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I believe the pre-match press conference ahead of the Boxing Day game against Tottenham is taking place today, so brace yourself for cherry picked Houllier quotes to filter out over the next few days, sending people predisposed to fly in rages into those very rages.
He said WHAT?!?!? ARRRGHHHHH!!!
Oh, wait. I see. Well that makes sense I suppose. Okay, carry on.
I’m not entirely sure where the quotes on Brad Friedel came from yesterday, but they also look to have been taken slightly out of context. I may be guilty of jumping the gun a little myself in yesterday’s post.
Maybe, maybe not. I’ve taken expanded quotes from BBC once more, stripped the fluff and re-ordered the sentences to form a more conversational flow. As ever, here’s as much as I could find, make your own mind up:
Gerard Houllier on Brad Friedel
I’ve spoken to him and said ‘obviously, you’re 39, so I need to look to the future but I’m perfectly happy with you’. If Brad is fine in February, then we will keep him. We’ve told him that, if he feels OK.
If he feels fine, why not? We’ll ask him in February. If he feels alright, we’ll keep him. If he stays, he’ll stay as the first-team keeper.
We are looking at several goalkeepers – and we’ve told Brad. We’re looking for a keeper for the future.
Perhaps I shouldn’t read too much into scouting goalkeepers at this time of year. After all, if we found ourselves in some sort of mess next year, we’d all be asking why the management team didn’t do something ahead of time. I still think it suggests Guzan is unlikely to take over the #1 gloves though and might well be considering his career over the remainder of the season.
Ashley Young
James Nursey at the Mirror offers his reasoning behind his belief that we will sell Ashley Young in January. It’s an argument based on an appeal to authority; the authority being himself based on a track record of accuracy he litters throughout the article.
You can scan through this Google search of Nursey’s Mirror articles on Villa if you like to get a feel for the sort of stories he’s written and somehow forgotten to mention for one reason or another. Only if you have time to kill, it’s not that interesting. Although, it’s funny how many headlines start with ‘Why’.
It doesn’t take much to make these sort of “predictions”; there are only two outcomes. By the 1st of February, James will either be correct and Ash will be employed by another club – in which case this “prediction” will be added to the portfolio for future use, establishing credibility – or Ash will still be at Aston Villa and this article will be forgotten.
We’ve always been at war with Eastasia.
I saw many journalists giving each other virtual high fives and back slaps on Twitter after correctly “predicting” that Wayne Rooney would in fact stay at Man Utd. Well done, you picked tails and it was tails. I saw at least one blogger doing the same with Carlos Tevez in the last few days.
Brilliant. The two players staying might not have been the most likely outcome, but it was still only one of two scenarios: stay or go. There’s nothing to lose by going all in, no one remembers unless you tell them later.
So, why not? I’ll stick my neck out and state categorically that Ashley Young will not be sold in January and then if I’m right in February, I’ll link to this post and we can all revel in my own brilliance. If I’m wrong, we’ll never speak of this again. Okay?
Actually, to cover my arse, in a week or so, when you’ve had time to forget about this one, I’ll write a post predicting that Ash will leave in January and then I’ll have something to link to in February either way.
We’ve always been at war with Eurasia.
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5 Comments to “Some clarification on Brad Friedel and an Ashley Young prediction”
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Dan, I am very worried about Ash going. the one solid fact we knwo is tht he has moved back to Hertfordshire at a time the manager wants everyone local.
Says it all to me, he is off, the only question is how much Spuds will pay before they sell Bale.
Lose Ash and the signal about us is strong and no matter who we get in, if they turn out good they will be sold.
i was watching the tottenham goals video on the OS earlier, ian, and i was struck by how many players in that montage i missed…
..the trouble is, some are still with us and ash is one of them. i’d love him to recapture that kind of form, but i fear he’s grown stale with us and it’s best for everyone if he’s allowed to move on while he has value.
i don’t do serious predictions, as you should know, but i wouldn’t be surprised if he is still with us in february, but i would be surprised if he’s here in august.
will that make him #3 in a sequence? yes, it will. will the pattern continue? that has to be a concern, but we can’t hold on to top players and kick around 6th place, fail at the first hurdle in the europa league and hope for a friendly draw in one of the domestic cups for a good season.
I think the Brad Friedel comments are getting wrapped up into the general clear-out that everyone expects. Personally I never thought that there was an issue with Big Brad, just that he is aging and this year, next year or the one after that he will begin to lose his edge.
You never hear Brad Guzan mentioned but I agree that the look for a goalkeeper reflects more on Little Brad than Big Brad. I like Guzan and think he can be a solid GK in the EPL but it is obvious that GH doesn’t agree. I would expect Guzan to be looking for a team where he can challenge for the starting role.
it must be tricky for goal keepers, it’s not like they can fill in at right back now and again. it’s a tough road for talented younger ones since they tend not to reach their peak until their late 20′s.
brad snr was about 29 i think when he left liverpool for blackburn and that’s probably when his career really kicked into gear. it depends on guzan’s ambitions i suppose, but i’d also have to check on his work permit situation too.
if he wanted to move to another english club permanently he’d have to apply for another work permit i think and i don’t know if he has the games for the USMNT to qualify off the bat. top of the head stuff though, don’t quote me on that, he may well do, it was just something i was thinking of look into at some point.
that is the whole debate since the end of last season Dan, Faulkner claimed we had the ambition, well time to show it somehow within the UEFA rules !