Mike..

..and so the relevance of the title becomes clear - wish I'd thought of the Hero/Villain (or maybe hero/zero) idea before you

Like it, like it a lot

retired_bbcarr

basically what flip said good to see you taking a hard line with Hitzlsperger :thup:

retired_amyslack

Be honest - you thought it was a spelling mistake didn't you?

retired_amyslack

October 2004

Portsmouth v Villa
I gave the players a chance to redeem themselves the next weekend as we travelled to Portsmouth, the only team in the Premiership who are doing worse than us. The only change was the inclusion of Djemba Djemba for the suspended McCann. An early goal from Cole gave us a great start but we conceded an equaliser on the half hour when we failed to defend a corner. We were second best after the break and if Pompey could have hit a cow’s arse with a banjo then they would have won for sure.

Hero : Djemba Djemba – hate to say it but he played very well in front of the defence.
League position : 18th.


Villa v West Brom
In midweek we faced our third must-win game in a row – a visit from West Brom. Not only are the teams bitter rivals but the Baggies were just one place and one point ahead of us. Djemba squared kept his place as I went with the same eleven and he rewarded me by giving away the free kick that led to the opening goal as we fell behind after just 5 minutes. Cole equalised ten minutes later with a glorious cross-shot and DD made up for his earlier mistake by firing us in front just before the break. Some determined defending by the visitors denied us any further goals until deep in stoppage time when Cole scored his second of the game for a 3-1 win.

Hero : Djemba Djemba – Man of the Match for the second game in succession, Eric is making me reconsider my earlier opinion of him.
League position : 15th.


Everton v Villa
After a ten-day break we travelled to Everton with an unchanged lineup. With confidence running high we put in possibly our best performance of the season so far and made the trip back to the midlands celebrating a 4-0 win. Angel scored twice with Bierofka and Cole providing the other goals. It was a solid performance throughout the team in a game that we always controlled.

Hero : Daniel Bierofka – with two assists and a goal of his own, Dan was the man.
League position : 10th.


Blackburn v Villa
We were on the road again in midweek as we travelled to Blackburn and for half an hour I watched us carve their defence open almost at will but with nothing to show for it as we missed chance after chance. Then some poor defensive work at a corner gave them a free header and we were a goal down. We continued to spurn scoring opportunities and were made to suffer once again as we were hit on the break after 65 minutes to go two down. Our heads went down after that and they scored a third just five minutes later to kill off the game and we lost 3-0.

Villan : Rasmussen and Cole – between them they managed to find the target just twice in ten attempts – pathetic.
League position : 12th.


Villa v Birmingham
I worked the players hard in training before our televised at home to Birmingham and my mood wasn’t improved when their manager Steve Bruce made some comment about how keen he was to for his team to beat their great rivals. I forced myself to bite my lip and avoid getting dragged into a public slanging match but privately I told the players that I expected nothing short of a win on Sunday. I decided to give Vassell another try up front with the profligate Cole making way and he did well to set up the opener for Angel after quarter of an hour. But that proved to be as good as it got, the visitors scoring once in each half to win 2-1.

Villan : For once I can’t find anyone to blame – we were outplayed by a team that showed a lot more stomach for the battle.
League position : 14th.


West Brom v Villa
I wasn’t overly surprised when Nobby Solano handed in a transfer request shortly after our defeat and I was quite happy to accept it and make him available but I’m not optimistic that anyone will want him. We had another local derby in midweek when we travelled to West Brom in the 3rd round of the FA Cup. I reunited Mellberg and Laursen in the centre of defence, brought Vata in to replace Rasmussen and started Mathis up front instead of Vassell. The American laid on Angel’s goal as we took an early lead but the home side equalised after 25 minutes through Robert Earnshaw and I had to watch the poor-man’s Ronaldo go through his acrobatic goal celebration routine – if the buck-toothed twat scored a bit more often then he wouldn’t treat each one as if he’d just won the lottery. Cruz put us back in front just after half time and Mathis tied up the 3-1 win with 20 minutes remaining.

Hero : Clint Mathis – our eccentric American proved to be a match winner with a goal and an assist.


Chelsea v Villa
Before our trip to Chelsea in the league, midfielder Gavin McCann sought me out and expressed his frustration at not being in the first team but all I could tell him was that Djemba squared was playing too well to be ignored, so tough titties. At the end of the game itself, I had to be restrained by my coaching staff as I attempted to give the referee my unbiased opinion on the standard of officiating. Here’s the match in a nutshell. 33rd minute and Cruz splits the Chelsea defence for Bierofka to score but an offside decision is given – no goal. 43rd minute and Kezman goes down like a sack of spuds in a one-on-one with Sorenson – penalty, goal. 45th minute and this time Kezman looks like a puppet whose strings have been cut when he was challenged by Mellberg – penalty, goal. End result, 2-0 to Chelsea.

Villan : Kezman – cheating little shitbag!
League position : 15th.

retired_embartl

Disgraceful Taylor out!

retired_amyslack

Cheers Brian, I think!

November 2004

At the end of October Carlton Cole was recognised as Young Player of the month and he was nice enough to thank the Villa fans for their great support. Jlloyd Samuel on the other hand, was sounding off in the Sunday Mercury that he ought to be in the first team and that his omission was a poor reflection on my managerial abilities. I told the young whippersnapper the next day that he wasn’t in the first team ‘cause Gareth Barry was much better than him – that shut the bustard up!


Villa v Palace
I made it quite clear to the players that the visit of bottom club Crystal Palace was a must-win game. A 3-2 win was duly gained with Cruz scoring twice and Djemba Djemba getting the third. Sloppy defending allowed the visitors to score early and late in the game but at least we got the three points.

Hero : Cruz – two crucial goals and a match-winning performance.
League position : 13th.


Villa v Swindon
We were without captain Mellberg and winger Bierofka for the visit of Swindon in the 4th round of the League Cup so big Lol Amoruso and young Peter Whittingham both started. Our League One opponents had eliminated Arsenal in the previous round so our 5-0 win was all the more satisfying.

Hero : David Rasmussen – the winger set up three of our goals to take Man of the Match honours.


Villa v Spurs
For various reasons we had to wait over a fortnight for our next game, a visit from high-flying Tottenham. To my delight we played extremely well and ran out 4-0 winners, although the scoreline did flatter us a little as the visitors created just as many chances as we did.

Hero : Carlton Cole – the youngster scored twice in a fine performance.
League position : 11th.

retired_amyslack

December 2004

Villa v Charlton
Rasmussen suffered a broken wrist in a training ground accident and would miss 4 weeks of action so unhappy Nobby was drafted in to replace him. Our League Cup Quarter Final at home to Charlton was a hard-fought affair and ended 1-1 after extra time. A tense penalty shootout finally saw Djemba Djemba blast his spot kick over to bar and we lost 6-5. It was a disappointing result as I really had high hopes that we could go all the way in this competition. We also lost the services of Bierofka for three weeks with a fractured cheekbone and he will be missed. It was doubly frustrating that we created over 20 scoring efforts and still failed to win.

Villan : Cruz – failed to hit the target time after time.


Saints v Villa
Our televised match at Southampton ended in a 1-1 draw after Angel equalised Redknapp’s strike from distance in the second half.

Hero : Angel : Got a valuable point with his 10th goal of the season.
League position : 13th.


Villa v Boro
Captain Mellberg was back for the visit of Middlesborough and we appreciated his steadying influence in defence. We built on a solid defensive platform to gain a good 3-0 win with Cole, Angel and Cruz all finding the net. A disgruntled Solano is showing some professionalism and playing well in his spell back in the side but he remains on the transfer list at his own request.

Hero : Olof Mellberg – a rock in the centre of our defence.
League position : 9th.


Mags v Villa
Defensive mix-ups gifted us two early goals at Newcastle and we added two more after the break to get a surprisingly easy 4-0 win.

Hero : Angel – two more goals for the hairy one and a string of fine performances from our Colombian striker.
League position : 9th.


Liverpool v Villa
The Christmas period is always hectic in England and we travelled to 4th place Liverpool for a midweek game with 5 players in the squad unavailable through injury and several players needing a rest. A disappointing first-half display saw us go into the break 2-0 down but we put in a much better second 45 minutes. We pulled a goal back through Whittingham but couldn’t complete the recovery and lost 2-1.

Villan : Thomas Sorensen – beaten twice from distance, the big Dane should have done better.
League position : 10th.


In the days before our next game we agreed a deal with Deportivo to sign Thomas Hitzlsperger for £1.6M and he was on his way. He’s a decent player but he just doesn’t suit my preferred playing style and I’m glad to take the money to offset some of our earlier transfer spending.

Villa v Blackburn
On Boxing Day we entertained Blackburn and with the visitors ending up with just nine players on the pitch we were comfortable 2-0 winners, despite Nobby missing a penalty near the end of the first half.

Hero : Peter Whittingham – the first Man of the Match award of his career for the 20-year-old midfielder.
League position : 10th.


Villa v Fulham
With just one day’s rest we welcomed the visit of Fulham and several players had to be rested – Delaney, Solano, Whittingham, Cole and Angel replaced by de la Cruz, Vata, Bierofka, Mathis and Vassell respectively. The game itself ended goalless with both teams firing blanks for 90 minutes. The Opta folks tell me that out of a total of 27 scoring attempts from the two teams, only 4 efforts were on target!

Villan : Vassell – never got into the game and was eventually replaced by young Luke Moore.
League position : 9th.

retired_amyslack

January 2005

Addicks v Villa
I really do hate this time of year – this time we had two days rest before having to play again on New Years Day at Charlton. Despite doing minimal training, Cruz had somehow managed to bruise his head, at least that’s what the Physios told me! The pack was shuffled once again with, amongst other changes, Vata playing behind the front two. Talk about throwing points away – twice we established a two-goal lead only to allow the home side to score two goals in the last five minutes and the game ended 3-3. Cole got us off to a great start with an early goal and Angel doubled our advantage after 20 minutes. We then spent a long time pounding the Charlton goal only for Dean Kiely to repel every effort. 15 minutes from time Francis Jeffers pulled a goal back but Cole’s second of the game on 79 looked to have secured the points. But it was not to be as a lack of concentration defensively and some poor distribution from Sørensen surrendered our winning advantage.

Hero : Cole – two more goals and a fine performance from the 21-year-old.
Villan : Sørensen with a minute of normal time remaining the Dane played an aimless goal kick straight to the Charlton midfield and they went on to equalise.
League position : 9th.


Villa v Man City
So once again we had one day’s breathing space before our next match, a visit from Man City. This was another lively encounter with Sørensen coming up trumps with a string of fine saves and Cole netting both goals in our 2-0 win. Looking at the stats there wasn’t much to separate the teams in terms of goal attempts but luckily for us we managed to convert a couple. Vata had a superb match in the advanced midfield position and is clearly an excellent backup for Cruz in that role.

Hero : Cole – another great performance and two more goals.
League position : 8th.


Disaster – goal hero Carlton Cole has broken his leg and will be out for the rest of the season. I am gutted for the lad but even more gutted for myself! With him in the team we had a good chance of making a run for Europe – without him I am not so optimistic. It was time for Vassell to step up to the mark and prove to me that he can perform, but I have to admit that I was not confident that he could do it.

Blyth v Villa
He had the perfect opportunity in our next game, an FA Cup 3rd Round tie at non-league Blyth Spartans. We avoided the potential banana skin of exiting the Cup to non-league opposition by racking up a ruthless 8-0 win. Our goals came from Solano, Angel, Bierofka, Cruz, Vassell and Mathis (2) with an own goal thrown in for good measure.

Hero : this was the kind of game where everybody looked good but I’ll go for Cruz who co-ordinated many of our attacks, set up two goals and scored one.


Arsenal v Villa
We travelled to league leaders Arsenal knowing that four days later we would be at Old Trafford taking on the team in second place. A wet and muddy pitch at Highbury didn’t make for a controlled passing game but it was an exciting encounter nonetheless. As might be expected the home side did the bulk of the attacking but we didn’t do too badly. We went behind inside ten minutes when Edu scored from distance but Angel snatched an equaliser midway through the half. I was not at all happy with the overly physical approach employed by Arsenal and we ended up with no fewer than five players all struggling with knocks. We held on for the draw but I hate to think how depleted our lineup will be in midweek.

Villan : Graham Poll – the ref consistently failed to discipline the Arsenal players for some harsh tackles and my players paid the price.
League position : 9th.


Man U v Villa
We travelled to Manchester minus both of our first choice full backs and winger Bierofka and with Angel taking a seat on the bench. Despite that the team put in a fine performance and we were somewhat unfortunate to lose by a single goal scored by Louis Saha in the first half. Samuel and de la Cruz both played very well at the back and young Whittingham looked good on the wing until he tired later in the game.

Hero : Eric DD – he worked tirelessly in front of the defence once again and he has made me totally reconsider my opinion of both his ability and his attitude.
League position : 9th.


Backup keeper Stefan Postma has accepted a contract offer from Fulham and he will join then in the summer at the end of his current deal. This is an area that I am very keen to strengthen and I will be looking hard for some new talent in the summer. But that can wait as our focus now switches to our FA Cup 4th round tie at Man City. The Cup is our last hope for silverware this season and I would love to get a win here. I took the chance of starting David Rasmussen in his first game back after his long injury layoff, hoping that it wouldn’t backfire on me.

Man City v Villa
My dream of a Cup run was ended by a goal from Antoine Sibierski on 60 minutes but in truth we really didn’t play well enough to take anything out of this game. David Rasmussen struggled on his return and he was replaced at half time and that did improve our attacking play slightly. But it was keeper Sørensen who stood out and but for his contribution we would have suffered a heavier defeat than we did.

Hero : Sørensen – the Dane made several excellent saves to deny City more goals.

Arsenal put in the performance of the round with a 10-0 demolition of poor Port Vale, eclipsing our 8-0 win over Blyth in the previous round. Chelsea displayed their financial clout by paying Man United £43M for centre back Rio Ferdinand – I can’t imagine Doug ever agreeing to a deal of that magnitude!


Cup elimination means that all of our energies need to be focussed on a top-7 finish and a place in Europe. Hopefully we can get three points at home to bottom club Norwich to get us back into winning ways.

Villa v Norwich
Having struggled to get any of our frequent scoring attempts on target for the first hour I was bemoaning the absence of Carlton Cole when Julio Cruz broke the deadlock. He went on to score two more and seal a fine hat trick against a very poor Norwich side.

Hero : Cruz – there were no arguments about Julio taking home the match ball after his treble, not even from our tight-fisted Chairman.
League position : 8th.

It was nice to see Peter Whittingham getting the nod for Young Player of the month after a series of good performances.

retired_amyslack

February 2005

A midweek visit to relegation strugglers Bolton should give us another chance of a win and I decided that as well as Whittingham had been playing, Bierofka would start after recovering from his recent injury.

Bolton v Villa
Bolton didn’t play like a side in the relegation places and they gave as good as they got in a very entertaining game. With both sides trading chances it was only due to the excellence of both keepers that the game was still scoreless with 15 minutes remaining. But luck was with us and Cruz finally won his personal battle with Jussi Jaaskelainen to open the scoring. Ten minutes later we killed the game off when substitutes Fatmir Vata and Luke Moore combined for the teenage striker to score his first goal for the club. Unfortunately Gareth Barry suffered a broken nose and he will need to rest for a week or so.

Hero : Sørensen and Angel – Thomas pulled off some stunning saves to keep us in the game and, even though he wasn’t on the scoresheet, Juan Pablo never stopped running and made a real nuisance of himself.
League position : 7th.


My hopes were high that we could keep up our winning ways at home to Portsmouth but I had to make several changes to the starting eleven because of various bumps and bruises.

Villa v Pompey
I watched us struggle in front of goal for most of the game and although we never looked like conceding we also never looked like scoring. But with three minutes remaining Solano curled home an exquisite free kick to break the deadlock. Then in stoppage time Bierofka scored again to make sure of the points and give us our 3rd consecutive league win.

Hero : Solano – It was thanks to Nobby that we got the win and although we still don’t see eye to eye I have been impressed with his professionalism in playing well despite knowing that he doesn’t really fit into my plans.
League position : 7th.


The derby game at West Brom took on an added dimension when the position of both teams was taken into account. The Baggies were 18th and in the thick of the relegation dogfight and we were still in the hunt for a place in Europe. We travelled without Bierofka who suffered a groin strain in training so Whittingham came back into the team.

West Brom v Villa
Our struggles in front of goal continued again in this game and although we created probably twice as many chances as our opponents the game still ended tied. A combination of poor finishing and good goalkeeping from Russell Hoult kept the game goalless for an hour. And then a very unusual thing happened – Darius Vassell scored a goal. Well I say he scored a goal. What happened was that he was one on one with the keeper when he blasted his shot against his body and the ball rebounded back off the big man and into the net. Sadly the home side managed to find an equaliser quarter of an hour later and the game ended 1-1.

Hero : Vassell – well he did score a goal.
League position : 7th.

At the end of the month I was surprised to receive notification that I had won the Premiership Manager of the Month award for February.

retired_amyslack

March 2005

The month began with a visit by Everton and with the Merseysiders down in 14th I was hopeful of a win.

Villa v Toffees
With our strikers going through a goal drought we are depending on the midfield to get our goals, and they duly obliged again today. With the visitors never even threatening a goal we made all thee running but had to wait until the 67th minute before we scored, Cruz firing home from a corner for his 15th of the season. Substitute Solano wrapped the points up with a minute of normal time remaining

Hero : Rasmussen – chipped in with two assists today and now looks to be back to his best after his injury.
League position : 7th.


After a weekend off because of FA Cup games we faced another big derby game with a visit to fierce rivals Birmingham.

Brum v Villa
The home side were all over us for the first 45 minutes and David Dunn scored twice, the first a screamer form 30 yards that beat Sørensen all ends up, to send us into the break with a lot of work to do. I replaced the disappointing Vassell with Mathis and Solano came on for Rasmussen who was really struggling with an injury. We played like a team transformed and goals from Cruz and Angel, his first in 8 games, turned the game around. Given our dreadful start I was happy with the draw but it does nothing to assist in our chase for Europe.

Hero : Bierofka – he made the opener for Cruz and looked threatening for the entire second half.
League position : 7th.