The Villa Park problem

[TRO]

There is a number of factors and successive managers have not been able to fix it, but its the responsibility of the current manager to try and fix it.

 

I understand folk say " it takes time" and in all seriousness, it does.

 

my concern  is when I see the basics in such short supply with so many players and under so many different managers it spells  W O R R Y  for me.

 

I am not an authority on how long these things take, but we are signing players no better than ones we are dismissing, who have no better handle on the basics.

 

If we are hanging on to the notion that a day will come that we can sign better quality, by paying higher fees, how can we be sure they will be any better than the same players we paid over the odds for expecting a better standard of football player...and are now desperately trying to of load.

 

I have a fear we are going round and round in circles with this.

Edited December 2, 2013 by TRO

[John]

I am not sure the size of the pitch was any different in 80/81 than it is now although the surface is far better than it was back then. Could it be that good players can perform on any surface and on any size pitch and we need to sign a couple more of them to win more games at Villa Park? Over to you Randy... 

[AndyM3000]

If you have ever been to a ground like Bolton you will see just how small a pitch can be.

 

We don't use the space we have, other teams do. Worked well when we had Young, Downing on the wings and Barry/Milner there to spread the ball quickly, not anymore.

[lexicon]

Players need support, fans want something to shout about... a vicious circle. 

 

I don't see much point in pitching up to the stadium and just moaning though - nothing worse than being stuck behind one of life's most miserable sods at a footy match, 

[Rovers13]

Danny Murphy mentioned in the understandably brief analysis of the game yesterday that "it's a big pitch there" and also that mentally it's started to affect the players a bit.

If he can work it out I imagine opposition managers can aswell, certainly we struggled against Spurs who played with width and they've been nothing special against other teams.

If I was in charge I'd look at narrowing the pitch tbh if it was possible, you really need to be making Villa Park as unpleasant for visiting teams as possible and just seems counter productive to me we don't really use width anymore and yet we have one of the biggest pitches in the league. It might only be a few yards but it probably makes a difference.

Danny Murphy is a greedy, lazy sorry excuse for a footballer. Only reason he probably knows it's wide is cause a wide pitch actually made him run a little bit with his lazy ass.

[Dodgyknees]

Danny Murphy mentioned in the understandably brief analysis of the game yesterday that "it's a big pitch there" and also that mentally it's started to affect the players a bit.

If he can work it out I imagine opposition managers can aswell, certainly we struggled against Spurs who played with width and they've been nothing special against other teams.

If I was in charge I'd look at narrowing the pitch tbh if it was possible, you really need to be making Villa Park as unpleasant for visiting teams as possible and just seems counter productive to me we don't really use width anymore and yet we have one of the biggest pitches in the league. It might only be a few yards but it probably makes a difference.

Danny Murphy is a greedy, lazy sorry excuse for a footballer. Only reason he probably knows it's wide is cause a wide pitch actually made him run a little bit with his lazy ass.

Made me laugh!

[romavillan]

If you have ever been to a ground like Bolton you will see just how small a pitch can be.

 

We don't use the space we have, other teams do. Worked well when we had Young, Downing on the wings and Barry/Milner there to spread the ball quickly, not anymore.

Old Highbury was the most obvious to me, I went there for the first time having only seen the Villa Park pitch and was utterly gobsmacked by how small it was. Villa Park was, not sure about now, only second in size to the old Wembley. Space should be a great thing for Gabby's game in particular, but you could also say that should be true of Weimann and Tonev.

I'd be against changing that, I think the problems at home come from a young squad feeling more pressure at home, and having to work that much harder to get in behind having the counterattack taken away as a weapon. It's going to take a while to turn those things around,

[Oaks]

We definitely need to cut the size of the pitch. I'm surprised no manager has ever done it, because we've haven't had a decent home record for about 20 years.

[VillaChris]

Stoke narrowed their pitch big time when they first came up....they got 10 home wins out of 19 the season they came up.

 

I'm not saying we have to play anti-football and long throws and all that (not that the football we're playing at home is enjoyable to watch currently) but really I'd be up for anything that makes things a little bit more difficult for away teams who turn up at VP.

[Tayls]

We definitely need to cut the size of the pitch. I'm surprised no manager has ever done it, because we've haven't had a decent home record for about 20 years.

Wasn't tooooo bad when O'Neil was in charge because we had proper width... That style of football is old now though. I agree surprised no manager has changed the dimensions to suit the different styles. It's so easy to do as well, the question from the groundsman pops up in your inbox asking for the pitch sizes for the upcoming season and you select one of three options and....oh wait a second I think that is just FM. Damnit!!

Edited December 2, 2013 by Tayls

[StanBalaban]

We definitely need to cut the size of the pitch. I'm surprised no manager has ever done it, because we've haven't had a decent home record for about 20 years.

The new Premier League rule book is out, and can be viewed here. My main interest in it is to see what they’ve done to rules about ownership that will affect the Kroenke/Usmanov dynamic, but at first sight I can’t see what’s different in those sections. So while I check that in more detail, here’s another titbit from the riveting 500-plus pages.

You may have heard that all PL pitches now have to be a standard size, which is 105m x 68m, bringing it in line with the Uefa standard. I always feel it’s a bit anachronistic to measure anything football-related in metres, given that all the internal measurements of the pitch are in yards – the centre circle, the penalty area, six-yard box, distance of penalty spot from goal, the goal size itself, the corner quadrants – but that’s what it is.....

The effect of this standardisation is of course that the likes of Stoke can’t suddenly make the pitch narrower to try and restrict more skilful teams, but I’m slightly saddened by the change. The FA laws of the game haven’t changed, of course, this is just the PL rules, so outside The Greatest League In The World and the Uefa competitions you can still do what you like – sort of. I have always quite liked the fact that pitches can be different sizes and could in theory be almost square. Variety can be good. But the PL rulebook grows ever longer with new rules about everything you can possibly think of.

 

http://angryofislington.com/2012/09/01/new-premier-league-pitch-dimensions-rules/

Edited December 2, 2013 by StanBalaban