Libor Kozak

mefromhere wrote:

Guzan
Hutton Richards Okore Bacuna
Adama Sanchez Veretout Grealish
Ayew Kozak

Ayew is a finisher and would benefit from playing with a guy to win the aerial battles and a cleverness of Veretout and Grealish to play the clever ball.
Kozak is a target man, hold it up and a finisher who will run the channels just as well as anyone but will be a presence in the box and profit from the width of Adama and Grealish.

It's Arsenal next and nobody expects us to get anything. Let's get at them!

From what I remember, Kozak isn't that good in the air, I think it would have to be the other way round with Ayew knocking it down for Kozak!

I think I'd rather have Ayew in front of Bacuna than Grealish. I thought Bacuna looked good on Saturday but he can't do it on his own.

I didn't see it but didn't he score two headers last night? And Grealish has supposedly worked incredibly hard to prove himself so put him on the left and give him a chance.

mefromhere wrote:I didn't see it but didn't he score two headers last night? And Grealish has supposedly worked incredibly hard to prove himself so put him on the left and give him a chance.

Yup, he played well last night.

Don't get me wrong, I like Grealish a lot and want to see him playing but considering Garde likes a 4-1-4-1, and Sanchez is working well in front of the defence, we need someone to protect whoever is at LB, and that ain't Grealish. Traore is fine on the right because while he's not great at defending either, we're strong on the right of defence with Hutton and either Richards or Okore. It's the left we need to worry about, and right now I don't think we can forget about defending and just leave it to Bacuna (?) and Clark or Lescott or Illori or Okore or whoever. Ayew also looks a lot more dangerous than Grealish in front of goal.

NARLA24 wrote:I would be surprised if he is not on the bench for Saturday. Just a feeling

If memory serves (and at my nascent dementia age it often fucking doesn't ) you were reckoning not so long ago we wouldn't be seeing him play for us again. Was that a Sherprick thing during his era?  I'm 99% sure you didn't say it since Garde came in so can you now elaborate on anything you may have heard.

Did they have a fallout over dress sense, with Kozak sneering at Lithium Tim's gilet in his hearing causing LT to point at Kozak's Slavic dungarees, knitted hat and Poundland pumps worn without socks and exclaim, "Ha ha, you flat-faced slaaag! Wot are you, the Polski Beau Brummel, you caaant! By the way, you'll never see the first team again, no facker takes the piss outta my schmutter."

There must be some story there, surely? Gestede isn't faster, hasn't demonstrated better hold up play and absolutely, positively isn't more skilful on the ground. On the contrary, Gestede reminds me of the wall in the back garden I used to whack the ball against when I was a kid. It couldn't trap a ball either and just allowed it to bounce off. The only value Gestede seems to have is in the air or from one yard out so another player can use him to score in the way a billiards player might use another ball to sink a pot.

The interesting thing is, Foxy's point about Kozak not being that good in the air may be true but I think it's a relative concept. Beneteke is good in the air. So was Drogba. So was Cahill. Peter Crouch, on the other hand, isn't renowned for being "good in the air". He is, or was, renowned for "having good feet for a big man". He's already in the air any time he's in the 6 yard box but you'll never see him do a Drogba or an Andy Gray. I think Kozak is the same. Like Crouch he will score with his head but it will look more like a ball bouncing off a lamppost - even if it is actually laser guided - rather than the result of barreling in between two defenders, all arms and elbows bullying the fuck out of them before launching the bullet header past the keeper.

ember wrote:The interesting thing is, Foxy's point about Kozak not being that good in the air may be true but I think it's a relative concept. Beneteke is good in the air. So was Drogba. So was Cahill. Peter Crouch, on the other hand, isn't renowned for being "good in the air". He is, or was, renowned for "having good feet for a big man". He's already in the air any time he's in the 6 yard box but you'll never see him do a Drogba or an Andy Gray. I think Kozak is the same. Like Crouch he will score with his head but it will look more like a ball bouncing off a lamppost - even if it is actually laser guided - rather than the result of barreling in between two defenders, all arms and elbows bullying the fuck out of them before launching the bullet header past the keeper.

I should elaborate. Lambert's whole game plan was for Guzan to punt the ball long to Benteke. Usually there was no one there so he'd lose the ball. The opposition would then have another go, Guzan gets the ball and repeat. Kozak came in when we all thought Benteke would be off, and Kozak would be his replacement. Benteke stayed, Libor scored a few goals in a handful of mostly substitute appearances and injured himself. What we saw though, back then and in pre-season this year, was that Kozak can't bring down balls punted long from the goalie. Going back to Lambert and Sherwood, both tried passing the ball out and working it up the field (this is where Westwood works in the middle of a 4-3-3) but we had no end product. Lambert had already tried and failed with the long ball, and was sacked before he could revert to it, while Sherwood tried the passing game and then with Gabby scoring no goals, moved on to the long ball. So now we see every ball from Guzan going long to Gestede. Bearing in mind how bad Guzan's aim is, Gestede is remarkably good at receiving the ball, he's just not so good at doing anything with it.

So this is where Kozak's lack of aerial prowess might be scuppering things for him. With our defence in a bit of a mess of late and with Sanchez replacing Westwood and offering a better defence to Westwood's distribution, the ball is coming out long because we can't risk Hutton or (mostly) Richardson bringing it out all the time. At least that's my theory! So if we remove Gestede from the team and have Kozak up front, I reckon Ayew on the left and Traore the right offer a lot more strength (in attack and defence) and danger than Grealish on the left and Sinclair on the right, especially with Bacuna playing at LB with his ability to put in some really nice crosses and to play with Ayew and Gueye. Sinclair can't play on the right, and Hutton didn't want to play with him last weekend, but he and Traore work ok together, so play the right winger on the right wing, not the left winger on the wrong wing. Ayew meanwhile looks as good on the left as he does the middle or right.

A gripe of mine that I keep banging on about is a lack of mixing things up. Weimann in particular used to be great at tearing up the pitch for Guzan to punt the ball to. Bearing in mind most of Guzan's long balls lead to us losing possession, why not try it with Traore, with Kozak in support? If the opposition know we have that kind of counter attack presence it's going to take some pressure off their attacks and set pieces. Meanwhile if we have players capable of scoring (as in Traore and Kozak, not Westwood, for example!) giving Guzan that option and giving the opposition something to think about, we need him to also have the option to roll out the ball to one of the midfielders or defenders so we can play the ball up the pitch. We need players providing options to receive the ball or to make the space others could exploit. We just don't seem to be counter attacking well, far too many times Guzan holds the ball while everyone saunters back to their places, with an opposition player glued to them. We have to stop marking the opposition players when we have the ball.

Kozak doesn't offer Gestede's ability to bring down a long ball, but he's very good at heading in balls in front of goal, plus he is good at making runs (remember he has some good football brains in Traore, Ayew and Veretout to feed him in) and has good feet. Gestede bringing down long balls and bulling people from corners and set pieces are his strong points, if the first isn't worth anything because he generally loses the ball and the second is something Kozak can do anyway, I can't see a reason why Kozak doesn't start the next few games in his place, he offers so much more.

One last thing (sorry!), in the U21 match two players went down and it looked like our player's fault but the Derby player seemed to lash out at them or kick them when they were on the ground. Kozak went and gave him a shove and had a go at him. A small ruckus ensued and the referee gave him a ticking off (while the commentator correctly pointed out that in a PL match Kozak would have received a yellow). Sure, a little rash, but he wasn't involved, saw something and stuck up for his teammate. That's what we need.

Can't argue with that Foxy.

Ayew has to play on the left to protect Bacuna (or whoever) as he does defend as opposed to Grealish.
Hutton is basically a good solid defender, the problem is his attacking or crossing, therefore it makes perfect sense to play Traore in front of him who offers no defence but awesome attacking potential. One on one Traore will destroy most defenders and therefore Villa have to exploit this aspect via the counter-attacking option.

Potentially we could play Sinclair as the centre forward as we know he will work hard and Arsenal haven't the quickest centre halves around but we do need to keep the ball on the ground or play it into the channels.

Another option seeing as the defence did okay last week after the initial 20 minutes or so, keep it the same and then play Richards as the holding midfield player instead of Sanchez, this would certainly energize our midfield?

So we need to score goals ? Kozak scores 2 for the u21s this week and he still will be nowhere near the first team this weekend.What the actual fuck is going on regarding this lad? Has he got a 2million pound a goal clause in his contract or what.?

NARLA24 wrote:So we need to score goals ? Kozak scores 2 for the u21s this week and he still will be nowhere near the first team this weekend.What the actual fuck is going on regarding this lad? Has he got a 2million pound a goal clause in his contract or what.?

I know he scored 2 goals but he didn't look happy at all, something is going on behind the scenes with Kozak, which we may never know about!

achilles wrote:

NARLA24 wrote:So we need to score goals ? Kozak scores 2 for the u21s this week and he still will be nowhere near the first team this weekend.What the actual fuck is going on regarding this lad? Has he got a 2million pound a goal clause in his contract or what.?

I know he scored 2 goals but he didn't look happy at all, something is going on behind the scenes with Kozak, which we may never know about!

I would not be happy if i could not seem to get in the first team mate. Like you say, there is something going on and we will never know

Interestingly Roy Keane said something on TV the other night about a "lack of leaders playing football today" and I think he is right, too many players are just happy picking up their considerable money.

I know Robbie Savage comes in for an awful lot of criticism (probably rightly) but what Villa could do with someone like him in our midfield.

achilles wrote:

NARLA24 wrote:So we need to score goals ? Kozak scores 2 for the u21s this week and he still will be nowhere near the first team this weekend.What the actual fuck is going on regarding this lad? Has he got a 2million pound a goal clause in his contract or what.?

I know he scored 2 goals but he didn't look happy at all, something is going on behind the scenes with Kozak, which we may never know about!

All the evidence points to something going on all right. Just read this shit (edited to remove extraneous shit).

http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/libor-kozak-remi-garde-aston-10582853

Libor Kozak could be allowed to leave Aston Villa in January with Remi Garde suggesting that the big striker is still no nearer to a first team appearance.

Asked if he is prepared to let the 26-year-old frontman leave in January, Garde replied: “Maybe. We will see what the situation is with Libor. I need to speak with him.” “You know, probably, I’ve got lot of potential players in this position," added Garde.

“I’ve got eight or nine attacking players which is a very strong competition between all these players.

“The game you mentioned is an under 21 game. I’ve got a report from this game. “It’s always good for a player to score goals and perform well, but sometimes it is not enough. I’m pleased Libor is training well and he’s playing with the under-21s with a good spirit.”

"See what the situation is"? Maybe it's just a phrase, figure of speech but even so, I'm astonished Garde has spoken publicly about "letting a player go" when he apparently hasn't spoken to the player about it. Unless he has already and is just  playing games with the press.

I'm just as astonished Garde has talked about Kozak's "spirit" in the game. Whatever "report" he got, the imbecile who authored it clearly failed to mention Kozak was doing a job but certainly was taking no pleasure in it.

As for all the other attacking options he supposedly has, I don't know where to begin when it comes to a sardonic response to that. I suspect his forwards selection and their goal tally against Arsenal will do it more eloquently than I can.

There's certainly more to this story than just football. Before he got injured he was beginning to settle into the premiership and was giving Benteke good competition for a place in the team.
His injury was totally mistreated losing him a full season of football and he comes back in pre-season, and still looks miles better than Gabby only to be totally overlooked by both Sherwood and Garde in a team that can't score at all.
His demeanour and 'celebrations' the other night show a player who is not happy at the club. This is different from pre-season so something has gone on behind the scenes.

I just find it weird cause Libor is exactly the type of striker I'd partner Ayew with.

He is strong enough to hold the ball up on his own, he adds a bit of heading power on corners, he has pretty decent off ball movement and he has the ability to score shit goals. Everything we need. It's just absurd to play Gestede over him.

I suspect this goes above Sherwood and Garde, but that's just my opinion. I refuse to believe both of these managers think Gestede and Gabby are better options to partner Ayew, than Kozak. Makes no fucking sense. Maybe he has banged Tom Fox's misses or something.

He's the best we've got at the moment so him not being in the squad is a non footballing issue

He played for the U21's today, so he definitely is not going to be anywhere near the first team tomorrow.

achilles wrote:He played for the U21's today, so he definitely is not going to be anywhere near the first team tomorrow.

Fuck him, he didn't score, was probably miserable all game - Garde's right no better than what already gets into the squad, move him on in January.

As much as we would like Kozak to play, if we actually put some decent crosses in Gestede wouldn't look too bad either.

Gestede just needs taking off after the hour when he gets tired

The thing is that Kozak knows he is not getting a fair crack of the whip so why should he bother?
He knows whatever he does he will not get into the first team squad, this is a first team squad that can't score goals!
I have absolutely no idea if he would be any better than what we have at the moment but one thing for certain he bloody well can't do any worse!

I utterly despair of this club sometimes, I just wish that I didn't give a shit!

achilles wrote: I have absolutely no idea if he would be any better than what we have at the moment but one thing for certain he bloody well can't do any worse!

I agree, I should point out, in case anyone should not realise I was taking the piss.

He certainly wouldn't do any worse. Gestede may score more if were pinging more crosses in for his head but so would Kozak. He would also score from balls coming in at a lower trajectory because he has a touch and timing Gestede doesn't have.

He'd also be a lot more useful in buildup and approach play because, unlike Rudy "Human Pinball Machine" Gestede, he can actually trap, control and distribute the ball.

Goodbye Libor, it could have been great and I suspect we all wish you the best of luck. Do us a favour and score for fun, just preferably not against us.

http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/aston-villas-libor-kozak-january-10667654

Questions will be asked of the manager if he does well wherever he ends up.

EbeneezerGoode wrote:Questions will be asked of the manager if he does well wherever he ends up.

I think questions are already being asked of the manager.

I actually wonder if this is Gardes decision TBH.

I have a bit of ITK that Garde got the villa job as he didn't demand the level of control that some other high profile managers were asking. In short hes a yes man - nothing he has done since his arrival has made me think otherwise.

Quite honestly this is a total farce!

We can't score goals so we are letting a proven goalscorer leave the club, when we haven't even given the guy a chance!

This club continues to piss me off!

Who were these high profile managers smetro?

DaveAV1 wrote:Who were these high profile managers smetro?

Paddy Riley spoke with David Moyes - but it was felt he wanted to much control so it wasn't pursued