymore

If the leaks are real then I think it’s a bit worse than it looks at first glance. There’s references to phone sex in there and nowadays it’s pretty hard to defend that if it’s a senior guy with a junior employee, given the power imbalance. Seems most likely it was a mutual thing that went sour and she has turned on him.

(All above assuming this isn’t a total fabrication, which it could be.)

Surprised by the low % for superstitions. I’m agnostic or “weak atheist” I suppose according to the above, but I touch wood and stuff like that.

Kenneth

29 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

I’d say he’s just more of a midfielder than a ‘defensive midfielder’. He’s everywhere. 

Yeah he’s an all rounder, more in the Pirlo, Redondo, etc mould than the Makelele mould. Still very good at sitting in front of a defence. Just a great player.

Enjoyed this because it’ll wind up everyone who says he isn’t a defensive mid. But he is really, he’s just one who’s also really good in the final third and can play a few different roles.

28 minutes ago, Mic09 said:

I wonder, how much do performance enhancing drugs help in football? Unlike athletics, swimming or cycling, football is a bit more dimentional; it's not about an effort to push in the last 20mins of a multi-hour race or a singular power effort, it's about deciding where to pass and turning to make a run to intercept a ball that you estimate will land in a specific place.

Slower players can be better than faster ones. 

Less athletic can out-wit the bigger players.

Does doping have an affect on football performance? Maybe in terms of stamina and longevity? 

The answer to this is blindingly obvious. It's a physical sport with very high speed and stamina requirements, and it's played over a long, gruelling season where recovery between matches is very important.

It's actually shocking how top-flight footballers only test positive for drugs when their club wants rid of them.

We're in NFL type territory here where it's just an accepted part of the game.

My guess is that injury recovery is the main weak spot for doping in football, although EPO / blood doping would also be highly effective.

Can we all agree this is a great thread and you love seeing a new reply here? It’s the VillaTalk Ulysses

1 hour ago, The Fun Factory said:

Guys, it's over. He has been gone for over two years and isn't coming back.  Move on.

Think everyone knows this. He’s an interesting character. Pretending he doesn’t exist anymore is weirder than just talking about him 

There's a **** load of evidence that he loves getting hammered on a regular basis and the people who say there's no evidence are as stubbornly delusional as they think everyone else is

Also barely anyone has said he doesn't care or just wants the cash. He obviously loves playing football.

7 hours ago, Jonesy7211 said:

Grealish is world class. He's just been stifled by Pep's style of play. He's been asked to do a different job there. He did it very well last year, but he has dropped off this season. He's never been a player that had outstanding numbers of goals and assists, but we all know what he brings.

In the right system he'd be head and shoulders above 95% of the players in the world again, on a consistent basis. Pep has changed his system again this year, and when Jack first signed for City he took a while to settle. I'm sure he'll adapt again.

The partying is neither here nor there. It's not like Pep is calling him fat like he did to Phillips.

Players can look outwardly fit and not be fit. Danny Drinkwater never looked fat to me, but he drank his career down the toilet.

Grealish obviously a much better player to begin with, but I do worry he's too used to playing himself into match fitness instead of just looking after himself properly.

We all know some players turn up from the summer break ready to go, and some always need a few games to get going. Whether they have a six pack or not is not always the key predictor.

10 minutes ago, lapal_fan said:

I imagine the cucumber up your arse was pretty uncomfortable too.

Yes but that hasn't made it onto the reverse bucket list

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/68408092.amp
 

Quote

Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola says Jack Grealish will return to his starting line-up on a regular basis when his performances improve.

The England midfielder, 28, started 41 games for City in last season's Treble-winning campaign, including the FA Cup and Champions League finals.

He has started only 19 games this term, including seven in the Premier League.

"He is the same player, he has the same manager, and the way we play has not changed," said Guardiola. 

"It's just the way he has performed. That's the difference."

This season, Grealish has had limited top-flight minutes and of his 19 starts, four were in the Community Shield, the European Super Cup, and both ties at the Club World Cup in Saudi Arabia.

He last started a league game on 29 December against Everton, when he was replaced by youngster Oscar Bobb after 52 minutes.

• Man City forward Bobb signs new contract

The £100m man remained on the bench throughout the win at Bournemouth on Saturday and there are no guarantees he will start the FA Cup fifth round tie at Luton.

"I said from day one, we need him," said Guardiola. "He has a special quality for our team. But it depends on him. Hopefully he can do a good last three months."

Grealish is not the first player to find himself in and out of Guardiola's team, such are the demands the former Barcelona and Bayern Munich coach places on his players.

And the England international has been warned he will not be given time to ease himself back into the City side.

"I cannot give players three or four games to get their rhythm," added Guardiola. "They have to find the rhythm to play for 20 minutes or 90.

"At a high level, the team don't wait to be fit. You cannot give someone three or four games to be fit. What about the 10 who don't play? They deserve not to play?

"You have to see the training sessions and all the small details. The players don't have to convince me. They have to convince themselves that they deserve to play."

Sounds like Jack has asked for more minutes and Pep is airing the laundry.

Honestly, part of me loves to see it. Fascinated to see if he gets another decent PL / CL side or goes down the West Ham / Galatasaray to Podcast pipeline.

6 hours ago, wishywashy said:

In Emery's case I do think it might be a stim. Especially as it's usually way more pronounced and aggressive when he's stressed (he was practically rubbing his chin off in the interview following the Boxing Day United game), which is a key element of stimming.

As someone on the spectrum myself, I would be a bit surprised if he wasn't neurodivergent to some degree (although stimming by itself is obviously not uncommon at all among pretty much everyone). He's habitual, incredibly detail-oriented and clearly an extreme obsessive. I read in a Spanish piece a few months back that despite the day being a Spanish holiday, he once came home so late from analysing an opponent that his now ex-wife made him sleep in the car.

Neurodivergence is probably more common in elite sport than people think imo: some of the traits associated with neurodivergent conditions (like those above) feel like they can end up being very beneficial in that sort of environment. I know Gerrard and Beckham are two of the more high-profile players to have talked about having OCD, for example.

Of course, I'm not a professional, so please don't take this as fact: just my feelings on it.

Really nice post, but I think it’s most likely a language thing.

If you watch some more of his TV interviews in Spanish (eg at Villarreal) he often speaks in a much more confident, relaxed way, a lot of the tics disappear.

Speaking a foreign language is stressful, especially if you aren’t very fluent and are constantly translating everything in your head… he’s probably self conscious of making mistakes or being misquoted, so he puts a lot of effort into it, and I think that’s where all the things you’re talking about suddenly show up.

The obsessive thing makes more sense, though, he’s definitely one of those coaches who is thinking about his job 24/7. I think because he’s a perfectionist it’s particularly overwhelming for him to give interviews in English, because he likes to give good interviews and knows he isn’t always doing his ideas justice.

Thankfully the results do most of the talking for him.

I worry about him against pace, would much rather have Konsa in there, but generally has been a superb signing and has made our injury crisis a lot more bearable.

We need to make more signings like this.

On 19/02/2024 at 19:45, Risso said:

Clearly the main reason he isn't playing more regularly, is that he's absolutely shite.

I am tending towards this view too, which usually means he’ll now score 5 in 5.

2 hours ago, GlobalVillan said:

It's nonsense that we play Liverpool twice a year and that Salah has scored a lot against us? 

Right ok. I must be going mad then.

No the bit about Liverpool finishing below us without Salah, but I think you knew that.

5 hours ago, GlobalVillan said:

We literally compete with them directly twice a season and he has scored against us many times. On the point about league places, we were literally 2 places behind them last season and without Salah, we would have finished above them.

 

This is literally nonsense

11 hours ago, CVByrne said:

United will get 4th, it all depends now on Spurs and if they Spurs it. They've plenty of tough fixtures 

Think bookies still have us and Spurs ahead of Utd to finish in CL spots.

Utd are in good form points-wise, but their performances have been relatively poor. Be surprised if they don’t start dropping points again soon.

I think it’s a three-way fight for 4th, with Spurs our main threat.

Torres is a ridiculous upgrade on Diego Carlos. Would prefer him next to Konsa or Mings, but looked decent with Lenglet.

I think we’re very fortunate with our build up play that he’s come back just as Kamara has got injured.

20 hours ago, villa4europe said:

You can't measure it as spend by them in isolation, it needs to be put in the context of all the other league teams and measured as outspending, which both of them did 

Personally I think pep is a purer footballing coach, his teams dominate in a way that Fergies never did but Fergie had a bounce back ability that pep has never had to show, utd were overtaken by wengers arsenal and Jose's Chelsea but came back, he built multiple teams 

Fwiw as its impossible to ever state it as a fact but I think pep's man city treble winners beat Fergies utd treble winners 

I think the team with Rooney / Ronaldo / Tevez that won PL & CL in 2008 probably beats them, though.