Leon Bailey

[MWARLEY2]

This is the player i was hoping we would get 2 years ago. Except even better.  Those mini shin pads have been the best thing he has ever done by changing them. Confident and 9 times out of 10 makes the right decision rather than 1 out of 10. 

Really fast, stronger , more stamina, more heart and far far more skill. His chop while running at full pace is something really hard to defend against, even for the best defenders in the league. 

Your place in the starting XI is yours to lose Leon. Keeping a £50 mill star on the bench. Thats called stepping up to the plate. 

[Mazrim]

12 minutes ago, villanwesty88 said:

Let's just stick to "Villa, Villa, Villa"

Its nice to imagine all these new wonderful sonorous tributes to the players, but most fans are tone deaf, with broad Brummie accents, and they couldn't hold a tune any more than they could hold a pyroclastic flow.
Case in point: Holtenders in the Sky. Compare it to Johnny Cash's original Ghostriders in the Sky. Its an absolute travesty that sounds nothing like the source.

Can you imagine this same cacophonous horde belting out Kingston Town, bless them? If we want to keep Bailey, I strongly advise against it.

 

**** it, let's rework Marillion's Kayleigh.

Bailey, oh I never thought we'd miss you
And, Bailey, we thought that you'd always be benched
We said Diaby would start forever
But you just scored in front of the Holte End

[lexicon]

8 minutes ago, Nicho said:

I didn’t say you wernt allowed to criticise people for their opinion it’s a forum after all. Your point was this is why we support and don’t criticise.

 The point is that blind support isn’t always correct if a player isn’t up to it then they deserve criticism. Bailey wasn’t up to it and I’m sure Unai criticised him and did drop him. Are you supporting Dendocker, Traore, Chamber et al?

Bailey has turned the corner and come back stronger and I’m all for it, happy to give players like Zaniolo the benefit of time aswell but at the moment his performances don’t deserve blind support either.  

Are you really asking if I support the players on our team?  Of course I do ffs. Bailey's got a higher ceiling than the others you mentioned and, as I've been saying all along, it was stupid to write him off. 

Bailey clearly struggled after his injury and was in a bad place mentally for a while but it was clear as day that there was a player in there. I don't know if you've ever worked in education, coaching or training, (frankly I hope not) but the way to get people to improve is not by just criticising them. 

[VillanousOne]

So glad Bailey is proving so many on here wrong!

I confess to giving up on Zaniolo, mainly because of the loan situation, will he actually find some form at a point we can safely make the move permanent (still nightmare flashbacks to signing Coutinho permanently when he had not done nearly enough to justify that) , if we'd already spent 30 mil on him and he was our player i'd be a lot less likely to give up on him. But the more I see Bailey thrive the more I want/hope Zaniolo can do the same.

Hope we give Bailey a new contract soon!

[sidcow]

@JAMAICAN-VILLAN right now

 

 

[rodders0223]

You can keep your goals, you can keep your assist, your pace and your dribbles.

There was point yesterday I think the ball just randomly popped out to him and if just switched the play first time with his right foot to McGinn and I just thought by Joe he's got it. The penny has dropped.

He didn't take 19 touches and think of a million things to do and do none of them. He just knew what pass he was going to make should the ball fall to him.

And that's a **** skill.

[Indigo]

Just shows how much of a difference confidence and all that comes with it can make. The ability has always been there, he was just showing it too fleetingly and I think he let it affect him too much. He wears his heart on his sleeve and you can tell he beats himself up about things when they're not going well, but he got off to a good start this season and he's only grown with it which has been great to see. It's the difference between over-thinking things, taking too many touches etc and a performance like this where it all clicked for him. Even when being used as an impact sub he still looked like he was loving it, he deserved to have it rewarded with a game like last night's.

Side note but I watched this short interview he did after the game and him having zero frame of reference for who MON was or when he was at Villa cracked me up. He just assumes he "wasn't born yet or was one or two years old" at the time (2:30).

 

Edited December 7, 2023 by Indigo

[KentVillan]

2 minutes ago, rodders0223 said:

You can keep your goals, you can keep your assist, your pace and your dribbles.

There was point yesterday I think the ball just randomly popped out to him and if just switched the play first time with his right foot to McGinn and I just thought by Joe he's got it. The penny has dropped.

He didn't take 19 touches and think of a million things to do and do none of them. He just knew what pass he was going to make should the ball fall to him.

And that's a **** skill.

Yeah some of the triumphalism on here is ignoring the fact that Bailey really did look poor for ages. Devoid of confidence, and making terrible decisions.

He clearly had the raw attributes, but I think it's taken an elite coaching team (not just Unai) to bring the best out of him.

He's still going to be one of those players who makes a lot of mistakes, but that's because his game is all about high risk, high reward gambles. What he's getting better at is knowing when not to gamble, when to get his head up, etc.

I still think that chance first half would have been a tap in for Watkins if he'd played it across the keeper, but I suppose when you're in the kind of form he's in, you just go for goal. Watkins would have done the same.

[mjmooney]

4 hours ago, duke313 said:

Has he become undroppable now after that performace?

I think in Emeryworld, we need to rethink the whole idea of players being 'dropped' as if it's a punishment. Diaby wasn't dropped, it's just that the chessmaster Unai picks his team and his strategy to suit each game. 

Yes, I think Leon will start against Arsenal, but I won't be at all surprised if he doesn't. The Mister knows exactly what he's doing. 

[VBM]

1 hour ago, Mazrim said:

**** it, let's rework Marillion's Kayleigh.

Bailey, oh I never thought we'd miss you
And, Bailey, we thought that you'd always be benched
We said Diaby would start forever
But you just scored in front of the Holte End

Hold up, this scans perfectly. You start this off and I'll most certainly join in. 

[sidcow]

3 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

Yeah some of the triumphalism on here is ignoring the fact that Bailey really did look poor for ages. Devoid of confidence, and making terrible decisions.

As did everyone under Gerrard. McGinn also looked a spent force. What an absolute charlatan that man is. 

[DJBOB]

Leon Bailey in a nutshell this season - 

[KentVillan]

45 minutes ago, sidcow said:

As did everyone under Gerrard. McGinn also looked a spent force. What an absolute charlatan that man is. 

Of course, but the Bailey turnaround has taken a bit longer than some of the others, and players like McGinn had some credit in the bank from their performances in the Smith era.

It does make you wonder if players like Zaniolo and Duran will start to find this kind of form soon.

Edited December 7, 2023 by KentVillan

[KentVillan]

7 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

I think in Emeryworld, we need to rethink the whole idea of players being 'dropped' as if it's a punishment. Diaby wasn't dropped, it's just that the chessmaster Unai picks his team and his strategy to suit each game. 

Yes, I think Leon will start against Arsenal, but I won't be at all surprised if he doesn't. The Mister knows exactly what he's doing. 

100% agree. Emery doesn’t drop players, he rotates them. And now we have the squad depth in a few positions to do this properly.

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

35 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

I think in Emeryworld, we need to rethink the whole idea of players being 'dropped' as if it's a punishment. Diaby wasn't dropped, it's just that the chessmaster Unai picks his team and his strategy to suit each game. 

Yes, I think Leon will start against Arsenal, but I won't be at all surprised if he doesn't. The Mister knows exactly what he's doing. 

100.

Strangely, the immense resurgence of Leon, has made me think " I can't wait to see what Diaby MKll is going to look " once he's been fully " Unai'd "

Hoping the same still for Zaniolo.

Look at the previously written off players Unai has transformed into near world beaters and you can't help but be excited.

That's the good thing about what we are building, some players will inevitably lose form, but under Unai, another solution and/or player will surge to prominence into the role 

We've barely even seen JJ at full speed yet under Unai as well!

[Vive_La_Villa]

43 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

I think in Emeryworld, we need to rethink the whole idea of players being 'dropped' as if it's a punishment. Diaby wasn't dropped, it's just that the chessmaster Unai picks his team and his strategy to suit each game. 

Yes, I think Leon will start against Arsenal, but I won't be at all surprised if he doesn't. The Mister knows exactly what he's doing. 

I don’t think it’s exclusive to Emery to be honest. All the big clubs rotate players because they have quality squads. We just haven’t had a squad this good for a very long time.

[KentVillan]

4 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

I don’t think it’s exclusive to Emery to be honest. All the big clubs rotate players because they have quality squads. We just haven’t had a squad this good for a very long time.

Below the level of Man City / Arsenal / Liverpool / Man Utd it's fairly unusual though. Most teams have regular starting XIs and rotate for injuries / fitness. It's a new thing here to be regularly rotating players for specific match situations, and we're doing it with what is still a relatively thin squad compared to a side like Man City.

[Rightdm00]

59 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

Yeah some of the triumphalism on here is ignoring the fact that Bailey really did look poor for ages. Devoid of confidence, and making terrible decisions.

He clearly had the raw attributes, but I think it's taken an elite coaching team (not just Unai) to bring the best out of him.

He's still going to be one of those players who makes a lot of mistakes, but that's because his game is all about high risk, high reward gambles. What he's getting better at is knowing when not to gamble, when to get his head up, etc.

I still think that chance first half would have been a tap in for Watkins if he'd played it across the keeper, but I suppose when you're in the kind of form he's in, you just go for goal. Watkins would have done the same.

Honestly, I think that's exactly why Watkins didn't really complain afterwards. Bailey is currently in that rare sort of form where you just get out of the way and watch him win the match single handedly. Couldn't have happened at a better time. Here comes arsenal with both first choice FBs injured. 

[MWARLEY2]

56 minutes ago, DJBOB said:

Leon Bailey in a nutshell this season - 

Any chance you can post the one rating him against att mids and wingers ? 

[DJBOB]

2 minutes ago, MWARLEY2 said:

Any chance you can post the one rating him against att mids and wingers ?