The Good, Bad and Ugly of an Eventful Week
A week is a long time in the Aston Villa world; it’s either a week of plumbing new depths in terms of performance or panic over hierarchy, but at least it’s only boring on the pitch, eh?
The Good
A goal against Sunderland and a win against Bologna at least got a couple of unwanted millstones lifted from Aston Villa. Just imagine losing to Sunderland and Bologna? Then there would really have been a need for crisis meetings.
Instead, the Bologna game showed some small green shoots of recovery. A more attacking outlook, the ball moving faster, and ultimately some chances and shots. Despite being outshot by Bologna 17-12, Villa had the better chances to put the match to bed.
A win and better performance were the bare minimum, and Villa delivered.
But a caveat would be the quality of the opposition. Bologna played right into the Villa plan and still nearly came away with something.
Once again, Marco Bizot showed he’s a significant upgrade on Robin Olsen for whenever Emi Martinez just doesn’t feel like showing up.
Villan of the Week – Evan Guessand
Guessand is a curious player. One part Bertrand Traoré, the other part a wannabe Patrick Vieira.
While he continues to find his feet in attack, coming close to scoring in both the Sunderland and Bologna games, it’s in defence that he raises eyebrows.
As necessary cover for Matty Cash, Guessand put in three crunching slide tackles in the first minutes against Sunderland, which followed up his shackling of Jack Grealish in the Everton game.
If Unai Emery can figure out where his unique skills work best, Villa may have a very useful player on their hands.
The Bad
Despite the positives, the Sunderland and Bologna games reinforced much of what has been bad this season so far.
The attack is completely misfiring. Whether it’s Morgan Rogers playing like someone has stolen his powers or Ollie Watkins’ zombie-like state, it just isn’t working at all.
Rogers was so bad against Bologna that a successful, simple five-yard pass was cheered by the home crowd. Simple message sent, sharpen up.
Losing the ball 30 times in a game isn’t acceptable, and you’re going to get a crowd reaction.
While the creative players are always first to suffer when a team is low on confidence, there are basics that Rogers is either overthinking, trying too hard, or executing poorly.
To his credit, despite his form, he always fronts up looking for the ball and keeps pushing the stone up the hill like Sisyphus.
Watkins is currently another matter. When he won the penalty against Bologna, it was a 50/50 call.
Let him take it and try to shake himself out of whatever is going on in his head, or risk him missing and becoming even more of a passenger in the coming games.
Normally, there is no debate. You let your striker get off and running; however, a penalty isn’t Watkins’ strong point with four missed in his last eight.
Without any real competition for his place, Watkins’ lack of impact all over the pitch is probably the most concerning issue in Villa’s attack.
His complete lack of effort (“lazy” as Unai Emery called it), allowing Granit Xhaka to set up the Sunderland equaliser, was compounded by his failure to connect with Jadon Sancho’s cross at the end.
Like Rogers, the only answer is to sharpen up before the Villa crowd starts sharing the blame.
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The Ugly
Goodbye Monchi, the ”Messi of Recruitment”, or is it the mess of recruitment?
When you scout a player, you look for all attributes, both good and bad. You definitely look for the red flags.
So why did Villa not look for the red flags when appointing a head of transfers?
Ask Roma fans, have a look at the transfers from that time, bought in with the money from Alison Becker and Mo Salah.
Better still, just look at the Sevilla finances after his second spell there.
The Monchi style of recruitment may have worked previously, but in the modern day, with Villa-tinted glasses off, it’s been a predictable disaster.
There are three success stories in this period: Youri Tielemans, Pau Torres, and Morgan Rogers.
People giving Monchi the credit for these need to have a look at the timescales and circumstances.
Tielemans was wrapped up before he arrived, Pau Torres was Emery’s boy, and Morgan Rogers passed the eye test in a FA Cup game against Middlesbrough in front of Emery himself.
Journalists have pointed out that Emery has the final say on signings, so the blame cannot be laid at Monchi’s feet, but I have to ask the question: who brings Option A and Option B to the manager to choose?
Are we meant to believe Emery does the scouting himself, as well as trying to manage a fragile Villa side?
The overriding feeling of the Monchi era, much like the Chris Heck commercial era, is a wasted opportunity.
By qualifying for the Champions League, Aston Villa had a golden ticket to lay the foundations both on and off the pitch to give themselves the best chance for a sustainable challenge to the established top six, and they blew it.
Douglas Luiz may not have been everyone’s cup of tea, but he played a part in getting Villa to the promised land, and the deal taking him to Juventus left Villa with two players in Barrenechea and Illing Jnr, who are unlikely to ever contribute.
Wasting massive sums of money on players who haven’t made an impact on the first eleven is suicidal unless you have the revenue to absorb a gamble.
Donyell Malen, Amadou Onana, and to a lesser extent Ian Maatsen were risky gambles. Onana, with his unreliable fitness and lack of physicality, and Malen, with his lack of drive.
Only Maatsen may turn out to be a good signing, and he was part of a deal with Chelsea to dodge PSR.
In January, Marcus Rashford and Marco Asensio were the equivalent of any port in a storm when Villa’s season was on the rocks and necessary because of previous poor choices.
Now in his final act, Aston Villa have been left with an unbalanced and ageing squad that desperately needed major surgery instead of the twin sticking plasters of Jadon Sancho and Harvey Elliot.
The Monchi era hopefully ended before any terminal damage was done, but the ugly truth is that Aston Villa may never get that golden ticket to smash the glass ceiling ever again.
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