Five games unbeaten ‘Hurrah!!’ what world beaters we are. Is the season for Aston Villa supporters now just a slow decent into despair? Can they at least shock Manchester City at Villa Park to extend another unlikely run in the FA Cup?
There’s a pattern in the sky over Villa Park
Patterns in style and philosophy are emerging as we are becoming dominant in most games we’ve played throughout the great five-game unbeaten run we find ourselves on. Most notably the complete domination we handled our noisy neighbours in last week’s action. West Brom failed to take one shot on target, leaving our new hot-shot goalie Mark Bunn bored between the Villa sticks. As well as keeping it tighter at the back, possession seems to be one area we’ve greatly improved in. The stats don’t lie and 63% possession in our latest game shows a shift in game management from Tim Sherwood’s direct and long-ball approach.
But does possession mean anything? Not really, if you cast your mind back to when Paul Lambert was in charge of us you may find that we went over 10 hours without a goal in the league but with high possession stats also. So is this the same old problem haunting the Villa all over again?
Who’s going to dig us out of here?
After watching the last few games it’s obvious what we’re missing and it’s a striker who can put the ball in the back of the net. Seeing Kozak and Gestede fail in hitting the net on a regular basis as well as not being able to create chances for others, it’s indisputable that we need something different upfront.
We’ve been linked with Dwight Gayle, Patrick Bamford, Michy Batshuayi, Seydou Doumbia and the ever so optimistic fans have put two and two together and got five and linked out-of-favour and ex-Villa hitman Christian Benteke with the club. It’s simple though, with confidence creeping in within the ranks of the playing staff any one of those linked strikers would help the cause. But are any of those realistic in the slightest?
Forecast Ahead
First up, the return of the snake (Delph). Villa go up against Man City fresh from their League Cup semi-final win against Everton, where they booked themselves into a Wembley final to face Liverpool.
Man City haven’t performed to their best away from the Etihad this season, most recently drawing 2-2 with our next league opponents West Ham (nice transition). West Ham are still on an unbeaten run of their own as they look to continue their ten game unbeaten streak at home. The introduction of returning Payet also looks to be bad timing for Villa as he showed he could really mix it with the superstars of Man City.
Club Temperature: 2°
Things are heating up at our club but in a very lackadaisical rate. We may be unbeaten in five but there’s no new goalkeeper, no new right-back and no new striker. Frustrations on social media from fans are evident and it couldn’t be clearer within the last few games that these positions are where we are weak.
Seeing other clubs in and around us bringing in £8million + players with Premier League quality and experience is a sight for sore eyes as we look more and more adrift from the teams above us.
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