Bleacher Report - Aston Villa

Forget Liverpool & Manchester City, Tottenham Are Aston Villa's Main Threat

Yoosof Farah — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 15:00:26 -0500

After the bitter disappointment of drawing 1-1 against Burnley at Turf Moor, Aston Villa's Champions League hopes received a bigger dent as Tottenham Hotspur proved their top four credentials.

Liverpool and Manchester City might've been too rubbish for each other and neutralised each other's top four threat with a 2-2 draw, but lady luck wasn't on Villa's side in the results department, as Spurs trounced a very poor Wigan Athletic side by a considerable number of goals.

The match was so bad, Jermain Defoe actually got five. You'd hope that would be it, but no, Chris Kirkland wanted an own goal, and Peter Crouch, Aaron Lennon, and Niko Kranjcar all wanted in as the White Hart Lane outfit smashed Wigan Athletic 9-1.

As a fan of Aston Villa, it makes you cringe even more when you think this was the same Wigan team that came up to Villa Park and won 2-0 on the opening day of the season.

And now they're getting beat 9 bloody 1 by Tottenham.

With that lucrative fourth place in the Premier League more up for grabs than it has probably ever been, it's clear that Aston Villa have their work cut out if they are to go one better than last season (when they were serious top four contenders up until March).

In theory there are five teams that can contend for a top four place.

Starting with the most unlikely one, Sunderland are level with last season's Premier League runners-up on 20 points with the same number of games played.

Darren Bent is banging in the goals on Wearside and at the moment they're doing just as good in the league as Liverpool, so despite being long shots, there's a slight top four threat from the Black Cats.

Then there is Liverpool. So following on from the previous paragraph, they're doing so bad in the league that they've lost five already and even Sunderland are level on points with them. Yes, that's right, Sunderland.

If Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres are not present in every league game for the rest of the season, you just cannot see Liverpool retaining their Champions League spot.

Moving on to the team Liverpool drawed with, Manchester City; unless they ditch their newly acquired tag of "draw specialists", all that money will be wasted on a Europa League team next season.

So forget those three teams above, the two main contenders for fourth place are the mighty Aston Villa, and Tottenham Hotspur, who could only put a mere nine past Wigan Athletic.

As painful as it is to admit it, Tottenham do look the strongest in claiming that fourth Champions League position come the end of the season.

On top of great strikers in Jermain Defoe, Peter Crouch, Robbie Keane and Roman Pavlyuchenko (well, he was good once upon a time), they also have considerable threat on the wings in Aaron Lennon and Niko Kranjcar.

Spurs manager Harry Redknapp has developed a disciplined side who use the right tactics in the right situations, and with astute purchases has the quality and strength in-depth to easily achieve a top four finish.

But the main threat for Tottenham comes from Aston Villa.

Despite their recent stalemate at Burnley, Villa also have that quality in their side to get a top four finish.

Villa manager Martin O'Neill has a solid backline in Luke Young, Stephen Warnock, Carlos Cuellar, and Richard Dunne (who, it has to be said, was outstanding for Ireland against France), as well as a very reliable goalkeeper in Brad Friedel, something Tottenham clearly do not with Heurelho Gomes.

Aston Villa may not have the quality of strikers Tottenham have, but in Gabriel Agbonlahor they do have a striker who is a handful for defenders with his good pace and great strength, as well as his top class finishing.

And on the wings, an abundance of goalscoring opportunities are created with the likes of England internationals Ashley Young, Stewart Downing, and James Milner, who has been the most impressive English winger this season.

So as that all-important fourth Premier League position is there for the taking more than it's ever been before, it's clear that despite all the quality Aston Villa have, there are some other serious contenders for that Champions League spot.

And with Tottenham Hotspur smashing nine goals past teams that beat Aston Villa at home, if the Villans are to go one step better than last season, they might well have to hope for a repeat of the 2005/06 food poisoning saga.

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James Milner: A Rising Star For Aston Villa and England

Yoosof Farah — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 11:01:30 -0500

He is Aston Villa's record signing at £12 million and he is also the England U-21's most capped player, having earned 46 caps for his country.

But if you look at the performance of 23-year-old winger James Milner, it's hard to think that those are his only major achievements to date.

Aston Villa and England may already have quality wingers in the shape of Ashley Young and Stewart Downing, but so far this season there has been only one standout performer down the flanks for England and the Villans.

It appears that at the start of the 2009-2010 season, James Milner has really come of age.

He has been crucial in Aston Villa's flying start to the season, with the young but seasoned professional scoring the occasional goal and, more importantly, getting a number of vital assists.

While Young has found varying levels of success on one side of the pitch for Aston Villa this season, on the other Milner's fantastic ability to create goalscoring opportunities has been vital to the goal tallies of strikers Gabriel Agbonlahor, John Carew and Emile Heskey.

And this ability to create such good scoring chances for the strikers stems largely from Milner's improved crosses this season.

Much was made in the past about Milner's ability to put in a decent cross, with many journalists and commentators putting that down as the reason why Milner had been unable to break into the England senior team and was stuck in the U-21s.

But as was proved only yesterday with Heskey's equalising header at 86 minutes in Villa's 1-1 draw at Burnley, Milner's crossing ability has improved greatly, with the winger consistently providing dangerous, swerving and incredibly accurate balls into the penalty area.

Milner has not only established himself as a definite first-team regular at Aston Villa (an achievement in itself), but has also finally forced his way into the England senior team, having impressed the notoriously hard-to-please Fabio Capello (with Michael Owen providing evidence of that).

Having made an incredible 46 caps for the England U-21s, history was not on Milner's side to make a smooth transition onto the senior team. Historically, players with several U-21 appearances usually don't progress into full internationals.

However, the ability to effortlessly take the ball past defenders and make very accurate passes and crosses has made Milner something of a regular now on the England senior squad.

The ex-Newcastle United winger has made six appearances on Capello's team and already has assists to his name despite only receiving limited playing time in all six matches.

If James Milner can keep his form going for Aston Villa and England, then not only will he continue to force out either Stewart Downing or Ashley Young from the Villa starting 11, he will be a no-brainer when it comes to squad selection time for the 2010 World Cup.

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Why Brad "The Human Wall" Friedel Is My All-Time Favorite Goalkeeper

Andrew Jordan — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 09:19:57 -0500

Throughout the history of football, there have been many great goalkeepers. From Gordon Banks and Lev Yashin to Peter Schmeichel and Gianluigi Buffon, the world has been lucky to see many great keepers lead their team to victories.

However, my favorite keeper is not considered to be as great as these other keepers, but to me, Brad Friedel is my favorite keeper.

For those of you who don't know much about Friedel, here is a lookback of his career and what has made him such a great player to me.

Brad Friedel was born on May 18, 1971 in Lakewood, OH and excelled in basketball, tennis, and soccer while in High School before he went to UCLA to play soccer.

While at UCLA, he led them to a National Championship in 1990 and he was selected as the first team All-American goalkeeper in 1991 and 1992 and won the Herrman Trophy in 1992 as the top collegiate soccer player.

After college, Friedel applied to play for both Nottingham Forest and for Newcastle, but he was denied a British work permit to play for both clubs, and he left England for Denmark to play for Brøndby.

After failing to join Sunderland once again due to a Work Permit issue, Friedel joined Galatasaray for one year before moving to Major League Soccer to play for the Columbus Crew.

After a year with the crew, Liverpool came calling for the young American keeper and were able to gain Friedel a work permit as Friedel joined Liverpool.

However with Liverpool, Friedel wasn't able to get enough playing time to keep him satisfied and he moved to Blackburn Rovers in 2001.

In his first full year with Blackburn, Friedel was incredible, as he was able to keep the Rovers in the Premier League, and was also man of the match in the English League Cup final, in which Blackburn beat Tottenham Hotspur 1-0 to win the cup.

After the season concluded, Friedel joined the United States national team in the FIFA World Cup, which was located in Japan and South Korea.

During this World Cup, Friedel was the starting keeper for the Americans.

In the first game, Friedel was able to back the United States in an incredible 2-1 win over Portugal.

In the second game, the United States played against South Korea, who were the hosts of the tournament and in the first half, South Korea were awarded a penalty, but Lee Eul-Young's shot went right into Friedel, and South Korea were only able to get a late goal against Friedel.

In the next game against Poland, Poland won 3-1 but were once again got denied on a penalty by Friedel, as Maciej Zurawski's penalty was stopped by Friedel, making the American the first keeper in the World Cup since 1974 to stop two penalties in the World Cup.

With Friedel's performance and the United States going onto the next round, I found myself amazed with Friedel's great play, and he unofficially became my all-time favorite keeper.

With Friedel's great performance, he was given the nickname "The Human Wall" and was the main reason why the United States were advancing onto the Round of 16 to take on our arch rival Mexico.

Against Mexico, the United States were fantastic to say the least, and Friedel was a huge part of that, as he registered the first United States clean sheet in the World Cup since 1950, and we were able to win 2-0.

Despite a hard-fought 1-0 loss to Germany in the Quarterfinals, Friedel and the American side came out of the World Cup as nation that showed that they are an emerging country on the world stage, and Friedel was a huge reason behind this.

After the World Cup, Friedel kept up his great performance in the Premier League, as he was huge for Blackburn during the season, even getting called Superman by Gordon Strachan for his heroics against Southampton.

Overall during the season, Friedel kept 15 clean sheets, and was named to the Premiership Starting XI for his great play.

After his incredible season, Friedel continued to play for Rovers, keeping them in the Premier League every season before leaving to Aston Villa in the summer of 2008.

In his first year with Aston Villa, Friedel nearly got the Villains a spot in the UEFA Champions League before Villa's hot streak ended, and found themselves in sixth place.

And, Friedel is also able to tutor another American keeper, Villa backup Brad Guzan, to make him yet another American international keeper who has played in the English Premier League.

Despite being 38 years old, Friedel is able to continue to be an effective force in the Premier League, as he has started 201 consecutive Premier League matches, which is the longest streak in the history of the Premier League.

Finally, despite other great American keepers such as Kasey Keller and Tim Howard and other greats such as Peter Schmeichel and Lev Yashi, Brad Friedel will always be my favorite keeper of all time, and it is great to see him play this well and have such a great career.

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Aston Villa's Carlos Cuellar Is Fan of England's Sensational Six Villans

Yoosof Farah — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:09:38 -0500

It's a well known fact that Aston Villa has a strong contingent of good England international players in their team, with the club having dubbed the best of them as the "Sensational Six."

The "Sensational Six" refers to strikers Gabriel Agbonlahor and Emile Heskey, wingers Ashley Young, James Milner, summer signing Stewart Downing, as well as full-back Stephen Warnock.

On top of this there are also big talents and stars of the future in midfielders Nigel Reo-Coker, Fabian Delph, and Craig Gardner, and also young striker Nathan Delfouneso.

And on top of that, experienced heads Luke Young, Curtis Davies (at only 24 years old), and Nicky Shorey also have the ability to be England material.

But, mainly it is the "Sensational Six" that have the greatest impact at Villa Park, something that key players recognise.

Speaking to the Aston Villa official club website, Spanish defender Carlos Cuellar admitted he is a massive fan of these six Villans, and sees no reason why they shouldn't be at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

He said, "[The Sensational Six] have a great chance in my opinion. They are playing very well and have plenty of confidence in themselves."

Cuellar went on to talk about the gruelling training, considering he has to deal with Heskey and Agbonlahor in practice matches.

"I have to mark Emile [Heskey] and Gabby [Agbonlahor] quite a lot in training—let me tell you, it's not easy. It's tough."

"They are both very strong, very quick and very clever. It's difficult but it's great for me because I am training against some of the best players in England—it's brilliant and my game improves as a result.

He reserved special praise for Villa's star striker, Agbonlahor, saying, "Gabby has really bulked up—he's not big height-wise but he's a strong lad now. He is really difficult to knock off the ball or to win the ball off. He is massive.

"He is strong, he is very quick and this work he has done over the summer has definitely helped him.

"He is hard to play against. I think he's a better player now than he was last season, without question.

"He has masses of confidence after his start to the season and he is gaining in experience.

"He tries all the time too. He works so, so hard. I also think he is a very clever footballer—he is learning quickly."

Of course, all praise couldn't be reserved for the strikers, and there's a certain winger that Cuellar likes in particular.

The Spaniard said, "James [Milner] is a great guy to have in front of you when you're playing right back. He is not always concentrating on going forward. He wants to help his right back as much as possible.

"He's running forward, he's running back, he's running forward, he's running back. It's so impressive and it's great news for the defender behind him.

"He's the ideal man to have in front of you. He's got a great chance of getting into that squad. He can play left, right, and in the middle and that versatility is vital."

As for the others in the Sensational Six, don't worry, Cuellar didn't forget them, and reckons they will all be there in South Africa for the World Cup next summer.

He continued, "Ashley [Young] is just brilliant and can change a game in a moment, while Emile [Heskey] is just a really, really class striker—and we have Stewart Downing coming back too. He will feel he has a good chance as well.

"Stephen Warnock was in the squad for the last game too, so he will be very hopeful he made a good impression when he trained with the rest of the squad. All of them have a terrific opportunity [of being in the England squad for the 2010 World Cup]."

Source: avfc.co.uk

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