November hasn’t been a great month either, at least Villa did score their first point since the 2-2 draw against Sunderland way back in August. Nonetheless, I want to go over some of the best players this month and applaud their efforts in an otherwise dire month.
1. Micah Richards
I had to choose our captain Richards as number 1 spot. Not only did Richards help Aston Villa get their first clean sheet since September but he also scored a terrific goal and his celebration highlights how much he wants this club to succeed. His recent interview that called out many Villa players as being, lazy and too nice was spot on as well. Richard also rose to second spot in the Whoscored rating, with a rating of 7.25. I think that Richards has become a good centre-back and will continue to get better. I reckon it would help Richards if he had a better centre-back partner since I don’t believe that Clark has been great this season, neither has Lescott. Richards is the only defender that has been able to regularly keep his spot in the starting 11.
2. Jordan Ayew
Jordan Ayew is starting to become one of my favourite players at the club. It has taken Ayew some time to adapt to the Premier League, and after being sidelined for much of August and September, Ayew is now Villa’s number 1 forward. While I do not think Ayew is a great lone striker, he has done well in his role and scored 2 goals this month. He is now our joint top scorer alongside Gestede who also has 3 goals. Ayew is Villa’s 3rd top scorer in all leagues. For those curious, Ayew has also climbed the Whoscored table, and now sits 10th with an average score of 6.71. That is a 5 place climb from his rating in October.
3. Carlos Sanchez
Perhaps a surprise inclusion since his last game against Watford was poor. But Sanchez did play better in his previous few games, particularly against Man. City where he was able to protect the back 4 very well. Garde even said in a recent interview, that Villa are considerably more solid with Sanchez in the side. Sanchez did play more football than any other midfielders this month, playing 315 minutes and making 4 appearances. Sanchez is now ranked 5th in the Whoscored averages (6.84) climbing one spot. Sanchez has the potential to be Villa’s best defensive midfielder, but I reckon his performances are still a little inconsistent. Sanchez needs to step up and be ‘la roca’ on more than just one or two occasions. Sanchez is now 29 and has played a bit of football for Villa, he needs to emerge as a leader in midfielder.
4. Jordan Veretout
I decided to throw in Veretout in this list since I reckon he has improved and benefited from the arrival of Garde. Since Garde and the coaching staff have been working on set pieces more, Veretout is given a better chance to shine for the Villa squad. Veretout managed to get his first assist of the season in the 3-2 defeat against Watford. Veretout has remained 17th in the Whoscored rating charts (6.39 average) but I reckon there is more to Veretout than we’ve seen. He is definitely developing in the right direction and I think he can soon start firing, scoring goals and providing more assists. I’d like to see Veretout become a bit more accurate with his passing though, it seems as though he tends to produce quite a few of misplaced passes (84% passing success rate).
Hard to call when we’ve got a load of SHITE but I’m going to stick my neck out & say ayew,could turn out to be a little gem I hope veretout takes our set pieces from now on & FUCK Westwood off in January.
First positive post I’ve read in a while!
Ya, I agree on Ayew. After a slow start, he looks like becoming a real player. Makes chances for himself.
We have some genuinely good players. I like Veretout. Gana. Sanchez. Ayew. Amavi. Richards. Sinclair. Traore. But that’s not enough to fill a decent squad, unless yr playing five a side, which we’re not.
That should be Bum Bum. (new phone).
Sanchez is a joke he keeps losing ball in midfield and putting defence under pressure
just glad someone who actually watches what sanchez does.
a pity he and others will still get game time .
but hey what do we know
Agree
Your back up is a guy who 90% of the time either writes an article or comments on the article for the review starting with “I didn’t see the game, but”… So that’s nonsense.
Apparently not much as I don’t think you actually watch the games. Sanchez doesn’t give the ball away much, and when he does, it’s trying to pick out the pass from a runner, the few if not only midfielder who can.
Nowt to do with the best players but so true………..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p039r0tp?ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbc_match_of_the_day&ns_source=facebook&ns_linkname=sport
Top 4 players in November?
JED STEER, ALY CISSOKHO, JOE BENNETT & CALLUM ROBINSON.
Anyone else jealous of man city new investment. They could dominate forever with that wealth. Why dint things like that happen to us. Why dosnt Lerner sell a percentage of his shares to a major investor and he can carry on being a silent partner and reap in the money
the problem is that birmingham as an area isnt advertised well by our national government or media.
and even then birmingham shity council dislike us. they take credit and money for our stadium being chosen for events but try their best to stop it being expanded.
True but Birmingham is more on the map these days it has a better city centre good restaurants new state of art railway station and high speed railway to London in 30 mins on its way. Surely that must be attractive for an investor
we know that but the proof is in the pudding when the chinese leader comes over to visit and is advised not to go to brum but visit manchester instead.
now major investment comes there way just says it all
True there’s a lot of media and London bias against Bham which didn’t help
Hands held up high pal. Very jealous that a little club like that have that sort of investment. At first when it started happening I thought, what a soulless way to get to the top, unfortunately that’s today’s game. I would happily have vp renamed The Etisalat Stadium if it meant welcoming Barcelona and the likes for CL footy, in a heartbeat
Me too claret and blue. Rather have their set up than ours.
I think your list is very accurate. I would lean more toward a list of just two though leaving just the first two…
I jumped to a massive conclusion last Saturday and backed us to win 3-0 :0
I think that-on the face of things and ignoring the club is rotten to the core-basically we have the worst back 5 in all of football throughout all divisions in all leagues, anywhere on planet earth. We need to work on this area in a big way. The goals conceded against Watford were an embarrassment and it’s a game we could of won with a solid back line and a keeper who knows how to keep his goal.
I’m still certain something is going to click and when it does we’re gonna go on the mother of all runs and finish mid-table confirming Remi Gardes legendary status with him subsequently going down in the history books as the man who pulled of the greatest escape seen in the history of the modern game. < this is the dream I've been having recently, it's a recurring one and me waking up in a cold sweat every night is pissing the missus off
a bit off topic but just watching the news and seeing whether we should bomb syria.
there are lots of protesters and i agree
Dont bomb syria
BOMB SMALL HEATH
Blues ground already looks like a bomb site
Genuinely can’t think of 4 who have played well!
Bring in Gardner, Kozak and Traore
Bring back Cissokho
Drop Guzan, Clark, Richardson and Hutton
Might as well play some youngsters – they can’t do any worse and we’re going down anyway, so might as well get them some experience in preparation for the Championship!
Richards has been mostly outstanding. I’d be interested to see his dribbling stats, he beats more players through central midfield than anyone else. I’m very much looking forward to seeing him and Okore develop a partnership. Wish his captaincy had a bit more effect on the other players though.
Problem is Richards and Okore are both right sided.
Maybe play Richards as a sweeper behing Okore and a. other.
Change of subject, I hear this morning that a Chinese business consortium have paid £256 million for a 13% share of Man City, 13%!! For that they could’ve bought all of Aston Villa and had £100 million left to spend on players. I’m all but done with Premiership football to be honest, bring on the Championship and at least we can have some fun watching us win a few games. Either that, or I’m going to go back to watching a re- born Hereford United, now Hereford FC, come on you BULLS!
The investment is in the main Co, which also owns other clubs so not direct investment….. Its more worrying than that, its a way in for them to start conquering a fan base in China….yet another angle where the Villa will be sadly left behind for years to come.
Dave C 100% agree with your sentiments regarding Premiership football, totally cheesed off with it, being there simply to make up the numbers does nothing for me.
As someone wrote in the Guardian “Apart from a top few teams each year, the others are just punchbag sparring partners, doomed to lose except when they play each other – and always on the edge of bankruptcy.”
we have all these players down the villa we think are crap,but they don’t become crap overnight, all through there careers they have been watched and assessed and they come to villa with a revolving door attitude to coaches and management all trying to impose their own brand of football no wonder they end up looking clueless. we may have a training complex like BMH, but without proper coaches it should be a housing estate for all the good its doing.
Billys Boots, I’ve often wondered what type of certification and qualifications the coaching side of Villa Park staff have, looks to me as if its all theary and no actual experience, more often than not managers bring in their own ground staff, when the hammer falls they all move on. I recall our youngsters who have had thier same coaches do far better than a so called manager.it’s like you said a revolving door syndrome.
Iv heard that even though we have good medical equipment at BMH it’s never used as Doctors they employ are clueless as to how to use them so they stick to what they know. No wonder we have so many injurues
That good they are able to perform operations, and I’d heard on the grapevine that Randy had had a charisma bypass performed there.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/34984775
Peter Wythe’s worried about the Villa. Join the club!
Southampton have lost 3 on the bounce now…Hmmm who are the one team you want to play against when your on a bad run!!?? That’s right the Villa. I would be putting my mortgage on a 2 or more goal defeat. The signs are all there unfortunately.
If Liverpool can score 6, then maybe we can get a couple! Guess it just depends how many we concede!
Garde news conference –
Richards likely to be out but Gabby’s back in training.
So that’s alright then 🙁
We’ll get stuffed
Isn’t okore back yet??shabby might break a leg in the warm up.
Richards top of the list? Others bloggers saying “he beats more people through mid-field than anybody”. Maybe he does, but he is playing as a frigging centre-half, and in that position he isn’t good. If he is a Prem player at all it is as a RB. He has scored one off-side goal for all his sachays through midfield and been AWOL while a bucket-full have gone in at the other end. Really I can only pick one player (excluding the injured) and that is Ayew. the rest are relegation fodder based on their displays to date.
Richards a doubt, Clark suspended. I hear an appeal has gone out from Villa Park for CBs. So failing God coming out if retirement our defence will be Mutton, Lescott, the tea lady and Richardson. I confidently predict 7-0 to Southampton.
Giddy, Bill – back to the rum!
Hitch GET IT DOWN YER MATE personally I prefer the dark stuff.FUCK it still goes down the hatch.
Just finished a bottle of old traditional Jamaica rum Hitch, did it to feel I’m in Caribbean. Get it down ya.
Be funny if Okore and Lescott managed to keep a clean sheet!
This don’t sound right to me,
Paul Merson last week offered to have a sit down with Jack Grealish to offer him some advice on getting his career back on track, the meeting never happened.
Merson made the offer after Grealish hit the headlines after a night out following his side’s defeat to Everton.
He has been training with the U21s ever since.
Today, former Villa midfielder Merson said a meeting between the two had been arranged but it fell through at the last-minute.
He stated: “His agent rang me Friday and said Jack would like a chat.
“Then yesterday when I was supposed to meet him it didn’t happen.
“I’m not chasing around now, I said I wanted to talk and that’s it, if he wants to talk he will talk.
“That’s completely up to him, I’m a big fan of his and I would love to help him out.
“I will help Aston Villa in anyway I can, they need it, if I am being honest.
“Jack is not a bad kid, that’s the one thing we have to understand.
“He is just a young lad who needs a bit of advice at the moment.”
Morning Bill. Is that the real Merse actually talking some common sense?
Paul Merson offering words of wisdom to young Mr Grealish, what were the odds on that?
And may I add not an offer to be sniffed at.
Hi BWS,Hitch, my claim to fame is that I’ve actually met Paul Merson, in fact put the pic up once as my mojo, he’s a decent guy and I believe he really means it, it’s being said now that Grealish can start training on Monday with the first team, but not down to play this week.
Afternoon Bill, was looking at highlights of young Jack and then comparing him to Sir Tom Finney and to me they look very similar (movement, style etc.)
I know the lads got a long way to go to reach the heights of Sir Tom but wondered if you ever saw him (Tom Finney) play and what’s your thoughts on the comparison?
‘Morning Bill, BWS (only 9.30am here) – Fair play to Merse – he understands the challenges and how easy it is to get dragged into ‘bad’ company. I hope Grealish takes up his offer.