McGregor1888 Posted December 5, 2013 Share Posted December 5, 2013 You made it seem like you need to spend 10m+ on a player in order to play passing keep ball football, which you dont. Nobody is asking for a team that can dominate possession every game but simply having more would be good, I think we have the second worst possession of the ball after Hull. Now if that isn't a concern to you it should be. The football we play is awful, its fairly simple to see that. You said lack of resources is the reason we play like this, there are tons of other teams who have spent around the same as us that can at least string some passed together and play football. Yep......they're all below us in the table! Id be willing to bet they wont be by the end of the season. Our pass completion yesterday was 48% and if we keep these kind of stats up I cant see us maintaining anywhere near this form. Southampton midfielder Steven Davis completes more passes (109) than the entire Aston Villa side last night (96). Do you not think these were Villa tactics? Southampton like to press high and get in their opponents' faces and Villa simply played them like a violin. No matter how many times Southampton scored I felt confident that Villa could go up the other end and get a goal. Ask Steven Davis how many goals he scored last night. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaCas Posted December 5, 2013 Share Posted December 5, 2013 Well it isn't meaningless at all Id say it was a big concern. Of course they aren't going to win more tackles when they have the ball for 77% of the game! Mate, we won the game - They can have 99% of possession for all I care Their plan was to try and close down in the final third, our plan was to pinch the ball and launch fast counter-attacks. Their plan failed and they were reduced to lumping crosses in from deep - they might not have scored at all if Vlaar had stayed on Our plan succeeded magnificantly, scoring goals exactly as we planned FFS 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghost_of_Pongo_Waring Posted December 5, 2013 Share Posted December 5, 2013 (edited) Well it isn't meaningless at all Id say it was a big concern. Of course they aren't going to win more tackles when they have the ball for 77% of the game! Of course they're going to have more passes when they have 77% of the possession. We did more with our 23% possession than they did with there 77%. Edited December 5, 2013 by Ghost_of_Pongo_Waring 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R.Bear Posted December 5, 2013 Share Posted December 5, 2013 Got his tactics right last night. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliffy Biro Posted December 5, 2013 Share Posted December 5, 2013 Yes he did i just hope thats not our long term philosophy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AVTuco Posted December 5, 2013 VT Supporter Share Posted December 5, 2013 Why are we so worried about this being a long term strategy? We don't know if it is, or isn't. It was Wednesday's strategy, and it worked. Nothing else matters. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Butterfingers Posted December 5, 2013 Share Posted December 5, 2013 There are two kinds of people in this world Tuco-Those that worry about long term strategies & those that are delighted with last nights performance, the resul & the season so far. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tinker Posted December 5, 2013 VT Supporter Share Posted December 5, 2013 We need an away team and a home team. We are missing some vital players to give us the ability to take our game to the opposition, a creative midfielder with a bit of drive and possible a couple of wide players. Lambert will know this, he just got to do it on a budget and by juggling the finances on a wages front (get rid of the high earners that are not value added) In the meantime we will have to get used to playing with our backs to the wall while still blooding a steady line of possible long term players. Lambert was very brave in dropping Benteke, if we had lost it would have been a real bat to beat him with. He was right, I thought he had made an error, thank f**k! hes the gaffer and i'm just a hairy arsed engineer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supernova26 Posted December 5, 2013 Share Posted December 5, 2013 (edited) Forget last night. What about our embarrassingly bad home form which hasn't be addressed at all? Our away/home contrast is so extreme and unprecedented from what I can remember through all the years of watching football. Edited December 5, 2013 by supernova26 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomaszk Posted December 5, 2013 Share Posted December 5, 2013 It's going to be a really difficult thing to alter the home form without changing the way we play away from home. It's essentially control of the ball. As long as we can remain fairly tough at the back, it suits us to not have the ball when playing away. It means teams will come higher and higher on us, giving us space to work in behind. At home, it's going to be a work in progress I think, and it's the reason this year we probably won't get up to 6th. We'll consistently cock up against teams like Wigan, Newcastle & basically any game we 'should' beat at home. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bose Posted December 5, 2013 Share Posted December 5, 2013 We're making slow and steady progress with little funds. Take for example Southampton who spent roughly 33m pounds this summer while we spent a little over 16m. It might be frustrating at times but our players are only going to get better. If we manage to make progress every season I'm happy. We should aim to finish mid-table now and then build on that. We can finish anywhere from 8th-15th though given how close most teams are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heid3ster Posted December 5, 2013 Share Posted December 5, 2013 We need a poll on this site, that asks: Would you rather have: A) Villa play attractive, passing football with poor results? Villa play counter attacking, long ball football with good results? I think I know which would get the highest percentage of the vote. Of course the real answer we'd all pick if it was on offer is: C) Villa play attractive, passing football with good results. We're not there yet but I think we're moving towards it. My impression is we've tightened up the defense at the expense (temporarily, hopefully) of the attack. That's partially it, another part is that our front three, who were capable of creating and scoring on their own last season, have been going through a patchy spell. I am relaxed. Next step is improvement on home form and attacking play. We'll get there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morpheus Posted December 5, 2013 Share Posted December 5, 2013 You just can't complain about results or league position right now. I think its fair to be concerned with the style of play for the long term but right now it's all about results and they are good. BJ, I really believe that Lambert will gradually improve the style of football as he improves the calibre of players he recruits Lambert had £1m or £2m to spend on a player so he bought young, hungry, energetic players and set-up a pressing, counter-attacking system in which they could hopefully succeed - as we can see this is more effective away or against the big teams where we can absorb pressure and fast break. Where we have more of the ball and have to break teams down we are at the moment much less effective I hope that PL will be backed and allowed to spend a little more in coming windows and will bring in the Kiyotake and Sissoko-type signings that he looked at over the summer. Once we have two or three of this type of player on board I think the style of play will change - personally I think Lambert will always like a high-energy, pressing, 'Dortmund-style' approach but with better player he can do that with a bit more quality In the last 15 months he has bought it 16 players and shifted 20 out, probably three seasons worth of change in a single season - thats incredible really In the medium to long term I sincerely beleive that Lambert will establish himself as an outstanding manager - I hope that is with us Lets get things straight here. Lambert didn't have just 1m or 2m to spend on individual players. Thats how he chose to spend part of his budget so that really is a myth and he did spend around 10m split between two players (Benteke and kosak). Again there's nothing incredible about over seeing a large turnaround of playing staff as several teams have already done that in the past and more recently with Sunderland. The rest of your post i generally agree with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samjp26 Posted December 5, 2013 Share Posted December 5, 2013 Best stat: Aston Villa team scores more goals than entire Sunderland team Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morpheus Posted December 5, 2013 Share Posted December 5, 2013 i think pound for pound we are up there with the best away teams in europe That's an interesting summation for a team that over two and a half seasons has experienced two relegation battles and mid table placement in the Premiership. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonoridge91 Posted December 5, 2013 Share Posted December 5, 2013 Forget last night. What about our embarrassingly bad home form which hasn't be addressed at all? Our away/home contrast is so extreme and unprecedented from what I can remember through all the years of watching football. This season the only team we realistically should of been getting points from who we didn't was Newcastle, we beat Cardiff and in all fairness made up for picking up no points against Newcastle by beating Man City. Yes we drew to Sunderland, so? Lambert tried to get a creative player no doubt to help improve our home form back in the summer but the price was too high. It seems far too many people on these forums want everything to be great after just one season. We're still building and developing. As far as I'm concerned I'm not too bothered at the moment, we're sitting in mid-table where we are no doubt expected to finish and come Jan and the summer I have no doubt Lambert will address the issues much like he has addressed our poor defending last season. Honestly people complain about goals but the team as a whole are doing much better this season, everyone is chipping in and if Benteke was in form as he was last season we'd be a real threat not just away but at home as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StefanAVFC Posted December 5, 2013 Share Posted December 5, 2013 i think pound for pound we are up there with the best away teams in europe That's an interesting summation for a team that over two and a half seasons has experienced two relegation battles and mid table placement in the Premiership. 2 things. He said pound for pound. Meaning it's relative. I presume he's talking about right now so including mcleish's team is totally unfair and inaccurate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smetrov Posted December 5, 2013 Share Posted December 5, 2013 Forget last night. What about our embarrassingly bad home form which hasn't be addressed at all? Our away/home contrast is so extreme and unprecedented from what I can remember through all the years of watching football. If we keep winning away pretty sure our home form will turn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morpheus Posted December 5, 2013 Share Posted December 5, 2013 So do you agree then that 'right now' we're one of the best away teams in Europe? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dont_do_it_doug. Posted December 5, 2013 Share Posted December 5, 2013 So do you agree then that 'right now' we're one of the best away teams in Europe? Pound for pound. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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