TRO Posted October 21, 2013 Share Posted October 21, 2013 Jees. I didn't think it was that bad. Yes we got caught out a few time (mainly in the second half) but the plan was (to some extent) working until the goal went in. i thought we were unlucky with the goal, as teams always are when that type of goal goes in. Tottenham hadn't really opened us up and Guzan only made maybe on or two decent saves in the fist half. the one from Townsend right at the ned of the half was, to say the least, nothing short of a pice of luck that resulted in the ball falling to his feet on the dge of the box rather than harmelssly making its way past Bake to Guzan (instead of ricocheting of him straight to Townsend). They were able to play with a little more confidence second half because of their first goal and as players tired they made good use of the extra space, parituclarly on the counter when they sealed the game with thier second. Spurs deserved to win the game but at the end of the day they have just sold one player and spen the best part of £100m+ on their squad, bringing in how many top top players. for not much of a net spend. If we sold Benteke for the best part of £80m and then went out and bought half a dozen £15m players we would be a much better team. What did people expect? Spurs are a real top 4 contender, more so than ManU on current evidence. My only minor gripe was that we didn't make their keeper work as much as we should have done when we had possession but we did create some half chances here and there in the second half and we were playing some nice stuff n midfield and out wide. However they were very compact in defense (Mourinhoesque) and it's not as simple as lobbing a ball into the box (ask Stoke). In terms of their starting 11 people need to remember that they the likes of Erikson, Chadli, Dembele, Defoe, Rose, Lennon, Sigurdsson & Lamela all out or not starting and Vertonghen played out of position at right back. You'd think that would be a problem for a lot of teams but when you see a starting line up as strong as theirs without all those players then people need to have some perspective. Regarding your fourth paragraph, we bought Bent for a similar spend to Suarez..how do you know we have the ability to capitalize on the suspected Benteke funds. Think we need to start looking at ourselves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mantis Posted October 21, 2013 Share Posted October 21, 2013 Lambert has had a fraction of the money AVB has had at Spurs and also took over a much weaker squad. Well i thought we were talking about mon and lamberts midfield, of course spurs has a much better midfield and bigger budget but lambert has had money to spend and all i'm saying is if at this point 3 windows and at a guess 30m+ he doesnt have a decent enough midfield to compete then why does he avoid any blame? Lambert had to completely rebuild the squad though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TRO Posted October 21, 2013 Share Posted October 21, 2013 Jees. I didn't think it was that bad. Yes we got caught out a few time (mainly in the second half) but the plan was (to some extent) working until the goal went in. i thought we were unlucky with the goal, as teams always are when that type of goal goes in. Tottenham hadn't really opened us up and Guzan only made maybe on or two decent saves in the fist half. the one from Townsend right at the ned of the half was, to say the least, nothing short of a pice of luck that resulted in the ball falling to his feet on the dge of the box rather than harmelssly making its way past Bake to Guzan (instead of ricocheting of him straight to Townsend). They were able to play with a little more confidence second half because of their first goal and as players tired they made good use of the extra space, parituclarly on the counter when they sealed the game with thier second. Spurs deserved to win the game but at the end of the day they have just sold one player and spen the best part of £100m+ on their squad, bringing in how many top top players. for not much of a net spend. If we sold Benteke for the best part of £80m and then went out and bought half a dozen £15m players we would be a much better team. What did people expect? Spurs are a real top 4 contender, more so than ManU on current evidence. My only minor gripe was that we didn't make their keeper work as much as we should have done when we had possession but we did create some half chances here and there in the second half and we were playing some nice stuff n midfield and out wide. However they were very compact in defense (Mourinhoesque) and it's not as simple as lobbing a ball into the box (ask Stoke). In terms of their starting 11 people need to remember that they the likes of Erikson, Chadli, Dembele, Defoe, Rose, Lennon, Sigurdsson & Lamela all out or not starting and Vertonghen played out of position at right back. You'd think that would be a problem for a lot of teams but when you see a starting line up as strong as theirs without all those players then people need to have some perspective. So you think they are better that man city and arsenal. We lost that match yesterday, if you watched the game we created so many unforced errors. Despite, their undoubted, individual superiority, we , on our day could have beaten them. When we won the league in 1981 we did not possess the best individual skills as a team then....but we got so many other elements right to compensate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliffy Biro Posted October 21, 2013 Share Posted October 21, 2013 Lambert has had a fraction of the money AVB has had at Spurs and also took over a much weaker squad. Well i thought we were talking about mon and lamberts midfield, of course spurs has a much better midfield and bigger budget but lambert has had money to spend and all i'm saying is if at this point 3 windows and at a guess 30m+ he doesnt have a decent enough midfield to compete then why does he avoid any blame? Lambert had to completely rebuild the squad though. Yep and im aware its only the start of his second season and it will take even more time, but if people want to talk about lambert not having the choices we need then its not like he hasnt had some backing in the transfer market. At home we need to ditch counter attacking and use a creative midfielder otherwise the rest of the home games will be exactly the same. 3 midfielders doing exactly the same thing, press press press, win the ball back and then give it aay failing a basic 10 yard pass and then we're back to defending again. I can forgive being a bit cautious against the likes of spurs and man city but if we set up in the same boring 433 counter against the teams around us there will be some angry reactions i assume. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
briny_ear Posted October 21, 2013 Share Posted October 21, 2013 (edited) hahaha classic villatalk. A good start to the season prior to Spurs, a defeat later and it's time to rip up the team sheet and tactics and start all over again, effing hilarious. Give it a week and a win over everton and everyone will be back to buzzing their balls off again. I wish I had something better to do than read this drivel, sadly though I don't..... It really is a bunch of wild mood swings from game to game. Win and we're challenging for a Europe spot. Lose and we're the worst team in the league. Take a step back folks. It's a long season. I really never understand how people have the energy to post stuff like this. This is a thread about whether our counterattacking tactics are working at home (the background is that a team usually needs to pick up a decent slug of points at home or they will be struggling and we so far have 3 points form 12). People are making reasonable and quite interesting points in the discussion. Then we are bombed by posters slagging us and making accusations of wild mood swings and effing hilarious changes of opinion. Why not actually read the actual thread and the points being discussed. I would challenge you to identify any "wild mood swings" and you might actually find it quite absorbing. Edited October 21, 2013 by briny_ear 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TRO Posted October 21, 2013 Share Posted October 21, 2013 hahaha classic villatalk. A good start to the season prior to Spurs, a defeat later and it's time to rip up the team sheet and tactics and start all over again, effing hilarious. Give it a week and a win over everton and everyone will be back to buzzing their balls off again. I wish I had something better to do than read this drivel, sadly though I don't..... It really is a bunch of wild mood swings from game to game. Win and we're challenging for a Europe spot. Lose and we're the worst team in the league. Take a step back folks. It's a long season. It's got nothing whatsoever to do with mood swings and it is not bash the manager or sack him as some will interpret the analytical comments on here. If you think we thought all was well against Man CIty you truly don't understand what some of us are saying....did you want us to come and say we were completely outplayed in the first half an fail to enjoy the win. So ,my deduction is you can't be analytical/critical after a win (kinda makes sense) and you can't be analytical/critical after a defeat. So when is the appropriate time to say what you see on the field of play may I ask? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kwan Posted October 21, 2013 Share Posted October 21, 2013 (edited) Because the reactions swing too wildly each way. It's a long season. The team dips in and out of form. Everyone has projected them to be a midtable side and guess where they are? Midtable against THE hardest starting fixture list in the league. No, it's not all happy roses and to be frank, the team has played like shit in every game except for Arsenal. And yet, we still have 10 points. Whereas last season, we would have pissed away everything and lost 5-0 multiple times and mired down in relegation. The team can play better. The team has played better. The team will play better. But everyone just sees the most previous result and flies off the handle in both directions. Take a deep breathe and realize that it is a process. It is a construction. It is building. The team is not transformed in three transfer windows overnight and will not look better against a team whose bench cost more than the whole squad. I understand the frustration over the past couple of seasons, but take a step back with a little perspective and realize that patience will have to be exercised. A commodity that is funnily missing for people that are still holding on to 1981, a full 32 years ago. Edited October 21, 2013 by Kwan 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
briny_ear Posted October 21, 2013 Share Posted October 21, 2013 This does not meet the challenge of showing exactly where in this thread there are "wild mood swings" or "flying off the handle". This is an interesting discussion about what is probably THE central issue for Villa this season as they seek to improve their form and results. It is one that is being taken up by journalists in a thoughtful and intelligent way. Really don't see what the problem is and certainly throwing round meaningless slogans about mood swings etc. is just silly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kwan Posted October 21, 2013 Share Posted October 21, 2013 If you want a statistcal, meaningful conversation, I can give you one. What I see in this thread is full of people saying the squad sucks and we can't play good football, etc. etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kwan Posted October 21, 2013 Share Posted October 21, 2013 (edited) And if you really want to get into why counter-attack sometimes work and it sometimes doesn't, it all stems on where we win the ball. As alluded into the article above, winning it high up the pitch doesn't give our forwards (mainly Agbonlahor and Weimann) a chance to run onto balls as a majority of our goals have been scored by getting it down the line and cutting it back. By winning it high up the pitch (like we did against Tottenham and City to an extent), there is less room to run onto. If you look back at all our goals, a majority of them start from the halfway line and then four or five passes until it's in the net. It's not that counter-attacking isn't working, it's that we're not really counter-attacking. Teams are content at not pouring forward since they realize it's one of Villa's strengths. In order for that to improve, the players have to start believing and trusting each other again. You have seen moments of that happen, but the key is the consistency of it happening. If you want to make a direct comparison, then look back towards last season when we arguably played "prettier" football and got zip all for it in the beginning of the season. PL has to work with what he has got and identified that it's no use trying to play Goliath the Goliath's way so he impressed a David strategy on them. Make the other team play the way we want them to, which means frustrating their passes for a long period of time and making sure to convert the few chances gained from it in order to get ahead early. Obviously that didn't happen, but that doesn't mean it was the wrong decision. Right decision, wrong result. It happens. The key going forward is seeing if we employ a similair strategy against weaker opponents. I don't think we will, but that will rely upon defenders and midfielders starting to play out of the back and realizing they are the Goliath team and have to start playing well again. Edited October 21, 2013 by Kwan 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TRO Posted October 21, 2013 Share Posted October 21, 2013 Because the reactions swing too wildly each way. It's a long season. The team dips in and out of form. Everyone has projected them to be a midtable side and guess where they are? Midtable against THE hardest starting fixture list in the league. No, it's not all happy roses and to be frank, the team has played like shit in every game except for Arsenal. And yet, we still have 10 points. Whereas last season, we would have pissed away everything and lost 5-0 multiple times and mired down in relegation. The team can play better. The team has played better. The team will play better. But everyone just sees the most previous result and flies off the handle in both directions. Take a deep breathe and realize that it is a process. It is a construction. It is building. The team is not transformed in three transfer windows overnight and will not look better against a team whose bench cost more than the whole squad. I understand the frustration over the past couple of seasons, but take a step back with a little perspective and realize that patience will have to be exercised. A commodity that is funnily missing for people that are still holding on to 1981, a full 32 years ago. Kwan progress is a difficult thing to measure and it travels at different rates. I merely mentioned 1981for a particular reason... We had no money, competing against one of the best teams in Europe Liverpool, not to mention Bobby's great Ipswich team.it was at a time in our history we can bench mark what we should be aspiring to today....it was done without great funds with talent spotting and prudent training ground development of players who were not pulling up trees at other clubs. The most significant thing for me is I remember distinctly seeing individual player improvement on almost a month by month basis....it was truly tangible.i watched steam emerge with immense mental strength....these players were relative nobody's at their previous clubs. I don't see the level of individual player improvement right now that I was expecting. I do see marginal team improvement, but in my view it is marginal. Sorry for going back so long, but just trying to illustrate it is possible and it was done before.....it's not the impossible we are asking, maybe just the improbable. I'm not trying to bash the manager, but I do think we are past masters at excuses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SikhInTrinity Posted October 21, 2013 Share Posted October 21, 2013 I think TRO has made some great points. I like Lambert, he gets the club, however his tactics this year have been more about containing than expressing. Maybe he has thought of the experiences of last season, where we got battered by a few sides, but his next 6-7 games will define where we go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mantis Posted October 21, 2013 Share Posted October 21, 2013 (edited) It's still quite hard to judge us in many respects this season because we have played most of the top sides already in just the first 8 games. Even some of the lesser sides we've played this season have been difficult fixtures. Norwich for example are notoriously tough to beat at home. Edited October 21, 2013 by Mantis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted October 21, 2013 Share Posted October 21, 2013 we shouldnt have sold Bannan, since he left its no surprise our form has dipped 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SikhInTrinity Posted October 21, 2013 Share Posted October 21, 2013 we shouldnt have sold Bannan, since he left its no surprise our form has dipped He was our Xavi, Iniesta rolled into one haha. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eames Posted October 21, 2013 Share Posted October 21, 2013 In response to the OP.... More points gained than the same point last year. Victories over Man City and Arsenal Something is going right. I personally couldn't give two shits if the football is dire.... I don't care if we spend 90 minutes hoofing the ball up to Benteke or Kozak.... in fact **** it...lets play a 6-0-4 formation and just hump the ball over the midfield to Benteke, Gabby, Weimann and Kozak. Its a results business... you get **** all for pretty football. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smetrov Posted October 21, 2013 Share Posted October 21, 2013 Because the reactions swing too wildly each way. It's a long season. The team dips in and out of form. Everyone has projected them to be a midtable side and guess where they are? Midtable against THE hardest starting fixture list in the league. No, it's not all happy roses and to be frank, the team has played like shit in every game except for Arsenal. And yet, we still have 10 points. Whereas last season, we would have pissed away everything and lost 5-0 multiple times and mired down in relegation. The team can play better. The team has played better. The team will play better. But everyone just sees the most previous result and flies off the handle in both directions. Take a deep breathe and realize that it is a process. It is a construction. It is building. The team is not transformed in three transfer windows overnight and will not look better against a team whose bench cost more than the whole squad. I understand the frustration over the past couple of seasons, but take a step back with a little perspective and realize that patience will have to be exercised. A commodity that is funnily missing for people that are still holding on to 1981, a full 32 years ago. Equally it doesn't take that long to put a reasonable team in place. He has largley wasted lasted summers window - by signed players only nominally better than what we have - neglecting the gaping holes in the team - spending big money on a striker we didn't need - and looks way off making an impact. I don't want Lambert sacked but feel he blundered badley in last summers windows - any improvement will only come when he brings better players to the club. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mantis Posted October 21, 2013 Share Posted October 21, 2013 (edited) Premature much? This time last season Westwood had barely featured and Benteke was struggling to find form. It's ridiculous to be writing off a summer's transfer dealings already. Okore also got that injury and that's hardly Lambert's fault. Edited October 21, 2013 by Mantis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kwan Posted October 21, 2013 Share Posted October 21, 2013 As I said, no perspective on this forum, especially after a loss. Benteke was Heskey 2.0 at this point last season Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted October 21, 2013 Share Posted October 21, 2013 As I said, no perspective on this forum, especially after a loss. Benteke was Heskey 2.0 at this point last season the memories of it still have me in stitches Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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