Tottenham Hotspur V Aston Villa : Monday 2nd November at 8PM

I don't care what Hutton does going forward ..... he's a f*cking right back. I've just watched him jogging back 20 metres behind the ball as Kane scores their third goal from exactly where the bald headed wannabe Messi should have been.

Don't anyone try to tell me he had a good game .... three goals all from where the 'battered mars bar' should have been.

I've given Hutton too much credit .... he has no frigging end product going forward either.

Bacuna man of the match

I've just read other forums and according to them Hutton was obviously superb. Does nobody actually realise that we're losing every match because we don't have a responsible and organised back line, and our right back position is totally non existent?

Pochettino did!

I don't think we can judge much on that game and that team. It was a team of Sherwood favourites sent out by the footballing equivalent of a supply teacher. That gives no indication of what to expect from the Garde picked and coached side that we will be seeing in the remainder of the season.

I raised an eyebrow when Sky said pre-game that there was politics and a divide going on at Villa at the moment. What I preceded to witness in the first half was proof of that actually being true with KMac (who I'm somewhat disappointed in) being one of the culprits. I think this divide exists between Sherwood coaches and some of our experienced players on one side with the new way of operating and the new, foreign players on the other. It's why Amavi didn't start, it is why we replaced an injured central midfielder with a striker when Veretout was on the bench and it's why, I think, this club are bottom of the Premier League. This is something that I think Garde needs to pay attention to and something I think that he certainly won't stand for it.

I think there's an argument for picking experienced Premier League players in a relegation battle (well I did say that I wanted an experienced PL manager so that chimes into the same thing) but ours are a notable exception to that rule. Battle hardened PL players will fight and graft to save their club. Ours are various shades of useless, past-it and gutless. We have Gabriel Agbonlahor. A player our caretaker manager said we 'needed' in this relegation battle and a player who was supposedly determined to get his finger out to save the club he has been with all his career. He then preceded to make eight touches in 45 minutes (6 in open play) and none of those were massively impressive or influential. There's Joleon Lescott, I think he'd be up for the fight if he was the player he was years ago, but he's gone now and shouldn't be a regular starter. Then there's Keiran Richardson, who bafflingly gets in to the team ahead of one of the most promising full backs in the Continent. Keiran Richardson who is the very epitome of the type of mediocre Premier League player who goes from club to club, not doing a lot whilst picking up a fat paycheque. When Gabby went off there was that ridiculous situation where Hutton gets the armband and then decides he doesn't want it then passes it away like a hot potato. I don't mind Hutton (I know VB hates him, but I see him as a reasonable enough player) but that shows a lack of guts and leadership exactly the opposite of what you need in a relegation battle.

For me it was no coincidence that when we rallied in the last 15-20 minutes it wasn't these experienced players who brought it about but Ayew (one of the Ligue 1 moneyball contingent) and Gil (a guy who's the antithesis of an experienced PL battler and who wasn't picked last season for that reason) who were both really, really bright. I want to see more of these two guys and less of the Gabbys, Lescotts and Richardsons. Counter-intuitively I think that would improve us over the 'experienced' players. We could well have nicked something we didn't deserve as a consequence of that last twenty minutes if we had a better centre forward playing than Gestede and a better defensive pairing than Clark and Lescott.

I apologise for this being something of a rant but it's how I feel. I may be delusional to think this but I continue to be confident that Garde will be able to engineer some kind of upturn in fortunes. I'm confidently predicting that in six months time the same pundits dancing on our graves now (based on watching a poorly coached and set out team of players that have let us down now season after season) because we've shitcanned their mate Tim will be grudgingly saying what a great manager Remi Garde is for getting us out of the mire.

I concur.

No Okore, where was Gana? Where was Traore?

The so called experts are pissing me off with this nonsense about knowing the Premier League.

We have looked our best on the front foot, I hope Gabby never plays for us again, we have players who can play and do you know what, will surprise a few people.

They are becoming used to the pace of the game, Sanchez switches off every now and again but if Micah was there he would have him switched on.

These so called experts and media darlings have produced fuck all when it comes to picking a team and coaching a team from the touchline with all the added pressure of club management.

Any toss pot can sit in a nice warm box, nice cup of tea seeing everything from above with replays at the ready.

Garde will bring something different, when Premier League clubs play in europe they struggle. Look at Man City. It has taken them 4 seasons to get to where they are now in the Champions League and look at the talent at their disposal.

They find it hard to adapt to the way European teams play, not that they have better teams (except Barca, Real Madrid & Bayern). So Remi, if you can bring some better organisation and awareness to our French Foreign Legion with a couple of young English guys (Sinclair, Grealish, Richards) a couple of Spaniards, a Dane, a Colombian and ignore the crap the so called experts spout, do your own thing.

That was Sherwoods side tonight, Wanker. Shame on you Kev Mac. Should have let Yorkie have a go

Sorry about the Villa induced Tourettes.

villabromsgrove wrote:I've just read other forums and according to them Hutton was obviously superb. Does nobody actually realise that we're losing every match because we don't have a responsible and organised back line, and our right back position is totally non existent?

Pochettino did!

As I said above, I don't mind Hutton too much (us Jocks have to stick together!) but think people will see Hutton running on, putting crosses in (even if they come to nothing) and get impressed by that. People won't notice him leaving acres of space when he does that. They will notice exposed centre halves making errors as a consequence of it and blame them instead. Hence some people think he plays well and others, like you, think he's a huge part of the problem we face defensively. Part of the problem for me is that a setup that functions properly might have players who see a problem coming and drop into the right back area to cover. Our midfielders don't do that.

I think there are no easy answers to our right back area. The answer seems to be either Hutton or Bacuna. Bacuna has the same issue with being caught out of position and also a proneness to giving away stupid free kicks. When we signed him he was meant to be a midfielder but he's not good enough a passer to play in central midfield in the premier league so he ended up at fullback. Longer term I can see him becoming a reasonable winger but not a fullback. If it's not Bacuna or Hutton we then look to Richards. He was a superb right back when he came through at City but he doesn't want to play there any more as he has got older and suffered more injuries. There's also the small problem of him being by a country mile our best centre half. Who then? I see Hutton as our least bad right back option. Crespo? He seems to have been deployed as a (mediocre) centre half this season in his brace of appearances.

I wanted us to get a new right back in the summer and now want one even more in January. A name I remember being mentioned was Keiran Trippier who impressed me at Burnley last season. Now he's at Spurs and it was mentioned in commentary tonight that he hasn't played for them in the league this season due to the form of Walker. Worth looking at in Jan? Or would we go for someone less obvious and more French?

South London Villan wrote:I hope Gabby never plays for us again, we have players who can play and do you know what, will surprise a few people.

Aye, honestly if Garde starts picking him as well I'm going to feel like crying. KMac is saying Gabby was poor and went off because he's injured. In that case, why on earth did he pick him? I'd rather have had Gestede in the team. Wonder what Ayew would be like as a central striker? He's almost always deployed as a wide forward but might bring more goals and intelligence than Gestede?

Somebody has just said to me that Gana wasn't injured but left out? WTF? He was the one of the foreign contingent that even Sherwood wouldn't leave out!

So bad, pundits are laughing at him:
https://twitter.com/jaywhite_1/status/661287039111979008?s=04

I don't actually hate Hutton Sandie, but he does make me furious with his cavalier approach to playing for Villa. On the rare occasions when he shows a bit of positional discipline he looks like a strong and composed right back. If he filled that role for 90 minutes each game, we wouldn't have conceded 20 goals already in 11 games.

Given that statistically we can prove that there are no goals or assists coming from his continual impression of a Barcelona winger, why doesn't he settle for doing a solid right back job unspectacularly but well?

He should be a good right back, but at the moment he's the clown that's leaving a huge defensive hole that opposition managers are queueing up to target.

Edit: At least two of last nights goals, and both of Southampton's goals on Wednesday, came through Hutton being totally out of position.

KMac's team selection last night showed a disconnect between the people buying the players and the coaches.

There was only one of our 13 summer signings in the starting 11. Was this a two finger salute to Almstadt and Reilly, or did KMac genuinely believe that he played his best players last night.

Gary Neville drew arrows on the big screen to all our bench players before the game last night, and asked what point KMac was trying to make? Six of the bench were made up of summer signings and the seventh was our 'best' player Carles Gil.

If McDonald truly believes that he played his 11 best players last night then it's probably time for him and Tony Parks to leave, as they're obviously too stuck in the mud created by our previous manager.

Lerner made a statement yesterday that was immediately ignored by our coaches. There has to to be much better communication from the top to the bottom from now on

Sandie wrote:I don't think we can judge much on that game and that team. It was a team of Sherwood favourites sent out by the footballing equivalent of a supply teacher. That gives no indication of what to expect from the Garde picked and coached side that we will be seeing in the remainder of the season.

I raised an eyebrow when Sky said pre-game that there was politics and a divide going on at Villa at the moment. What I preceded to witness in the first half was proof of that actually being true with KMac (who I'm somewhat disappointed in) being one of the culprits. I think this divide exists between Sherwood coaches and some of our experienced players on one side with the new way of operating and the new, foreign players on the other. It's why Amavi didn't start, it is why we replaced an injured central midfielder with a striker when Veretout was on the bench and it's why, I think, this club are bottom of the Premier League. This is something that I think Garde needs to pay attention to and something I think that he certainly won't stand for it.

I think there's an argument for picking experienced Premier League players in a relegation battle (well I did say that I wanted an experienced PL manager so that chimes into the same thing) but ours are a notable exception to that rule. Battle hardened PL players will fight and graft to save their club. Ours are various shades of useless, past-it and gutless. We have Gabriel Agbonlahor. A player our caretaker manager said we 'needed' in this relegation battle and a player who was supposedly determined to get his finger out to save the club he has been with all his career. He then preceded to make eight touches in 45 minutes (6 in open play) and none of those were massively impressive or influential. There's Joleon Lescott, I think he'd be up for the fight if he was the player he was years ago, but he's gone now and shouldn't be a regular starter. Then there's Keiran Richardson, who bafflingly gets in to the team ahead of one of the most promising full backs in the Continent. Keiran Richardson who is the very epitome of the type of mediocre Premier League player who goes from club to club, not doing a lot whilst picking up a fat paycheque. When Gabby went off there was that ridiculous situation where Hutton gets the armband and then decides he doesn't want it then passes it away like a hot potato. I don't mind Hutton (I know VB hates him, but I see him as a reasonable enough player) but that shows a lack of guts and leadership exactly the opposite of what you need in a relegation battle.

For me it was no coincidence that when we rallied in the last 15-20 minutes it wasn't these experienced players who brought it about but Ayew (one of the Ligue 1 moneyball contingent) and Gil (a guy who's the antithesis of an experienced PL battler and who wasn't picked last season for that reason) who were both really, really bright. I want to see more of these two guys and less of the Gabbys, Lescotts and Richardsons. Counter-intuitively I think that would improve us over the 'experienced' players. We could well have nicked something we didn't deserve as a consequence of that last twenty minutes if we had a better centre forward playing than Gestede and a better defensive pairing than Clark and Lescott.

I apologise for this being something of a rant but it's how I feel. I may be delusional to think this but I continue to be confident that Garde will be able to engineer some kind of upturn in fortunes. I'm confidently predicting that in six months time the same pundits dancing on our graves now (based on watching a poorly coached and set out team of players that have let us down now season after season) because we've shitcanned their mate Tim will be grudgingly saying what a great manager Remi Garde is for getting us out of the mire.

Very good post Sandie. I was too wrapped up in my own anger last night to fully appreciate your thoughts, but having read your post again I think you may be right about a schism between Sherwood's men and the 'Adminstrators' at AVFC.

Remi Garde will need to weed out the culprits straight away, and if it does include senior players then backsides will have to be kicked.

Gana and Traore were both fit, but KMac felt they weren't at it enough in training! Gana has consistently been one of our best players.

And Gabby was good in training!? Proof that the proof of the pudding is in the match and not in training.

In going against the tide here somewhat, but that's what discussion and debate is for.

I don't believe or one second that KMAC picked a side to deliberately make a point and piss people off. No chance to my mind. Why? He's supposedly a villa man through and through. He's been brought back to the club and a lot of trust placed in him (again) to develop our youth, as well as again being asked to take over as a caretaker. Fox could of asked Parkes? Could of kept the most experienced coach at the club on (Wilkins to pick the side) Wilkins, Robins and Brady were all shipped out with Sherwood as they were the ones who opposed the recruitment policy and had a big problem with Reilly and the Sporting Director. KMac is a villa man and not a Sherwood man.

Could it not be that he picked a side full of people he actually knows? The side contained 10 players that were all there when he was coach last season under TS the 11th being lescott that we all know. To my mind he didn't want a Newcastle (6-1) on his CV again so picked what he knew he could organise to some degree in a short time. He had had no involvement with the French contingent as he's been down with the youth teams. So given a few days and two games to oversee, maybe he's just turned (as a a severely limited manager) to what he knows, as opposed to risking players he has never trained and don't speak his language.

That to me is the obvious answer. I was pissed off with sky and their pisstake view of the whole villa crisis yesterday and them fuelling fans with this notion that a loyal servant like KMac was somehow trying to deliberately screw villa really f**ked me off. Sometimes the obvious answer is the right answer. Now I don't know 100% but I'd imagine if he's deliberately picked that side as a f**k you, he'll be collecting his p45 today like Sherwood and co did for buckling under pressure.

So let's see what happens with him. If he has done that he shouldn't be trusted with our youth development anymore. There's an argument to say he shouldn't anyway after not being diverse and bold enough to pick a better XI (this from the man that bigged up Veretout in the week) I think he's guilty of being inept, not some blatant agenda during a live televised game (unless he wants the sack)

There very well could be some disconnect between the players, old and new, English and French, but I don't see KMac as being part of that.

Anyway we showed the way forward last night and it isn't with the tired and tested (and failed) English lot we have on our books. The only way we get out of this is to get those French lads playing and integrated into the team with the best of the others.

Ship out Gabby (massive trouble maker and has been for years) Lescott, Richardson and Hutton and get Okore in next to Richards and either Crespo or Ilori at RB and Amavi reinstated, Then get a midfield that includes Gana and veretout and build the forward line around Ayew, possibly with Gestede.

Thankfully we have a manager who will most likely do this anyway.