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
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Well there you go, another dire game, another awful result to put 2010 to bed. The anti-Houllier voices now reaching full crescendo; maybe they’ll get their wish and we can look forward to our 4th manager in a matter of months. That’s generally worked out well for clubs that have tried it in the past.
I hate to single him out, but Eric Lichaj had a shocking opening eight minutes – nothing seemed to work for him – capped with
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Villa lost to a Tottenham side reduced to 10 men for more than hour at Villa Park thanks to a brace from Rafael van der Vaart, despite Marc Albrighton’s 82nd minute goal setting up a grandstand(ish) finish.
The Dutchman took advantage of some slack defending, ghosting in from left to tap in Hutton’s centre at the near post, brilliantly created by a visionary pass from Luka Modric. He doubled his tally midway through the 2nd half to cap a Tottenham break
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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
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One of the words on the street is that Houllier and Randy Lerner are meeting today to flesh out finances for player acquisitions. Then again, that was also one of the words a couple of weeks back, so who knows?
However, it seems self evident that there’s plenty to discuss and that they’ll be getting together at some point. It also seems self evident that there will be some significant activity in January one way or another.
Paul Faulkner seems
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Villa will not be letting Ashley Young head for the exit door in January and, if he doesn’t re-consider signing a new contract, the club may be willing to let him run down his contract and leave on a free in 2012. The thinking being that another season with Ash in the team is worth more than any potential transfer fee, but that would depend entirely on how committed he is.
In the mean time, Houllier is hopeful that Ash
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I likened Wigan to low hanging fruit in the preview, but we’re not going to pluck any today after “freak weather” has caused the game to be postponed. That’s a problem, we really could have done with sinking our teeth into that sweet, ripe flesh ahead of the Boxing Day fixture against Tottenham.
I hope no one asks Gerard Houllier for his opinion on the ability of the English to cope with inclement weather as his Gallic scoffs will surely
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Maybe I’m just being over sensitive, but it really seems that Gérard Houllier is having his words twisted more than I’m used to seeing. It may well be because he’s reputedly more forthcoming with journalists than many managers, certainly than his predecessor, but it would be a shame if he ended up being punished via the media for his candour.
MON was the master of talking and talking, but saying very little. Houllier gets to the point and his
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Just in case you missed it last weekend, as I did, BBC’s Football Focus Forum from Villa Park featuring Martin Keown, Dion Dublin, Cyrille Regis and Lawro, of course. Nice montage to music (Ocean Colour Scene) at the end which, if you can’t face the banality of the Q&A in the video embedded below, you can click here and jump right to it on YouTube, but then you’ll miss Dion Dublin sidestepping a question about Robbie Savage.
YouTube Video