Ashley Westwood

[StefanAVFC]

I want x

x is unrealistic

No it was my interpretation of x I want

[TRO]

50 minutes ago, Mjvilla said:

Isn't this kind of the point though? If, say, jedinak or Chester was to score a hat-trick then everyone would be absolutely full of praise. If Westwood would do it, then I'm sure posts would be along the lines of

'he did OK to score those 3 goals but he missed 1 tackle in the 67th minute so he's not good enough'.

or

'i hope he breaks his leg' (sick bastards)

the criticism of Westwood is just way way over the top sometimes proven by the ridiculous reaction to him when bought on at Barnsley and we conceded. Nothing to do with RDM at all, it was Westwoods fault. Lol

If you are suggesting that Westwood is being singled out then I will say from my point of view he is not......3 goals from him I would be delighted and i would come out and say so....but if you are then suggesting on the back of that,i was wrong to criticise him losing the ball as much as he does, i would argue they are 2 different things and would refute that.

I have issues with other players too if I am in pursuit of getting this club out of the division, so I will say so.

That does not mean that I am highly delighted in the progress made under Steve Bruce to date.....but long way to go.IMO

[a m ole]

Whether it's 10 tackles or a performance that seems like 10 tackles, they're both wildly unrealistic.

[Mjvilla]

3 hours ago, TRO said:

If you are suggesting that Westwood is being singled out then I will say from my point of view he is not......3 goals from him I would be delighted and i would come out and say so....but if you are then suggesting on the back of that,i was wrong to criticise him losing the ball as much as he does, i would argue they are 2 different things and would refute that.

I have issues with other players too if I am in pursuit of getting this club out of the division, so I will say so.

That does not mean that I am highly delighted in the progress made under Steve Bruce to date.....but long way to go.IMO

I'm not disagreeing with the second 2 paragraphs so won't mention them. 

But yes, absolutely in my opinion Westwood is singled out. Not necessarily by yourself, but he is 100% singles out (the Barnsley draw the perfect example). I even remember someone coming on here to say his natural reaction to the equaliser that night was to 'blame Westwood'. I think there is definitely a blame Westwood culture at this club and he is singled out far more so than any other player. 

Im not saying he's a brilliant player, I definitely want 2 central midfielders in January, just think he gets more criticism than he deserves and far more criticism than any other player.

and in response to the other part of the first paragraph, I didn't say you criticise him for losing the ball too much at all. The point I was trying to make is Westwood could have a wonderful game, make one small mistake and the mistake is the bit that gets mentioned... Not the wonderful game where he scores a hat trick. 

I wasn't aiming anything personally at you, it was more a general belief I have of this thread.

Edited December 8, 2016 by Mjvilla

[Villan_of_oz]

7 hours ago, TRO said:

If you are suggesting that Westwood is being singled out then I will say from my point of view he is not......3 goals from him I would be delighted and i would come out and say so....but if you are then suggesting on the back of that,i was wrong to criticise him losing the ball as much as he does, i would argue they are 2 different things and would refute that.

I have issues with other players too if I am in pursuit of getting this club out of the division, so I will say so.

That does not mean that I am highly delighted in the progress made under Steve Bruce to date.....but long way to go.IMO

In my view Tro, you arent what I consider one of the AW persecutors.

[AJ]

At the beginning of the season, he was disappointing, but he is now improving. He is still a defensive lightweight, but his passing has improved greatly now that he knows he is allowed to pass the ball forward. Despite his improvement, I wouldnt rate him as a good player, but more as average. I would be reluctant to see him sold though. We should get somebody better in January, but he still could be handy as part of squad depth.

[richp999]

7 hours ago, a m ole said:

Just popping in to highlight the silly expectations...

10 tackles is what you would expect?

Idrissa Gueye leads the over all premier league ranking with 5.2 per game. players in 2nd to 10th place average between 4 and 3.

Massimo Luongo tops the Championship with 3.7, with the top 10 finishing in the high 2's.

Westwood and our man-mountain-wins-everything Jedinak are in 1.6 and 1.8 respectively - both in the top 100 players in the division. 

 

Christ I'm sure you have got these figures from a good source,  im not saying you haven't,  but seriously..  I could come on for villa in the last 15 minutes, run around and make 4 tackles,  just 4, and now I'm the top ranking midfielder in the championship?

Surely not?

In fact im sure I've seen even Westwood make more than 2  tackles in most games,  and he's usually hiding in the car park.

Perhaps im missing the definition of a tackle?

I'm with TRO,  I'd expect 10+ proper tackles as a minimum..

[Grasshopper]

All aside

If he was available as a free transfer and his agent was marketing him through SKY (for example)

Would you take him?

[DCJonah]

1 hour ago, richp999 said:

Christ I'm sure you have got these figures from a good source,  im not saying you haven't,  but seriously..  I could come on for villa in the last 15 minutes, run around and make 4 tackles,  just 4, and now I'm the top ranking midfielder in the championship?

Surely not?

In fact im sure I've seen even Westwood make more than 2  tackles in most games,  and he's usually hiding in the car park.

Perhaps im missing the definition of a tackle?

I'm with TRO,  I'd expect 10+ proper tackles as a minimum..

I think you're confusing getting stuck in with dispossessing a player. I really doubt you could get the ball off 4 professional footballers in the space of 15 minutes. 

 

Edited December 8, 2016 by DCJonah

[Stevo985]

10 hours ago, AJ said:

At the beginning of the season, he was disappointing, but he is now improving. He is still a defensive lightweight, but his passing has improved greatly now that he knows he is allowed to pass the ball forward. Despite his improvement, I wouldnt rate him as a good player, but more as average. I would be reluctant to see him sold though. We should get somebody better in January, but he still could be handy as part of squad depth.

I think his form has reflected the team's somewhat.

First couple of games this season he looked decent enough, certainly better than last season. Then he regressed again and he's currently improving.

Hopefully he keeps it up but wouldn't be surprised to see him replaced in January (although as I've said elsewhere I'd be replacing Gary Gardner before I replaced Westwood)

 

Edit: by replaced I mean in the first XI. I wouldn't be selling either of them yet

Edited December 9, 2016 by Stevo985

[sexbelowsound]

10 hours ago, richp999 said:

Christ I'm sure you have got these figures from a good source,  im not saying you haven't,  but seriously..  I could come on for villa in the last 15 minutes, run around and make 4 tackles,  just 4, and now I'm the top ranking midfielder in the championship?

Surely not?

In fact im sure I've seen even Westwood make more than 2  tackles in most games,  and he's usually hiding in the car park.

Perhaps im missing the definition of a tackle?

I'm with TRO,  I'd expect 10+ proper tackles as a minimum..

Alright Claude, calm down.

[Villarocker]

If Westwood scored three goals in a game I'd be overwhelmed. If Jedinak did it I'd be dumbfounded. If Chester did it I'd think it's April 1st! Westwood scoring should be more likely than the other two considering he's been playing further forward. 

[TRO]

13 hours ago, Villan_of_oz said:

In my view Tro, you arent what I consider one of the AW persecutors.

To be fair Oz I can see their point, but I can see yours too.....but vociferous castigation of him does attract a reaction....I understand that.

my wife is a villa fan too ......she really likes him as a player, we have some exchanges, but I can see what she see's in him, but I am looking at different things in his game and I think that is where the difference of opinion is derived from.I accept he is busy and a decent passer of the ball.

For me he is a lightweight and that for me is a major flaw in his game.He gets easily bullied by the opposition that can be dangerous IMO

but that's just my take on him.

[HolteExile]

The lightweight thing doesn't automatically have to be an issue.  Gordon Cowans was probably less than 10 stone wet through, but he could tackle as if his life depended on it.  Like other diminutive players, he had good balance as well, so he could shield or manipulate the ball and transfer what bit of weight he had to make it work for him. 

Westwood has none of those things. The purchase in 2012 probably made a degree of sense, as the hope would be that the more physical things might come with time and experience. But he will be 27 this season and the penny hasn't dropped yet. For the most part, he still goes into 50/50 tackles with all the courage and conviction of Stewart Downing. You can just about make excuses for that from a winger. Harder to gloss over it when it is your defensive midfielder. 

That said, he at least provided a degree of nuisance value last weekend. His energy levels were good and he was one of our better players. More of the same over the next few weekends and he still might be worthy of a place in the squad by the end of Jan - though hopefully we'll actually have better starting the match in his place. 

Edited December 9, 2016 by HolteExile

[Villan_of_oz]

21 hours ago, TRO said:

To be fair Oz I can see their point, but I can see yours too.....but vociferous castigation of him does attract a reaction....I understand that.

my wife is a villa fan too ......she really likes him as a player, we have some exchanges, but I can see what she see's in him, but I am looking at different things in his game and I think that is where the difference of opinion is derived from.I accept he is busy and a decent passer of the ball.

For me he is a lightweight and that for me is a major flaw in his game.He gets easily bullied by the opposition that can be dangerous IMO

but that's just my take on him.

Well articulating your point is what I respect and I'm able to see your point of view

A lot different to 'I hope he breaks a leg'

Edited December 10, 2016 by Villan_of_oz

[Straggler]

On 08/12/2016 at 16:45, Mjvilla said:

I'm not disagreeing with the second 2 paragraphs so won't mention them. 

But yes, absolutely in my opinion Westwood is singled out. Not necessarily by yourself, but he is 100% singles out (the Barnsley draw the perfect example). I even remember someone coming on here to say his natural reaction to the equaliser that night was to 'blame Westwood'. I think there is definitely a blame Westwood culture at this club and he is singled out far more so than any other player. 

Im not saying he's a brilliant player, I definitely want 2 central midfielders in January, just think he gets more criticism than he deserves and far more criticism than any other player.

and in response to the other part of the first paragraph, I didn't say you criticise him for losing the ball too much at all. The point I was trying to make is Westwood could have a wonderful game, make one small mistake and the mistake is the bit that gets mentioned... Not the wonderful game where he scores a hat trick. 

I wasn't aiming anything personally at you, it was more a general belief I have of this thread.

It was me who wrote the little snippet about my natural reaction being to blame Westwood. you may want to read the rest of the post before you use it in support of this argument though...

I go on to say that why that reaction isn't reasonable.

[TRO]

18 hours ago, HolteExile said:

The lightweight thing doesn't automatically have to be an issue.  Gordon Cowans was probably less than 10 stone wet through, but he could tackle as if his life depended on it.  Like other diminutive players, he had good balance as well, so he could shield or manipulate the ball and transfer what bit of weight he had to make it work for him. 

Westwood has none of those things. The purchase in 2012 probably made a degree of sense, as the hope would be that the more physical things might come with time and experience. But he will be 27 this season and the penny hasn't dropped yet. For the most part, he still goes into 50/50 tackles with all the courage and conviction of Stewart Downing. You can just about make excuses for that from a winger. Harder to gloss over it when it is your defensive midfielder. 

That said, he at least provided a degree of nuisance value last weekend. His energy levels were good and he was one of our better players. More of the same over the next few weekends and he still might be worthy of a place in the squad by the end of Jan - though hopefully we'll actually have better starting the match in his place. 

Precisely

ps ....the lightweight term is reference more to his affect on the game as opposed to his stature.Gordon Cowans was rarely bullied off the ball, if ever and was more than effective in the tackle.

[sne]

33 minutes ago, TRO said:

Precisely

ps ....the lightweight term is reference more to his affect on the game as opposed to his stature.Gordon Cowans was rarely bullied off the ball, if ever and was more than effective in the tackle.

Compared to someone like Claude Makalele (5 ft6, 66 kilos) Westwood is a veritable giant in size.

Makalele was also "branded" as someone who you doesn't notice during the games and who mostly made sideways or backwards passes. But he made the team better by all the things he did do. Something Real Madrid soon found out when they sold him.

Thing with him thou compared to Westwood was that he had a different mentality, was aggressive in the right way, read the game perfectly, could dictate the tempo, was tactically clever, had great positioning and amazing balance (this might have been because of him according to his ex girlfriend being a tripod). 

You can't fault Westwood for his work rate during the games, but he just lack too many other qualities to make him really effective in any role. Be it playmaker or defensive midfielder.

[TRO]

3 hours ago, sne said:

Compared to someone like Claude Makalele (5 ft6, 66 kilos) Westwood is a veritable giant in size.

Makalele was also "branded" as someone who you doesn't notice during the games and who mostly made sideways or backwards passes. But he made the team better by all the things he did do. Something Real Madrid soon found out when they sold him.

Thing with him thou compared to Westwood was that he had a different mentality, was aggressive in the right way, read the game perfectly, could dictate the tempo, was tactically clever, had great positioning and amazing balance (this might have been because of him according to his ex girlfriend being a tripod). 

You can't fault Westwood for his work rate during the games, but he just lack too many other qualities to make him really effective in any role. Be it playmaker or defensive midfielder.

Billy Bremner and Johhny Giles (who controlled the midfield for the halcyon days at Leeds) were only diminutive in stature, but what a pair of tough, durable characters......its more about the application than the stature.

didn't John sillet the manager of Coventry at the time say the had to hose Cyrillie Regis down with cold water to fire him up......and him being such a big fella.

it is a state of mind, to muster aggression in your game.

Edited December 10, 2016 by TRO

[rjw63]

2 hours ago, TRO said:

Billy Bremner and Johhny Giles (who controlled the midfield for the halcyon days at Leeds) were only diminutive in stature, but what a pair of tough, durable characters......its more about the application than the stature.

didn't John skillet the manager of Coventry at the time say the had to hose Cyrillie Regis down with cold water to fire him up......and him being such a big fella.

it is a state of mind, to muster aggression in your game.