By Myles Palmer
Arsenal are unbeaten in 15 games at Villa Park.
But that’s ancient history.
Every football match is different because the circumstances surrounding every football match are different, even if the 22 players are the same.
Since Dortmund are an energy team who generate momentum, and sustain their attacks with verve, I thought Oxlade should have started in the Westfalenstadion, since he is a high–energy competitor who can hold the ball, run fast with it, and chase opponents.
I reckon Oxlade could play for Klopp in a year or two.
When Villa won 1-0 at Liverpool, big centreback Nathan Baker had a very good game.
Gabby Agbonlahor scored early and they just sat back and Fabian Delph’s pressing was colossal.
I read a story about Gabby a few years ago in The Guardian.
But I can't find the piece in their archive, so maybe it wasn’t The Guardian.
THE ARTICLE SAID SOMETHING LIKE THIS:
The six youth coaches at Bodymoor Heath, their training ground, would sit round a table every summer and discuss the progress of the youngsters one by one, keeping some, letting others go.
When it came to Agbonlahor, a local lad and a Villa supporter, five of the six coaches voted to let him go.
But the senior youth coach said, “Look, he’s got this raw pace. I know his first touch puts the ball nearer Newcastle than Birmingham, but let’s keep him for another year and see what happens. What’s it gonna cost us?”
Today we learned that Villa boss Paul Lambert went to Dortmund on Tuesday to watch their game against Arsenal.
Midfielder Lambert was out of contract at Motherwell in 1996 and without a job.
His agent asked him if he was willing to play abroad. He was and he agreed to go to Borussia Dortmund on trial.
The club was then coached by the great Ottmar Hitzfeld and Lambert had played against Dortmund in the Uefa Cup two years previously.
Hitzfeld signed him and turned him into a defensive midfielder whose precise passes started good moves from deep positions.
Lambert played 44 games for Dortmund in his only season there and they reached the Champions League Final in Munich, where they played the Juventus, the holders.
Lambert made the first goal and marked Zidane out of the game and Dortmund won 3-1.
Then Celtic signed him and he played there for seven years. He captain Celtic in the 2003 Uefa Cup Final in Seville where they took Joe Mourinho’s Porto into extra time before losing 3-1 after having a player sent off.
At that time I used to write about football for The Scotsman, 90 Minutes and FourFourTwo.
Hugh Southon and I used to phone loads of footballers and get 600 words off them. Hughie gave me scores of numbers.
Doing this over a period of time, and talking to Hughie every day, and talking to an influential agent in the Midlands, I got to know a lot about what was really going on inside many clubs, most of which was unpublishable.
And I became quite pally with Ray Wilkins, Chris Waddle, Darren Anderton and Mark Draper.
Only two players ever asked where I got their phone number: Keith Curle and David Ginola. My reply to both was, “From another journalist.”
One day I had to get hold of Paul Lambert, so I sent a fax to Dortmund.
Later on that afternoon I realised I’d blown it. This was an international week and I should have realised that Lambert would not be in Germany. Damn! He would have flown to Glasgow, where Scotland had a home game. I cursed my stupidity, my inability to get the basics right.
But at 6.30pm the phone rang.
“Is that Myles Palmer?”
“Yes.”
“Paul Lambert. What can I do for you?”
I thought, “What a gentleman!”
Dortmund had forwarded my fax to Largs, Scotland’s training HQ on the Ayrshire coast.
20th September 2014
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