Villa’s Proper Man of the Week
Marc Albrighton
For latest award for Proper Man of the Week, as Villa fans we can only hope that the honour and prestige this award gives the lucky recipient, does not go to their head like it did Fabian Delph. After receiving the award, Fab felt invincible and thought he could walk the ball out of defence against West Ham, which in turn lead to a pensioner stealing possession and scoring his second.
The week the latest award was based on was definitely not the best Villa has had this year. A humbling defeat at home to the usually toothless Hammers and then a windswept goalless draw in the Welsh capital. There was one shining light in this quite miserable week however, and that was Marc Albrighton.
Against West Ham, Marc came on to the field with 56 minutes played and instantly sparked Villa Park into life with his direct running and crosses whipped in with serious venom. West Ham left back George McCartney was cowering like a lost puppy every time he saw Villa’s number 12 hurtling towards him.
What Marc ‘kick it and run’ Albrighton lacks in trickery he makes up for in desire, endeavour and a sheer will to win for his beloved team. The man bleeds claret and blue, which you can see every time he crosses the white line. Even more exciting than that for Villa fans is his apparent improvement with his final ball, something a lot of wingers tend to lack. However in the West Ham game especially, he put in dangerous ball after dangerous ball into the box and how his teammates did not capitalise on one of them, only the footballing Gods know.
A lot may have to do with the fact a certain James Collins was defending like a rock (what a lot of us would give to have that balding ginger back in our defence).
Anyway, well done Magic Marc Albrighton for achieving this prestigious award. Your simplicity is golden. Keep banging in those crosses and I am sure Big Ben or even Mr Greggs will latch onto one soon.
Stat of the Week – Villa have averaged just over 43% of possession in games this season. In the last two games though, they have achieved 68% and 55% respectively. A change for the better, maybe?
The Villain Who Has To Pick Himself Up and Go Again
The whole Villa squad
It has been hard to pick one man this week with such poor performances across the board. So I thought best to go for the playing squad as a collective.
The Villa squad seem to think that they are Rocky Balboa in Rocky III, where Rocky fights Mr T and takes loads of hits and only performs for one round to knock Mr T out. The players typically this season seem to only be able to perform for a half or 30 minutes, like against the Hammers. You can’t do that in this league, especially when you are not clinical and don’t make that pressure count.
Is this a coaching issue? Are Lambert’s speeches at half-time or before the game not motivating enough? Or can the players simply not understand his rich Scottish accent? We will never know, but PL certainly doesn’t hold back on the touchline barking orders and geeing up the players. I just hope we see that run and jump celebration he does down the touchline a lot more over the rest of the season. UTV
Quote of the week – “There are a lot of teams in there [fighting for survival]. There is no panic, you just need to try to win more games than not.” …yeah, well done Paul, you’ve got the idea!
Who was your player of the week? Comment below.
*The column picture features former Villa skipper John ‘Jack’ Devey pictured here in 1895. As well as captaining Villa and being capped for England, he was also a top cricketer for Warwickshire, a decent baseball player, cyclist and runner. An all round proper man!
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