Mantis Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 To be fair I thought this second half was how McLeish WANTS to his team to play. I think he has a hard time convincing them to play that way and it takes going 2-0 down to get some life and response out of the players. I think he got his front five pretty right tonight. There are clear problems with the defenders though and it seems to me they no longer have confidence in each other and he can't really seem to get them to play as a unit.If he can't get his team to play how he allegedly wants them to play then why is he even here? Thing is, when he was at SHA he didn't build anything close to a successful passing or attacking side, hence why I don't see why he should be given more time. We obviously have some problems at the back but we looked very good attacking tonight in the second half. There are glimmers of hope that maybe it is all going to come together at some point soon. I'm just concerned that our good attacking play will come to an end once Robbie Keane leaves us. At least now I fancy us to win matches unlike a couple of months back when I couldn't see where our next point was coming from. Far from convinced of McLeish but maybe more willing now to give him more time to prove us wrong.I don't fancy winning us many games at all. We may have come back well but the fact that we can't even beat QPR at home is rather worrying as there aren't many more worse teams in the division. I remember people saying that they wouldn't care about the results as long as the football was entertaining or at the very least that we attacked the team. We were unlucky not to get at least one penalty and on Warnocks superbly placed goal. On to the next game I say.The fact that the first half was absolutely dire football pretty much cancels it out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
romavillan Posted February 2, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted February 2, 2012 Well at the moment we have neither entertaining football or results. However well we played in the 2nd half yesterday that is 45 minutes of football in a season jam packed with **** terrible football in which we've failed to have a shot on target in entire halves of games. Yesterday the 2nd half was a game of attack v defend against one of the worst sides in the league away from home who were desperately trying to hold on to what they had. As for people saying they didn't care about the result as long as the football was entertaining, I'm not sure who they are but I doubt they meant they didn't mind about the results for half a season so long as we played entertaining football for 45 minutes. ok. we all know this season has been terrible so far apart from a few good wins away from home. however i think we have to realise that this process of getting the wages in check that we all find so painfull from the outside, as was MON **** off, must be 10 times worse if you're on the inside of the club and having 4 diff managers in 2 years. the situation is a lot more complex than AM is a GC and that's it. to say that we were only good for 45 mins last night is wrong. it was at least an hour where we were BATTERING them, not by just pumping it aimlessly into the box either. creating great interchanges between the lines of their midfield and back four to craft good chances. maintaining possession of the ball, off the ball movement was great, players showing good vision and composure. pressing high up the pitch, ireland must have run a **** marathon distance last night (stepehen ireland working his balls off?!?!). now, i'm not saying we've been playing like that for half a season. no, we've come close to that level away at chelsea for a shorter period of time. apart from that away we've shown we can play a decent counter attacking game. last night was something we haven't seen a villa side do for i don't know how long. there were loads of positives. the jury is out on if we can repeat that sort of level of performance. if they players play with that level of intensity and commitment to the claret and blue cause from now till the end of the season with any kind of consistency then we'll be fine this season, and with the youngsters coming through we'll have a good base to build on in the summer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caw2510 Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 Well.... "are you not entertained" Huge credit to AM for last night and further proof that sadly, an ignorant majority of our "support" will never accept him or his methods, regardless of what he does. Mark Hughes ladies and gentlemen lest we forget was touted as the man we should get. He now has another job, with a healthy transfer budget.... and yet, because we drew 2 -2 with them we are still shit? You can't have it both ways folks. Either AM deserves massive credit for last night (the best football we've played since Voldemort left) outsmarting a "better" manager and out playing his team OR you need to agree that Hughes and QPR are actually shit, and that we were right not to appoint him. cant blame eck for everything, yes he picked warnock but tbh he had no other choice, he didnt tell him to score an own goal did he? he didnt tell them to defend like retards? face it a lot of the players are not good enough for our club Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Denis_B Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 The first half an hour was the worst efforts I have had the misfortune to watch for years. Not enough effort, no movement, no ideas just Keane and Ireland running around trying to knit something with players on another planet to them. NZog didn't run, was drawn inside too often and Bent coming too deep looking for the ball, Petrov and Clarke didn't want to pass forward only back and side. Defensively other than those 2 stupid goals we had nothing much to do. McEck shouts/rants/raves on the touchline but clearly is having little influence on the players The 2nd goal seemedto galvanise us a lot - other than a couple of poor refereeing decisions we could/should have won. I think it needed Warnock off, Clarke back and GG on at half time Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Houlston Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 But for Warnock and the ref we would have won that easily. Yes we started slowly and found ourselves a goal down but we started playing before Warnock decided to stick the ball in the net. To say the football was dire in the first half is totally wide of the mark as someone else pointed out we still dominated possession and created some good chances too. No I'm not pleased with the draw but the football was very pleasing and the last time we played anywhere near that level was when we drew 2 2 with United. The character of the players was good too, they were getting a lot of stick, Nzogbia was brilliant and looked like every time he got the ball something would happen and the lad just does not stop running. Someone text me last night saying they saw a stat that he ran further than anyone else in our team. Posters were saying they wanted to see entertaining football well they got it last night and yeah we didnt win but we were robbed. But no lets focus on things like its only QPR or we havent won at home since November or Hutton is shit even though he really isnt. It felt like everyone leaving the ground (except mantis) enjoyed the football and fightback. The discussion shouldnt be about whether we played well last night or bemoaning that we only got a draw it should be will we start like that against Newcastle and that is where the worry lies for me. For whatever reason be it the managers tactis, his teamtalk, the players themselves, I just dont think we will which is a shame as I think we'd batter them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyblade Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 It's a complete myth that we played dire football in the first half. 68% possession, 8 shots and a goal from open play is hardly dire football. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Denis_B Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 If the football was brillantly exciting in the first 30 minutes why was the ground like a morgue? possession and shots do not on it's own show good football. QPR were dire and were clearly there for the taking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyblade Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 It wasn't brilliantly exiting but it wasn't dire is my point. The second half though was great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Houlston Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 If the football was brillantly exciting in the first 30 minutes why was the ground like a morgue? possession and shots do not on it's own show good football. QPR were dire and were clearly there for the taking. No one said it was brilliant for the first 30 either, we started slowly we then conceded and thats how that atmosphere developed but before Warnock scored their second we had started to play football and certainly when the second went in we upped a gear again. But that doesnt make the first half dire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caw2510 Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 . If the football was brillantly exciting in the first 30 minutes why was the ground like a morgue? possession and shots do not on it's own show good football. QPR were dire and were clearly there for the taking. the crowd is nearly always like that, make more noise to complain than support the team qpr spent most of the game defending for their lives the team obviously played for mcliesh and are not as bad as a lot of people on here make out It's a complete myth that we played dire football in the first half. 68% possession, 8 shots and a goal from open play is hardly dire football. unless we actually play like barcelona and start scoring 7 a game being top of the league. haters ill always call big eck negative and boring Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 in last few weeks we have played good football vs Chelsea, Wolves, QPR and 1st 45 vs Arsenal. Its a massive improvement on start of season and no coincidence because of this Bent has got 4 in 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pilchard Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 Myth? Hi Alex Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robbie09 Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 . If the football was brillantly exciting in the first 30 minutes why was the ground like a morgue? possession and shots do not on it's own show good football. QPR were dire and were clearly there for the taking. the crowd is nearly always like that, make more noise to complain than support the team qpr spent most of the game defending for their lives the team obviously played for mcliesh and are not as bad as a lot of people on here make out It's a complete myth that we played dire football in the first half. 68% possession, 8 shots and a goal from open play is hardly dire football. unless we actually play like barcelona and start scoring 7 a game being top of the league. haters ill always call big eck negative and boring Spot on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macandally Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 Well.... "are you not entertained" Huge credit to AM for last night and further proof that sadly, an ignorant majority of our "support" will never accept him or his methods, regardless of what he does. Mark Hughes ladies and gentlemen lest we forget was touted as the man we should get. He now has another job, with a healthy transfer budget.... and yet, because we drew 2 -2 with them we are still shit? You can't have it both ways folks. Either AM deserves massive credit for last night (the best football we've played since Voldemort left) outsmarting a "better" manager and out playing his team OR you need to agree that Hughes and QPR are actually shit, and that we were right not to appoint him. I dont think we have to do either as life is not Black/White. Not sure why you choose to try and discredit the majority of this forum and other Villa fans purely because they bear a different opinion to you? The first half last night, was politely speaking, lacklustre. That is a managerial motivational issue, but also pandemic of a club which is currently aimless in its ambitions. Hughes has been in the seat, what, two weeks tops? As I posted elsewhere, you can already see an organisational blue print in his team although they are currently going through the growing pains associated with implementing that new blueprint. Bit like we had last year with Houllier. Less than two weeks and the two banks of four is clearly visible, with us, there is no discernible pattern to our defensive lines. In coaching, one of the drills you practise is "defending when disorganised", I am not sure if McLeish implements this or not. Either way, we seem to do more unorganised defending than organised. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Posted February 2, 2012 Author Share Posted February 2, 2012 Far be it for me to support Houllier BUT, last season we had a huge injury list, the club had gone through a major upheavel in the summer, lost out manager and best player, the team had not had a pre season to talk of, we had two manager's before the season started, a search for another manager, a protracted appoitnment process and a delay in Houllier starting. Just because we may have more points does not stop that being true And yet when we had this bout of injuries under Houllier you said you didnt care about the excuse of injuries I didn't and still dont. A so called experienced and top notch manager should have been able to get more out of the players he had at his disposal than he did. The fact that we got less points than this season is a sign that he was shit and a bad manager but he had difficulties that Mcleish has not had and that he brought some of them on by his changes. And I still believe that to be true, how many injuries have we had this season or the season before Houllier? Or was last season just a freak? However now you use it to devalue the points accrued by McLeish. Like I said far be it for me to support Houllier. They are both shite managers the fact that one may have "amassed" more points at a stage of the season than the other does not make one good and the other bad especially when the points total and wins we have is pretty woeful. It means , to me, they are both shite Thanks for allowing me the opportunity to clarify for you. Also this summer we lost our two best players not just one. Anyway time to go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Posted February 2, 2012 Author Share Posted February 2, 2012 Crap owner no longer interested or investing Poor CEO who has no clue about football Appallingly bad maanger unable to get the best out of the players he has an aging squad that needs replacing but wont be (see point one above) Is a perfect storm of shiteness for me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Houlston Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 Far be it for me to support Houllier BUT, last season we had a huge injury list, the club had gone through a major upheavel in the summer, lost out manager and best player, the team had not had a pre season to talk of, we had two manager's before the season started, a search for another manager, a protracted appoitnment process and a delay in Houllier starting. Just because we may have more points does not stop that being true And yet when we had this bout of injuries under Houllier you said you didnt care about the excuse of injuries I didn't and still dont. A so called experienced and top notch manager should have been able to get more out of the players he had at his disposal than he did. The fact that we got less points than this season is a sign that he was shit and a bad manager but he had difficulties that Mcleish has not had You didnt you still dont and yet you are now using them as an excuse, hence 'but he had difficulties that McLeish has not had' that is whichever way you are reading it at an excuse for poorer results. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
parisvilla Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 Very important that we build on last night's performance. I would far rather we try and play like that against Newcastle and Manchester City and lose both games than nick a point playing the 10 man behind the ball tripe we have often have to endure this season. The results WILL come if we continue to dominate possession and create the number of chances last night. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Posted February 2, 2012 Author Share Posted February 2, 2012 No excuse at all Houlston. He had difficulties sure, but he should have dealt with them better. Mcleish has not had that difficulty to exercise his capabilities, ie he has complications to deal with Not sure why you are failing to see the logic there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Houlston Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 No excuse at all Houlston. He had difficulties sure, but he should have dealt with them better. Mcleish has not had that difficulty to exercise his capabilities, ie he has complications to deal with Not sure why you are failing to see the logic there. Well I guess its the old agree to disagree as I do not see why you are failing to see why that is not an excuse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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