We ARE a good side.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Anonymous
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We are a good side if we're allowed to play football. We are quite plainly not a good side if the opposition puts it up to us and gets in our face.

You cannot win every game by a hatfull. You have to able to grind out a few one-nils and we can't do that at the moment which Villa and Everton can.

WBA had Villa under the kosh for nearly the whole of the second half today and still won. If that was City, we'd have lost because we're too soft.

We have lots of creativity but are woefully short in terms of industry.
 
Good post, IP. I think Sturridge is going to be a hell of a lot better than Agbonlahor. Gabby's technical ability is seriously poor for a player of this level. His movement is good and he has great pace, but his technique of actually striking a ball is crap and that's what will stop him being one of the best IMO.
 
I also did one of these comparisons with Nottingham Forest last week.

And you know what? EVERY one of our players was better than everyone of theirs. Every one of our subs was better than every one of their subs.

Our manaer is better than theirs. We've got more money than them. We have a bigger support. We have a better stadium. We have more celebrity fans than them.

So how come no one told the fuckers and they tonked us 3-0!
 
M18CTID said:
O'Neill is a fantastic manager and has been given time and money to build his own team and get them playing in a system that the players are comfortable with - that's why they're now reaping the rewards and doing so well at the moment. But if you look back at his first season in charge of Villa in 2006-2007 it was a poor one - they were the last team to remain unbeaten in the Premiership but that record is a little skewed to say the least as it comprised something like only 3 wins and 6 draws from the first 9 games. After that they went to shit for a fair few months - who remembers the night we battered them 3-1 at their place in November 2006? We could've been 5 up after the first half hour and this was with Pearce in charge of us. We were fantastic that night but Villa lacked any kind of organisation and tactical nous. They certainly didn't look like a side managed by Martin O'Neill for sure. And it wasn't an isolated performance either - they went 11 league games without a win between Nov 11th and Jan 20th, and by the turn of April 2007 they were only 5 points off the drop zone, 1 point behind us. A 9 game unbeaten run to the end of the season meant that in the end they stayed up comfortably but for large parts of that campaign they were piss-poor to watch - in truth O'Neill got his team winning games in the nick of time but the 9 game unbeaten runs at the start and the end of the season distorted what was basically 20 games of shite in between. Personally, I think there are a lot of parallels to be drawn between that first season under O'Neill and our season so far under Hughes - O'Neill found it hard to get the best out of the players that were there before he arrived at the club and you can say the same for Hughes. Also, O'Neill appeared to show he was tactically inept in some games that season and the same goes for Hughes in some games this season. But eventually O'Neill got the balance right and I still have faith in Hughes doing the same. Providing the worst doesn't happen to us this season, relegation, and providing there is a significant improvement in our results hereon in then I wouldn't have much of a problem in giving him another crack at it next season.
I'll also add that Villa have been extremely lucky so far this season with injuries and have been able to play a settled side in most games. Not that I'm using our injuries as an excuse for our league position because I don't like doing that, just that I'm pointing out that a lack of injuries has been of some benefit to Villa.
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A great post and a good level headed opinion. The one thing that Villa have this season is a good team spirit and this is down to a squad who have all had time to settle down and bond with each other. We have too many problems off the field IMO.
 
Soulboy said:
I also did one of these comparisons with Nottingham Forest last week.

And you know what? EVERY one of our players was better than everyone of theirs. Every one of our subs was better than every one of their subs.

Our manaer is better than theirs. We've got more money than them. We have a bigger support. We have a better stadium. We have more celebrity fans than them.

So how come no one told the fuckers and they tonked us 3-0!
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LOL.

In terms of technical ability we are not much different from Villa, indeed we might have the edge. When we lost 4-2 at the start of the season I wasn't too despondent as I thought we passed them off the park for much of the game but paid the price for some individual errors and catching Abonglehor (sp!) on a good day.

So is the difference down to management or players' attitude or a bit of both?
 
We have a shite manager and they have a good manager. Their players give 100% for their team our give 60% if we are lucky. We have defenders who lack consistancy and have given away goals all season and will continue to do so until we bring in new players. Villa have a very well organised defence and our defence is all over the place. You can compare player for player all day long but these are the facts and this is what city have to sort out if we are to improve. At the moment Villa are miles better than we are.
 
AKA Baltipie said:
And thats unusual
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Second time I believe mate the last time was when we both agreed that Richard Dunne was crap having watched him score an own goal in the Derby.
 
i think we have some players who are class and like mh says we need 5 or 6 more to make us a complete side just wish we would get round to signing them!!!
 
At last a really good well thought out post !!!!!!!

We technically have a great squad, stop the defensive errors and
we have a very good chance of european qualification with the
addition of 3-4 top quality players to back up/replace the existing
ones.
 
Great post M18CTID. Its a good comparison and makes you realise all developing teams seem to go through tough periods. We can't do it all this season it'll take some time and while I think Hughes has made some poor mistakes its clear Oneill had some of the same problems. The thing that Oneill has done well is bring in good professionals that don't moan at training regimes and not playing in the first team every game (Zak Knight in place of the injured Laursen against the Arsenal for example)

Its easy to just think of the here and now and judge impulsively. Sometimes you have to sit back and take a few bad defeats on the chin (Forest was pushing it though). No one can deny we have the nucleus of a good if not great team, Hughes just needs to fine tune it, weed out the crap and buy the right players ie CB, back up experienced GK another midfielder and Goal machine. When Boj, Johnson, Ned return our bench will look very impressive.
 
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