Bill Pearson asks some pertinent questions;
Can anyone explain our methods of choosing potential players for the first team?
Are our reserves only being trained for the shop window with the pure aim being for them to be sold on?
And why don’t we get club news about young footballers? It seems that Aston Villa just take an attitude in purchasing players trying to get in the big time and are not interested in promoting from the reserves.
It looks to me that our academy is a selling idea by the club rather than a place to further our first team in league matches, cups and European games.
This is not the way the fans want it. We need to get the club back as a massive Midland footballing club.
The Birmingham Mail and Birmingham City Council etc should take a good look at what Villa are up too, from the Mail’s point of view in supposedly supporting Midland clubs and from Birmingham Council’s view in generated funds to our city and promotion to the world in the name of football.
It’s been said that Doug Ellis is to blame with regards to the sale to the American Moneyball yank.
That sale has put Villa in a bad light; it will take this club years to get back to where it should be in Britain’s second city that’s supposedly trying to stay in contention with other cities.
I feel sorry for our younger generation that will miss any good times from Villa because of bad boardroom decisions in moving our club forwards.
Bill Pearson, upset Villa fan age 77
It would be interesting to see a table of those academy players at each club who have come up through the ranks. It seems a long time ago since players were brought through any clubs system into being first team regulars. The entire League seems to only buy in talent nowadays. Shame.
Regarding Doug, I think he’s as gutted as anyone that he sold the club to a real life Elmer Fudd. At least the Mail are finally open and vocal about how shit our club has becone under Lerner.
Good one Bill I thought the academy was to be used as VILLAs future players,possibly future bench warmers cus that’s as good as it gets.the clubs just rotten to the core imo & only things will get worse for sure,I’m trying to enjoy my day off so I can’t even be bothered to mention Ebenezer SHITE just did.
I believe Lerner had ambition when he bought the club hence he backed oneil , but once they fell out and oneil walked he has been trying to recoup his money while putting minimum investment into the club from top to bottom , and I don’t believe he is trying to sell the club it’s just a smokescreen while he continues to recoup his money.
And sadly it’s the club and the fans that are suffering, we are going down and won’t be back for at least 5 years if not longer.
And it’s all down to Lerner no one else
Bill, I feel I am able to answer your question as I was told by Tom Fox himself (genuinely). I tell you the message, whether you agree or not.
We now have a group of analysts – Paddy Riley and co who are told by the manager, what it is that we need. This is the arsenal model which is used by several clubs now and is common practice in Europe. So say for example sherwood looks at a striker and says ‘he’s scored 12 goals and had 14 assists last year, let’s get him’. His attributes (and the goals scored is not necessarily one of them) are loaded into the data base and he then gets compared to other strikers. Similar to playing Football Manager on a computer with a data base of thousands of players over the world. What you end up with in theory – as arsenal have had – is unproven players from the French ligue 2 who you then turn into £10m players. Obviously, it works better if you have the cash to supplement this system with the type of signings that the big clubs can afford. The basis for the system, TF told me, is something that happened in baseball. Analysts and stat men realised that the best batters that won you the most games, weren’t those who were getting home runs or even putting bat to ball the most times but those that got to first base quickest and most frequently. They didn’t even need to hit the ball necessarily, but these players became the most sought after. Hence not putting all the emphasis on the obvious attributes of goals or assists.
So there you go Bill, straight from the horses mouth fella. Certainly not claiming to be ITK as I have no connection to him personally, and it wasn’t a meeting that I was at in any capacity as a season ticket holder. As you would expect, he was a very pleasant and spoke positively of the club and its fans and of his love of the city.
So what you’re saying is in effect Bill is 100% correct in his assumption that our glorious leader is an American Money ball Yank (and knowing Bill’s love of our cousins from across the pond he’s being kind in his choice of words).
So SEB it’s all about buying cheap and selling high which effectively brands us a selling club. But as they have gone this route by not investing say another 20m in players we will now go down and lose nearly a 100m by missing out on new Tv money. Effectively the club has lost 70-80m by being penny wise and pound foolish. And it gets worse Lerner will lose at least a 100m off his selling price when we go down plus the tens of millions we will miss out on over the years by potentially not getting back up for a generation. Powerball tactics are ok if you have an established squad that is capable of doing well in the prem like Arsenal where they can take a risk but we’ve loaded our whole team with them. It’s pure greed and bad business and really don’t give a toss that we are going down as Lerner losing all that money will give me a sense of satisfaction!
Couldn’t agree more with you Oohah. Hope the yank loses 10s of millions, and then some.
Oohah, as I said, I report what was said I’m not trying to defend it. You make a valid point, that I made in the original post that this only really works if you’ve got an established squad already – or in the U.S. where there’s no relegation and you can work an 18 month plan. You’ve hit upon a point that I have made in previous threads in that I can’t understand why you would invest millions in anything and trust other people to look after your investment while you are thousands of miles away. He won’t lose anything as it stands, only if he sells. You can live in a house that you bought for 200k and if it’s now only worth 150k you’ll only make a loss if you sell, you can ride it out til things improve. I think we can agree it’s not this transfer policy that’s led us to this point it the previous six years of financial mismanagement. It should be Lerner & Faulkner et al who should be apologising. Can any of you really see us getting out the championship with this squad? I can’t see this slump ending any time soon with the current set up.
Fair point SEB but Lerner allegedly does want to sell and also what about the TV money we lose. We are down now so may as well start throwing in youngsters and use rest of season as preseason friendlies.
The main problem with your with your buy cheap conclusion is with one possible exception the shower they and thier excel spreadsheet bought in the summer ain’t worth a toss.
SEB, interesting what was told to you and to be frank cannot see that will work in our favour.? It’s as BWS, and Oohah have said its not working, we are down from it , Lerner wins what ever, can anyone see fans getting glory for their money ? I dont not by a Yank that plays with fans money, he lost the Browns by thinking he got the answers how it should be done, sorry SEB not me. The quicker he goes the better for Villa. Doug said that he didnt want to sell to anyone that couldn’t dig deep, and someone that didn’t carve the assets, well to us fans he’s using the academy selling on young footballers, and Ellis has a boardroom two rows of seats, an Office ,parking place and a stand that to me should get the name changed for what he’s done. Sorry I’m so pissed off from what my clubs done to us fans.
So Moneyball basically.
gabby has a bad back .injured picking his wallet up according to garde idle bastard
What about this theory Doug told Randy stop spending you might win something during Mon last year remember top 4 semifinal and then final Mon had to sell Gardner to buy heskey Doug wouldn’t sell to mansour because didn’t want beloved villa successful, Mon invited European cup winners to villa park few times rub Doug nose in it
we can all sit here crying in our beer , but we aint down yet i dont want to play the blame game on what could of been, we have a chairman love him or loathe him that has the power and cash to buy our way out of this crap, the question is will he if he doesn’t then we can boycott/demonstrate one thing i would like to say is our support went down fighting even if the club didn’t vtid
BB, we are ALREADY DOWN! Face up to it dude…
Crying into your beer? I think most are well passed that with apathy being the order of the day.
Loathe Randy? I don’t believe that conveys my feeling towards the buffoon and the death by a thousand cuts he’s inflicted on our once glorious club and that isn’t down to money, it’s down to incompetence.
Three words – Leicester – Thirty – Million.
We’ve got to win at least 10 of our remaining games LOL or win say 6 & all the teams above go on a winless run only equal to ours up to now not a hope in hell we’re fucked.
Fascinating input from SEB above. There is a touching belief, probably it will wear off in one generation of experience, that computer-based science will produce dramatic performance improvements when the machines identify faults in the old structure. However, as the successful cycling coach Sir Dave Brailsford said, what he was looking for with his computer analysts – and found – were MARGINAL improvements in all areas. The sum of those marginal improvements was a world beating squad from the same pool of riders.
Being kind to the Villa management – they introduced a whole clique of francophone players with no EPL experience, and a new manager (Sherwood) who did not think that was a good idea. That was not in a search for marginal improvements, that was a total and radical change which has blown up. They might have been able to introduce the players from Ligue 1, one at a time into an otherwise competent team, and successfully developed them.
Likewise any good analysis has to consider the timing of the experiment and the cost of failure. The worst possible year to drop out of the EPL is this season because of the change in TV cash, therefore any risky experiment should have been shelved to next season and a raft of seasoned tough and durable players bought, Pulis style, to grind out enough points to finish 15th or above in this season.
Finally if the analysts could identify good information and ensure the computers were fed it not GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) we would see some of it in the team development. We don’t. I am not going to consider the defence which is beyond repair, only Ocore and Lescott have any idea. Instead look at two aspects of the attack.
1/ Aerial crosses to Gestede. The angle between the trajectory of the ball and the goal needs to be as narrow as possible, and under no circumstances wider that the 90 degree max angle of stereoscopic vision. Instead we have Hutton crossing from over 18 yards out at around 135 degrees. Hopeless and a simple instruction would stop it. A right winger who got to the goal line befor crossing would be even better.
2/ Sinclair is a fast but lightweight left sided forward. He can just keep one defender off the ball but does not have the weight and strength to fend off two. Therefore it is imperative he is played with an equally fast co striker who tries to be available for an interchange of passes before Sinclair is closed down. Really the only player we have of that type is Traore, so it is pointless putting Sinclair on the field without him.
If Paddy Riley and his machine were any damn use, they would have discovered the above.
OLL, you could of course argue that we’d have gone down anyway under the old system. There is no doubt we were ‘a broken business’ and on the way to disaster had the finances not been addressed. There were people stealing a living behind the scenes – Paul Faulkner amongst others – who were quite happy with the way things were going and living hand to mouth, season to season in a system which could not be sustained. Looking back now, it’s clear that in fact McLeish and Lambert fulfilled their brief. Where I agree totally is that these players need to be bedded in amongst seasoned pros in a mid table team and we’ve expected them all to gel and perform consistently as new players together, it was never going to happen. I really think it’s time for someone at the club to grant a respected journo – not those muppets who are at the Mail – an interview where we hear the way forward now. There’s no point looking back at the reasons why we’re in the brown stuff, us fans deserve that surely.
I had to go over and over what you was saying Originallondonlion, but I think your saying to bring in that type of system You needed descent players, as you’ve said we haven’t one in our team, so he his playing silly sods at our expense , it will take forevermore to get us back in contention., a league that’s rough, tough, and you’ve got to work at. We haven’t a cat in hells hope with that lot.
Bill the abridged version –
You can’t polish a turd!
Average goals conceded last season 1.5 per game
Avg goals conceded with Micah 1.86 per game
Avg goals conceded this season without Micah 1.6
It’s a bit simplistic as we don’t have a decent left back and goalkeeper but he hasn’t so far improved the defence or upped the confidence
Thanks for the figures, it is damning evidence. Richards is quoted elsewhere in the AVFC site as saying we need to be ruthless. So true, ruthless enough to drop our captain, who isn’t performing as a player and who is an absolute joke as a skipper.
What I was saying Bill is we have embraced sports science as if it is a magic wand, which can move a 50% team up to 90%. It isn’t that. What it can do is improve a 90% team a little bit nearer to 100%. Villa do not have that problem, unfortunately.
When I got to the first team at Sutton, the manager was asked by the skipper about my faults. Only 10.5 stone, can’t jump and head a ball, can’t hit it 40 yards with any accuracy. He said, True, but he is faster than anyone in the league, can tackle with both feet and can pass 20 yards into a bucket. So it is my job to fit him in with the rest of you to cover his faults and exploit his ability. That is the art of management we need at Villa today. someone who can build a team from what he has got. Villa look like a car built from parts found at an auto-jumble.
I see Originallondonlion, to me that amounts to having all o levels and a levels and no common sense, it took a long time for our police to realise that. Only our army knew that.
Cheers OLL.
Happy New year lads, just hope the new one brings us all we want, when does the window open?.
“Analysts and stat men realised that the best batters that won you the most games, weren’t those who were getting home runs or even putting bat to ball the most times but those that got to first base quickest and most frequently. They didn’t even need to hit the ball necessarily”
OMG, if this is the thinking, it’s no wonder we’re in trouble!
We’re talking about footy, not baseball!
A Home run is the equvalent of a goal.
You can’t get a bit of a goal; it’s a goal or it isn’t.
Same as hitting first base is similar to putting a cross in; that’s useless if you don’t get that home run/goal.
And as for not hitting the ball, you have to be kidding me!
That said, we probably excel in that department, so should be top of the league, eh?
Total bollocks, simple as and if this is the thinking from the CEO of all people, I now want the lot of them gone even more.
As for why we don’t bring the kids though, that’s easy, imo Bill;
1) Us fans are too fickle and just don’t have the patience to put up with the poor performances that younger players will give you at times.
Clark and Grealish are classic examples.
I don’t blame us fans at all. It’s just the way the game has gone, where kids aren’t going to be able to keep up with experienced, cream of the world players that the stupid prem money affords the English game.
2) The overall team/squad isn’t good enough to afford kids chances to learn in the job.
3) A point I’ve often made; contrary to us being the best of all academies (at hitting KPIs), the kids, when it comes down to what they do on the pitch, in a game, simply aren’t good enough.
I’ve seen the same hundreds of times at work. Those who spend ages filling in paperwork and following every rule, don’t actually get any work done and rely on those who just go out and “do it”.
The academy really isn’t as good as it’s made out, is the point and the proof is provided when you look at who we’ve produced that has succeded at the top level.
Cahill apart, I’m struggling to think of anyone.
Never mind “Lerner out”.
The new mantra ought to be “The whole lot of them out”.
Off the top of my head Davis -Gardner -Albrighton. All better than the shite presently pulling on a claret and blue shirt.
Good point Badger, but be in mind that other clubs that do bring on the kids have mentor in their team’s, not throw them in at the deep end like us, as BWS just said look around the league’s and you will find our kids playing.
But none real top level Bill/BWS
Albrighton atm, but we’ll see how long that lasts.
Fair play to him mind, I said it was madness to get rid, same as Weimann (how much would I like to see him actually played down the middle, with Albrighton providing the ammo atm?).
Like I said, Cahill is the only one and even his form is rubbish lately.
Depends on your definition of top level; if you’re judging by who plays for the elite sky bunch then you’re viewing it by a very narrow spectrum. Personally I’d judge top level as playing in the PL.
Others that slipped through the net – Troy Dehney (or don’t Watford count?) Sturridge sure he was our books at some point.
Cahill, Walker, both ex players,
BWS, no, Prem doesn’t count.
I could say look at some of the crap that plays for us, as an example.
I’m talking higher level, Rooney, Giggs, Beckham types.
Yep, high standards, but we’ve supposedly the best academy in the game and we haven’t produced a single player at that sort of level, ever.
That’s why I think KPIs are utter bollocks.
Arsenal – none
Burnley – none
Chelsea – (2) Gary Cahill, Ryan Bertrand
Crystal Palace – (1) Barry Bannan
Everton – (1) Gareth Barry
Hull City – (1) Curtis Davies
Leicester City – (1) Marc Albrighton
Liverpool – (1) Daniel Sturridge
Man City – (1) James Milner
Man Utd – (1) Ashley Young
Newcastle – none
QPR – (2) Jermaine Jenas, Richard Dunne
Southampton – (1) Steven Davis
Stoke – (5) Phil Bardsley, Stephen Ireland, Peter Crouch, Steve Sidwell, Thomas Sorensen
Sunderland – none
Swansea – (1) Wayne Routledge
Spurs – (2) Kyle Walker, Brad Friedel
WBA – (2) Craig Gardner, Boaz Myhill
West Ham – (3) Stewart Downing, James Collins, Carlton Cole
Bill,
I assume that’s a list of home grown players?
Only Cahill is down to us and Albrighton, I’ve conceded for now.
That are predominantly French?
Rooney? They bought him and the class of 92 was a freak of nature.
So you’re saying midfield containing Davis, Gardner and Albrighton with Dehney up front wouldn’t be better than the shower we have now?
As for ever shall we go back a bit? Cowans Shaw, Little ring any bells?
The academy might not be perfect and isn’t producing 11 Messy’s but looking at the likes of Gardner they could produce the backbone of the team.
What was it Shankley said – a football teams like a piano, you need eight to carry it and three that can play it.
BWS,
You totally misunderstand me.
While Bill is asking for home-grown players to come into the team, I’m looking at it from a money-spinning pov, as it seems the board are.
Either way, my opinion says neither are going to happen, because our academy isn’t as good as is made out on paper.
As for Rooney, yep, Everton made him and sold him for how much (£30 mill?).
That’s what I’m talking about, which is what we’re laughably aspiring too.
As for the golden oldies, of course, I’d take the lot.
And their back ups would probably be miles better than what we have now, as our current squad are just a bunch of gutless wimps, imo.
I’m not really sure why you’re debating this one, when my point is more that the club doesn’t have a clue about how to bring kids through to the very top level, as it stands, imo.
Yet revels in what looks good on paper or in theory.
Doesn’t have clue to bring the kids through?
Mate from what we are witnessing that doesn’t have a clue bit is a vein running through the club.
And how much where Chelsea offering for Grealish? But the one that really got away was Crowley to Arsenal, that was one talented kid.
As for the debate, well being on annual leave I’ve got f**call better to do 🙂
“Mate from what we are witnessing that doesn’t have a clue bit is a vein running through the club.”
Which is entirely my point.
The whole outfit is deluded from top to bottom and we need a total clearout, imo.
As for annual leave, what’s that then?
I have to work more hours at this time of year and I’m knackered, but hey ho.
Hence I’ll be looking for any replies tomorrow fella, as I’m off to bed now.
I do have the bonus of a nice holiday coming up at the end of Jan though 🙂
A complete and utter shower from top to bottom,;cheers Randy.
Well on the bright side we can only go up from our present position.
A happy New Year to you and yours Badger.
Never thought I’d cheer another Benteke goal.
Badger
Hear hear all out McDonald had 2 matches in charge worse than all the knobs when you add in last term clear out whole lot
Stats we run 3 miles less than Norwich in a match we had to win
Get Pearson in now in ready for championship because remind might been right man once not now his demeanor don’t see any player running threw brick wall and like a bully picks on gabby alone when so many more to pick from its fox fuck up gabby got fat contract does Lerner never picks up on any Fox’s fuck up it keeps costing money payoffs for Lambert Sherwood within 6/7 months
Badger
Hear hear McDonald had 2 goes with our 1 st was crap at so how can he coach lesser players
Stats villa players ran 3 miles less than Norwich team in match we had to win
Remind garde doesn’t give Aurora that players give that little bit extra for think nows time for Pearson get in set rid of players not fit for use plenty then
Why has remind singled out gabby there are plenty crap he could pick on only last year fox gave big contract does Lerner not see this gabby zog 130 thousand a week not been used but then he signed 2 payoffs this year already
Appreciate Bill’s points but we are where we are. If we don’t start seriously preparing for Championship football right now I fear that we’ll drop straight down to Div 1. I’ve seen it happen before when we were in Div 1 and it seemed like a blink of an eye and we were in Div 3.
Forget the PL that’s gone and lost. Leicester had a miracle escape and they had more points than we did at this point in the season plus we haven’t got Vardy or Mahrez so absolutely no chance.
Honestly think that the only success we can hope for will be staying in the Championship next season and that will,take some doing.
UTV
Happy New year LADS I’ll be too pissed tomorrow to come on the site,GET IT DOWN YER ENJOY. 😀
The club is an emabrrasement. Can’t recognise a good player when we’ve got one and drain the potentail out of any that we do have! Players often improve when they leave Villa e.g. Cahill, Davis, Routledge, even Collins (having a good season at West Ham). I put it down to poor coaching,
Your not far out with that assumption Bencey83, that’s what I’ve been thinking, we have all them players at other clubs doing better than us.it’s down to bad bad management all round.
Except I seem to remember the fans being negative towards three of those players – maybe that’s got something to do with them not being so successful at Villa Park – fickle that’s what we are – fickle!
Happy New Year to all Villa fans wherever you are in the World – always look on the bright side of life – it can only get better!
Hi Giddy happy New year to you mate, think the lads are having a extra sleep today all out on the lush later me thinks, I will off to the local sports club.
Av a good un MATE I’m seeing the New year in the otherside of bewdley called rock I’m halfway there already ( that’s peed not to rock )
I’ve tweeted a few of our defenders to ask them why there’s so much ball watching rather than marking! Doubt they’ll take it on board.
Happy New Year fellow Villians! Although come May, I’m sure we’ll be far from happy! Ahhh…sod it. It’s only a game. 🙂