Marlon Harewood – Is he a victim of raised expectations?

December 4, 2008 by Martin Banks
Filed under: Aston Villa, Marlon Harewood, Player Profiles 
Marlon makes more money from his film roles than from his goals bonus

Marlon makes more money as baddies in kid's movies than from his 'goals bonus'

The speculation on Marlon Harewood’s future has been going on for a large part of this season, making only a handful of appearances and failing to impress in them. Marlon has done an about turn in the fans minds, first finding himself an unlikely hero last season when he became known as a super-sub, coming on in a number of games and scoring, but this season he finds that many fans have turned against him.

This term Marlon has found it increasingly difficult to get involved, even missing a rare opportunity to start a game because his missus selfishly decided to give birth! That’s women for you isn’t it?!

Last season’s goals

All of the big man’s league goals came from the bench last season, as Harewood hit the net five times. His first goal was up at the fortress that is Anfield, where he came on for Craig Gardner and after three minutes on the pitch he scored a sensational over-head kick. From there Marlon built on his new found popularity with what proved to be the winning goal against Reading and his other three goals came as the final goal in thrashings (4-0 vs Blackburn, 4-0 vs Bolton and 6-0 vs Derby). He also scored early on in the season in the 5-0 league cup win over Wrexham.

His reputation as a super-sub grew but it didn’t help him to win a starting place; he has made only one league start for Villa since joining. Instead, Harewood is preferred as a player to bring in for cup games to allow other players some rest, having made his other six starts in the League Cup and UEFA Cup. But still, he was very popular with the fans, who always wanted him to come on in the games where we needed a goal from somewhere.

This season

His only goal this season came in the draw against Litex at home, a well taken goal, but it wasn’t enough to be forgiven by most fans for a poor performance against QPR, where his misses helped to see us tumble out of the competition. Since then he has made just four substitute appearances, making little impact in each.

Now, with the transfer window almost upon us, the majority of talk about him is in links with a move to Stoke City or West Brom. O’Neill insists these are just rumours though:

“The speculation isn’t coming from me. I just don’t know.”

But does add:

“I don’t want to be making absolute statements and then find out you’re eating a fair dose of humble pie about two days later.”

Which you can’t help but think translates to “If the right offer comes along, we’ll sell but until then we’ll say nothing”.

No pressure Marlon

After all the speculation and goings on, Harewood had a big game on him tonight in the UEFA Cup, knowing a point was still needed to secure our qualification, and that would be much easier to come by at home to come by at home to Zilina than away to Hamburg. So with some pressure on his shoulders he trotted out and landed in a game he would never have expected. In a diappointing display from the whole team, Harewood struggled to both get into good spaces and also convert what chances he did get.

But has Marlon really had such a bad season or has he just suffered from raised expectations from the manager and the fans?


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