MaVilla Posted July 20, 2019 Share Posted July 20, 2019 4 minutes ago, TheStagMan said: Plus, we were 4th and flying, and then he went and bought Emile Heskey *shudders* Didn't he buy jeskey to replace carew?, I loved carew.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villalad21 Posted July 20, 2019 Share Posted July 20, 2019 (edited) That's why i said he did a decent job not good. Young, Downing, Barry, Milner, Petrov, Gabby, Carew. That team should have made it into the top 4 easy, so much quality Edited July 20, 2019 by villalad21 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted July 20, 2019 Share Posted July 20, 2019 2 minutes ago, villalad21 said: That's why i said he did a decent job not good. Young, Downing, Barry, Milner, Petrov, Gabby, Carew. That team should have made it into the top 4 easy, so much quality Except all them players didn't play in the same team. MON should have probably been sacked in 09 for that collapse and a more progressive manager brought in to move us forward 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest av1 Posted July 20, 2019 Share Posted July 20, 2019 With hindsight i look back and wonder what could have been, and his resignation will always leave a bad taste but at the time i loved the MON years. It's probably similar to how Leeds fans think of O'Leary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCJonah Posted July 20, 2019 Share Posted July 20, 2019 4 hours ago, MaVilla said: It's been a while (a decade or so), so my memory might be fuzzy and I would habve to fact check. But.....the money he spent on players at the peak of his villa reign was pretty astronomical if I recall (astronomical for the time and compared to what other clubs were spending), so I actually think he probably under performed and didn't do that well. Sure he spent 50-60m one season which was a lot back then, and he got us two 6th place finishes, that was back when there wasn't a big 6, it was mostly a big 2 if I recall. So yeah, I think there is an argument to be made that he squandered a lot of money and didn't achieve relative to that spend. Your memory is hazy. The original sky 4 were still dominating and while we did spend a lot, if you look at the many years both spurs and city spent big to break the top 4 its ridiculous that some think MON failed by not doing it. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted July 20, 2019 Share Posted July 20, 2019 8 hours ago, villalad21 said: That's why i said he did a decent job not good. Young, Downing, Barry, Milner, Petrov, Gabby, Carew. That team should have made it into the top 4 easy, so much quality Wouldn't say easily. You have to remember at that time the premier league was very strong as seen by the performances in europe. Chelsea had a spine of Cech-Terry-Carvalho-Essien-Ballack-Lampard-Drogba. Liverpool had Reina-Carragher-Mascherano-Alonso-Gerrard-Torres. Arsenal weren't quite as strong overall but they still had lots of matchwinning quality in final third with Arshavin, Nasri, Fabregas, Hleb, RVP and Adebayor who was on fire for a season. It's far weaker now when you compare player for player. Liverpool are overall stronger but still you'd say all three of Gerrard, Masch and Alsono would get into their current midfield. Man. United obviously declined massively in last decade. We got players that suited the counter attacking style well but when onus was on us to break down teams we generally couldn't. From memory in 09/10 when Spurs just pipped us to 4th they won 14 home games, we won 8. Guess the frustration in that time is we didn't move Milner centrally sooner. Imagine a middle trio of Barry, Petrov and Milner even for a season and then Young and another winger. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted July 20, 2019 Share Posted July 20, 2019 8 hours ago, Zatman said: Except all them players didn't play in the same team. MON should have probably been sacked in 09 for that collapse and a more progressive manager brought in to move us forward He should've been ushered out of the door an hour after the Blackburn game in May 2010. Mutual consent and we'd look back more fondly on his reign rather than the bad way it ended. And a whole summer to pick a manager would've benefited us more in long term imo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted July 20, 2019 Share Posted July 20, 2019 Frustration was he bought Heskey Without even trying to take it in to a criticism of the player (He was a donkey) or even the Falcao rumour He didn't suit our system, he didn't compliment big John, he couldn't replace big John, he was an awful almost clueless signing, we needed more legs around carew and someone who could provide energy and a sub option to keep the pace going for 90 mins and a plan b for when the big man didn't work Arsenal bought arshavin about a week after the window closed and the rest was history Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted July 20, 2019 Share Posted July 20, 2019 12 minutes ago, villa4europe said: Frustration was he bought Heskey Without even trying to take it in to a criticism of the player (He was a donkey) or even the Falcao rumour He didn't suit our system, he didn't compliment big John, he couldn't replace big John, he was an awful almost clueless signing, we needed more legs around carew and someone who could provide energy and a sub option to keep the pace going for 90 mins and a plan b for when the big man didn't work Arsenal bought arshavin about a week after the window closed and the rest was history Carew and MON trust started to erode around that period with the Rocket Club incident and he was also injured for two months (missed the entire xmas/New year period). It was basically just Gabby upfront so we did need a new striker in. If he'd got injured it would've either been the Fonz, Harewood or Young upfront. What I didn't get is after Carew injury we switched to 4-5-1 and went on strong unbeaten run. As soon as we signed Heskey we switched back to 4-4-2 and simply weren't as strong (Petrov and Barry were starting to get overrun in midfield). I just assumed Heskey would be back up to when Gabby needed a rest but him coming in to be automatic striker really messed up things. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted July 20, 2019 Share Posted July 20, 2019 a lot of things happened in that short period. Laursen was forced into retirement, Heskey signed, Moscow debacle then Stoke got that late equaliser which knocked wind out of us. Think we might have won 2 more games that season The UEFA Cup was a terrible move as we could have won that tournament Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted July 20, 2019 Share Posted July 20, 2019 Tin hat on - I think CSKA were a really good team and could / should have beat us at VP and were always likely to beat us in the 2nd leg too Amazing those players went on to do pretty much nothing In all the things he did it was one of the things that pissed me off the least 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted July 20, 2019 Share Posted July 20, 2019 On the things that pissed me off - Can remember an interviewer asking him about using the squad and a general lack of subs He replied something along the lines of he looks at his bench for who can influence this game and if he sees no one then he doesn't make a change I was a big big FM player at the time, my sub philosophy was take off the bloke who is playing shit, here was MON saying the opposite, based his subs on his bench rather than the performance or fitness (and lack of...) of the 11 on the pitch Frustrated the **** out of me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kurtsimonw Posted July 22, 2019 Share Posted July 22, 2019 (edited) On 20/07/2019 at 20:28, Zatman said: The UEFA Cup was a terrible move as we could have won that tournament I don't know, we were essentially losing the tie (on away goals) with our first XI from the first leg. We'd have done well to get through CSKA. Not suggesting I agree with throwing in the towel, that's as bad a decision any Villa manager will ever make. Edited July 22, 2019 by kurtsimonw Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted July 22, 2019 Share Posted July 22, 2019 2 hours ago, kurtsimonw said: I don't know, we were essentially losing the tie (on away goals) with our first XI from the first leg. We'd have done well to get through CSKA. Not suggesting I agree with throwing in the towel, that's as bad a decision any Villa manager will ever make. Maybe but we were capable of getting a goal away. I dont like the fact he played the full team in the opening game and then threw it away for the 2nd leg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demitri_C Posted July 22, 2019 Share Posted July 22, 2019 Vagner love cost us that cup Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wilko154 Posted July 22, 2019 Share Posted July 22, 2019 44 minutes ago, Demitri_C said: Vagner love cost us that cup What a player he was, absolutely dominated us in both legs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted July 22, 2019 Share Posted July 22, 2019 14 minutes ago, wilko154 said: What a player he was, absolutely dominated us in both legs. He just had a decent patch of form at that time, turned into a journeyman after CSKA 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demitri_C Posted July 22, 2019 Share Posted July 22, 2019 30 minutes ago, wilko154 said: What a player he was, absolutely dominated us in both legs. He was absolutely class in those games. Would have loved us to have gone for him Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted July 22, 2019 Share Posted July 22, 2019 19 minutes ago, Zatman said: He just had a decent patch of form at that time, turned into a journeyman after CSKA like I said strange team from CSKA that, vagner love had a decent record in Russia and got himself some brazil caps but never went on to do anything of note, akinfeev was touted as one of the highest potential keepers in Europe, dzagoev was their jack grealish (hopefully jacks star doesn't die out like his has) they had the 3 national team CBs, not sure if some of them just stayed too long rather than moving to the big leagues, the thing being CSKA aren't even the biggest team in Moscow and zenit / rubin were better teams at the time krasic went on to play for juve, zhirkov left that summer for Chelsea, Daniel Carvalho disappeared back to brazil 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kurtsimonw Posted July 22, 2019 Share Posted July 22, 2019 1 hour ago, villa4europe said: akinfeev was touted as one of the highest potential keepers in Europe He was really never good. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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