Aston Villa have completed the signing of Jean Makoun from Lyon for a fee thought to be in the region of €6m* possibly rising by a further €3m depending on performances. The 27 year old brings a wealth of experience with almost 250 Ligue 1 appearance, more than 50 European appearances and 56 caps for Cameroon including four African Nations Championships and the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
He’s a robust and competitive defensive midfielder, not dissimilar to Nigel Reo-Coker,
Continue Reading
We’re now 20 games into 2010/11 so it’s time to compare this season with 2009/10 once again. As we’re only four points better off than the last post, the gap to last year, however you slice or dice it, has grown. After the first 20 games last year, we had 35 points and by comparing the same fixtures, apples for apples, we had 32 points compared to 21 points this year.
We’ve conceded twice as many goals than we
Continue Reading
Part two was an exploration of Gerard Houllier’s first 14 Premier League games in comparison with Dr Jo’s first 14 games in charge of Aston Villa back in 1990. Mainly because their record over the 14 games was so similar, despite Houllier’s program being considerably more challenging, but also because our position after 19 games is exactly the same today as it was 20 years ago.
Ian made the point in the comments that the table around us is not
Continue Reading
As starts go, Gerard Houllier has made a particularly bad one with Aston Villa; winning just 13 points from his first 14 league games, fuelling the fire with a number of clumsy PR gaffes, a growing army of fans calling for his head.
In part one, we looked at Villa’s history of dealing with the threat of relegation and here in part two we’ll make a direct comparison between Houllier and Jozef Venglos who oversaw a terrible season at Villa Park,
Continue Reading
We finished 6th in the Premier League last season for the 3rd season running; apparently evidence of stagnation for a significant proportion of fans. The fact is, and forgive me for repeating this once again, Aston Villa hadn’t achieved three top six finishes on the bounce in the top flight since 1933.
Hopefully it won’t be another 77 years until we can taste such putrid stagnation, but right now you’d be forgiven for thinking it feels that way. Those three
Continue Reading
Unfortunately, it’s time to review this season’s performance against last season and it’s pretty grim. Last year I apparently ran the numbers after 14 games so that I could arrive neatly at 19, the half way mark, but I think I’ll stick with every five games for the rest of this season.
I won’t waste your time with narrative, the numbers speak for themselves. What I will add is that in games 16 – 20 last season we went
Continue Reading
Apologies for the delay on this one, I haven’t had much chance to look at the data and ESPN have introduced significant changes to their match graphics which have made things difficult for me. They say a picture paints a thousand words, this will be graphically heavy I feel.
Firstly, the old cliché about a game of two halves couldn’t be more apt, could it? Villa were woeful during the first half. The opening gambit with Clark moving the
Continue Reading
I somehow managed to miss posting an EA Sports Index update during October, but it wasn’t deliberate, merely an oversight on my part.
Given that the index is primarily a measure of contribution to a winning team, you probably won’t be surprised to find that we’re not exactly packing the top 100 with Villa players. There are just six Villans in the current top 100, none in the top 20; Stewart Downing the highest ranked in 24th place.
Similarly, Bolton’s high
Continue Reading
One of the great things about football (sometimes) is the variety of opinions, some more valid than others. Fans are particularly vociferous in expressing those opinions after a loss. I’ve read them all. Take your pick of the players not playing yesterday; that’s why we lost. We missed Albrighton. We missed Collins. We missed a big man in the middle. Downing should play on the left. Ireland is rubbish.
If only it were that
Continue Reading