I promise, we didn't sit all sit down and decide to mercilessly bash Alex McLeish. I think we'd all prefer to talk about something else quite frankly, because it's all getting a little bit depressing. But damn if the man doesn't keep giving us material. In continuing his rant against any and all criticism of his managerial style, McLeish has struck out at those who would describe his tactical approach as negative. A few choice quotes:

I think it’s a myth, I just think it’s a myth. I think in all my days as a coach and manager I’ve had pretty dynamic teams all the way.

I don’t think they’re examining the facts, so there’s nothing much I can do about that, but it’s a myth. That’s for sure and that’s a fact.

Why don’t they look at other things as well, rather than just looking at the manager?

Do you think we don’t work on finishing? Every single day we end up with a finishing session, practising shots on goal and getting strikes on target.

Sweet merciful heavens. Let's take this point by point, shall we?

Continue reading this post »

Silly Mat Kendrick on Twitter, putting this question out into the universe just as I sat down to write about it:

This thought both thrills and saddens me. I'm ecstatic that we'll see an Aston Villa lineup that does not include Emile Heskey. He's been shoehorned into the starting XI, playing behind the striker, and we've even seen him pop up on the wings, which has been a special sight. But now he's out 2-3 weeks with a hamstring problem, so Alex McLeish has to think outside the Ivanhoe box.

Continue reading this post »

If you saw Aston Villa's clash with Wolverhampton Wanderers on Saturday, be strong. None of us knew what we were getting ourselves into; it was supposed to be a happy occasion, but what we witnessed together was an abomination. Time may heal these wounds, but we can never allow ourselves to forget. It is our burden, our cross to bear, but it will help to make us stronger. If you were lucky enough to miss it, let me assure you: yes, it was that bad. It was every bit that bad. I'd love to see a gorgeous, flowing attacking style from the claret and blue but I recognize that's unlikely to happen any time soon. I understand the value in a pragmatic approach. But this wasn't just conservative football; this was objectively bad football, in every sense of the word. The back line was good and Gabriel Agbonlahor's return to form continues, but outside of that there was nothing worth being the least bit excited by.

You'd expect that from Wolves to some extent; their #1 priority this season is to stay up, and it's understandable that a club with so much money invested in the off-season to improving the back line is going to play a very conservative style of football away from home. But the tactical approach of Villa, a rightly favored home side, was baffling. The danger in attack so many Villa fans were thrilled to see against Blackburn just wasn't there. It wasn't exactly negative as Villa seemed at least cursorily interested in pressing forward, but there were zero ideas. The typical Aston Villa attack went something like this; Given punts long, Bent heads back to Collins, Collins passes to Petrov, Petrov runs backwards and passes to Herd, Herd sends in long diagonal, Wolves clear. Time after time after time, that's what we got. Shockingly, it never worked. That type of thing tends to have limited success against teams playing six men behind the ball; shocking, I know.

Continue reading this post »

As I wrote about 3 months ago, I want to begin a series here on 7500 to Holte that examines tactics. What are they? How do we talk about them? And, most importantly, how do they impact the game and the team that we love? Some of the information here will be absurdly basic (positions, for instance), but my goal is to lay a foundation upon which we can discuss more nuanced topics. Additionally, I hope this can serve as an introduction for people just coming to soccer. There is no schedule for the series, but I expect a few posts over the coming weeks.

The most fundamental part of soccer is the players. You can have a pitch, and you can have a ball, but the game doesn't exist without players. And where there are players, people have shown a stunning ability to improvise for the other necessities of soccer such as that very same pitch and ball. 

Given that the one true need of soccer is players, it makes sense that we should begin an examination of tactics with them. At the most basic level, every player (with some exceptions that will be discussed) tends to hold one position on the field. In an eleven-person team, there is a goalkeeper and ten outfielders. The players available and the positions they can play will largely determine any other tactical considerations for a manager. Let's take a look at the role and responsibilities of the main positions.

Continue reading this post »

Let me preface this by saying that it's a response to some of the feedback we've received in our attempt to make the site even better for you. If you haven't let us know what you think and would like to see from 7500 to Holte in the future, please take a minute to do so when you can. It will be greatly appreciated by the four of us, and there's a good chance your requests can be implemented.

One of the first requests we got, and one that was seconded by a few people, was for more writing on tactics and strategy. I love this idea, but it has a few problems. As you know by now, the main sports world I come from is baseball. There is no more analytical group of fans than those who follow baseball. Additionally, it's a sport that lends itself to precise record-keeping that tells 99% of the story of a game. As a result, if you want to know some statistical information, it probably exists.

The same can't be said for soccer. I've had it in my mind to write a tactical or strategy related post more than a few times, but the time that would be required to put it together was simply too much. Unlike baseball, there aren't vast repositories of data with regards to soccer, at least in regards to anything other than scores.To a certain extent, this makes sense. Baseball gets a chance to reset in between most every event on the field, and players are generally static in one position. Soccer is constantly in motion, both as a game and with regard to the players themselves. How does one collect data points from something that is always going? It's possible, but not nearly as easy as it is in baseball.

So that's the problem, but I've got an idea, and I'd like to know if it would be met with any interest from our readers and readers .

Continue reading this post »

As Kirsten spoke about earlier today, there is a fair amount of uncertainty surrounding Aston Villa's defense ahead of Saturday's clash with Wolves. Given Villa's still precarious standing in the table and the fact that the run of games that was supposed to save Villa from the relegation battle hasn't started out as well as many had hoped, it's reasonable to say that not taking all three points at home against a team currently sitting in 19th position would be an absolute disaster. I'm less concerned than many about the prospect of relegation, but if Villa don't win this game my anxiety would likely kick up a notch or two. And while I would prefer Villa to be weakened at the back against Wolves as opposed to a club like Everton or Newcastle, the reality is that having such a weakened defensive unit means that Villa are no longer strong favorites if they're even favorites at all.

Towards the end of the above-mentioned post, Kirsten throws out the idea of Villa playing a three-man defense comprised of Carlos Cuellar, Kyle Walker and Nathan Baker. I am an outspoken proponent of the three-man back line, but this sort of thing isn't exactly what I had in mind; ideally, a three-man defense is composed of quality center backs, at least one of whom is mobile enough to mimic the defensive responsibilities of an outside back. Villa have the players in-house to make that work; Cuellar and Clark are certainly nimble enough to split off wide when necessary and either of Collins or Dunne are the type of big, physical center-half that would make a formation such as this feasible in today's Premier League. Unfortunately, while Villa's options for Saturday might include two mobile center backs the third available defender isn't a big and powerful central defender but instead a young right back whose value is mostly derived from pressing forward rather than lock down opposing wingers.

Continue reading this post »

A lot of the blame for Aston Villa's struggles this season has been placed on the defense, and rightly so; it's been pretty bad for much of the year. Richard Dunne and James Collins are absolutely not without blame, but I've been pretty outspoken in my belief that a greater share of culpability belongs to Stephen Warnock and Luke Young. Gerard Houllier expects his full backs to become involved in the attack, and that's a fine thing assuming they are capable of getting back in time to meet their defensive responsibilities. In a lot of cases Warnock and Young aren't, and that puts a lot of pressure on the center of the defense.

It might seem odd then that I am suggesting Villa subtract a defender, but bear with me a bit. Villa has a lot of quality in central defense; Dunne, Collins and Cuellar are all solid, Premier League caliber starting center backs and Ciaran Clark has shown a great deal of promise. Despite being on loan to Leicester City, Curtis Davies is still under Aston Villa's control and he's not too far removed from being an emerging star in his own right. The players are there to make for a formidable center three with quality depth behind. While it's true that Villa don't have any prototypical wingbacks, Young and Warnock are both competent in the attacking and with Albrighton and Downing out wide they're not being asked to do much more than provide width in the midfield. In reality Warnock and Young aren't going to be doing anything all that different than what they're doing now, they're just starting from a more advanced position. By adding another dedicated defensive player that isn't expected to add much if anything to the attack, the consequences of their not getting back on defense (and in general their shortcomings as defenders) aren't nearly as dire. 

Continue reading this post »

Kirsten mentioned something earlier this week that got me to thinking; what do you do when your club is built to play 4-4-2 but the rest of the game has evolved to the point that playing 4-4-2 puts you at a competitive disadvantage? Martin O'Neill quite clearly built the team to suit those purposes, and while he was largely successful there have certainly been times that it felt as though the shape was a hindrance to finding optimal results. We are where we are until January at the very least, and the odds of wholesale changes being made to the squad at that point seem slim. So how do we make it work?

Continue reading this post »