Juan Pablo Angel

[DCJonah]

On 12/04/2019 at 14:54, Jimzk5 said:

IMHO we never saw the best of Angel (03/04) aside because he was too clever for the player we had around him. 

And I agree the injury did ruin him really, Iirc he had an op on his knee which ended up getting infected and after that he lost a touch of pace.

Not quite a legend but definitely a cult hero who as I said, I loved watching him play for us, he was still doing alrite for us when Mon bombed him off to New York

God that defence of him used to wind me up. Reminds me of the constant excuses made for Hogan. 

Angel had his moments but he was very average a lot of the time. One amazing season. 

[lapal_fan]

14 hours ago, DCJonah said:

God that defence of him used to wind me up. Reminds me of the constant excuses made for Hogan. 

Angel had his moments but he was very average a lot of the time. One amazing season. 

Because it's not fair to judge him when most of his career here he had Barry on the wing, a young and mostly cack James milner on the right and a midfield duo of Gavin McCann, Peter Whittingham, Steven Davis, a young and shoot hungry Thomas Hitzslsperger and Lee Hendrie.  

The one good season he had solano, who was a good winger.

Barry at the time was much derided and large parts of the fan base wanted him gone.

Lee Hendrie was good in patches.

Steven Davis was young, as was Whittingham etc.

Gavin McCann was anything but creative.

I think it's lucky with that lot supplying you that he got half the goals he got.  I also think you put him in another, more successful team, or higher chance creating team like Newcastle at the time, and he'd have scored hatfuls of goals.

We were functional, and by the time he'd settled with his family issues at the time, we'd lost merson and a lot of our creative power had gone.

[8pints]

Now he's having a chat with our current captain

 

[rodders0223]

7 hours ago, lapal_fan said:

Because it's not fair to judge him when most of his career here he had Barry on the wing, a young and mostly cack James milner on the right and a midfield duo of Gavin McCann, Peter Whittingham, Steven Davis, a young and shoot hungry Thomas Hitzslsperger and Lee Hendrie.  

The one good season he had solano, who was a good winger.

Barry at the time was much derided and large parts of the fan base wanted him gone.

Lee Hendrie was good in patches.

Steven Davis was young, as was Whittingham etc.

Gavin McCann was anything but creative.

I think it's lucky with that lot supplying you that he got half the goals he got.  I also think you put him in another, more successful team, or higher chance creating team like Newcastle at the time, and he'd have scored hatfuls of goals.

We were functional, and by the time he'd settled with his family issues at the time, we'd lost merson and a lot of our creative power had gone.

Oi! Eirik Bakke was one of the most gifted playmakers of his generation.

[Zatman]

Bakke, McCann, Leonhardsen, Kinsella, Djemba-Djemba only the finest JPA got to play with

[bannedfromHandV]

That goal against Chelsea tho.

 

[DCJonah]

10 hours ago, lapal_fan said:

Because it's not fair to judge him when most of his career here he had Barry on the wing, a young and mostly cack James milner on the right and a midfield duo of Gavin McCann, Peter Whittingham, Steven Davis, a young and shoot hungry Thomas Hitzslsperger and Lee Hendrie.  

The one good season he had solano, who was a good winger.

Barry at the time was much derided and large parts of the fan base wanted him gone.

Lee Hendrie was good in patches.

Steven Davis was young, as was Whittingham etc.

Gavin McCann was anything but creative.

I think it's lucky with that lot supplying you that he got half the goals he got.  I also think you put him in another, more successful team, or higher chance creating team like Newcastle at the time, and he'd have scored hatfuls of goals.

We were functional, and by the time he'd settled with his family issues at the time, we'd lost merson and a lot of our creative power had gone.

Does everyone get this generous way of judging them?

You could argue the vast majority of players would be better playing with better players. That's hardly ground breaking stuff. 

The idea that Angel was too clever for his teammates is laughable stuff invented because people are desperate for it to be true. The same way for a long time people tried to argue that Hogan had world class movement. 

[lapal_fan]

37 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

Does everyone get this generous way of judging them?

You could argue the vast majority of players would be better playing with better players. That's hardly ground breaking stuff. 

The idea that Angel was too clever for his teammates is laughable stuff invented because people are desperate for it to be true. The same way for a long time people tried to argue that Hogan had world class movement. 

Do strikers get judged by how they are supplied?

Errr... Yes?

I like the notion players are completely individual and whatever is happening around them in irrelevant.

 

[DCJonah]

20 minutes ago, lapal_fan said:

Do strikers get judged by how they are supplied?

Errr... Yes?

I like the notion players are completely individual and whatever is happening around them in irrelevant.

 

Yeah all the big discussions about the top players are on who supplies them. You are completely correct, don't know what I was thinking. 

Who said the 2nd part?

[lapal_fan]

17 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

Yeah all the big discussions about the top players are on who supplies them. You are completely correct, don't know what I was thinking. 

Who said the 2nd part?

Messi is good, he has the best players supplying him. He didn't tonight and looked pretty average.  Who knew? 

He should have just dribbled around all the players and scored a tap in.

[DCJonah]

19 hours ago, lapal_fan said:

Messi is good, he has the best players supplying him. He didn't tonight and looked pretty average.  Who knew? 

He should have just dribbled around all the players and scored a tap in.

Haha. You're using the widely accepted greatest of all time to argue that players are judged on who supplies them? Brilliant. 

I'm not arguing it doesn't have an impact but its not the main way to judge them. Its certainly not something that would be the definitive way to judge a player or something that means an individual player can't be judged on what they do. 

[dont_do_it_doug.]

Angel's downfall is really simple, it was the knee injury which IIRC we rushed him back from. His legs just wouldn't do what he wanted them to do anymore. He was 29 when it happened, that kind of injury can take down many a player. Plus the club was in turmoil for a few years there.  

A prime Angel in a team like ours now would be sensational. 

[HanoiVillan]

3 hours ago, DCJonah said:

Haha. You're using the widely accepted greatest of all time to argue that players are judged on who supplies them? Brilliant. 

I'm not arguing it doesn't have an impact but its not the main way to judge them. Its certainly not something that would be the definitive way to judge a player or something that means an individual player can't be judged on what they do. 

I don't think anybody's arguing otherwise. The other poster simply made the point that when he played with a better midfielder, he had a better season. 

[DCJonah]

2 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I don't think anybody's arguing otherwise. The other poster simply made the point that when he played with a better midfielder, he had a better season. 

100% agreed. 

Although he did say its not fair to judge him when playing with worse players. That's the part i don't agree with. 

[lapal_fan]

15 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

100% agreed. 

Although he did say its not fair to judge him when playing with worse players. That's the part i don't agree with. 

It's a weird part not to agree with, when you've just agreed with it.. 

[HanoiVillan]

19 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

100% agreed. 

Although he did say its not fair to judge him when playing with worse players. That's the part i don't agree with. 

Having watched the highlights of some of Liverpool's recent matches, I've been particularly impressed with Wijnaldum, who looks excellent these days. I remember they bought him, for quite a lot of money, after a distinctly ho hum season at Newcastle where he didn't do much of any note.

On the one hand, this proves your point - it is possible to judge players' ability when they're part of bad teams, and in fact the best scouts can see things in seemingly average players that the fan on the terraces can't see. On the other, of course, it proves the opposite point that a player's ceiling might be radically higher than it initially appears to be, and that the addition of better quality teammates can bring out ability in a player that is something really different from where they were before. There's no point trying to decide which is the 'real Wijnaldum', the struggling plodder at Newcastle or the dynamo excelling at Liverpool, because they are both the real him, just at different stages in his career and with different players around him. 

Dragging this back to JPA, the relevance is that both his season when he was brilliant and his season (seasons?) when he was poor were 'the real him', and the logical conclusion is that he was both a player with a much higher ceiling than, eg Peter Whittingham, but that he was also not good enough to carry the team on his back a la Benteke. Neither brilliant nor shite; just somewhere in the middle. 

Edited May 8, 2019 by HanoiVillan

[lapal_fan]

2 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Having watched the highlights of some of Liverpool's recent matches, I've been particularly impressed with Wijnaldum, who looks excellent these days. I remember they bought him, for quite a lot of money, after a distinctly ho hum season at Newcastle where he didn't do much of any note.

On the one hand, this proves your point - it is possible to judge players' ability when they're part of bad teams, and in fact the best scouts can see things in seemingly average players that the fan on the terraces can't see. On the other, of course, it proves the opposite point that a player's ceiling might be radically higher than it initially appears to be, and that the addition of better quality teammates can bring out ability in a player that is something really different from where they were before. There's no point trying to decide which is the 'real Wijnaldum', the struggling plodder at Newcastle or the dynamo excelling at Liverpool, because they are both the real him, just at different stages in his career and with different players around him. 

Dragging this back to JPA, the relevance is that both his season when he was brilliant and his season (seasons?) when he was poor were 'the real him', and the logical conclusion is that he was both a player with a much higher ceiling than, eg Peter Whittingham, but that also not good enough to carry the team on his back a la Benteke. Neither brilliant nor shite; just somewhere in the middle. 

Arsenal at the time, you know, the arsenal with Henry, Berkamp etc were heavily linked with a 15m - 20M for him. He never had the physical qualities of benteke, but he was quick footed, could finish very well and was great in the air.  Good movement and positioning too.  He also had a decent shot from outside the box and scored some great goals for us.

No doubting his knees disappeared though and was never the same.  I did think that O Neill could have used him

[Pelle]

18 minutes ago, lapal_fan said:

Arsenal at the time, you know, the arsenal with Henry, Berkamp etc were heavily linked with a 15m - 20M for him. He never had the physical qualities of benteke, but he was quick footed, could finish very well and was great in the air.  Good movement and positioning too.  He also had a decent shot from outside the box and scored some great goals for us.

No doubting his knees disappeared though and was never the same.  I did think that O Neill could have used him

And also a very intelligent player.

[Tomaszk]

On 07/05/2019 at 10:47, lapal_fan said:

Barry at the time was much derided and large parts of the fan base wanted him gone.

[lapal_fan]

1 hour ago, Tomaszk said:

Afraid so.

In the old villa forums (on the official site) it even had Barry out threads.

It was mostly because people said he wasn't quick enough and didn't have many tricks to beat defenders.

He had a poor 6 months with us in about 2003/4. 

I remember my brother defending him to a group of lads sat next to us in the holte end, saying "can you just get behind him, and he'll probably play well" about 5 mins later he scored lol.

But yea, there was quite a lot of people who wanted him gone before he turned into captain fantastic.