Five Reasons to be cheerful as Aston Villa fans wasn’t exactly an easy column to write this week, although saying that it hasn’t been easy to write for the past four years!
Villa showed some promise that they would get a result at Stamford Bridge with decent application and the positive approach of taking the game to Chelsea, but then enter Brad Guzan performing like a clown to officially open the Villa defensive circus once again.
Potential relegation won’t be here until May…so in the meantime, here’s some reasons to be cheerful as Aston Villa fans, while the club work out how to get us out of this sorry mess.
- Face the Music
To his credit, Tim Sherwood is taking the current dire predicament that Aston Villa find themselves in, head-on. There’s no delusion in his post-match interviews like his predecessor. Whatever your views on Sherwood, after he sorted out the survival business last season and gave supporters a great Wembley FA Cup semi-final win over Liverpool, we owe him our support for the immediate future. At least give him a chance.
The problem though is soon there will be no room for sentiment or casual thoughts like ‘Well, at least give him to Christmas’, because Villa in the next few weeks could be in serious sh**.
The threat of relegation is serious and this season the team haven’t got a get-out-of-jail card like Christian Benteke. More worryingly, the current squad doesn’t look like they’re cut out to survive and the manager has no experience or track record in such situations.
The line between should Sherwood stay or good is a thin one, but it becomes less so with every loss he notches up. He knows the score and needs to improve fortunes fast.
2. Keep Ball
To be fair to Villa they looked ok in the early phases of the game at Stamford Bridge. Jack Grealish and Carles Gil showed that our midfield could keep the ball and probe for openings. Sherwood perhaps will now give them a run to hopefully build up an understanding and play Villa out of trouble. The team shouldn’t be relying on such young players, but at the moment, it’s as good as it gets in terms of hope.
3. Defensive Reinforcements
Don’t get me started on what those at the club thought they were doing with the goalkeeping position (both No.1 and No.2), which is much weaker than last season, but at least Jores Okore and Ciaran Clark are tipped to return soon. As I’ve said before, i would put them both in at centre-back and switch Richards to right-back. With Amavi on the other side, that’s about as solid a defence that Villa could put out.
Stop the leaking of stupid goals and we have a chance to drag ourselves out the mire.
4. No Messing
Villa captain Micah Richards sorted out that dirty weasel Diego Costa.
5. Welsh Luck
Surely Welsh luck has dried up? Well, at least for the near future. Their defeat in the rugby must be a turning point. Villa are going to win on Saturday and the three-points will kick-start a rival up the league. You heard it here first…but don’t quote me on it.
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We should have bought a goalkeeper in the summer. If its true, we went for Begovic and missed out, why was there no plan B? So, okay we didnt get the keeper we wanted, so lets stick with Guzan even though Ive dropped him for not being good enough on the ball! Makes no sense and goalkeeping is all about confidence.
Not had a decent goalkeeper for years. Guzan showed he was rubbish in euro games when o’neal picked him. Given was rubbish at Newcastle. Both born losers. It didnt take spurs long to get rid of Friedel. Our reserve keepers wouldnt get in local park team.
liverpool have same problem and so do sunderland. Its no good spending 20m on a striker and having a cheap keeper. Thats the place to start with all teams. Top teams have class keepers who are good decision makers. Guzan lost us the match at palace, leicester and now Chelsea, and thats just to name a few. I feel sorry for the guys running their hearts out. As for Chelsea, they for the first time in years have a poor keeper.
Given was actually good at Newcastle, that was his peak. As for Spurs not taking long to get rid of Friedel, that was only a short-term signing as he was about 116-years-old. For his age, Friedel had a solid spell at Villa. But yes, I was surprised Villa didn’t get a decent keeper in the summer. As you say, it’s a key starting point in building a team.
Why can’t anyone else see it’s not the personnel that’s the prob, it’s trying to pass our way out of the back that’s causing us to give away silly goals cos players keep losing the ball in dangerous areas when they can’t keep the ball under pressure…no amount of tweaking the backline will work if defenders coming in still continue to not be able to keep the ball under pressure
Lescott hoofing the ball is good, we need more of them to hoof the ball rather than losing the ball when they try to pass it out from back. I’ve finally understood why lambert and mcleish stuck with long balls, it’s much better than seeing your team give away the ball five times on average in front of your pen box every match.
Hoof it, dun even give a chance to the new vlaar to fumble his goal kick
Can’t go with the ‘hoofing’ as I watched too much of that under McLeish, but I agree that passing the ball sideways remains a big problem for Villa, especially passing it anywhere near the back four.
The sideways pass is a marker for cowardice – players aren’t confident in possession so they look to pass the ball and with it the responsibility. It is lame.
For all the moaning minnies seeking to blame another manager – was Sherwood to blame for the five years previous as well?
At least Villa looked like they could play football at Chelsea, and barring the moronic and incompetent football skills of Guzan, and the luckiest of weird deflections by Hutton, Villa should have got something from the game. Remember that. It wasn’t tactics or player selection that undid Villa, it was naive personal mistakes and bad luck. We can do something about the first, but not the latter.
Villa players need to stop passing responsibility, take control of the football, and look to move it forward.
Also sick of the many mewling fantasy football freaks calling for ‘Sherwood Out’ – the blokes first season in charge and trying to get 13 promising new players to click ffs. Give it a chance.
Chelsea showed that Villa are starting to gel as a team – and I think (probably with a new GK and CM in Jan) we will turn the corner and rise up the league come May.
Hold fast. UTV
NO hoof ball please !! We need to pass the ball further forward though , there is too much sideways & backwards passing of the ball , but that is not Sherwood’s way as he wants the team to attack more . But I hear he was given a staff member who favors the art of the crab
I am not a fan of Lambert but it is arguable that the ten points we got from the first four games of last season went a long way to saving our bacon last year. Sherwood did inspire a run of wins which also helped but it wasn’t all perfect as the shambolic trio of defeats/thrashings in the last three games showed and was perhaps a warning most of us chose to ignore.
We have now lost seven, won one and drawn one against possibly the worst team in the league apart from ourselves. Very worrying as we are not beating teams we should and must beat or even drawing with them.
Unless something drastic happens we are down.
Either Sherwood needs to sort Guzan and the defence out or we need to get someone else in who will.
Poaching Pulis would probably be a good idea and signing Charlie Austin.
I take it from this you have not seen much of Albion under Pulis. Pulis is McLeish – defensive minded football that hopes for an opposition mistake or a set piece. I don’t want to watch that again.
No I haven’t seen much of Albion because I’m a Villa fan but I do know they’re not second from bottom and that they beat us a couple of weeks ago. Even more annoying as they were one of the teams I was referring to as a should/must beat or at least draw with.
Your champagne football philosophy is all well and good when you are safe but we are not and will be doomed if we don’t pick up points soon.
Sherwood questioned why he should be pragmatic in the press today, the answer is simple, because we will be relegated otherwise.
Pulls has a track record of keeping teams up and he has the toughness that we need.
…Apart from Lescott and Guzan….and Richardson. And Hutton.
Anyway, perhaps we will have to wait a little longer until the Spaniards actually sack Moyes, so that “we” don’t have to dig deep for two comp packages. Money which if spent in the summer could have bought a proper striker with a Prem CV. So we’re maybe playing Mexican standoff with a bunch of Spanish people.
Running the numbers, can’t see it being salvage-able beyond Nov 9th….at which point we may need 33-34pts from 26 games. A whole season’s worth of wins, in other words. Or TWICE the feat that Sherwood pulled off in the spring with a better squad. Its in the numbers my chillen. And it is not good.
Amavi and Lescott main reasons for all the goals against us almost. Lescott always plays people onside and just hoofs the ball upfield most the time. Amavi too many errors at the back, leading to loss of confidence in defence from Guzan and Richards. Sherwood actually picked a good side this time apart from Lescott and we have no strike force going forward.
Here’s my five reasons to be annoyed with the villa
1 we look okay in midfield but there’s stil no end product
2 lescot what can I say west brom must be laughing there socks off
3 we must have played really well to have two shots on target
4 Chelsea never got out of second gear to beat us because we shoot ourselves in the foot all the time
5 Richards really showed Costa a thing or two (Costa 2 villa nil )
I can’t wait for the man city and Everton games to come around Swansea going to be bad enough they do play better football than us . It’s looking good for the rest of the season …………………not