So, there I am, on holiday and for some reason I suddenly can’t access the administration part of the site, meaning I couldn’t write or even approve moderated comments.
And then, I get home and suddenly the site’s working again for me. Very strange.
Anyway, first off, I’m shocked to see Austin Macphee has left to coach for Scotland. That’s bad news for two reasons, in that I was going to write about what a marvellous job he’d done in the short time he’d been with us.
Some old hack, whose name escapes me said set piece coaches, attacking coaches and defensive coaches etc are a daft idea. Well, he’s obviously talking out of his proverbial, because the difference it made for us was obvious.
Cash’s throw-ins were testament to that, as was the fact that instead of just banging the ball into the box, we were aiming at the front post, looking for a flick-on.
Now that’s pretty obvious stuff, that you would have thought we’d already been doing, but it would appear not.
I wonder if that fact was something to do with John Terry and O’Kelly leaving?
And then it’s obviously bad news because losing 3 coaches in about the same amount of weeks really doesn’t look very good at all.
I miss him already, but hopefully the players will have learned from him and take his teachings forward.
Next up, it’s Barrow tonight and they’re an unknown entity to me, as you’d expect. I read up about them on Wiki yesterday and they’ve had a torrid time of it over the last twenty years or more and only recently got promoted.
They’ve had a lot of money trouble too and I was pleased to see they’d sold out their ticket allocation within five hours of them going on general sale. Unfortunately, the ground only holds 5,000 odd, so it’s not going to be the money-spinner for them that I was hoping it was. That’s a shame, as their fans can turn out at certain times.
They’ve taken over 7,000 fans to away grounds on more than one occasion quite recently, which is very good for a club in such a remote place.
You’d have to expect the likes of Chukuemeka, Philogene-Bidace and other young lads will get a game and that makes it difficult to predict.
No doubt we’ll have a few senior players in the side and as such you’d expect us to have enough to get the win.
It wouldn’t be good for us, but if they could get us back to Villa park, that would be a money spinner for them, so they’ve got every incentive.
I don’t see it happening, but you never know with the Villa. We do have a nasty knack of losing games we’d expect to win.
And then, Newcastle.
I know many thought Newcastle were abysmal, but I thought they weren’t that bad.
On reflection, I definitely think they’re going to struggle over the season. Their fans detest Steve Bruce and Mike Ashley. It’s a shame what’s going on there, as contrary to the media that seem to think there’s some serious emnity there, I think they’re a decent club.
I’ll wish them luck, but not too much, of course.
Comments
69 responses to “Barrow tonight, Macphee leaves for Scotland and brief Newcastle thoughts.”
Well. that’s turned out to be a great mix of experience and youth there.
It was never in doubt and the kids were excellent.
It’s against very low level opposition, of course, but that was encouraging and bodes well for the future.
Even though Barrow got battered, I think they’ll get a nice payout from Sky (?) which can only help.
Villa’s policy of buying the best young players around seems to be bearing fruit. Very impressive.
And Badger – we also have the Ramsey brothers and many observers see Aaron as being better than JJ.
If these kids keep developing then we may better United’s famous academy.
We’ve had Archer since he was 8 Hitch, but I know what you mean.
I think that was his debut?
And he walks off with the ball and a MOTM award.
Can’t be bad, the lucky f*ck.
Except there was no luck in it; it was well deserved.
And yes, my SIL knows the Ramseys and says Aaron is the better of the two.
As comfortable a win as we could have hoped for. Archer certainly knows how to finish and along with the rest of the kids we really have a promising future.
Smith has the task of giving them as much first team football as possible to ensure they don’t stagnate playing U23’s too much. That’s why good cup runs are important.
The trouble is Holte, if we don’t keep them happy, other clubs will pinch them off us!
Chuky was close to leaving, by all accounts, hence he’s now getting minutes.
It’s a big problem for a manager, balancing it all, but a good one.
Ive got screeming ringing in my head the son in law with the remote driving me mad switching from one to another I’m off to bed sod it, well he did what I said, played the youngsters with some old heads and made it a memorable night for us fans, I like what I seen in the young lads we have the making of a top side that’s for sure. Well done Villa.
That is what we dream of – well done you young Villa players!
Now over to you Dean Smith. How to develop them and if they are good enough consolidate themselves in the first team.
Just think Barry scored on debut and Archer scores a hat rick on his.
I can’t believe Chucky is only 17.
They all looked good!
Keep it up.
According to sky sports Austin McPhee joins Scotland instead of Northern Ireland, only during International game times, so he will be back. Basically he has two jobs.
Correct Tim. I didn’t think it through and got that wrong. Apologies if I misled you.
And don’t forget players like Barry out on loan.
My mate’s an Ipswich fan and, having seen him play, described him as ‘class’.
Wesley to rejoin his former club, Club Brugge on a season long loan which explains his absence last night
Big smile on Jordans face during his interview seems a smashing lad unlike that miserable Chelsea youngster who scored on his debut last week seemed to have the weight of the world on his shoulders
Good win that really enjoyed it
This is well worth a read.
It’s about Stephen Ireland’s view of his time at the club.
And tells me that he was everything that he was everything us fans thought he was.
You’d think he never did any wrong, the way he talks;
https://www.balls.ie/football/stephen-ireland-man-city-aston-villa-shafted-481657
Wow. You’re right Badger that his attitude could be better, but can you blame him if half what he describes is true? Maybe I’m missing the point and this is what the majority of players go through but I think most of us would not flourish under such conditions.
What an absolute shambles we were back then. I mean we all knew the bomb squad was ridiculous and likely cost us in resale value to those players, as well as their morale but hearing it from him in that way is quite shocking.
Well, I do have some sympathy, but we shouldn’t forget how abject he was for most of the times he played.
Ok, he was dumped in the bomb squad and forced to train on his own, but wasn’t he on £50k+ a week?
If he was in any other occupation, he’d have been sacked.
Great player in his day and I think that set the tone when he basically didn’t want to come.
But yes, a total shambles with players like Micah Richards taking millions out of the club for doing absolutely nothing.
Quite sickening really and thank god we got through it.
I’m sure there are some elements of truth in what Ireland says but IMO he’s spun it to favour his story – and it’s only his side of the story.
The bomb squad episode is interesting. Was it Lambert or was it driven by Lerner in trying to reduce his costs? If it was a Lerner strategy it demonstrates how clueless the bloke was – if it was Lambert then, frankly, same comment.
I’d guess it was down to Lambert, partly under Lerner’s instructions, but with Lambert not having the balls to admit it was down to him.
It’s easy to blame someone when they’re not there.
And agreed, he’s spun it to look like he was purely the victim.
I’m not so sure Hitch, the sacking of the manager and O’Neil walking away did happen, I liked Ireland and I believe that went on at Villa. Still he did get to play against us and won the game that I went to see. and I agree that some truths in his story knowing Lerner wasn’t as rich as one thought in them days so it’s feasible that did happen. Bad management and ownership springs to mind..
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Great win against barrow,shame draw for next round not so good.
I was hoping for a cup run but this is going to be tough. Strange we also play Chelsea in next game after Brentford could be same week even.
With luck Chelsea will play the youngsters too.
Ah man, that could only be worse if we got Citeh.
Gutted 🙁
It seems clear that Stephen Ireland did not want to be at Villa from day one. Total mercenary who decided to take the money anyway. I wouldn’t want a player like that in any team I coached over the past 30 years. He is embarrassing, but so was Randy Lerner.
Nuf said…
Totally agree, Neil.
I see Pepe Guardiola intends to leave Man City at the W dog next season. I bet Jack Grealish deep down is a bit peeved. Firstly he won’t have the number of years working under Pep as he expected. Secondly, a new manager might not rate him like Pep does.
Who knows, in 2 seasons time we may be knocking on the door of Champions league and City & Grealish have fallen out of love with each other.
Nice thought Sid, how about this Aston Villa have given their share of the cup game back to Barrow. Now that’s a nice thing Villa did. Just shows money not every thing at Villa Park…,
Just read about that Bill – absolute class from our great club.
Chelsea it is and its away. That will find the men from the boy’s.. Cup Match ..
I’ve just seen an article about us giving the money to Barrow.
Fair brings a tear to my eye it does.
It’s pennies in the scheme of things for the Villa, but means the world to a small club struggling to survive.
Absolute class, as per usual from the club and I can’t believe we don’t see a lot more of this from other clubs.
I know the Prem money is shared out, but…
Ronaldo available for 28-30 million? Get it done! He would still blow 99.9% of all other PL ‘stars’ out of the water. He would blast us into the Champions League or maybe more. A snip at 30 million. The resulting media interest and subsequent interest in AVFC would mean most if not all of the fee is payed for. A born winner with impeccably high standards. You’d get at least two 20+ seasons out of him! One can only dream.
Agree.
Say £30 mill and two year contract at £500k a week = £82 mill ish.
Shirt sales would be enormous and the step up publicity-wise for the club…
But why would he want to come (wages apart, of course)?
I thought Man City wanted him?
It’s a nice thought. And who would we drop so he can get a game? 🙂
Not a chance without champions league football
The great Zlatan didn’t play CL football for United and was two years younger than Ronaldo at the time. So the maths says Ronaldo can afford to ‘waste’ a year to get Aston Villa into the CL and become a living legend. I know it won’t happen, but there’s no reason why it couldn’t, in my mind at least.
He’s got absolutely nothing left to prove in terms of Champions League and doing the business for the ‘elite’ clubs. If we was to catapult a former European giant back to into the big time, that would cement his legacy as the ‘GOAT’ and put to bed the ‘Messi v Ronaldo’ argument once and for all.
Make the call, Mr Purslow! 😉
…not to mention the windfall from CL qualification, Badger.
Oh, I’m with you BFR.
But 1) I don’t think we’d go that far, as much as our owners have been excellent.
And 2) unfortunately I just don’t think we’re currently big enough for him, although I do get your “he could lead us” point.
It seems he’s decided to leave. I wonder why?
I’ve seen Pele and I’ve seen Cruyff down the Villa. It would be great to see CR7 too, with his current stature, especially playing for us.
He’ll appear out of nowhere in a puff of smoke – like Ings!
On a more serious note, if he does go to Citeh the EPL becomes even more one dimensional and Grealish quickly becomes ‘yesterday’s man’. But then the fans warned Grealish he would become just another addition to their player collection cabinet.
Wesley having medical at Club Brugge ahead of season long loan.
I wish him well and hope he can rebuild his career.