If you’ve been stopping by Aston Villa Central for a while now you would have noticed something amiss this past weekend and may have assumed that I had joined Darren Bent on a quick shopping jaunt.

I had no such luck I’m afraid. I did indeed watch the 2-0 loss at the hands of Liverpool, but for the first time in a few years I hadn’t done any preparation before the game. I didn’t relay the teamsheets before kick off. I wasn’t on Twitter at any point. I wasn’t monitoring stats during the game. I wasn’t analysing the tactics. I wasn’t thinking about what to write after the final whistle, let alone writing anything before the game finished.

I just sat on my sofa, the HD images of the game on my laptop coming via someone in Russia. The headphones kept the commentary I couldn’t understand in and the rest of the world out. Some might describe it as a bizarre, self-imposed Clockwork Orange style punishment, but I couldn’t possibly comment.

Just me and thee, Villa, just me and thee.

I stayed there, mostly motionless for the best part of two hours, as the game unfolded in tragically predictable fashion. And when it was over, I shut the computer down, closed the lid and went out with my wife.

When I returned home, Aston Villa Football Club still existed and the world was still spinning.

It was all quite liberating.

Obviously my enthusiasm for this blogging malarky is at an all time low, that’s the bottom line. I’ve been “phoning it in” for a while now, so I’ve taken the decision to put us all out of our misery here and make this the final post of 2011.

I’m going to spend the next couple of weeks looking for a way to convey the thoughts I have bouncing around this mush I call a brain at the moment. If successful, I honestly don’t know whether I’ll produce the manifesto for a new beginning or a eulogy, I guess we’ll all find out in the new year.

For now, I’d like to sincerely thank all readers, new and old, regular and occasional, for all of your support, opinions and conversation over the past few years, here and elsewhere on the interwebz. Whether you’ve agreed or disagreed, you’ve made this an interesting and rewarding experience. I hope you all find a way to enjoy the festive period despite the depressing situation we find our football club in.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

(Comments are closed as I’ve no desire to receive abuse for choosing to take a break right now, nor am I fishing for compliments. Go enjoy your Christmas. Go on now, there’s nothing to see here. UTV)

At the onset of his tenure, it wouldn’t have taken much effort to find predictions about the brand of football Alex McLeish’s Aston Villa side were destined to serve up. None were particularly exciting or encouraging.

I prefer a ‘wait and see’ policy myself, but I think we’re far enough into the season now to look at some statistics and draw some conclusions.

In this post, we’ll focus on the number of attempted passes that have been hit long as a percentage of the total attempted passes during a game on average. The data is sourced from Opta via WhoScored.

We’ll look in a bit more detail at the end of the post, but it’s worth keeping in mind for now that we’ve actually seen the same number of long passes per game on average during 2011/12 as we did during 2009/10 under Martin O’Neill. The difference is the proportion of total passes those long balls represent.

2011/12

Let’s start with the current picture, as of last weekend’s games. Here’s how all 20 Premier League teams shape up when it comes to their preference for the long ball:

No surprise to find Stoke at the top of table, hitting 22.19% of their passes long. They’re pretty consistent too; they were top of the table in 2010/11 with 21.50%, and also in 2009/10 with 22.77%.

The concern, and it will surprise few, is that we’re part of a group of four teams behind Stoke who are all hitting it long more than 17% of the time. In our case it’s 18.21%.

You may be surprised to learn that the leaders when it comes to the actual number of passes hit long per game so far this season are Tottenham and Norwich, both with 74 per game.

2010/11

Would anyone be shocked to find McLeish’s old team leading the pack behind Stoke last season? The only other team to hit more than one in five of their passes long, McLeish’s Birmingham side registered 20.15% on the long ball scale.

Gerard Houllier’s Villa side were in the bottom half with 14.52% of passes hit long, which was an average of 62 per game. Only three sides hit fewer long balls per game; Chelsea (61), Man City (56) and Arsenal (45).

Even Stoke “only” hit 66 passes long per game, but their general lack of possession means those passes represent a high percentage of the total.

The “champion” when it comes to the actual number of passes hit long per game last season was, you’ve guessed it, Birmingham City with 82.

However, it should be noted that Blackpool, a team that won many plaudits for their approach and style of play, gave Birmingham a good run for their money by hitting 80 long balls per game themselves.

Does that last fact, along with Norwich’s position this season, challenge a few perceptions? It probably should.

2009/10

Martin O’Neill’s side were often labelled a “long ball team”, famously by Arsene Wenger on one occasion, and it’s true that he clearly believes in moving the ball from back to front quickly and efficiently. However, I think a distinction can be drawn with McLeish when it comes to purpose and quality. MON certainly sees a greater value in using the flanks.

Again, Birmingham City were near the top of the table, this time hitting it long 19.44% of the time. That’s 76 long passes per game.

Tottenham were kings of the long ball hill in absolute terms though with 79 per game. Roberto Martinez’s Wigan side separated ‘Arry and McLeish with 77 long balls per game.

Again, does this challenge perceptions at all? Were Tottenham a “long ball team” in 2009/10? And if so, who cares, it got them into the Champions League, right?

There’s long ball and then there’s long ball

Not all long balls are equal. For instance, Barry Bannan’s exquisite pass to Marc Albrighton at Craven Cottage last season would be classed as long, but we’d surely watch passes like that all day long. Especially if the net ends up bulging in the same way.

The devil is always in the detail and we could remove the outliers amongst the data if we spent long enough to dive deep enough. However, if you think about the 20 teams on a simple spectrum representing their passing game you’d almost certainly place Stoke at one end and Arsenal at the other.

That’s what this data gives us; the bigger, better quality sides are unsurprisingly closer to Arsenal’s end of the spectrum and the smaller clubs, unable to dominate possession in the same manner, are closer to Stoke. It’s more or less what you’d expect then.

It’s our position on that spectrum which should be of concern. It might also be of concern that McLeish’s Birmingham side resorted to the long ball more frequently in his second Premiership season despite having had more time and money to “build his own team”. It really suggests a modus operandi which is difficult to dispute.

Clues

As we’ve already covered at the top, the 2011/12 version of Aston Villa isn’t hitting any more long balls per game than the 2009/10 version, they just represent a greater proportion of the total passes.

So what’s happened to those other passes?

Here’s how WhoScored breaks down the attempted passes on a per game basis:

The number of short passes compared to the last two seasons is alarming enough, but won’t be a massive surprise. What should be of concern is the lack of crosses and through balls as both of those types of passes lead to a goal scoring opportunity.

The combination of crosses and through balls totalled 29 per game in both 2009/10 and 2010/11, but it’s running at just 20 so far this season. That’s a 31% reduction in the type of passes which lead directly to scoring goals.

During 2009/10 we averaged 13.08 shots per game, 4.16 on target, and in 2010/11 it was 13.32 with 4.34 on target per game. This season, we’re down to 11.15 shots per game and just 2.92 on target. It’s frankly astonishing that we’ve actually scored one goal more than at the same point last season.

We’ve got Gabby’s massively improved form, Darren Bent’s deadliness (not withstanding a few sitters missed), and Stiliyan Petrov managing to get a couple of his weekly 30-yarders on target to thank for that.

Shackles

We’ll finish here with a little subjectivity. It may be far from earth-shattering, but it’s my opinion that this side are inhibited by an overly cautious approach. I’m not going to go so far as to call it ‘negativity’ – with the exception of White Hart Lane – but the players are certainly not being encouraged to express themselves.

Full backs are held deep, the lack of true width has been well covered in the past, but surely there’s no bigger anchor to ambition at the moment than plonking Emile Heskey in where we’re crying out for a playmaker. With all due respect to Heskey, natch. Additionally, the silly mistakes gifting possession back to our opponents are surely a sign of tension; a fear of making a mistake. Ironically.

McLeish has described the cameos in Swansea from Barry Bannan and Jermaine Jenas as “food for thought”. I sincerely hope he pigs out. I mean really, really dives in like he’s eating his last meal. Because there’s no shortage of fans who will wish that to be the case, metaphorically speaking of course.

He’s correctly noted the incisive passing from Bannan in particular; the young Scot actually made more key passes than anyone involved despite not getting on the pitch until the 79th minute.

We clearly need more of that, but it will be for nothing if the players are shackled and not allowed to express themselves. The long balls themselves are not the problem so much as there is precious little else.

Please, Mr. McLeish, these players are better than than they’re being allowed to show. Please let them play some football.

Please?

This means that we’ll have the advantage of playing the single-legged quarter final at Villa Park, more than likely against Marseille. There’s just one game left in Group 1, Marseille will face Celtic with second place secured and needing to beat the Scots by eight clear goals to overtake Barcelona in first place.

Sporting Lisbon and Liverpool qualified from Group 2, but it’s yet to be decided who will join Tottenham from Group 4. Inter Milan are in the driving seat at the moment with three games still in hand.

However it turns out, it’s fantastic achievement to make the quarter finals and huge boost to win the home advantage. Hopefully the fans will turn out in numbers to make it worthwhile.

We need all the good news we can get at the moment, so well done to everyone involved.

It’s been the week of loans in B6 with no less than four players heading out to get some competitive football elsewhere.

Firstly, Habib Beye went to Doncaster, initially until January, but hopefully a deal to take him through to the end of the season (and his Villa contract) won’t be out of the question. Assuming he’s not a disaster.

Then Nathan Baker, closely followed by Shane Lowry, made a temporary switch to Milwall; Baker for a month, Lowry just into the new year. Three loans, all good stuff I’m sure you’ll agree. But then there was a fourth; man of the moment, Gary Gardner, has joined Coventry on loan until January 3rd.

This news was about as welcome as a piranha in a bidet to a lot of fans who were hopeful of, even demanding in many cases, his immediate inclusion in the first team.

Another stick to beat the manager with, then. It’s reminiscent of Barry Bannan joining Leeds towards the end of last season, just as many fans were calling for him to be in the first team, seemingly to be the saviour of our season.

Let’s hope Gardner gets more out of his spell at Coventry than Bannan did at Leeds.

Development Strategy

The benefits of going out on loan are obvious, but there’s no rule that says a player has to do so to fulfill his potential. It really comes down to circumstance and, hopefully, a planned strategy.

A player who has spoken highly of Gardner, having played together through the various England youth ranks, is Jack Wilshere. They happen to be the same age (Wilshere is six months older) and play in central midfield, but Wilshere is playing Champions League and is a full international now.

Clearly age isn’t a barrier; if you’re good enough you’re most definitely old enough. However, Wilshere arguably had fewer established first teamers ahead of him as he competed for a place in the team and Arsenal are battling on more fronts so offer greater opportunity to blend in the youngsters. And developing youngsters is something of a forte of Arsenal under Arsene Wenger, after all.

Whether it was through design (i.e. planning and strategy) or happenstance (i.e. there was no room at the inn), I don’t know, but he didn’t get to establish himself in the first team properly without going out on loan to Bolton first.

Stevie G

Gardner has been likened to Steven Gerrard in style of play and, although it’s going back a bit now, he was a player who didn’t go out on loan and was brought into the first team by Gerard Houllier as an 18 year old instead.

However, during his first season, 1998/99, he only started four Premiership games, and played the full 90 minutes just once; against Derby County in March ’99. By the end of his first senior season, Gerrard had played a total of 365 minutes of league football with 89% of those earned during the second half of the season in 1999.

To put that in some perspective, Bannan played 638 minutes last season, although a lot of his time on the pitch came courtesy of injuries to Stiliyan Petrov and Nigel Reo-Coker. That’s happenstance.

World Cup

Gardner was withdrawn from England’s U20 World Cup squad and travelled to Hong Kong for pre-season with the first team instead. Although it wasn’t likely that he would be involved in the first team straight away, it was clear he was in the plans and needed to be integrated “just in case”.

His star has risen dramatically recently with goal scoring performances in the NextGen Series and with England U21s, but with limited reserve fixtures remaining in 2011 and the NextGen series on hiatus until the quarter finals next year, there isn’t much scope outside of the first team for playing time.

I suppose the question, then, was whether to bring him straight into the first team now, disposing someone like Stephen Ireland, Fabian Delph or Chris Herd of their place, or leave things as they are and get him some playing time elsewhere.

It might have been very popular with the fans to bring him in now, and McLeish could certainly do with banking some goodwill, but that doesn’t necessarily make it the smartest thing to do from a squad management perspective with the bulk of the season still ahead of us.

To me, it’s a no-brainer. The risk of ruining the young player and/or squad harmony by bringing him in now is greater than the benefit he’s likely to bring in the next month or so. There really is no rush.

Far better to get him some more experience and bring him in as an improved player later on as the season takes its toll on the legs of the current team.

In the mean time, trust me, I don’t get any more pleasure from watching Emile Heksey lumbering around midfield than anyone else, but if McLeish is playing the big man in place of N’Zogbia, Albrighton or Ireland now, I don’t see him suddenly playing Gardner in his place.

So, with that in mind, what’s the point of him sitting on the bench watching Premiership games, perhaps grabbing the odd minute here and there, when he could be actually playing in Championship?

Gary Gardner scored all three goals in a comprehensive victory over Ajax U19s in the Young Lions’ final group stage match of the NextGen Series at Villa Park tonight, guaranteeing a place in the quarter finals next year.

Ajax, who are now bumped down to second place in the group, have one final game; Rosenborg at home on November 29th. If Ajax fail to win in Amsterdam, Villa will win the group, earning home advantage for the next round, and will presumably also avoid Barcelona.

Aston Villa: Siegrist, Nelson-Addy, Webb, Donacien, Kinsella, Carruthers, Johnson, Gardner, Cameron, Burke, Robinson. Subs: Barrett, Caira, Drennan, Ward, Grealish, Graham, Taylor.

Ajax: Van der Hart, Nieuwpoort, Sporkslede, Denswil, Dijks, Fennich, de Bondt, Bouy, Schoop, Keskin, Gravenberch. Subs: Leewenburg, Van den Boomen, El Abed, Anderson, Tete, Becker, Armah.

This is not an attempt to absolve anyone of any blame for the unacceptable performance at White Hart Lane last night, but it’s become painfully obvious to me in the last 18 months or so that in the fans’ eyes it’s players that win games… and managers that lose them.

Let me give you an example:

Towards the end of last season, in what would be Gerard Houllier’s final game on the sidelines, we took on the hapless West Ham at Upton Park. Robbie Keane put the home side into the lead after just two minutes after being played onside at a corner by Ashley Young’s failure to leave his post.

It was a mistake by Young, plain and simple. It happens. Everyone else pushed up. Stewart Downing left his post on the other side, Ash didn’t, and Robbie Keane scored. Then my Twitter absolutely lit up with calls for Houllier’s head. Of course, it was entirely his fault that Ashley Young had a brain meltdown.

Just about 90 minutes later, Ash made up for his error by supplying the injury time cross that Gabby Agbonlahor would nod in to win the game. I didn’t notice Houllier receiving too much credit for that cross or the goal, that was down to the players. Perhaps I just missed it.

That’s just one of countless examples where there weren’t any real problems with the tactics and strategy on the day, not really, it was just individual errors or failures to convert that led to poor results.

But the way the manager was deemed culpable for individual errors a 12 year old would be embarrassed about conjured up images of the players being controlled by some sort of radio controlled device, Xbox style. Or it did for me anyway.

I’ve just stumbled on this video featuring Tom Meighan from Kasabian and Darren Bent doing exactly that:

[Email readers can find the video here if it doesn't show up]

That’s it in a nutshell.

Blame

What we saw last night was dire, there’s no getting away from it. I described it as “anti-football“, and that’s not a term I use lightly, but I stand by it. I’m too pragmatic to believe it prudent to play attacking football at any and every venue in the country, but I do think we should endeavour to play football against all opponents.

McLeish promised he would do that and I hope he thinks long and hard about whether his approach to the game last night matched that promise. I don’t believe it did. However, he might not be willing to accept his share of the blame, he’s not wrong when he points to basic failures on the part of the players either, although the fictional missed chances are a bit much.

Once again, a simple example: I saw a player – there’s no need to identify him – lift his foot to receive a pass in Tottenham’s half, under no real pressure, only for the ball to cannon off the underside of his boot straight back to the home side to launch yet another attack. Spurs didn’t even need to do anything. Nothing. They just stood off and we gave the ball straight back to them. How nice.

That probably seems a silly example, and it is, but it’s also our performance last night in microcosm. It was just an individual error, it happens, every professional footballer is capable of trapping a ball in their sleep. But when McLeish talks about a lack of retention, that’s exactly what he’s talking about and he’s not wrong.

Again, I can’t stress this enough, I’m not looking to absolve McLeish of any blame – we’ll come to that in good time – but I’m so, so tired of seeing these highly paid professionals putting in less than 100% whilst their boss takes all the flak. Could you get away with that where you work?

The consensus view seems to be that Chris Herd is about the only player to come out of last night with much credit. The youngest, least experienced, and, I dare say, the lowest paid.

There’s something very wrong about that. I guess the manager will need to check the connection to Herd’s headset, I think the batteries must be flat.

The NextGen Series has announced the brackets for the quarter finals on their Twitter feed and it sets up a possible trip to Barcelona for our Young Lions. Due to domestic fixtures, the quarters finals will be played over just one leg with each of the group winners earning the advantage of playing at home:

Group 2 has already been wrapped up with Sporting winning the group and Liverpool finishing in second place. They’ll play the runners-up and winners respectively from Group 4.

It’s still possible to win our group, thereby avoiding Barcelona and earning the right to play at Villa Park (probably against Marseille), but it’s also still mathematically possible to not qualify for the knock out phase at all. Possible, but unlikely.

The most likely, but not guaranteed, scenario is that our U19s will finish as runners up in Group 3 and will therefore have to play the winners of Group 1 at their place. Let’s face it, if that doesn’t mean a trip to play at the Mini Estadi, it will be a bit of a surprise.

With everything left to play for, the next step is to play our final group game – Ajax at Villa Park on November 22nd – and then wait to see what happens between Ajax and Rosenborg in Holland on the 29th.

Whatever happens – assuming we finish in either first or second place – whether we have to play Barcelona or Marseille, whether it’s home or away, it’s a pretty exciting prospect and a great experience for our next batch of youngsters coming through the ranks.

With just two Group 3 games remaining, the table now looks like this:

Ajax come to Villa Park on November 22nd before hosting Rosenborg themselves on November 29th.

Since the fixtures are not as structured as the Champions League, the competition NextGen aims to emulate, the group stage won’t be entirely wrapped up until late December. However, teams in the driving seat to also qualify for the next stage include Barcelona, Marseille, Sporting, Tottenham, Liverpool and Inter Milan.

The format, and even the location, for the knock out rounds hasn’t been announced yet.

The Euro 2012 play-offs are over and we now know all 16 teams who will be competing in Poland and Ukraine next summer. Barring any injury issues, there will definitely be some Villa interest as the Irish saw out their considerable advantage from the first leg against Estonia to book their place in the finals with a 1-1 draw in Dublin.

Just try to stop Shay Given and Richard Dunne getting on that plane.

The draw for the groups will take place next month, but we know the seeding already. Each group will be made up of one team from each of the following four pots:

Hopefully Darren Bent and Gabby Agbonlahor, at least, will also be going to the tournament, but their places in the squad are far less certain than Dunne and Given. It’s not impossible for England and Ireland to be drawn in the same group, who knows, maybe we’ll get to see this foursome battling it out against each other.

Barry Bannan’s back, baby

The reserves sent a very strong side over to league leaders West Brom last night and came back with all the points thanks to second half goals from Marc Albrighton, Barry Bannan and Graham Burke.

Joining Albrighton and Bannan in the starting line-up were Brad Guzan, Ciaran Clark, Shane Lowry, Nathan Baker and Gary Gardner, fresh from action in Belgium the night before with England U21s.

But it was Bannan, in something of a come back game, that grabbed all the attention with a remarkable piece of invention; volleying in a defensive clearance from 30 yards, lobbing the Baggies keeper in the process.

With his recent indiscretions in the past*, lessons hopefully learned, he’ll be challenging for his place in the match day squad again. With Gabby in a fitness battle and Jermaine Jenas ineligible to play against his parent club, there’s got to be a good chance that he’ll at least make the 18 at Tottenham.

*Figuratively speaking. Bannan will appear in court on November 25th and is charged with drink driving and also accused of driving a motor vehicle otherwise than in accordance with a licence and driving without due care and attention.

I mentioned last week that future Villan Enda Stevens had been nominated for the 2011 PFAI Player of the Year Award and I’m pleased to let you know that he was named the winner in Dublin last night. Not only that, but Richard Dunne also scooped the Irish Overseas Player of the Year.

Dunne and Shay Given are currently with the Irish national side midway through their two-legged play-off tie against Estonia for a place in Euro 2012. Estonia head to Dublin for the return leg next week trailing 4-0 after finishing with nine men in Tallinn last Friday.

Stevens has been involved with the Irish Under-21s recently, although he wasn’t named in the 18 man squad for the U21 Euro 2013 qualifier against Liechtenstein on Monday.