Hopefully you’ve spotted that I include the number of good and bad passes in the Statshacks and maybe you find it interesting. Maybe you don’t. There’s a certain logic which suggests that the higher the number of passes, the more expansive the style of play. That’s crude and overly simplistic, but there is enough correlation that I thought I’d look at how we’ve been doing over the last few seasons.
One thing that’s immediately obvious when looking at
This doesn’t include the Arsenal game, but as we haven’t had an update in 2010 so far I thought it was about time to check out the latest Actim Index. Gabby’s dropped down a place to 5th, but it’s an impressive foursome ahead of him – Cesc Fabregas, Didier Drogba, Nicolas Anelka and Wayne Rooney. Not too shabby then.
5th Gabriel Agbonlahor – 350 points
15th Ashley young – 310 points
18th Richard Dunne – 304 points
24th James Milner – 293
Maybe not a classic, but pretty entertaining, especially in the second half, and a very even affair this one. Arsenal hit the woodwork twice, but otherwise it was Aston Villa doing most of the pressing. Let’s just take a quick look at the shots either side managed to fire off:-
The blue are on target. The red are off-target and the dotted red lines indicate the two shots which hit the post and crossbar. The grey lines are
Last month I took a brief look at how Aston Villa’s passing statistics stacked up against the other teams in the Premiership and although we’re just in the bottom half of the table in terms of the number of passes strung together, I think it was clear that we are simply efficient in our approach. To call us a “long ball team” is a mischaracterization.
Apparently Arsene Wenger has used this term to discuss the way we played against his
For Villa fans this won’t be new or shocking, but I thought I’d share nonetheless. Last Wednesday, after our amazing 6-4 victory over Blackburn in the Carling Cup Semi-Final, I was browsing around the interwebz and I ended up on the The Sun’s website. Don’t judge me.
Sure I’m biased, but I thought that Villa coming back from 2 goals down at home to win the game in a ten goal thriller was quite a story. Surely the fact
I know there’s many of you patiently negotiating your way though the process of booking tickets for the Carling Cup Final next month. Hopefully it will be worth the effort and we now know our opponent will be Man Utd after Wayne Rooney inevitably scored the winner in injury time at Old Trafford.
So there’s a date for your diary: Sunday February 28th at Wembley Stadium. Aston Villa vs Man Utd in the Carling Cup 2010 Final.
In case you
As suspected, Craig Gardner has completed his move to Birmingham City for £3.5m joining fellow ex-Villan Liam Ridgewell. Best of luck Craig and cheerio. I’ve updated the Transfers Page.
You’ve probably seen by now that Marlon Harewood has broken a metatarsal and will be out for 3 months which scuppers any loan or permanent deals that may have completed this month. Marlon’s contract is up in the summer, so I guess we’ll take care of him until then and then he’ll
Aston Villa have been drawn against Wolves or Crystal Palace in the FA Cup 5th Round and will play away over the weekend of 13 and 14 February 2010.
The draw in full:-
Wolves or Crystal Palace
vs
Aston Villa
Manchester City
vs
Stoke City
Derby County
vs
Birmingham City
Bolton Wanderers
vs
Tottenham or Leeds
Chelsea
vs
Cardiff City
Fulham
vs
Notts County or Wigan
Reading
vs
West Bromwich Albion
Southampton
vs
Portsmouth
Update: Crystal Palace beat Wolves 3-1.
I want to take you back in time once again to August 2006, just prior to Martin O’Neill joining Aston Villa. As you’ll no doubt recall, David O’Leary had finally been given the elbow in July following an embarrassing string of events which could commonly be referred to as “washing our dirty laundry in public”. The club was surrounded with speculation about various parties interested in purchasing the club and of course there was no shortage of speculation about the