Ashley Westwood

[tinker]

1 hour ago, Phumfeinz said:

Lmao, so a handful of good games in 120+ appearances and 5 years means he's a good player? An actually capable player is going to perform more times than that, regardless of who their manager or team mates are.

I have never seen any other player perform so poorly for so long and yet still get leeway from some supporters. It's weird and at this point I believe it's stubbornness and a refusal to admit they were wrong than anything else.

How many games have we played well collectively though? 

Having seen players leave us , Lowton , Sanchez , Gana, Albrighton, Bertrand etc etc and play well despite looking poor for us, I'm past judging players managed by incompetent coaches.

As I have said before I don't particularly rate Westwood, as a defensive midfielder , he can't tackle and struggles to hold the ball under pressure. Why we play him in a 2 man midfield is beyond me , Ayew and Grealish are forward thinking players who have a habit of losing the ball and then struggle to track back leaving Westwood and any one of the other midfielders we have tried to pick the pieces up and regain possession or let the defense sort it either  in the box, on the edge, or in the net .

Edited October 7, 2016 by tinker
special needs

[Keyblade]

1 hour ago, Phumfeinz said:

Lmao, so a handful of good games in 120+ appearances and 5 years means he's a good player? An actually capable player is going to perform more times than that, regardless of who their manager or team mates are.

I have never seen any other player perform so poorly for so long and yet still get leeway from some supporters. It's weird and at this point I believe it's stubbornness and a refusal to admit they were wrong than anything else.

Nobody said anything about being a good player, you've simply inferred that. Because obviously if someone doesn't agree that he's this diabolical fraud of a player as is hammered home in this thread every time he so much as breathes in a Villa shirt, then that means they're saying he's an amazing player. Things are either black or white innit.

[Phumfeinz]

It reads like you're making excuses for his 100+ poor performances which is what I'm struggling to understand is all. If he had good players around him, if we had a good manager. 5 years and 120+ games and people are still withholding judgement. How many years and games does it take?

[Jenko#4]

The simple fact is that we bought a 22 year old League 1 player for peanuts..........we got exactly what we paid for.

It is not Westwoods fault that a succession of managers have decided to play him over 100 times at a level where he is out of his depth. If there ever was any Premier League potential in there, he would have been snapped up from League 1 at 18/19, much like Alli, Delph, Shelvey etc....

[Keyblade]

32 minutes ago, Phumfeinz said:

It reads like you're making excuses for his 100+ poor performances which is what I'm struggling to understand is all. If he had good players around him, if we had a good manager. 5 years and 120+ games and people are still withholding judgement. How many years and games does it take?

It's not at all unreasonable to see how he does if we ever manage to have some semblance of a good setup at the club. In those 5 years and 120+ games we've had 6 of the worst managers in our history. Regardless of the weird knee-jerk reactions to him, he's not the worst player in the world and certainly not at this club, so it's not so horrible to want to see how he fares in decent conditions especially considering how he played during the very few decent periods we've had in that time.

[avfc1982]

2 hours ago, Keyblade said:

It's not at all unreasonable to see how he does if we ever manage to have some semblance of a good setup at the club. In those 5 years and 120+ games we've had 6 of the worst managers in our history. Regardless of the weird knee-jerk reactions to him, he's not the worst player in the world and certainly not at this club, so it's not so horrible to want to see how he fares in decent conditions especially considering how he played during the very few decent periods we've had in that time.

One of the main reasons we've just had 6 of the worst most depressing seasons in our history is because we continued to employ some of the worst players in our history, and Westwood is up there with the worst of them. We kept signing lower league standard players and it should come to no surprise that we finally find ourselves in the lower leagues. I just hope we finally rid our club of Westwood til he drags us down to where he came from, League One. 

[Swerbs]

Ashley Westwood can't melt steel beams.

[Grasshopper]

I wrote in the Richardson thread that I am a better footballer than him - nobody  pulled me up on it.

I'll go one further now.

I can take better corners & free-kicks than Westwood (not difficult)

I wouldnt chicken out of tackles and I'd make more of them in 45mins than AW in 3 games.

I'd be blowing out of my **** after 30mins or so (if I didnt get a red/2yellows by then for "over-committed" challenges)

[Mantis]

This is going to be very controversial but I think some of his failings have been due to us playing 2 in midfield. He's not cut out for that role.

[Czechlad]

15 minutes ago, Mantis said:

This is going to be very controversial but I think some of his failings have been due to us playing 2 in midfield. He's not cut out for that role.

No I agree. He has typically looked decent when in a midfield 3. Even when the midfield three was Delph-Westwood-Cleverly he looked much better. 

[tismyk]

16 minutes ago, Mantis said:

This is going to be very controversial but I think some of his failings have been due to us playing 2 in midfield. He's not cut out for that role.

And that goes for all of our midfielders, we have to have a midfield 3

[sne]

16 minutes ago, Mantis said:

This is going to be very controversial but I think some of his failings have been due to us playing 2 in midfield. He's not cut out for that role.

I think everyone except Di Matteo would agree to that.

Sadly this is just of the many, many reasons Westwood is poor.

[Keyblade]

3 minutes ago, sne said:

I think everyone except Di Matteo would agree to that.

Sadly this is just of the many, many reasons Westwood is poor.

i'm not sure not being able to play in a 2 man midfield makes you poor per se. If it's just not in your style to be able to handle the demands of a 2 man midfield, I don't think that's a slight on their quality. Not too many midfielders nowadays are cut out for it, and not too many teams play a 2 man midfield anymore. Even Delph, our best midfielder of the past 5 years looked awful in a 2. 

[DCJonah]

8 hours ago, tinker said:

I have my doubts about Westwood as a player but i would hold judgement on him until we have a manager who sets a balanced team up. One with a midfield that can compete rather than fire fight against greater numbers and better tactics, Gana didn't look that great and look at him now.

Hes been here for 5 years and played over 100 games. How long do you hold judgement for? 

[DCJonah]

7 hours ago, Phumfeinz said:

Lmao, so a handful of good games in 120+ appearances and 5 years means he's a good player? An actually capable player is going to perform more times than that, regardless of who their manager or team mates are.

I have never seen any other player perform so poorly for so long and yet still get leeway from some supporters. It's weird and at this point I believe it's stubbornness and a refusal to admit they were wrong than anything else.

Yep I'd agree. He's been defended too far and too extreme to back down now. 

[Woodytom]

2 hours ago, Keyblade said:

i'm not sure not being able to play in a 2 man midfield makes you poor per se. If it's just not in your style to be able to handle the demands of a 2 man midfield, I don't think that's a slight on their quality. Not too many midfielders nowadays are cut out for it, and not too many teams play a 2 man midfield anymore. Even Delph, our best midfielder of the past 5 years looked awful in a 2. 

This is getting silly. 

[StefanAVFC]

As silly as hoping he breaks his leg?

regardless of your opinion, I think it's beyond silly at this point. 

[Keyblade]

1 minute ago, Woodytom said:

This is getting silly. 

Ah of course, this is where you draw the line at silly  

[Keyblade]

That wasn't even about Westwood, that was just generally speaking. Some players, in fact a lot of players just don't work in a 2 man midfield. It's why the game has progressed beyond your typical 4-4-2. It's just a fact. Fabian Delph for example isn't suddenly a bad player because he doesn't play well in a 2.

But apparently that's silly, but blaming a player on a result after a 15 min sub appearance is cool though

[Woodytom]

4 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

But apparently that's silly, but blaming a player on a result after a 15 min sub appearance is cool though

Well I didn't do that so I'm not sure why you are banging on about it.............AGAIN! 

4 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

It's just a fact.

It really isn't. Yes a lot of teams nowadays move away from the 4-4-2, but to claim A LOT of midfielders can't play in a 2.... is just, well, bollocks. 

This is silly, because your stubborness has led you even further down the line of 'he doesn't work in a 2'...... yet your still avoiding the evidence that he doesn't even work in a 3.