Media view: Villa red faced but through to the knock out stages
Friday, 05 December 08, 03:59 AM · Comments (42)
Some can always find positives, no matter how bad or how embarrassing the result was. Writing a blog for four years and having an opinion that isn't always in the comfort zone of what the club would like has proven that to me.
And this morning the positives are clear as day and rather than expect an apology for the result last night, most will look to those positives and some will make excuses. The real positive for me is Nathan Delfouneso and the excuses will be that we bossed the second half and were just unlucky that nothing went in.
Stuart James, The Guardian: "The Aston Villa manager named a weakened line-up and, while he could be forgiven for prioritising Sunday's trip to Goodison Park, it was difficult to escape the conclusion that Zilina had been underestimated.
Peter Lansley, The Times: "Delfouneso may have looked lively throughout but Villa continued to struggle until bringing on their best players midway through the second half — and, even then, they could not break through. Villa deserve great credit for putting so much pressure on the top four of the Premier League but this tie showed up the paucity of their back-up resources. Their best team may be able, when playing at full pelt, to overcome Arsenal and hold Manchester United, but O’Neill has acknowledged that building a squad to compete with the best on a regular basis will take longer."
Janine Self, the Sun: "Martin O’Neill was talking optimistically about finishing top or second of Group F in the pre-match build-up. Now Villa will have to go to Martin Jol’s Hamburg in a fortnight and win to have any chance of doing that."
John Wragg, Daily Express: "James Milner, Gareth Barry and Gabby Agbonlahor all came off the substitutes’ bench in the second half, but the cavalry had an awful lot to do, although Craig Gardner, one of the better ones to get a game, went very close to rescuing everything with an injury-time header that hit the post."
Luck is a factor in football. You sort of have to get lucky every now and then to win matches and it is often talked about. We were unlucky last night but that isn't an excuse. We couldn't put the goal in the back of the net, despite 19 attempts and ten on target.
Man of the Match
Like I've said above, Delfouneso is a star in the making and I suspect the hardest thing for Martin O'Neill is going to be keeping his feet on the ground, but he should come good.Simply because of his goal and attitude, running the channel, literally pointing out where the pass should go, he gets the award.
Final Analysis
We are through to the next round, which I think starts in February and as long as Martin O'Neill doesn't wait until the last day of the window and doesn't buy only cup tied players, we should have enough quality in to compete in this tournament gelled into our first team.
It was never going to be easy last night and they played some decent football at times and it's maybe not clear as day but certain players that played last night don't have a future at the club, despite the effort and heart.
A victory in Hamburg is essential, to save face and a bit of pride, but they could prove tougher opponents than we first thought.
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Ultimately a frustrating night, how are we to develop a WINNING mentality in our club when we send out teams such as last nights. 7 'B' string players plus 4 'A' string added up to a dis-jointed, uncoordinated and unfamiliar 'C' string side.
I am all for giving opportunity to squad players to prove themselves, but 7 at a time! spells disaster against teams who are desperate to win.
We might have qualified already but we looked shit, we played shit and some of that shit will still be stuck, come the very important game this weekend.
What's wrong with playing our best team, in order to win games, then maybe sub 3 squad players on once we have a lead in the game?
We have some great squad players who don't get a chance to play with our 'A' team, apart from the Hare'...sadly.
Barry - midfeild genius.
Milner - on the pitch 10 seconds before the first cross came in....priceless.
Ashley Young - off form.
Cuellar - second half 10/10.
Gabby - please do some thing ....soon!!
Up the VILLA!!
Reply to stermsav:
You talk rubbish mate.
Before the game, looking at our position in the group and our opponents on the night (Zilina), it was obviously a game to rest the big guns and play the fringe players. Its called squad rotation. Ok, we don't have real strength and depth in the squad, but MON needs to give them a chance. I think you're forgetting the big game we have away to Everton this weekend, the main competition for top 6 in the prem! Our 1st team need to be fresh and up for it.
As for your comments on the players...
Barry- He wasn't a midfield genious last night, he took a while to get into the stride of things...slow to react, some poor passes. (as commentator picked up on).
Gabby- Give the lad a break! He was hardly on the pitch 15mins and did quite well when he came on, dropping deep and driving forward.
I honestly feel we were unlucky in the 2nd half, as during the 1st salifou and osbourne were simply being outnumbered in the midfield area. But, at the same time I think neither we working hard enough, they simply werent closiing down the opposition enough, or putting in the challenges to show they really wanted it!
Second half, was an improvement, we used the width and created quite a few chances, but for me, I think agbonlahor should have come on sooner!
Also, one note on the refereeing: SHOCKING! I am sorry but MSK kept harassing Ashley Young and putting in terrible challenges on him, and for the majority of the time the referee let them get away with it!
Oh God, what a load of rubbish that was. Its confirmed (in addition to our previous UEFA cup 2nd leg games) that our reserves are very, very poor. The draw's with Hafnarfjordur and Litex and last night's defeat should make MON aware that beyond our regular starting XI plus 1 or 2 others we are pretty shite!
One thing I have to say, and I'm certainly not the first to say it, is Isiah Osbourne is NOT a premiership footballer, in fact, I have major doubts he would get in my Sunday league team. Absolutely shocking.
And i know Salifou is a bit of a cult hero, but let's be honest, what we've seen of him over a couple seasons show's he's well out of his depth.
Zat Knight... I can't even be bothered
I thought Gardner did well, he's got a great attitude.
To finish my moan, is anyone else getting a tad fed up of MON's constant 'it was a terrific effort' response whenever we play like turds??? He's sounding a bit like O'Dreary.
Still, we're through and although this balls-up will probably mean we get a tougher draw, I'm still happy to be involved
Reply to Christian:
"To finish my moan, is anyone else getting a tad fed up of MON's constant 'it was a terrific effort' response whenever we play like turds??? He's sounding a bit like O'Dreary."
I'm not going to disagree with you at all, just offering a reason!!
What else would you expect MON to say? Unlike a lot of other Managers/Players he doesn't do his dirty washing in public, IMO quite rightly. You could tell he was unhappy with the performance by the way he was reacting on the touchline, there was no need for him to criticise either the team or individuals in the press, best to do it behind closed doors.
Reply to Timmy_Ra:
100% agree mate...
Reply to Timmy_Ra:
Fair point Timmy, but I just hope you're right and that he does bollock the players behind the scenes, because I do qorry that they may start to believe all this 'terrific effort' is good enough!
*worry
your right mon is a great manager and i always think he is the best manager in the division and is rapidly moving up the villa hall of fame however he has done this to often for my liking.
i mean first what the hell is he doing at the back luke young left back and reo coker right back?
after 20 mins i said to my wife he needs to bring on milner for osbourne. after 60 he does but then he puts milner on the left and young on the right?
i know shorey was out with flu but surely someone could have filled in at left back cuellar (would be my choice).
sometimes i don't know what he is doing.
he is a great manager tho and everyone makes mistakes it just some are avoidable and if mon can improve on these areas he will become villas greatest manager. i still put gregory ahead of him
who ever says this is squad rotation is nuts putting that team out was as good as forfeiting the game in fact i would have prefered to see that
to be fair the goals were two defensive mistakes why did fright duck away from the header and luke is not a left back so got caught the wrong side then turned inside out.
when he got down the flank he had to check back to put the ball onto his right foot to cross so mon needs to once again address the left back situation and stop buying players who he doesnt rate
askpaul68
every time they had the ball in our half i had to look away.
defensively we were shocking all game and to say that it was two lucky goals is folly. the match was littered with defensive mistakes.
I thought that last night we were absolutely shicking. I understand player rotation but why the hell do we have to make things so difficult for ourselves? A win last night would've meant an easier draw in Feb but oh no.... we have to leave i all for the last throw of the dice! It would've been good to go to Hamburg and just play the game without the need to win to make life more straight forward. I'd have rested Gabby and maybe one or two others, given Defouneso the chance he deserved along with Gardner and one or two others but there's no doubt in my mind that the massive changes made led to mishaps and uncertainty
Reply to the moody economist:
i think there is an argument for 5 in midfield last night too
we were always a man short - i even commented during the match that harewood had to come back into midfield to pick a ball up - basically because they always had a spare man
we have to get a formation and stick with it. i'm all for 4-5-1/4-3-3 but we have to play it consistently and the reserve set up must play it also - so every player knows how the first team plays and there is momentum
playing 4 5 1 would lead to 0-0. where would you play fonz on his own?
the fact is if osbourne was on the bench and freidal was in centre mid we probably would have won.
sorry for being harsh but he needs to show me something he showed me nothing last night, nothing.
What annoys me most is the resting players excuse. These are professional sportsmen that only train 3 - 4 hours a day, play a maximum of two games a week andd get paid stupid amounts of money. They should try doing a normal job for 6 months and see how they cope with it!
MON aint stupid. He got what he wanted out of last night and I suspect three players killed their Villa careers in that process. The obvious thing now is that with 4-5-1 we lack a world class player to make something out of nothing so we will not win a lot of games. With 4-4-2 we can't play it without Carew.
You can bet your life MON is on the look out for a centre half, creative midfielder and a few strikers. If he doesn't sign any in the January period it will be because the right guys are not available to us so let's not all start stressing about it!
Reply to AVMark:
Sorry Mark not trying to start an argument here but how long more can MON use that excuse that the right players weren't available?
Why do we continue to put in long balls towards the box, when, without JC we have nobody able to either flick on or challenge for the ball? It's seriously pising me off. Midfield was shambolic.
Please tell me Mr. O'Neil that you do have a plan B? I am a huge fan of yours, but I think you also need a wee bit of time out and revise some tactics.
AK - My assumption is that MON is a good manager
Based upon that assumption my logic is this: -
1. He must know he needs them in order to improve the team
2. He must want to improve the team
3. He will therefore get them if he can
Your logic is if he can't then he's not a good enough manager. That's fair enough. The thing is if I'm right we are still heading in the right direction. If you are right we are in the shit so I'd rather not think it!
salifou, osbourne, harewood very disappointing, Gardner should play centre mid, he looks like he can go through the middle, and hes not scared of shooting.
In the second string at least why not play Gardner in the centre ?
We do need more quality back up, but we know that anyway.
Everybody was takin the piss out of me today at work this morning again
They know im not just a fan its bigger than that so keep the personal coms to ya mind and don't type shit like your some hard internet dude because its played out?
Oneil messed up bigtime why didn't he play the strongest line-up possible then sub if things were going to plan
He or quite frankly most of us underestimated how good zilina were gonna be, they were passing sharp and played round us without any problems? At onetime i really couldn't believe it was happening and that was when we were 2-0 down
We were all over the place got caught out by them attacking many times mainly because of the midfielders lack of ability to hold it up and make attacking runs or even make simple passes
Now we know we are complete wank when carew-laursen-petrov-barry dont start they should play every game til we get some decent alternatives again down to mon's irratic buying
I'd have harry/martin jol/the special one/hulls manager/southgate/Houllier/keane at villa anyday but im not saying sack him either? Villa have had many managers in my time and were still here and gregory had something similar but we were top then. really good half season better than this one but this time we say we've got better players? Have we where are they.
Harry won porthmouth something and he wasn't there that long and got success? If man utd came knocking for mon we know he would go? who would say no to any of them
Mons hasn't won us jackshit we don't know him? A manager doesn't even coach the players just talks shit to them... some people go on like he's theirs mate, well mate i care about winning and at the end of the season if we finish anyless then 6th its bye bye oneil for me
DO WE ALL AGREE HARRY IS A BETTER MANAGER cos in my opinion he is twice as good as mon
Reply to AVMark:
Its not that i don't think we're heading in the right direction its that it seems to take MON too long to solve problems (full back situation is still not properly fixed for example). When Man City's money comes into play, Arsenals kids maturing and maybe when Redknapp's transfer ability adding to spurs team i think we may have missed our chance. IMO we need 5 players in this Jan but going on past activity we will probably only get 2 in. I wish i had your optimistic outlook Mark but unfortunatley i don't have the same faith in MON as a lot of people on here and. Hopefully he will prove me totally wrong over the next 2 years.
Reply to Goldie7:
The day Roy Keane becomes manager of Villa is the day i stop being a Villa fan. It think it is the only thing that could make me do so but i was thinking about this lately and its my unlitmate nightmare. Hate the guy with every bit of my soul.
just remember where sunderland were and where they are now its different for villa because i don't think we'll get relegated anytime soon we've always been here and still won NOTHING can you see us winning anything this year ak_27
Reply to Goldie7:
No i can't to be honest but Keane is a complete c#nt.
so everybody else on this list will do then!!! apart from keane *notice how he was last
I know what you mean AK but remember the power of positive thinking! We had every excuse for being ultimately ground into submission under Deadly Doug. There really were no positives to grasp onto under him but now there are plenty and we should all appreciate the gift of hope that has been restored to us.
Here endith the lesson.
Goldie7 you are talking absolute rubbish mate.
Yes Martin O'Neill makes mistakes - we all do.
But I'd rather have O'Neill over any of the other mug managers you've mentioned any day of the week. Especially Keane who couldn't even cope at Sunderland even after all the money he was given.
Wake up pal. We're got a great manager who does a brilliant job most of the time.
The problem last night was that MON underestimated Zilina and a lot of the players who starter played either averagely or really badly.
Also we haven't got massive strength in depth butn that will improve in time.
We're still in the competition though and our fate is in our own hands, we just need to put in a performance against Hamburg next week.
Keep faith - UTV!
Goldie7...if MON got sacked tomorrow and Southgate took over, would you be happy?
Reply to Villa_Chris:
Well said, Villa_Chris.
Not too difficult to understand MON's thinking and almost impossible to disagree.
Reply to Goldie7:
This is just a silly post, goldie. Take a deep breath.
MON is gettin on my F!!!! NERVES! he has cost us top slot in this league and he cannot say he has not been warned,
this second string of crap lost to QPR, so he new that they are shit.
osbourne and salfou are useless, we cannot hit a barn door at the best of times, let alone with this joke of a team.
ashley young must wonder why he bothered signing a new contract, best delivery in the premership, every chance missed
MON answer, get heskey! he has gone as far as he can take us and is struggling, cannot attract or control big names so spends on second rate shit
why the whinging all the time if we won last night then everyone would be saying mon got it spot on but we let 2 stupid goals in which put us on the back foot and the players on the park wasnt up to getting us out of the shit.
it is well known now we need better back up instead of what we have im sure mon knows that all too well
I've gotta defend Salifou here. At the post match press conf, O'Neill said that he had been playing even though he had the flu. He wanted to play despite not feeling well. OK he didn't have the best game, but was it any worse than Osbourne or Knight? Against Slavia Prague, Salifou looked very decent for a man who doesn't get regular football. He's a back up player, a squad player at best but deserves a chance.
The second string did ok last night, apart from the first 20 minutes where it went pear shaped but we're still through.
In a way, I'm glad we lost last night because hopefully this will give O'Neill a kick up the arse. The lack of goals recently is a worry and a striker is a priority.
I understand the frustration with MON, but last night was a night to rest key players. And I think everything would've been fine if it wasn't for Knight's/Guzan's mistake and I think the shock of that led to the second goal. If anything the poor performance may force MON to buy more than the 2 players he might've been planning to buy this Jan. And of course our fullback situation will look a lot better once Bouma comes back.
I am starting to doubt all of these this great manager hype. He is a good manager not Great
Yes we are in a lofty position.
But the other side of the coin is
He has spent £ms on players yet we suffer O Dreary dross football & bullshit comments of how unlucky we have been.
We have been knocked out of cup competitions in early rounds
He is not decisive in the transfer market resorting to panic buys & paying well over the odds for average players.
Great managers play great football & sign great players
We just have to rely on luck
I know your views on the club site damian, but i just had a look at what Delfouneso had to say after the match and it seemed that he was a very mature kid. Everything that he said was professional, and he seems to have his head on straight. He is the type of player that will become something because he has the right attitude.
MON has the cheek to question Man City influence on the transfer market when he pays over the odds for all his signings Milner £14m Curtis £10m to name 2
Reply to FatKev:
to be fair mate i cant disagree with what you posted but if it wasnt for bobby charlton sticking his neck on the line for fergie then we would have never known!!
I do feel bad questioning Mon but We strived all year to try & make Europe.
But what happens he fields a weakend team again, when by his own admission our 1st team is not great.
We have already sqandered our best chance for next season by throwing it away against QPR.
We must play our best team, if we cannot through injury etc then bring in the stiffs (but hopefully not the plodding Osbourne).
Lets face it, I partially agree with the press that we choke when big games come along, but really we do not have the quality to win a game we have to rely on a bit of luck.
Zat Knight needs to be gotten rid of