Lessons from a Half Season with the Villa

So, while waiting for my full version to arrive from Amazon, I've been spending a season in Birmingham at Aston Villa. Or, rather, a half-season as that is all the demo will allow. Some highlights and low-lights so far:

Highlights:

1. Signing Jozy Altidore on loan for no fee and half of his salary a week (something like 2k/week)
2. Winning our two UEFA Cup qualifiers 4-0 and 5-0 on aggregate
3. Carrying a 1-0 back to home from Stetua in the first knockout round of the selfsame second-rate European Cup

Lowlights:
1. Losing 5-2 to Newcastle
2. Having to play Zat Knight--a lot. And realizing I kind of like him as a player.
3. Being bottom of the table after 5 games, having only gleaned 1 point (a draw at home to Hull)

Needless to say, it's been up and down. Mostly down. I've learned some things, not a lot of things and I'm definitely far away from being the best manager in the world. But Jose Mourinho wasn't born a genius. And Alex Ferguson wasn't built in a day. Or something like that. Lessons:

--I will be playing my full career with fake players. When I signed Altidore, I kind of sealed my fate on this one. I have a soft spot in my heart for Jozy and, as a business deal, it made a fair amount of sense. But it always felt kind of dirty. Like I probably could've found a better player out there if I had just tried a little harder. Like I was giving him a shot only because I knew who he was. It just felt lazy and, while fake players will be harder, at least it will feel more real.

--Gareth Barry is a twat. No doubt about it. He undermined me from the day I arrived (despite the fact that I gave him the captain's armband), put in dour performance after dour performance and, worst of all, I couldn't leave him out because he was far and away my best player. The Nige was sadly disappointing as well.

--It is incredibly easy to give up goals right after you score. We had a glimmer of hope when we won a penalty against Chelsea to bring it to 2-1 but gave back a goal to Michael Essien six minutes later (we did end up scoring another which could've lead to us splitting the points). Against Newcastle, we fought back from two down through Marlon Harewood (goals: 45+1', 63') and then got hit by an avalanche started by a Geremi goal (65'). We lost that one 5-2. How do you guard against this? I'm starting to believe that I might be better laying off tight marking and/or man marking and going to a zonal system. We all know how well that worked out for Big Phil Scolari, right?

--It's easy to give up goals late. After leveling the score against Rovers late on (73'), we gave back a goal to Matt Derbyshire (88'). And after struggling all game against Hull we grabbed what looked like a sure winner through Stillian Petrov in the 89th only to concede to Caleb Folan in the 91st. Heartbreaking. Partially this has to do with changes in tactics and not getting greedy (as we certainly the case in the Blackburn game).

--Injuries are a killer. I suppose that's intuitive. But I'd never really had to cross that bridge in a video game. I mean, in Fifa, I could compensate for the loss of a star with my wealth of skill. Perhaps I will develop strategies to combat losing players to injury. But, as of now, lengthy injuries to John Carew and Marlon Harewood (the former for five months) as well as niggling injuries for James Milner, Gabby Agbonglahor, Ashley Young and Craig Gardner crippled us. When I started Jozy Altidore and John Fleck (a sixteen year old prospect I signed from Rangers who could be good but not yet) in a league cup game against West Ham, I knew we were in trouble.

--International duty sucks too. I had to deal with losing Gabby and Ash while Altidore was away at the Olympics. Pavel Pardo made his merry way to Mexico for a while as well.

--Scheduling friendlies seems like it could be very key. Being new to the game, there's a lot tactic-wise to figure out. And it's hard to trot out a brand new tactic in a game that actually means something. But it's hard to continue losing games because you're too scared to change (and you're hoping that soon something magical will click). Whoever I choose next time around, I hope to have a system in place by the top of the season that I can be reasonably happy with. This may mean scheduling like 8 friendlies which I'm kind of okay with.

--I'm starting to believe I should read this: Tactical Theorems and Frameworks. Brian at the Run of Play recommended it and I'm not sure when to do what, why and when. Right now, sitting at the bottom of the table with one point from five games, this thing has got me beat. Beat to the point that I'm completely obsessed with it and the idea of reading fifty pages about it seems not only reasonable but enjoyable. More on that (if it happens) soon.

I'm off to try and battle my way off the foot of the table. Up the Villa!