“I thought we played excellent, I really did”
After providing updates on the game last night, I was pleased come the end of the game to get the victory against a team that has been playing competitive football for a decent period now. Having checked the Union website, I was also pleased to see that in the past few years, Philadelphia have a very good record in these ‘international friendlies’ and have beaten Celtic, Everton and Schalke 04 amongst others. So all in all a pretty decent result.
It seems they played a number of their younger players alongside more established players, so much like ourselves really. I listened to the game on AVTV and we seemed really good in the first half, going close on a number of occasions before the Fonz scored a few minutes before half time. The second half was a lot more disjointed with all the subs, as you’d expect and the Union came back into it but we held on.
All in all a very encouraging outing, and another worthwhile exercise. Lambert and Delfouneso have shared their thoughts on the Union website, and here is a little bit of what they had to say:
Lambert:
“The fans are very vocal. They’re behind their team. I thought we played excellent, I really did, considering that we’ve only played two games. It was an excellent match between the two teams, a great place to play football.”
“You can tell they’re a good side. The crowd gets right behind them. It certainly helps them. It’s a tight football pitch, which is tough for us. But it was a really tough game for us because we’re only two weeks into the preseason. And Philadelphia have played a lot of games. From that aspect, they might have been viewed to win the game. But it was some really good football from us.”
Delfouneso:
“It was a really good atmosphere, I think we fully enjoyed it. There was a nice bit of banter, the cheers and whatnot. I was impressed with the turnout, and with the Villa fans’ turnout as well. We’ve got to be thankful for that as well. I enjoyed it, it was a good experience and we’ve got two more games to experience more of it.”
So overall a very good workout. From what I gather Lambert was back prowling the touchline and barking orders and this is exactly what I want to see. It’s hard to pick standouts from listening to commentary, but it seems the Fonz was the pick of the strikers, and by all accounts scored a very good goal. Ian Taylor picked out El Ahmadi, Holman and Ireland as doing well, and this is once again encouraging.
Again without seeing it it’s hard to comment on shape etc, but from what I gathered we were quite narrow, especially first half with lots of interchanging, a common occurrence for Lambert sides. Our next game is fast approaching, so let’s hope we continue our promising start to the Lambert reign.
UTV.
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Having been at the game hopefully this will provide a clearer picture since apparently there weren’t any streams over there. We had many chances and easily could have won 3-0 or 4-0 if not for some absolutely fantastic saves by the Union goalkeeper. Hopefully once the season rolls around we’ll be finishing those off. I was pleased with the build-up play and we were able to link several good strings of passes together, really dominating possession in the first half. A couple times we seemed even a bit too generous in front of goal.
Fonz and El Ahmadi were definitely the standouts for me- El Ahmadi, as noted after the last exhibition, did a great job of seeing the field and linking up with the back four to help us work it out of the back as opposed to just booting it upfield. Along the same line, it was nice to see the entire team try to work it out of the back on several occasions with some nice short passing, again as opposed to just clearing it and hoping for a striker to hold up the play.
On the negative side, I was very disappointed with Lichaj, who I am a huge fan of, and Dunne. Lichaj seemed to be beaten too easily both on some passes and off the dribble on several occasions, and Dunne just proved himself to be too slow, consistently getting beaten by attackers running right him. After the Euros, and with his experience, I would have expected a better showing. For Lichaj, he’s shown he can play in the past, so hopefully it was just an off night.
The formation was definitely narrow, and as noted in the previous post, seemed to be a 4-3-1-2 with Holman and Ireland switching off in hole. The outside backs provided a decent amount of the width with some nice runs and decent crosses in the first half. As the subs came in we seemed to lose our shape a bit, but the midfield definitely still stayed compact and narrow.
Hope that helped a bit, even though it really just seems to confirm everything posted.
That was top mate! And thanks for taking the time to share your views, much appreciated. As mentioned it’s tough to try and get a grasp of the bigger picture listening via comms and using twitter.
Seems very much positive, and hopefully the goals will come with the chances created. The passing approach seems very much evident in just the two games we’ve seen under Lambert so far. Pleasing to hear about the work ethic as well, all very encouraging.
Didn’t hear much about Lichaj in the comms, but Dunne seemed to be beaten far too easily, and Herd was another who seemed to disappoint according to what was being said.
Thanks again mate, and hope you had a good night!
UTV.
Thanks for the report Alex. I think that was dunne’s first week back so he deserves a little bit of a break. I have noticed when he is unfit he struggles big time, he seems to put weight on very quickly and as a result is very slow.
It will be interesting to see how some of these players go under lambert because I think a number of them have been hindered due to having really poor managers. I can see Bannan benefitting a lot from a passing game and he has started both games so maybe that is indicating something. I’d like to bent start scoring in preseason because at the moment we don’t have many other goal scoring options apart from maybe holman.
Good point about Dunne mate, like you say when he’s unfit he’s a different player. Hopefully he’s up and running soon enough.
Yep big chance for a lot of them. Bannan by and large has been one of the stand out performers this preseason, and if we can get him firing we’ll have a player on our hands. Hopefully the security of someone like El Ahmadi behind him can allow him to pull the strings.
Goals are a bit of a concern, because as you mention looking at it only Bent jumps out. I still think we could do with another striker. Add another winger, and a defender or two and I think we’ve done well this summer.
UTV.
Watched it last night on AVTV and can only agree with the comments above. El Ahmadi is going to be a top man for us and with Ireland there was some good interpassing. Also think that Bannan looks good playing a deeper role. Possession seems to be the name of the game and I hope N’Zogbia soon grasps this. Also, Lowton is impressing with his surging runs.
Sorry to disagree with Alex, but having attended the match, I saw things a little differently. Delfouneso did score — with a nicely placed shot — but, too, too many times he was the “last touch” for Villa. Bad passes, errant dribbles, beaten by a single defender who stripped the ball. It certainly appeared that Delf’s teammates avoided passing to him when open at times — much as they did with Heskey last season. Yes, Dunne looked slow, and was chiefly responsible for a Union try that rolled just inches outside the post, but he was not nearly as slow as Collins. all Union players had to do was turn on some speed and they would have Collins turning and twisting erratically. Holman seemed to be in-the-play quite a bit, but with little positive effect. Only a few players seemed interested in advancing the ball offensively: Ireland, N’Zogbia, Bannan, Lichaj, Lowton and yes, Warnock. N’Zog had an excellent scoring opportunity thanks to Gabby, but N’Zog shot directly into the sprawling goalie. Warnock also appeared slow in comparison to the young wingers on Union, but he played well moving forward and, although far from tall, he still seems to be the Villan who best knows how to position himself to win headers. Yes, Union are in the midst of their season, but they are a middle-level performer in MLS, and should fall easily to an EPL squad with a nose for the goal. Much room for improvement for Villa in that regard.