Good news, everyone! #
Ian Symes - August 29, 2008 @ 1:10 pm
1) We’re through to the first round proper of the UEFA Cup. It was a pretty rubbish second leg, but then we were hardly going to go out all guns blazing three days before the Liverpool game. It started off pretty well, but when FH scored, we just thought “sod it” and switched off the pace. On the plus side, Craig Gardner and Wayne Routledge both did very well, and it was good to see Nathan Delfouneso making an appearance. And it could be worse – we could be Man City.
2) We have been drawn against Litex Lovech of Bulgaria in the first round. My limited research reveals that last season they finished fourth in the league and won the Bulgarian Cup. Obviously, we can’t take anything for granted (John Gregory, take note) but they shouldn’t present us with too much trouble, especially considering we’re away the first leg.
3) WE HAVE SIGNED JAMES MILNER! GET THE FUCK IN! I love Milner. You may recall I included him in my dream team a couple of months ago, where I talked about how “we’d love to have him back”. Well, now we have. He’s been around for so long that it’s easy to forget that he’s still only 22. I can’t wait to see him slot into the team. Milner, Reo-Coker, Barry and Young across the middle, with Sidwell, Petrov, Gardner, Routledge and Osbourne in reserve. Villa with strength in depth? Whatever next?
Comments (2) | tags: craig gardner, fh hafnarfjardar, james milner, litex lovech, liverpool, nathan delfouneso, uefa cup, wayne routledge
Why, why, why? #
Ian Symes - August 25, 2008 @ 12:31 pm
Well, that was depressingly predictable. I had a nasty feeling about the game all day, but I still thought we’d get through it. It was never going to be easy playing a newly-promoted side on their first home game in the top flight for three thousand years, or whatever it was. We could moan about the penalty appeal we had turned down, minutes before they had a dubious one given. We could complain that the winning goal was scored in the fourth minute of injury time. But the simple fact is: we weren’t good enough. We weren’t good enough to beat Stoke.
The main reason for this is our defence. Now, we should not be conceding three goals against Stoke City, no matter what the circumstances. The problem isn’t the quality of the players we have; it’s the quality of the players we’re missing. Even out on the right, Olof Mellberg was a huge influence on the team, and it’s only now that we realise how great he was for seven years. And didn’t I tell you we’d miss Freddy Bouma? It’s not that Shorey and Young are worse players than those two (although, they are) – it’s just that we’ve lost two big, strong defensive titans, and we don’t know what to do without them. This is a time where we’d expect to turn to Martin Laursen – our new skipper and one of our best players last time round – for that defensive stability and confidence, but even he is looking unsure and making daft mistakes. It all needs time to gel, and we need to be patient… but if our defence is being given the runaround by Ricardo Fuller, how are they going to cope with Fernando Torres next week?
Having said that, what a fantastic goal by Fuller for their second. Reminiscent of Bergkamp against Newcastle, only, you know, by a Stoke player. But what the pissing hell was Gareth Barry playing at in the build-up? Is he deliberately trying to lower his value? I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt for now, but anything less than a full-hearted performance against Liverpool, and I will not be happy…
At the moment, we’re in a frustrating scenario. We have one of the best attacks in the country. There’s no doubt about that. Carew, Gabby, Young and Barry – with the likes of Harewood, Sidwell and Petrov backing them up – would scare the shit out of most defences in the league, and we really can’t complain with six goals in our opening two league games. But the defence is letting them down at the moment. Scoring two goals away at Stoke should have made whatever they did irrelevant. But as it stands, we shit ourselves every time the ball comes anywhere near our box. It’s a confidence thing – those five players (the back four and keeper) are more than capable of keeping teams at bay. But if they’re not sure, then we’re going to concede goals. Five goals conceded against Man City and Stoke? Hardly the sort of stat that suggests we’re going to break into the top four, is it?
But still. It’s the UEFA Cup second leg on Thursday, which should be interesting. Hard to tell whether Martin will rest some of the attacking players and give some of the kids a chance, but he should definitely play a first choice defence. The more games they play together, the more confidence they’ll get. And without that confidence, we’re going nowhere.
Comments (1) | tags: fh hafnarfjardar, gareth barry, liverpool, luke young, martin laursen, nicky shorey, olof mellberg, premier league, stoke city, uefa cup, wilfred bouma
Just 37 matches to go… #
Ian Symes - August 18, 2008 @ 11:28 am
Well, we’re second in the table, currently sitting in a Champions League position, we’ve got the joint-highest scoring record in the league, and the the Premier League’s top scorer is a Villa player – and an Englishman to boot. Add to this the fact that we’re unbeaten in all competitions and still in all three cups, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’d quite like the season to end now.
We were bloody great at times yesterday. In the first half, we’d have scored three or four if it wasn’t for slightly shoddy finishing. But we were unstoppable going forward in the second half, particularly that marvellous twenty minutes or so. Ashley Young was bloody great – a perfect response to the likes of Theo Wallchart and Emile Heskey being picked ahead of him for the England squad. And if that’s the sort of performance Gareth Barry puts in when he’s unsettled and unhappy, then let him be unsettled and unhappy!
Gabby was also stupidly left out of the England squad, but proved himself superbly with that hat-trick – the second quickest hat-trick in Premier League history, don’t you know. The best thing about it is that it was a perfect hat-trick; the first was scored with the right foot, the second was a header and the third was a left footer. They were all great goals too. Can we put the misconception that we can only score from set pieces to bed now please?
It’s a shame we conceded the second goal – it took the shine off things a bit, and it made the game look closer than it was. The penalty was never a penalty, but the second goal came after a period of sloppy, unsure defending. It’s something we need to work on after last season’s poor record, but bear in mind that of our four defenders and goalkeeper, three of them were making their league debuts and one of them has just come back from a massive injury. It’ll get better with time, plus we’ve got Cuellar still to come in. If we can sort that defence out, we really could do something good this year…
We didn’t have time to cover the Hafnarfjardar game before the City one, but… well, job done, really. We can relax at home now, and maybe try a couple of kids out. The most interesting thing to come out of it was undoubtedly Gareth Barry playing, thus cup-tying himself until February. An interesting move, and one that apparently Barry was happy to make. I’m not going to say anything else about Barry’s future until 1st September, other than that he’s proved in the last two games just how much we’ll miss him if he does go.
Jesus, how perfect is it that we’re playing Liverpool on transfer deadline day? That is going to be very interesting…
Comments (1) | tags: ashley young, carlos cuellar, england, fh hafnarfjardar, gabriel agbonlahor, gareth barry, liverpool, manchester city, premier league, uefa cup
Villa’s going to Iceland #
Ian Symes - August 1, 2008 @ 12:55 pm
In news that I initially suspected was a result of someone dropping a sausage roll on their keyboard, Villa have been drawn against the superbly-named FH Hafnarfjardar of Iceland in the second qualifying round of the UEFA Cup. I can find very little information about our opponents online, other than the titbit provided by the official site. They finished second in their league last season, and are currently top of the table at the midway point of this season. They won’t be walkovers by any means, but I’m not too worried.
FH Hafnarfjardar, there.
It’s a shame, really – one of the five teams we could have been drawn against was St. Patrick’s Athletic, which was Paul McGrath My Lord’s first professional club. That would have been an excellent tie, with Macca as the guest of honour at Villa Park. But still, for pure comedy value, I’m happy to have drawn FH Hafnarfjardar.