were woeful, don't think any free-kicks hit the target no matter who took them. corners weren't much better.
As I recall they all went over the bar except except one which hit the wall. Not the best day for free kicks!
At the moment too many people are taking them,think we should just rotate between Adel and Ali,i'm sorry but Joey and Jay just look awful at them.Faurlin should take more,he wasn't bad at them last year!
We need to dream up a few alternatives to just shooting. When was the last time we actually scored directly from a free kick? The last one that come to my mind was up at Derby 2 seasons ago. Please somebody remember a more recent one. Faurlin got very close last season hitting the inside of the post against Coventry (I think) and had a good one aganist Leeds, but generally we are appalling.
The annoying thing is we had so many free kicks in scoreable positions and fluffed the lot. Villa only had one effort in the first half against the run of play and Bannon (who looks a great prospect) took Paddy to the limit...
We need some imagination with these free kicks rather that a hopeful shot, no matter how skilled at getting ball up and over wall etc. Like to see someone lob ball over wall to a player to run onto, who remembers TV doing that many years ago, i think it was Gerry who stood in the wall and then turned and ran on to the lobbed ball, very effective. Still a point gained, i would have taken that after 2 minutes of stoppage time. Also NW has described first handball as a "save", got to love him, priceless.
It's something we've been lacking for a while, even in our great previous season. We can't get it over the wall and on target, simple as. We can't even make any tricky special set pieces. We need to work on that to survive this season. A lot of useful goals can come from set pieces if they're done properly.
Can't understand why Taarabt doesn't take any of them. We had Barton, Faurlin, Bothroyd and even DJ got in ahead of Adel, really don't get it. For me Taarabt is also a much better crosser of the ball from dead ball situations than Barton.
To be honest, I think they're all about as good as each other at the moment. Taarabt has also hit the wall a lot this season. I'd rather have Buzsacky taking them!
BTW Inke did you get down to Cork? I ended up in O'Neills on Main Street Tramore with the local branch of the Villa Supporters Club, all 4 of them plus the bar man, safe to say they were a little hacked off at the end!!! Up the R's
All our set pieces were **** today but what has become apparent is Wolves and Newcastle took 45 minutes to work us out, Villa took 40 mins and the further we go in to the season the greater the need different formations and tactics. However our team have only been together for a matter of weeks so i'm sure we will get better, set piece specialists will be choosen and we will do well. URrrs
Tararsrararabat has been dire at free kicks and corners last year and this year. Faurlin should be the one
CorkeR lives in enniscorthy he came up. we watched the game in the mansion house. he's a sound bloke.
I disagree with this. The only reason Villa got back into the game was because our first touches and passes started getting a bit sloppy. We actually looked a little tired out there.
A bloody shambles! They where just taking turns ffs! It would have been interesting though if free kick #10 and #11 had come around, surely One Size and Paddy would get a crack as well If we can't get it over the wall/under the bar, go for power at least! I had a thread/post about this before the season, if you aim to be succesfull in the Prem you have to take advantage of the set pieces that come your way. We have dominated these stats against Wigan, Newcastle, Wolves and Villa and all we have to show for it is one win. Next transfer window this needs to be priority #1, get a dead ball specialist in that can take advantage of these situasions.
I've talked about exactly that free kick on this forum before in previous threads. Venables offered so much more from free kicks, not just a hit and hope.
