Aston Villa FC 2012 Season Thread

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unlikely to resign.

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I absolutely hate this term when used in sports.

Is he resigning by coming back for 4 years?
or
Is he resigning by retiring for good?

:unhijack:

ETA: I know what he means in this situation, but I do a double take every time I read it.

Figured I'd get started. We have a big game coming up against MONderland this weekend as Martin O Neil returns to villa park for the first time since he walked out of the club 5 days before the season began in 2010 after three straight 6th place finishes. Here's an excellent statistical analysis of the 2 teams and the (not so good) soccer they play

This is a big game for Villa and if some of the teams below us pick up points this weekend and we don't we could be in serious relegation trouble. We haven't won at home since November so I'm not very optimistic about our chances under McRelegator.

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Villa is my second favorite club... so, I'm just checking in.

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sure, not trying to call you out or anything, everyone does it.. I even see it it news articles etc.

What happened with Albrighton? Haven't heard much about him this year. Thought he looked promising last season.

Did MB90 get the shaft at AV or were their other options just better (or both/neither)?

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What happened with Albrighton? Haven't heard much about him this year. Thought he looked promising last season.

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He lost form the second half of last season under Houllier. This season Albrighton, like all of our wide attacking players, has failed to make any sort of impact on our season under McLeish. This is primarily because they spend most of the game defending and are often require to hold position rather than make forward runs and as a result we are incredibly slow and static in attack. Furthermore, fullback is by far the biggest weakness in our squad and our wingers spend most of their time tracking back. I honestly believe that Hutton and Warnock are the two poorest fullbacks to regularly play in the premier league. They both started every game for the first 3/4 of our season and hopefully now Lichaj has won the starting job fulltime at either LB or RB.

The only attacking players on our team who have played well, at times, under McLeish have been Keane and Ireland unfortunately, I've watched all but 2 of our EPL games this season and its just unbelievable how poorly he sets his teams up to attack, he's just completely clueless and way out of his depth.

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Did MB90 get the shaft at AV or were their other options just better (or both/neither)?

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I happen to think that we made a huge mistake but the circumstances had a lot to do with it. I don't think Houllier expected us to be in a relegation battle when MB was brought in, I also believe he was viewed as a long term replacement for Petrov who I believe Houllier was planning on moving on. Unfortunately we went on a very bad run after Petrov was dropped and he was brought back into the team a few weeks later and played every game for the rest of the season. I think the plan was to ease Bradley into the team why evaluating him in training before making him a regular in the team this season. Unfortunately because of our precarious league position Houllier was forced to play his experienced players and MB never really got his chance.

Houllier also had plans to bring in Cabaye last summer and he was going to join us before Houllier was let go. I think our owner decided at that point that it was just time to cut wages and spend a few years rebuilding. He brought in a manager with experience dealing with limited funds and who would take much of the blame from the fans while letting several big earners (Young, Downing, Carew, L. Young) go.

Good find on Hleb. Granted, most teams don't/can't play like Barca or Arsenal, but he's fully aware that McLeish's tactics don't get wins.

I'm too lazy to look for it now, but a poster on AVFC Forums highlighted only like 14 games this season where there's been a decent number of chances on goal. The telling part was that over 2/3 of Villa's points were won in those games. So this damage limitation BS that McLeish employs might pick up a point here and there, but overall doesn't work.

Btw, thanks for starting this thread.

Read the statement earlier today. Apparently Lerner was at the match yesterday, so hopefully he got the message loud and clear. Basically PR BS though that states nothing but the obvious. Just trying to appeal to the fans by saying they 'understand'. Unfortunately this is a desperate act of acknowledgement that is several months too late.

Another poor performance this morning. Looks like the pressure has really started to grow on McLeish though. Birmingham Mail seems to finally be starting to take the fans side.



Here's a wonderful little article on McLeish signing Allan Hutton. I thought Hutton was absolutely terrible today he should have been sent off for a blatant handball and don't even get me started on his crossing and defensive awareness. McLeish called it a "coup" when we signed him, thats why I've linked the article it just goes to show how absolutely clueless the man is.

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Unfortunately we have a manager that would rather not lose than win; start with Clark and Warnock in midfield and then, at 0-0 when 3 points would be huge, he puts Gardner on for N'Zogbia with 20 mins left and leaves Weimann and Ireland on the bench for the rest of the match. How can a fricking manager who doesn't at least try to win winnable games be employable anywhere in the world?

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His player selection and tactics have been so consistently poor I've just given up questioning them. But if you want to get technical I'd say he basically set us up with 2 attacking players (Gabby and Chuck) and 9 defenders (Don't you dare call Heskey an attacker).

Some say he sets us out to play for a draw. I'd say he sets us out to not get completely destroyed and is delighted if we manage to get a point. That said Gabby could have had a hat trick (I'm convinced he's carrying a back injury) an that save Given made was a save of the season candidate, that should have been the winner.