BleedClaretAndBlue Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 They remind me of us in the last 2 seasons under O'Neill. Outplaying a lot of sides and winning against the big sides and deservedly so, with a talented group of players all with belief in their abilities. Koeman has done a great job. That football club have had a very good 5 years or so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isa Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 (edited) Just gone to OT and won, our squad is better though and they are indeed not a very good team. u wot m8 It's a sarcastic reference to the genuine claims earlier in the thread that we do indeed have a squad equal in quality to theirs. Edited January 12, 2015 by Isa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimzk5 Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 Danny murphy was on talksport talking about villa this morning and he said he thought we had a similar squad to Southampton but the difference is having a positive manager & belief. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AVFCforever1991 Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 They have much better creative players. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa89 Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 They have better defensive midfield players too if the Man Utd. game is anything to go by. Fair play to them, I got it wrong. I thought they would drop back down to midtable but they look a decent side. I still don't think there's any chance they'll make the top 4 but they look well organised. With Koeman there though there's always a big chance it'll end in tears, once he hits a bad patch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alpaywasawesome Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 Like they had to sell Lallana, Lovren, Shaw and Lambert? That's my point. They managed to replace those players last summer but you can't keep selling your best players and then replacing them with cheaper players. No scouting system is good enough to keep doing that IMO. Well most of those players moved on for Champions League football so if Southampton really does what we failed to do that season ... then no problem for them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulC Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 Yes but they have one of the best youth systems in the Country as well. They have generated a lot of money from players they have developed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KHV Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 Danny murphy was on talksport talking about villa this morning and he said he thought we had a similar squad to Southampton but the difference is having a positive manager & belief. I think Koeman would get a lot more from this Villa team, we have quality in it. The Southampton players have said how much they enjoy playing for Koeman, never hear that from a Villa player ...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ismail-villa Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 I'm happy for them tbh, would be happy if they get champions league which I honestly believe they can. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sharkyvilla Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 Danny murphy was on talksport talking about villa this morning and he said he thought we had a similar squad to Southampton but the difference is having a positive manager & belief. I have a soft spot for Southampton but I'm not sure that's fair. They often have 5 players in their match day squad that cost more than Benteke. They benefitted from going bust having been relegated two divisions and getting bought for virtually nothing by someone worth a few times what Randy is worth and (albeit to their credit) probably the second best youth system in Europe. We have a half decent first team but nothing really beyond it, plus barely a pot to piss in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 It's worth remembering when they came up their defence was as bad as ours was in 12/13 and that had Fonte and Clyne as regulars then. Where they've done well is add quality rather than quantity e.g. Alderwield on a years loan has been a great pick up for them as has Tadic. Like with us under MON they've been pretty lucky with injuries so far as they don't have much beyond the first 11 e.g. when Schnderlein was injured before xmas they lost a few games. He's their Milner without question and will be very difficult to replace. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThunderPower_14 Posted January 13, 2015 Share Posted January 13, 2015 It's very frustrating that we haven't really gotten a lot out of our youth system in the past decade or so. I mean who are our better youth system products of the past decade? Cahill? And we got **** all for him. Steven Davis? We got **** all for him as well. Our academy used to be much lauded and we seemingly have talented kids coming through, but we really need the likes of Robinson and Grealish to develop better than say, Delfouneso and Gardner. We really need to start developing more of these players into Premier League regulars, and actually getting a decent return for the ones who do leave. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don_Simon Posted January 13, 2015 Share Posted January 13, 2015 Interesting point on the football ramble about Southampton's academy. Until very recently they've had an exceptionally large catchment area due to the lack of other academies in the vicinity. Pompey now have an academy, and although im sure Saints will still be the preferred choice for the vast majority of promising youngsters in the area (Potential Champ League v Potential non league), it does give some insight into a factor as to why they have been so prolific in producing gems. Southampton are now in the transfer window that we so spectacularly failed it. They could nail down Champs League if they buy well. As could we have, but we bought Heskey. The rest is tear inducing history. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CarewsEyebrowDesigner Posted January 13, 2015 Share Posted January 13, 2015 They need a striker. Pelle is handy but not consistent enough, and Rodriguez won't be back to his best until next season at the earliest. They have a good balance at the moment though and probably don't want to mess it up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lapal_fan Posted January 13, 2015 Share Posted January 13, 2015 The problem was is that with our good youngsters like Cahill and Davies in his second season (where he looked pretty average) was that we bought players into their positions who really, didn't do anything that the kids couldn't have done or learned. Cahill was replaced by Curtis Davies for a cool £10m, nice one MON - who'd you think is the better player now? Which one would be worth £15-£20m? Davies was great in his first season (scored 7 I think), but he didn't really push on, so we bought in Milner on loan. It's the age old problem of Villa needing better "now", rather than having a plan and developing our kids with decent potential for a season or two. We've been poorly run for so long now and it's because in the past our managers have always been under some sort of pressure. Look at when things were rosy under MON finishing 6th every season, fair enough the model wasn't sustainable, but there were people saying we should look for someone better, or replace XXX because he isn't good. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Rev Posted January 13, 2015 Share Posted January 13, 2015 Interesting point on the football ramble about Southampton's academy. Until very recently they've had an exceptionally large catchment area due to the lack of other academies in the vicinity. Pompey now have an academy, and although im sure Saints will still be the preferred choice for the vast majority of promising youngsters in the area (Potential Champ League v Potential non league), it does give some insight into a factor as to why they have been so prolific in producing gems. Southampton are now in the transfer window that we so spectacularly failed it. They could nail down Champs League if they buy well. As could we have, but we bought Heskey. The rest is tear inducing history. I'm not sure that's as big a thing as they were making out. If it were about catchment areas then why aren't Newcastle churning out youth team players like Southampton are? Why have Manchester United always had good youth team players in the squad? Southampton's youth academy is good because it's good, not because only Portsmouth and Bournemouth are local rivals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted January 13, 2015 Share Posted January 13, 2015 We would've got 10m + for Agbonlahor if we'd chosen to sell him during 2008-09 period when he was as integral to our game as Young was who went for 15m two years later. Cahill? Well even the staunchest MON fan will admit the whole handling of that was a monumental mess up. Didn't we get about 10m combined for Gardner, Ridgewell and Davis? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimzk5 Posted January 13, 2015 Share Posted January 13, 2015 We would've got 10m + for Agbonlahor if we'd chosen to sell him during 2008-09 period when he was as integral to our game as Young was who went for 15m two years later. Cahill? Well even the staunchest MON fan will admit the whole handling of that was a monumental mess up. Didn't we get about 10m combined for Gardner, Ridgewell and Davis? £5million for Davis, £4.5million for Gardner, £2.5million for ridgewell. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted January 13, 2015 Share Posted January 13, 2015 IMO 5M for Davis wasn't too bad as he'd fallen out of favour here, didn't do anything at Fulham, was alright at Rangers and has only come into his own at Saints in the last 18 months so that's still 6 years after leaving us before he mad a major impact. The other two are bog standard average although Gardner's commanded some decent fees, didn't Sunderland sign him for 6m?! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AVFCforever1991 Posted January 14, 2015 Share Posted January 14, 2015 But Young wasn't from our youth academy... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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