Group of F #
Ian Symes - October 7, 2008 @ 4:51 pm
Wahey! God, I’ve missed this. Today was the day of the utterly confusing but ultimately satisfying UEFA Cup Group Stage draw, and it’s only now that the excitement of European competition has kicked in. We’re in Group F, alongside Hamburg, Ajax, Slavia Prague and MSK Zilina. After dredging through the likes of Odense, Litex Lovech and Harfarjardarnarblahblah, it’s about to get much more difficult. And I can’t wait.
Comments (0) | tags: ajax, chelsea, hamburg, msk zilina, premier league, slavia prague, uefa cup
WBA QPR 3RD WTF? #
Ian Symes - September 28, 2008 @ 3:08 pm
This schedule of seven games in four days, or whatever it is, isn’t just tough on the players - it’s tough on the fledgling fan blogs too. It’s only been a little over a week since our last update, but we’ve got three games to cover. Two of which were very good, and one of which was very bad. Read on, McDuff.
Comments (1) | tags: ashley young, chelsea, gabriel agbonlahor, gareth barry, john carew, league cup, litex lovech, marlon harewood, martin laursen, martin o'neill, nigel reo-coker, premier league, queens park rangers, sunderland, uefa cup, west bromwich albion
The Look Of Litex Lovech #
Jonathan Capps - September 18, 2008 @ 6:11 pm
Christ, that had me worried. Remember the last time we qualified to the UEFA cup through the Intertoto in 2001? Yeah, well, I’m sure you’ll remember what happened next: a dismal exit in the first round against NK Cocking Varteks! For a lot of tonight’s game, you’d be forgiven for worrying that all that Intertoto effort will wind up being wasted.
For almost the entire first half Litex were gutsy and well organised and Villa were lazy, complacent and all over the place. 10 minutes in the least surprising thing in the world happened: A sloppy tackle from Coker gave away a free kick on the edge of the box and an incredibly soft goal ensued. The blame has to lie squarely with Friedel as this should’ve been a routine catch. Still, it just wouldn’t be Villa if we didn’t let at least *one* goal in each game.
Eventually, the laziness and complacency did wane enough for us to force an equaliser just before the break, but that was after 45 minutes of Litex seamlessly morphing from smooth movements going forward to an intensely defensive cluster that lone striker Agbonlahor just couldn’t punch through. It was telling that our first goal only came when we finally made use of a counter attack (from a situation that almost saw us go 2 down, for fuck’s sake!) and catching their defensive block at the wrong end of the pitch. Even then, it took a mix-up between goalkeeper and defender for Reo-Coker to get through.
The second half was much more even, that was until Litex went and got two players sent off. Oops. Then, and only then, did Villa look like they were on the verge of winning the game, and an emphatic Barry penalty pretty much assured that. There followed a string of half arsed chances with Petrov finally putting one away after another penalty area scuffle. His muted response to the goal (although clearly coming from a different place than myself) pretty much sums up my feeling to the whole game. “Yay” we won but “eh” we needed stupid mistakes and two Litex sendings off to actually get it done.
I’m concious (perhaps a little too late) that I’m probably being overly negative towards the game. We did, after all, pretty much wrap up the whole tie tonight despite the problems, which did include the lack of Carew and Ashley Young, the former of which we missed intensely as a clearly isolated and over worked Agbonlahor failed to make any real impact on the Litex defence. Let’s not forget, also, that Litex’s performance, especially in the first half, was consistently strong and indicative of a team that really, truly deserved at least a draw. It’s a massive shame for them that the whole team imploded so badly in the last quarter of the game.
My original fears about repeating the 2001-02 debacle were unfair. The Villa of 2001 would not have survived this game but today’s Villa ground out a very respectable looking result even if the performance itself was no where near all it should’ve been. It’s a very big and very important distinction and hopefully once we’re in the group stages we can start banishing those bad memories as effectively as we are currently doing so in the Premiereship.
Comments (0) | tags: litex lovech, uefa cup
A steaming pile of Hotspur #
Ian Symes - September 17, 2008 @ 4:49 pm
Oh hai. Yeah, we sort of missed the boat with the Liverpool match report. In short: the best opportunity we’ve had of beating them for ages, sod’s law that our firepower goes missing just as our defence starts to gel, but we’d have been happy with a draw before the game.
Moving on to the Spurs match, this was our finest performance of the season by far. OK, Spurs were hilariously shit (and it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving team), but we’ve got to take the credit for an excellent team performance. Gareth Barry is no doubt back to his best, and the likes of Shorey, L. Young and Friedel are most definitely big parts of the team after that game. In the end, the 2-1 scoreline is a bit of a disappointment, considering we could have had four before half-time, but after last season’s corresponding fixture, I’ll take that. And being fourth in the league? I’ll take that too.
The only real downside was John Carew Carew picking up a knock, especially considering the attack is the only area of the pitch where we don’t have adequate cover. And I think Marlon Harewood’s miss late on against Spurs proves that he doesn’t count as “adequate cover”. Hopefully, he’ll only miss the Litex Lovech game - Spurs kicked off a ludicrous run of 7 games in 21 days, and we can’t go through that many games without our talisman.
Speaking of the Litex Lovech game, how annoying that the kick-off is at 3:20 on a Thursday afternoon? Stupid Bulgarians.
Comments (2) | tags: brad friedel, gareth barry, john carew, litex lovech, liverpool, luke young, marlon harewood, nicky shorey, premier league, tottenham hotspur, uefa cup
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 (1) | 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.
Comments (0) | tags: fh hafnarfjardar, paul mcgrath, st patricks athletic, uefa cup
It’s Your Round-Up, My Lord - 27/07/08 #
Ian Symes - July 27, 2008 @ 1:45 pm
It’s been a long time. There’s been some actual news. We’ve been lazy. So here’s the first of a hopefully-not-too-regular feature, It’s Your Round-Up, My Lord. We’ve got Intertoto Cup action to look back on, a cup draw to look forward to, some signings to cheer us up and an injury to depress us. Oh, and that Gareth Barry chap.
Comments (2) | tags: brad friedel, brad guzan, gareth barry, intertoto cup, Odense, steve sidwell, uefa cup, wilfred bouma
Year Three #
Ian Symes - June 1, 2008 @ 4:39 pm
So, we firmly established last week that last season was bloody excellent and we’re very happy with our lot, thank you very much. Martin O’Neill has always said he’s got a five-year plan to take the club back to the top, and it all seems to be on track so far. 2006/07 was all about consolidation, and steadying a previously doomed ship. 2007/08 saw us joyfully leap five places in the table and qualify for some sort of European competition for the first time in six years. So what’s next?