spot on piece by chris young from todays echo sums it all up

[shepherd88]

He's not hailing them as a role model. He's highlighting the similarity between our position now and theirs at the start of last season, and pointing out that their revolution is working well, now.

Is it? Only 3 games into this season, following a season they struggled in

 

[Beau Peep]

Propaganda if i've ever read it.
Sounds like hes been told what to write by the club.

After his rambling negative match report/prognosis after Palace, I'm not sure.

http://www.sunderlandecho.com/sport...-blitz-but-it-s-not-going-to-happen-1-6004013

Love his email address on that as well: chris,[email protected]

I think he's just a poor journalist. That article could've been a Ryder special. He writes whatever pops into his head, it's like someone on here has been given a job on the basis of a particularly long and incisive review of Thor...

 

[Norton]

Can't blame O'Neill for saddling us with older highly paid players......our two best players are his signings and only Cuellar remains on the wage bill.

Defeats are defeats....doesn't matter whether it's a top team or whether it's a close result....they have lost 2 of their 3 games.

thats just daft- 3 points from Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool with 2 away is canny!

 

[Tommy]

Load of utter shite. Villa would have finished below us if they hadn't walloped us 6-1 and would have been relegated if they hadn't took 6 points of us. They weren't a good team last season and they aren't this season......3 games played, 1 win and 2 defeats. It bears no relationship whatsoever to what is happening here and is a completely spurious argument that having blind faith will reap it's rewards......they could so easily have been relegated last season.....the fact that they met us when they did probably saved their bacon.

They beat Arsenal by a large margin
They lost to Liverpool
They lost to Chelsea

What you said is out of context..

 

[Nil desperandum]

Good piece of journalism. However, what remains a huge problem is that of unearthing young talent and vastly improving our scouting network. We are no far forward in that respect than 15 years ago. Bringing in stop gap players on the cheap or paying over the odds for mediocrity is still the order of the day.

 

[West Ryder]

Canny sentiment in a romantic article. You can see what he's getting at, trying to stir some optimism. Quite rightly.

Thing is, the premier leagues next breakout star, Ashley Westwood, hasn't ever really looked susceptible since his move to Villa.

He was a shining light even in their darker days last year. The boy is a massive talent.

 

[ShieldsBlackCat]

GOING down. Sack the manager. New recruits signed on the cheap. Best players sold. Lightweight central midfield.




All statements that have been uttered from the lips of Sunderland fans after five days which have prompted a succession of doom prophecies.

But turn the clock back to the start of 2013 and such damning indictments would be equally applicable to an Aston Villa side plummeting towards the Championship.

By the end of January, Villa had taken just 20 points from 24 Premier League outings and nestled precariously above basement boys QPR in the relegation zone.

Look what happened next though.

Villa survived with a flourish – their 6-1 rout of Paolo Di Canio’s side in April was arguably one of the best opposition performances of the season against Sunderland, particularly given the stakes on the encounter.

And now Villa look a club transformed.

Suddenly, Paul Lambert can boast a bright and ambitious young side, with pace, power and players battle-hardened by experiencing the Premier League dogfight.

Bleating on about Sunderland “needing time” to form some harmony after a summer of such wholesale ins and outs never generates much sympathy.

Supporters need to see signs of progress on the pitch – even if they don’t accompany results – and there have been precious few of those over the season’s opening fortnight.

But last season, Villa indeed showed the benefits of taking a deep breath and resisting the temptation to petulantly jump up and down on the panic button.

They faced a situation just as tumultuous as Sunderland’s too.

The prize assets of Stewart Downing and Ashley Young had departed, the central midfield options of Fabian Delph, Ashley Westwood and Stephen Ireland looked susceptible, while there was a hangover from the previous season’s narrow escape.

The new incumbent of the dug-out, Lambert, boasted dramatic ideas for changing the team’s style into a far more attractive approach.

But it took months to overcome those obstacles and for the training ground work to come to fruition.

Equally, it needed the huge contribution of 19-goal Christian Benteke. Di Canio will need something similar from Jozy Altidore or Steven Fletcher, if his own “revolution” is to bear fruit.

Villa’s successful transformation won’t have gone unnoticed by Ellis Short.

The Black Cats owner is a close confidante of his opposite number at Villa and fellow American Randy Lerner, and both have spent the past couple of years attempting to put the Premier League’s finances back in order.

Lerner has made a decisive attempt to cut Villa’s cloth after the vast indulgence of the Martin O’Neill era.

Likewise, Short spearheaded the Premier League’s self-imposed cap on plundering the new television deal on wages.

Balancing the books has to be the way forward after football’s boom or bust era.

Given Sunderland’s debts and the limits of Financial Fair Play, the club have needed to take dramatic steps on the balance sheet.

Many supporters have questioned why the likes of Simon Mignolet and Stephane Sessegnon have been sold and replaced with cheaper alternatives, when Sunderland’s Premier League peers seem determined to continue spending with reckless abandon.

It’s a fair point, particularly with Uefa offering such flimsy answers on the sanctions facing clubs if they ignore the financial restrictions.

But Sunderland can only put their own shop in order and ensure the long-term future of the club is not in jeopardy.

Sunderland’s overall transfer blueprint of buying promising young players, developing them and selling them on for a profit is a model which supporters seemed to appreciate during the summer too.

Throw in a couple of eye-catching signings, in Altidore and Emanuele Giaccherini, and there was a genuine enthusiasm for the new direction this season.

Two things have conspired to banish that enthusiasm.

Firstly, there has been little encouragement on the field and few signs of a dramatic change from under O’Neill.

Even when Villa were struggling last season, they still won at Anfield, the Stadium of Light and the Etihad (albeit in the Capital One Cup).

Those fragments give supporters belief to keep the faith, even if the majority of results are indifferent.

And the second element of woe on Wearside has been the nature of their last-gasp recruits in the window.

The loan signings of Ki Sung-Yeung and Fabio Borini, plus a one-year deal for Andrea Dossena, have smacked of Sunderland scouring around for cut-price options, rather than adhering to the transfer model envisaged earlier in the summer.

But Sunderland have set out their stall.

They have established an all-Italian backroom managerial team and a dramatically re-configured squad.

There is no going back now.

Like Villa though, there may be bleak days ahead before Sunderland embrace the new direction.

The question is whether they can do that quickly enough.

Fine words butter no parsnips. That may well sound all very nice. But what is overlooked is the fact Aston Villa FC have the experience and the time in the PL to know exactly how to ride the waves a storm of trouble brings. They can measure the decisions perfectly. They have a vast amount of wisdom. And that is because they are settled. Such is the changes that Sunderland AFC as a club has gone through that it has never settled. It has never known what it's place in the PL is and what it must to do take that place up. What the best tactical approach and formation is. Is it fast attacking or slow build up? Who the best kind of playing talent is. Is it young or is it older players? Is it foreign or is it home-based? What kind of manager is best suited to do the job.

 

[ShieldsBlackCat]

To Mods

Please delete this post. Double posted the above.

 

[GK]

Fine words butter no parsnips. That may well sound all very nice. But what is overlooked is the fact Aston Villa FC have the experience and the time in the PL to know exactly how to ride the waves a storm of trouble brings. They can measure the decisions perfectly. They have a vast amount of wisdom. And that is because they are settled. Such is the changes that Sunderland AFC as a club has gone through that it has never settled. It has never known what it's place in the PL is and what it must to do take that place up. What the best tactical approach and formation is. Is it fast attacking or slow build up? Who the best kind of playing talent is. Is it young or is it older players? Is it foreign or is it home-based? What kind of manager is best suited to do the job.

 

[Turnip from the Tip]

There are two big differences between us this season and villa last. 1) lambert already had a track record in the premier league having kept Norwich up and done well in the championship and lower leagues, and two the shrewd, low cost signings and youngsters he put his faith in we're largely British based, or had played in this country/ come through the ranks.

I agree its the blue print for us to follow, but also think villa had a better chance of pulling it off for the reasons above, plus they uncovered a diamond in Christian benteke.