England U21s 2 Portugal U21s 0 - Milner and Gabby on the scoresheet

deffo not a pen but didnt milner tuck it away good

its like lookig into a crystal ball and seeing englands future

wierd how the other day everyone on this site slaging off agbonlahor but the next game he plays people say he should be playing for the full England team.

Never a pen ask JordanG

Well I wasn't slagging him off, and he should've played in a friendly by now for England. I think he'd be strangely better at international level than in the Premiership, based on how teams usually defend...

englands answer to david healy lol

Well I was one of those slagging him off. You know what, I'm no hypocrite, I'm still slagging him off. And samvilla, there's three posts above yours, yet not one of them are applauding Gabby are they? When he pulls his finger out and performs like the pro he's payed to do, week in week out, then I'll not be so critical of him. Until such time I'll have my opinion and stick to it thankyou very much.

Christ Bob your spellchecker is now on my PC..How do I spell paid? Doooh..!

Samvilla, good point. MON thinks he can get 20 goals this season and his goals against Man City were quality. This goal tonight will do his confidence no harm & I wouldn't be surprised if we play 4-5-1 if he's MONs first choice striker.

I expect a good season from him. I suspect andyanarchist does too he just loves the sound of his voice so much he can stop running off at the mouth.

For the record, my post does not say he should be playing for England. It merely says Capello should take note for the future.

If Gabby plays well regularly then in the future he should play for England. But that's in the future, he needs to work harder and stop believing his own hype.

i still stand by my right to slag his RECENT performances off
if he pulled his finger out and applied his brain he could dominate football... bet he would of won a gold in the 100m at the olimpics...lol

pancho..Your right. I only come on here submitting posts cos I'm a 'Fan Point Whore'..!

Here's another 'fan point' for me! God I'm so shallow?

Gabby will not score 20 this season.

There.


I've stuck my neck out.

me 2 andy

My neck's longer than yours and don't call me Andy.

I'm not getting back into that timewarp v wormhole debate again..it's just too damn late..

"its like lookig into a crystal ball and seeing englands future" rob_h

I agree with those comments 100%...okay i know people say gabby is lazy sometimes in games but you can't deny he's got something special that our other strikers don't have! give him time and im sure he can be the finsihed artcle!

well done to the england under 21's...i just wish the senoir team would play as good..drop beckam, why is heskey in the mix?

england's national team

David James (gk)

(ld) a. cole

(centre d) ferdinand, terry

(rd) micah richards

(lm) A. Young

(cn) barry

(cm) gerard

(mr) Bently

(fw) D. ashton

(fw) bent

drop lampard and beckham for sure..lampard and gerard never play wel together...Capello needs 2 choice 1 or the other and Gerard is the man...How A.young is not the squad i will neva know

Am I looking through a rose-tinted rear-view mirror or was the experience of reading this blog more pleasurable in the not-too-distant past? The articles are still top quality and provocative (Damian, Luke, Andy, Doc Bowles - I love your work). Many of the comments are great too. But is it only in my imagination that recently a few people have hijacked the comments to talk about and among themselves in the most inane and empty way? It's cliquey tedious crap more suited to an aol chat room - nothing to do Villa, football, sport, or anything or anyone else other than themselves.

& my own opinion of Agbonlahor - he's great when he's got a ball to chase in front of him, along the ground.

He's got speed and enough strength & technique to get past a back-tracking defender and the composure in front of goal to beat the keeper.

If a team can deliver him a ball on his terms he'll score often. However, the kind of service he needs don't come about nearly so often in a gritty encounter against defensively-minded opposition.

If we can play to his strengths we'll get a lot out of him. I think his laziness might be overstated - it might be that for him to do well, he needs his team to be on top. Perhaps this can change.

I Personally am a very big beleiver and fan in Gabby, but i would be the first to agree that he seems to have thought against stoke and man city that he'd done enough against man citeh to currently own a starting berth.
i dont think anyone would disagree that he looked lazy and uninterested against liverpool, and drifted in and out of play against stoke.
I firmly beleive its just down to competition for places thats not making him pull his finger out quite as much as he should.

true haines lack of competition is the answer to gabby being inconsistant. harewood is definatly not the answer.

The national side will not win anything until they decide to stop choosing the team by salary and name. How many times can you have Cole, Lampard and Gerrard in the midfield together before you can see it just will never work? Pace and creativity in the midfield, thats the key. Funny that we have an all english team, nearly, and thats what we need also........

02. rob_h Wrote: | 22.46BST | Sep 5, 2008
its like lookig into a crystal ball and seeing englands future

- yea, thast what the under 21's is usually for lol

even tho they won the group, they still have to do a 2 leg play-off?

wtf

lets see what team gets picked tonight, this is a game which should be a five niller at least, i bet we struggle to a very dull unconvincing win against a team full of plumbers and dentists.

Vindice - This is not going to be a silly reply, like the ones we got carried away on last night. It's just to sincerely appologise for the way we took this slightly off topic last night. I am sure I also speak for Bob and Nan. This is not me being cynical, but serious.

It's no excuse, but since the changeover from old to new forum we seem to have got into a giddy state of affairs on occasion. For me it's a way of outlet, because I like to lighten the situation, because it does seem that some people were taking some bits a little too serious. Also theres those that were getting near to crossing the line of rudeness and injecting a bit of humour (childish behaviour possibly?) seemed appropriate to divert the arguments. What you have to understand about last night was that the post by Luke went on very late on a Friday night. Not a good day/time to get serious replies possibly? But like I said no excuse on our part.

I for one appologise if a few entries offended anyone. I'm not going to say it won't happen again, but such behaviour will be curtailed. Sorry guys and gals.

I'm glad no one else thinks it was a penalty, I was there so only saw it once and thought it was dubious. I couldn't believe how many people were going 'oh wow, look how quick he is' as if no one knows who he is ...

Oh, come on AA don't appologise, if people cant take a different opinion to their own then they shouldn't be here.
OOOO! that nasty man said i am wrong, and he don't agree with me, stop being a bunch of wooses. A few of us from the forum have long held the belief that Gabby is lazy, and far too inconsistent throughout a game. Where was he in the last two games??
Until he does perform all the time then he will generate this sort of debate, so accept it or go somewhere else!

andyanarchist:-

"I for one appologise if a few entries offended anyone. I'm not going to say it won't happen again, but such behaviour will be curtailed. Sorry guys and gals."

I was working last night so have only read through the comments this morning. I can't see anything offensive at all. Have the offending entries been deleted or has someone got a serious lack of humour?

i read and enjoy this blog, if it was serious all the time then i dont think i would enjoy it as much as i do. light banter hurts nobody

keefvilla...I'm not saying any of our entries were offensive...I think that anyone who only uses the front page will find us from the forum come on and we are sometimes serious, sometimes funny, sometimes childish and sometimes wrong. What we are not, is offensive, because although we may poke a bit of fun, who doesn't, we have respect for our fellow Villans. We even respect taglors point of view...I may not be talking for everyone on that point?!

Sam..I wasn't appologising for my point of view on Gabby. As stated it's my opinion on him and I know other forum users seem to have the same or similar opinion. Like I've said I'll be one of the first to applaude him when he plays week in week out up to the standard I know he's capable of. I just think he looks 'uninterested' in patches, like living on his laurels?

UTV

just watchin yer back dude, just didn't think any of us need ever apologise, this blog is far more about debate than agressive posting.
As the Buddhist said to the hot dog seller "make me one with everything!"
We are all here coz we have no life, play nice!!!

Reply to __AA__:

keefvilla...I'm not saying any of our entries were offensive...I think that anyone who only uses the front page will find us from the forum come on and we are sometimes serious, sometimes funny, sometimes childish and sometimes wrong. What we are not, is offensive, because although we may poke a bit...

Andyanarchist you respect Taglor's point of view? Now you are being silly!

I said respect it...Not that I agreed..

Cheers Sam. I knew you were backing me up..I think it came out like I was replying back to you, but I wasn't. I was sending out that bit to all.

I used to have a life..Boo Ooo..!

I am sick of the abuse that Gabby gets on here from some villa fans. Bar Young - i believe he is the player with the most potential at villa park - no-one else even comes close to those two.
He has unbelievable pace, composure in front of goal, scores lots of goals with his head and wins lots of corners and free kicks which we are dangerous from.
What really would bring out the best in him would be a creative midfielder who could play him in on goal a bit more often. I think our hoofball tactics dont play to his strengths. All strikers are limited by the quality of ball they recieve

valid point eoin but i think your misunderstanding people on their comments on him we all agree that he is a good player with loads of potential undeniable talent but only in the last few games for the villa has he seemed uninterested and unprepared to become interested... thats why people have been having knocks at him because we are all frustrated at him because we know he could become one of the best forwards the prem has ever seen if he raised his head and applied his brain he could realise how good he really is, im sure at this moment in time he has things on his mind preventing him from achieving what we all can see he capable of and will soon get his head sorted out and dominate once again..... i think milner and young will help him out. remember we have a team of youngsters that have so much talent that are still learning the game and progressing each season but what mon has done is brought them young to secure our prem status and more for the next 10 years the teams around us will continue to change players as their contracts end or they retire but our team will remain pretty much the same for the next 10 and we will continue to get stronger as the saying goes the future is bright the future is villa.......proud history bright future ...utv...

I agree, Milner and Young will definitely help Gabby out this season. Milner especially in my opinion. He has such drive and ambition it will rub off on those around him. This was clear to me after listening to his interview before yesterdays England game, not to mention his work rate on the pitch.

Doesn't it feel good watching a good England performance at Wembley?!?

england must one day thank aston villa

Well Bob - I agree with most of what you say. But honestly the majority of comments about Gabby (and to a large extent Carew aswell) are so negative its ridiculous. Last season Villa were the third highest scorers in the league and even though the 2 main strikers didn't hit 20 goals - its really irrelevant. Who won all the set pieces that we scored from?
We will not see the best of Gabby and Carew the way Villa currently play football. Imagine Gabby playing in front of Bergkamp/that type of player - he would be unmarkable.
For three years villa fans continually lept to the defense of Luke Moore - who never did anything to warrent it and then they get on Gabby's back every second game - ridiculous.

Vindice, spot on mate. Andyanarchist I think your apology for bring off topic & longwinded was off topic & longwinded :-)

If MON goes public on Gabby getting 20 goals he is making more than a prediction: such a public vote of confidence is part of his confidence building & an example of why under MON it's possible he will achieve 20 goals but would bag no more than a dozen under other managers. I don't agree that he's lazy, I do agree that Milner is a great addition and will help Gabby and for one won't be surprised if he gets it

heres what enland team i would like.....

foster/green
m-richards...terry...ferdinand...cole
............barry...................
bentley...................jcole/young
........ronney/gerrard...............
.....ashton/bent...gabby/owen

subs: c.davies,lampard,brown,d.james,milner,w.phillips

Reply to Vindice:

& my own opinion of Agbonlahor - he's great when he's got a ball to chase in front of him, along the ground.

He's got speed and enough strength & technique to get past a back-tracking defender and the composure in front of goal to beat the keeper.

If a team can deliver...

Well said, Vindice. I think the criticism has been a bit overwrought. What does Torres do? Nothing much, then one goal, thank you very much. Gabby is in much the same mold, but it's getting him the ball the right way.

Which means getting the shape right in attack so that it's all set up properly. If he's already flat against a picket line at the back, there's not much to work with. He's not a dribbler. He's the guy who's meant to run onto a ball around 30 yards out, or closer in if the ball's threaded through. One touch, outrun his marker, and then another touch or two, but no more, the second being the strike.

Might seem like he's taking up space, doing nothing, but that one moment of lightning in a bottle is something the other team has to consider the whole game, and 89 minutes of nothing is just fine if there's a goal. Gabby's presence opens up other spaces.

on the subject of Gabby, this was in the Times, I think, a couple weeks ago, and it's pretty revealing (given everyone's interest in Defoe and even Ashton):

". Michael Owen has scored 19 goals in his last 44 Premier League appearances (no, it's not an arbitrary number, it's the number of Premiership games Owen has played since returning to England). Emile Heskey has scored 16 goals in his last 44 Premier League appearances. Gabriel Agbnolahor has scored 15 goals in his last 44 Premier League appearances. Dean Ashton has scored 15 goals in his last 44 Premier League appearances. Jermain Defoe has scored 15 goals in his last 44 Premier League appearances. Darren Bent has scored 13 goals in his last 44 Premier League appearances. Peter Crouch has scored 12 goals in his last 44 Premier League appearances. Dave Kitson has scored 11 goals in his last 44 Premier League appearances. Andy Johnson has scored ten goals in his last 44 Premier League appearances. Kevin Davies has scored eight goals in his last 44 Premier League appearances. Bobby Zamora has scored eight goals in his last 44 Premier League appearances. Michael Chopra has scored seven goals in his last 44 appearances."

So, say what you will about English players, but among them, Gabby is basically as productive as they come.

Just finished watching the England game how rubbish were we until Joe cole came on i know it was pipe dreams in the transfer window but thats one player that could surely add to the villa team.

on the basis of todays performance from Downing and Defoe i really cant see why Gabby and Ashley Young are'nt in the England team. downing was shocking and in my opinion Ashley is one of the best wingers in the EPL he deserves a chance.

Taylor
L.Young Davies Clark Shorey

Milner Reo-Coker Barry Young

Gabby Delfonsoe

Play that team against Andorra..wud of won by more

mate accrinton stanley could of beat andorra by more than 2 tonight

That's the problem with Gabby though isn't it? He has the ability to absolutely torment defences and pick them apart. Problem is it only seems to be every 4 or 5 games which is poor really.

I thought england's performance was at best okay yesterday...the positives i guess were that we passed well(apart from terry and downing)..but could any1 tell me why the donkey downing is being picked over a.young????
joe cole should be in that position next game...we should really be beating a pub team like andorra a lot more than just 2 goals..andorra did use all there players like a double decker bus infront of goal..but common we are supposed to have quality, when are we gonna start showing it??? theo did well..if capello has any brains he won't start beckham against croatia, we need 2 stick 2 some creativity on the flanks...becks is good as a squad player but his pace is no better than a snail..so lets hope we stick with pace

This may be a stupid question but how come Milner is playing for the England U21s if, as he says on the official site today, he's actually now 22?

gabby played brillant

Reply to odysseynumberfive:

This may be a stupid question but how come Milner is playing for the England U21s if, as he says on the official site today, he's actually now 22?

i remember reo-coker playing for the under 21s in the euro tornament not long a go and he was almost 23 i think there is a fifa rule that any u21 teams can play 2 or 3 players older than 21 but younger than 24 in a game...but dont quote me on it im not sure of the full official rules on it i'll dig around sometime tomorrow and get a full set of rules for ages in the u21

The cut of date for registering was 72 hours before he turned 22. Obviously he's now turned 22 so he can play..That is the reason.

bob is right