VillaSmith Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 Aston Villa are one of the most decorated clubs in English football, having the 7th most trophies to their name in England, the most prestigous being the 1982 European Cup. Despite claiming 23 trophies in their 138 years as a club, only eleven were in the 67 years following WW2, and the most recent notable trophy being the League Cup in 1996 (despite being part of the total trophy count, I don't count the 2001 Inter-Toto cup as notable). My aim during this career is to reinstate my beloved Villa as one of the top dogs in the country and bring back the Glory days of the 1800's and early 1980's. I will be aiming to do this with a mixture of youth development and careful spending of the diminishing wealth of Randy Lerner. Starting team: 1. Shay Given GK 2. Alan Hutton RB 3. Stephen Warnock LB 5. Richard Dunne CB 6. James Collins CB 7. Steophen Ireland MC 8. Jermaine Jenas MC (on loan from Tottenham) 9. Darren Bent ST 10. Charles N'Zogbia L/RW 11. Gabby Agbonlahor ST 12. Marc Albrighton RW 14. Nathan Delfouneso ST 16. Fabian Delph MC 17. Jean II Makoun (on loan at Olympiacos) 18. Emile Heskey ST 19. Stiliyan Petrov © MC 21. Ciaran Clark DC 22. Brad Guzan GK 23. Habib Beye RB 24. Carlos Cuellar CB 25. Barry Bannan MC 26. Andreas Weimann ST 30. Eric Lichaj RB 31. Chris Herd MC 32. Nathan Baker CB 33. Andy Marshall GK 34. Shane Lowry CB 35. Daniel Johnson MC 36. Graham Burke LW 38. Gary Gardner MC 43. Elliot Parish GK Starting expectations and budgets: Expectations- Europa League (a bit ambitious) Transfer Budg.- £9.75M Wage Budg.- £970K Hopefully as this is my first career thread it can be a good one and people will be interested in it. Also as 'tis half term this week, between drinking and rugby, I have little else to do so this should consume a lot of my time. Will further update at the end of first transfer window. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
j88_ftm Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 I've just started my first career thread as well, so I'll follow your developments with interest! Good luck with your career anyway Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaSmith Posted February 11, 2012 Author Share Posted February 11, 2012 Update: Transfers Unfortunately, thanks to a certain Mr. O'Neill (He left almost 18 months ago, I should probably get over it.), Villa's defense starts off old, poor quality and on huge wages, meaning big spending here is necessary to challenge top 8, which means my careful spending plan will be out of the window for the next 2/3 years. Luckily though, Villa's attack is young and has plenty of potential so strengthening is not a huge issue yet. IN: Yann Sommer (Basel) £2.1M Willy Boly (Auxerre) £2.5M Adam Vass (Brescia) £700k Wayne Bridge (Man City) Ln fee £450k Ryan Shawcross (Stoke) £14M Yassine El Ghanassy (AA Gent) £3M Niko Kranjcar (Tottenham) £5.25M OUT: James Collins (QPR) £3.6M Stephen Warnock (WBA) £3.3M Brad Guzan (Southampton) £2.2M Transfers have been mainly aimed towards the future with a couple of stop gaps for the next few years whilst the main problems are addressed. Couldn't shift Heskey who seems to be the hardest player to sell in the history of football. Starting Line-Up Will be aiming to intergrate some youngsters into the team over the year but will try to keep an experienced team when I can; GK- Given RB- Cuellar CB- Dunne/Clark CB- Shawcross LB- Bridge/Clark MC- Vass/Petrov MC- Delph/Bannan AMR- N'Zogbia/El Ghanassy AMC- Ireland AML- Kranjcar/N'Zogbia ST- Bent/Agbonlahor Unsure who to pick in certain areas as different players offer very different styles eg. Dunne is a stopper style defender but lacks concentration and decision making, whereas Clark offers a more well rounded approach but isn't quite fantastic at anything. August An injury to Carlos Cuellar meant Alan Hutton had a chance to earn a first team spot, but on the whole a fully fit start which made a semi-tough start a bit easier; (A) Liverpool 2-2 - Bent, El Ghanassy - A well fought draw in an even game that could have been won if not for sloppy defending in the 89th minute leading to a Jonjo Shelvey equaliser. El Ghanassy came off the bench and made an instant impact. (H) Swansea 2-0 - Hutton, Agbonlahor - First win, easily dominated, had to wait over an hour for the first goal. Despite playing 90 minutes, El Ghanassy picked up an injury that put him out for the rest of the month and possibly part of September. (A)(LC) Watford 0-1 - Poor performance from a part back-up side, left fuming when Ex-Villa boy Jonathan Hogg blatantly fouled Delph in the box with no penalty given, and the following coounter attack saw Watfords goal. Deserved to lose, even more annoyed after match when FA were silent over my criticism of the ref. (A) Stoke 0-0 - On every save i've had i've struggled against Stoke, and this was no different, second best in the whole game, not a single shot in the first half and chances I did have were squandered. Didn't help that Shawcross looked uninterested for the whole match, meant to take him off after 60 mintes, accidently took Clark off instead, luckily there was no signifcant effect of him staying on. A decent start leaving me 9th but extremely dissapointed that i'm out of the League Cup, next game against a Top 6 side isn't until October away at Arsenal so should see a good run of form but you never know what could happen. August Awards and League leaders PotM- Odemwingie (WBA) YPotM- Walker (Spurs) - El Ghanassy came 3rd MotM- Mancini (Man City) League Leaders- WBA - 3 from 3, scored 11 conceded 2, quite an easy start for them but still impressive from Hodgson's side. Next Update:- End of October. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaSmith Posted February 11, 2012 Author Share Posted February 11, 2012 I've just started my first career thread as well, so I'll follow your developments with interest! Good luck with your career anyway Cheers, will be tough, Villa aren't as strong as they have been of recent years. Good Luck with your career aswell Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ManUTactician247 Posted February 11, 2012 Share Posted February 11, 2012 Why would you want to sell Heskey? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaSmith Posted February 11, 2012 Author Share Posted February 11, 2012 Why would you want to sell Heskey? Just doesn't fit my style... the £60k a week has something to do with it aswell, not forgetting he's terrible on it;) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaSmith Posted February 11, 2012 Author Share Posted February 11, 2012 Update: After a decent start, October and November bought much of the same which in all honestly sh0uld have left me 3 points off the top 4. Injuries began to creep in during October which prompted a bit of rotation and on a whole the two months were promising. Also a nice message from the board saying my transfer budget was being inceased from £2M to £9M (H) Norwich 2-2 - N'Zogbia, Kranjcar - A game of firsts with both scorers getting their first goal for the club. Unfortunately not a great game defensively with Norwich only having 2 shots and dominating the whole match. Kranjcar's wondergoal seemed to be winner until another late equaliser took 3 points from our grasp, this time in the 91st minute. El Ghanassy and Cuellar both returned from injury from the bench in this game. (A) Sunderland 2-1 - Ireland, Bent - Took the lead early on in a game that I dominated possesion wise but had few shots. Kranjcar missed a 26th minute penalty and picked up an ijnury that would put him out for 3 weeks. (H) Bolton 2-1 - Albrighton (2) - A tough game which was even until the 40th minute when K.Davies got a red card for bolton with the scores at 1-1. Albrighton had a fantastic game picking up man of the match with both of his goals came on early on in both halves and it was easy to keep a 10 man bolton at bay after it was made 2-1. Albrighton and Clark both received injuries, Albrightons 4 weeks, clark only 8 days. (A) Arsenal 0-1 - OK performance, didn't roll over, maybe deserved a draw and another sloppy goal to concede with a back post tap in from a corner. Dissapointed that i'm no longer undefeated in the league. A debut for Wily Boly and first league game for Gary Gardner from the bench in this game. (H) QPR 3-1 - El Ghanassy, Bent, Ireland - A comfortable win, sloppy defence conceded the clean sheet in the 87th minute. (A) Man Utd 1-4 - Bannan - Took an early lead but it soon turned sour, deserved to lose but not by that much. Kranjcar came on at HT for his return from injury and was stretchered off in the 47th minute following a challenge from Smalling. (H) Wolves 3-1 - El Ghanassy(2), Agbonlahor - A brilliant derby win in an even and tight match that included a debut for Sommer, Lichaj's first league game of the season and Marc Albrighton's return from injury. Again sloppy defending prevented the clean sheet. Summary Position: 7th - should be 5th but that late equaliser from Norwich put them above me by 1 point equal with WBA. League Leaders: Chelsea on 27 points from 10 games No-one associated to Villa were involved in the Awards for October but El Ghanassy did win November's YPotM. Will update again at the end of December, might consider less detail in the results. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaSmith Posted February 12, 2012 Author Share Posted February 12, 2012 Update: Half way through season 1 and looking good. The team is finally starting to respond well to team talks and are quite frankly over performing leaving me 6th going into the new year. Table: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/832/barclayspremierleague1j.png/ surprised to be so close to the Top 4 and would be happy to remain 6th for the rest of the season, but a push for the Champions League would be amazing Results: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/638/villanovdec11.png/ Great results, especially around my tough Christmas period, apart from WBA which was massively dissapointing, but all in all a good run culminating in a fantastic home win against Man City that I trailed in Players and Form http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/703/astonvillatacticsform.png/ Star perfomers so far are 3 of my front 4; Ireland (7.29), El Ghanassy (7.28) and Bent (7.26). Bent is my leading scorer (and second in the league) with 13 from 19 games and Ireland leads assissts with 6. Youngsters Boly and Bannan have performed very well when called upon also. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaSmith Posted February 12, 2012 Author Share Posted February 12, 2012 Transfers http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/717/transferout201112.png/ http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/138/transfersin201112.png/ Only going into transfers as I can't see much else happening for me in the rest of January. Couldn't resist both sigurdson and Dawson at those prices who were both listed. Hopefully Gylfi will help me push a Top 5/4 finish. Careful spending has kind of gone ot the window for now as I need to spend to get Top 5/4 but not cripple the finances whilst doing so, also when I get there, I will aim to spend within my means. Will update at end of season as i'm planning only 4 updates per season from now on as one every two months or so is a lot of updates. EDIT: could someone tell me how to post images? I followed what it said in the BB codes link but it didn't work, I must've gone wrong somewhere. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaSmith Posted February 14, 2012 Author Share Posted February 14, 2012 Update: End of Season 1, and a good one too! Was tough with some great results and proved a good base to build on for future seasons. The season showed a big need to strengthen at the back as too many poor goals were conceded to cost games. A dip in form occured around late Jan - early Feb and probably no coincidence that it coincided with Darren Bent's 2 month injury with torn knee ligaments. LB became a weaker area in March when Bridge had his loan terminated(ish) as he had sustained a damaged achilles tendon that put him out 'til the end of the season Quick Summary: League: 6th - 5 points off 7th, 5 points off 5th, seem to be in my own little group. My 2nd half -> http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/849/2012janmayfixtures.png/ Carling Cup: 3rd round - lost 1-0 to Watford FA Cup: Final - Beat Chelsea 2-1 to lift the cup, a bit unexpected but deserved. Ciaran Clark and Ryan Shawcross got the goals. Happy with League and FA Cup performances, and won't make the same mistake in the Carling Cup again as I did this year! Villa Awards Top Goalscorer: Darren Bent - 18 Most Assists: Stephen Ireland - 10 Fans' Player: Ryan Shawcross PFA Young Player: Yassine El Ghanassy (not a Villa award but thought I should put it here, also it's the third Villa player to win it in the last four years! ) PFA Team of the Year: Darren Bent got on the bench. Rest of England: Winners: EPL: Chelsea. Rest of league -> http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/844/barclayspremierleaguema.png/ Championship: West Ham. Promoted: Reading and Leicester League 1: Charlton. Promoted: Huddersfield and Preston League 2: Rotherham. Promoted: Swindon, Bradford and Burton BSP: Wrexham. Promoted: Fleetwood Around the World Winners: Champions League: Man Utd - 1-0 v R.Madrid Europa League: Arsenal - 1-0 v PSG Ligue 1: Lyon Bundesliga: Dortmund Serie A: Lazio Eredivisie: sc Heerenveen Liga ZON SAGRES: Sporting CP SPL: Celtic La Liga: Barcelona European Championships: Spain - 0-0 (3-2 p) v Portugal. Note: England got knocked out in the groups and both hosts got to the Semi's Season 2 Expectations: Europa League finish (£20.5M Transfer, £1.4M Wage) Media Presiction: 7th Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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