DEBATE: Tiredness? Small squad? Inexperience? Incapability? What IS Aston Villa’s problem?

May 13, 2009 by Martin Banks
Filed under: Aston Villa, Hot topic debates 

Aston Villa’s recovery from their winless streak lasted for just one match! Not the best.

You can’t take anything away from Fulham; they played well and deserved to beat us, but it served to severely deflate a huge number of Villa fans who thought we had re-found our winning form of earlier in the season and were going to go unbeaten for the last 4 games. We’d already left it late enough to start winning again, but we still had 5th in our grasp and if we won our games we would secure it. Whatever your opinion in the grand scale, 5th IS an improvement over 6th, so it would’ve been another season of climbing up the league ladder (whether that climb is quick enough is your own opinion and for another debate, not this one).

But Villa blew it after just one win and now have 2 games left which we will have to win because Everton won’t be letting us get away with it again. We have the tough task of facing 2 teams fighting for their Premier League status though (Newcastle and Boro), so they will be real dogfights.

What has caused our slide?

At earlier points in the season we occupied 4th place and even made it look pretty secure. We had a big gap over Arsenal and were flying high, winning almost every time we walked out onto the park. We looked uncatchable and destined to be in next season’s Champions League qualification games. Then it all went tits up!

We gave up our lead and let Arsenal back in (not just back in but let them fly away ahead of us) and now we find ourselves relying on Everton to draw to keep hold of 5th. What went wrong?

Was it our small squad? Are you tired of hearing that we have a small squad, especially when MON didn’t utilise January to fill it out?

Was it our January signings that knocked confidence out of the players and made them feel like the club wasn’t aiming as high as they were? All we brought in was Emile Heskey (who has never been Mr Popularity), who is not going to score 20 goals and lead us to the top of the league and Arsenio Halfuid, who is for the youth system for now.

Is it Martin O’Neill? He has many more fans than critics (maybe not right now), but there are plenty out there who believe that MON is no divine saviour and it has been his ineptitude, particularly in the transfer market that has led to our recent downturn in fortunes. (Personally, I’m not in this group; yeah he’s having a mare at the minute but look where he’s got us from and to)

Was it the ‘throwing away’ of the UEFA Cup that caused the problems? Did the way we seemed to concede knock the stuffing out of us and lead us into this awful run-in?

What’s your opinion? Who or what do you blame for Villa’s dramatic change to the season? Click comment and add your views to the debate.


Comments

5 Comments on DEBATE: Tiredness? Small squad? Inexperience? Incapability? What IS Aston Villa’s problem?

  1. Rich on Wed, 13th May 2009 12:26

    2. It all coincided with Martin Laursens absense. As soon as he dropped out we started losing. We still create chances but our forwards and wingers have to drop deeper to cover a lacklustre defence. Our main priority in the transfer window must be a SOLID CB a la Laursen, and spend big on him. After that, a creative central midfielder to replace or add cover for Barry.

    Also Ashley young has been found out a little, the tactics used against him are easy, as he is often the only man bursting forward, just look at how ineffective Messi has been vs english teams who pressure the midfield and can afford to get 2 players to man mark him. This has happened to Ash without Gabby in support, and without JC for the 2nd half of the season, there has been no outlet for them, they run into a corner and peter out. When the ball comes back, we are all at sea. With a RB at LB and a CM at RB we had no cover in the FB positions. When everyone was fit and in position, we were class, when you break up the team structure, there is no plan B. We need to strengthen….badly. You only have to look at Arsenals squad to see we cant compete.

  2. Kiwivillan on Wed, 13th May 2009 12:29

    3. Where is the manager’s tactical ineffectualness option.

    [It's right here now :) ]

  3. moocher on Wed, 13th May 2009 12:37

    4. With out doubt our ‘failures’ this season have been down to MON not buying either at the start of the season or in January. The purchases he made at the beginning of the season only added to the team not the squad. His reluctance to go for the bigger and more expensive players have cost us dearly. Is he somehow related to Ellis? Players were available who went to other clubs ie Hangeland, Defoe, Crouch etc, players available on loan ie Jo, players who would have moved if an acceptable offer was put in ie Martins. So there really are no excuses. Come on MON get it right this year. PLEASE!

  4. andy villa on Thu, 14th May 2009 7:51

    5. our style of play, coupled with the small squad…

    we are a counter attacking style team, which means that we allow the opposition posession, while we chase the game and put pressure on them, and then when we get the ball, we counter with pace…

    this obviously takes a lot out of the players, and early on in the season we were running at the end of games on positive adreneline… lose a few games, and the tiredness comes all more important to the players, and we are not lasting games now, due to that, and in the process, losing points…

    we do not really have the ability to keep posession ourselves, and make the opposition chase the game… and tbh, i dont really think that after the season, we have the energy to protect the ball when we have it…

    with a bigger squad, we could cope better, but we also need players who can keep posession of the football, as standard (pace would be nice too)… although, i am not pointing out anything that wasnt already obvious to most of us…

  5. richard french on Fri, 28th Aug 2009 19:21

    6. Still not convinced MON knows what is best for the club, very dissapointing to go out of europe so early. Although Villa had the chance to put the game to bed. The point is good teams know how to win games when they don’t take all their chances. Our tactics as ever were extremely niave, our wide men stayed out too wide allowing Rapid to overrun us in midfield.

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