“I have a sneaky feeling he will play” – Jol on Darren Bent
From the words of Martin ‘Grolsch Man’ Jol, it seems two facts are getting some respect back for a Villa team that may have presented themselves as three-point fodder for most opposition teams, since last season. First, there’s Villa’s impressive result walking away from the Etihad with a 4-2 win against Manchester City, and then the fact Villa are now seemingly good enough to have the luxury of one of England’s best finishers on the bench!
Martin Jol on Villa
“[Villa’s problem] it’s more about inconsistency, like most teams. If you saw them against Manchester City in the League Cup, they beat them 4-2. They had a 1-1 draw with Newcastle away from home; it’s almost impossible to have a good result there. So they are capable of having results.
Of course, they had a 4-1 against Southampton, who scored in the right moments, so it was an indifferent result for them [Villa]. But I feel they have good players if you consider Bent is on the bench. Benteke, we were interested in him as well, he’s a big talent. He scored two goals for Belgium [in the international break]. Agbonlahor is probably one of the quickest players up front in the English league.
They’ve got Ireland, they’ve got Holman – I know him from Holland, he’s an athletic player. They’ve got El Ahmadi – he’s good, he’s a good number four, so they’ve got quality. So we have to use our quality, we have to try to dominant them and create chances then hopefully with the home advantage, we’ll be strong enough to have a result.
We don’t underestimate them, because maybe Man City did, because they played a different team, but they still should be good enough to have a good result against Aston Villa and they didn’t; they got beat 4-2. As I said, I feel it’s a team with good qualities, with one of the best goalscorers in England on the bench and I have a sneaky feeling he will play!”
MOMS on Twitter – @oldmansaid
