Brad Guzan played in the United States’ penultimate friendly on home soil before the World Cup last night; a disappointing 4-2 loss to the Czech Republic in Hartford, Connecticut. Coach Bob Bradley was very much looking at his periphery players to help him decide who will make the final 23 man squad.
As one of the three goalkeepers in the 30 man preliminary squad, Brad Guzan is the only Aston Villa player that we know for certain will
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I’ve read a lot of criticism of Martin O’Neill’s technical nous, or lack thereof according to some. A lot of it has to do with formation, people want to see something new and sexy. They want to keep up with what the Man Utd’s and Chelsea’s are doing. It’s no secret that I’m a fan of 4-2-3-1, but you’ve got to have the personnel and all systems will ultimately boil down to the personnel employed. Square
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I was pleased to see James Milner’s name in the starting XI an hour or so before kick off last night and, since he made up a midfield quartet with Theo Walcott, Michael Carrick and Steven Gerrard, I assumed he’d be playing on the left. Not so. At kick off we found that Capello was playing Gerrard on the left and Milner in the middle. I’m guessing he just wanted to see Milner in a central role
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I’ve been mucking around with the Actim Top 100 Index for a good few years now: I used to publish regular updates in an old forum before Aston Villa Central existed. It’s far from perfect, but it’s a pretty decent rule of thumb type of measure.
Someone once asked me whether the Villa players generally do so well because they play so many games. The short answer is yes.
However, they still have to do the business on the pitch
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Luke Young’s recent interview caused a predictable little debate here and there about how Carlos Cuellar isn’t a right back, etc. etc. Yes, he’s a better defender, but “he doesn’t offer the same as Luke going forward”. Or words to that effect. Seems like a good time to put their stats alongside each other.
I’ve trawled through the 38 Premiership games from the 2009/10 season and pulled the metrics for the games each player played at right back
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It’s been reasonably well reported that Paul Faulkner, and presumably Martin O’Neill, possibly Randy Lerner, will sit down with James Milner after England’s friendlies against Mexico and Japan this month to seek a verbal agreement from James that he will commit to a new contract on his return from the World Cup. The details of that contract will obviously be influenced by what happens in South Africa, but the management team will be looking to sell their vision for
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Somehow along the way Martin O’Neill has picked up the reputation of being something of a swordsman when it comes to man management. My suspicion is that this is the result of back handed compliments as much as anything. I’ve lost count of the number of times that I’ve read some McExpert or other opining about his lack of tactical nous, only to balance their critique by conceding that he’s a “good man manager” in some sort of
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Blackpool have just beaten Cardiff 3-2 in a thrilling play-off final at Wembley to win promotion to next season’s Premier League, joining automatically promoted Newcastle and West Brom.
Besides the Premiership link, the game also featured ex-Villan Peter Whittingham, who has been one of Cardiff’s key players over the last couple of seasons, and also our very own Barry Bannan got a run out for Blackpool in the last couple of minutes.
This was the match recently christened “the £90m game” since
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I haven’t had chance to get an End of Season Review post out for a little while, so I’m throwing this one in as a “quickie”. If you’re expecting to find Aston Villa at the bottom of this squad rotation table, you won’t be disappointed. If you feel so inclined, you could take a quick glance at the tables for the previous two seasons first. You’ll find that 2009/10, on this basis, was an improvement. Not
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