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
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It’s a pretty rare event that we’ll receive official confirmation of an agreement being reached to purchase a player before the actual transfer itself is announced, but that’s apparently the situation with Charles N’Zogbia. It’s all over bar the shouting.
I’m sure such steps wouldn’t have been taken if it wasn’t a formality, it’s just a shame that the player won’t have the chance to hook up with his new team mates in Hong Kong due to a lack of work
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So, Liverpool upped their offer to £20m, Stewart Downing handed in a formal transfer request and there’s not much more that needs saying. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, Stewie. Textbook no-brainer.
That’s £8m more than we paid Middlesbrough two years ago, but represents a £14m profit in terms of “disposal of player’s registration”. Aside from the fact that we went from three wingers to two recently, and now to just the one, it still represents some
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It’s been a while since anything surfaced here at Aston Villa Central, I know. The last post confirmed Ashley Young’s somewhat low key move to Man Utd and since then very little of substance has actually happened. Well, the Stewart Downing “situation” has threatened to develop into a “saga”, but aside from a couple of actual bids from Liverpool being reported, nothing has changed yet; Downing is still an Aston Villa player. For now.
McLeish has stated categorically that he’s “not
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There were four, possibly five, Villans involved as England drew 2-2 with Switzerland and the United States were comprehensively beaten 4-0 by Spain yesterday. Darren Bent and Eric Lichaj started for their sides, Ashley Young and Michael Bradley entered their games at half time and Stewart Downing made a late appearance for England and almost won it with the final kick of the game.
England 2 Switzerland 2
England gifted Switzerland a two goal head start with some comedic set piece defending
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As you’ll be aware, Ashley Young and Stewart Downing – along with Darren Bent – are on international duty ahead of England’s Euro 2012 qualifier against Switzerland on Saturday and both took part in the press conference.
Ashley Young
Stewart Downing
Training Footage
It’s widely known that Man Utd have adopted a couple of firm policies when it comes to player dealings.
Firstly, they want to stick to players under 26 years old when it comes to bringing in new faces to retain a potential resale value.
Secondly, they won’t allow existing players to enter into the last two years of their contracts if at all possible. Again, this is intended to protect a resale value that decreases rapidly if the player is to leave
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Fabio Capello has named a 26-man squad to take on Switzerland in the next Euro 2012 qualifier at Wembley on June 4th and Ashley Young, Stewart Downing and Darren Bent are all included. As is Kyle Walker, although he’s no longer technically a Villan, he more than deserves a mention here.
In fact, Walker’s also included in Stuart Pearce’s confirmed 23-man squad for the European Under-21 Championships in Denmark next month along with Marc Albrighton and Nathan Delfouneso, who definitely are
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Since the analysis of Gabby’s goal at Blackpool was well received, I thought I’d repeat the task for the goals against Blackburn yesterday. This time the solid orange lines represent player movements without the ball, the dashed orange lines indicate movement with the ball (dribbling) and the blue lines show the path of the ball between players (passes).
Goal One: Build up to the penalty
With the opening goal coming from the spot, there’s obviously nothing to look at with the goal
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