Back once again for the Rengade Master; Young, There’s only Juan Pablo Angel and Bolton game
Hi all, sorry for taking a few days off, I’m back now and there’s plenty of Villa fluff around the internet that is worth a mention.
First off, Ashley Young has been crowned PFA Young Player Of The Year, which some may see as a bit of a shock as we have been off form of late and so has he. But the PFA Awards are actually decided around February-ish from what I hear and that would make perfect sense as up till then he was flying high and playing superb. There may be some detractors around who aren’t convinced he deserves the award but I am a big fan of the boy and though he may be in a bit of a lull, I believe he will come back and be great some more for us (that’s if he doesn’t trap to Chelsea).
Next up, our old friend Juan Pablo Angel has popped up on the Villa site talking of his delight for our recent success (y’know, back when we were winning games and in the top four). Angel says he still has a lot of love for Villa and has been watching us maintain a top five position with joy. It lead me to thinking;
How would Angel fit into the current Villa set up?
I began imagining a 4-5-1 with Barry, Milner and Young supplying the South American with some tasty balls… and I couldn’t help but like the thought. He could get on the end of the crosses from our wingers and also get hold of through balls from Barry and Petrov. Maybe I’m glorifying him in his absence; remembering the good seasons and forgetting the bad.
Finally, the Bolton game. It wasn’t great was it? We played ok. I won’t give them any more praise than that but I won’t be any harder on them than that either. We created chances but not in the abundance we often do. We scored what can only really be described as a fluke goal and we conceded another cack goal.
Cuellar’s marking is very poor and I hold it to blame for the goal and the dropped 2 points. Harsh maybe, but man-marking is the first lesson you learn when you are 6 and you say to the PE teacher that you want to play in defence. So with an £8m international centre back it should come as part of the package surely. Cohen was left entirely free in the box on the free kick, and as bad luck had it for us the ball fell to him. Maybe it’s not all on Cuellar, but as the senior centre half he really should be either marking loose men or organising the boys to get it done.
All in all, things still are in a lull for Villa but we are now unbeaten in 3 games, which is certainly an improvement after the 4 game losing streak. The ‘easy’ run-in we had doesn’t look so likely to help us beat Arsenal to 4th now does it? But as long the Gunners only gain1 point from their last 4 games and we win all of ours then 4th is ours. Easy.
The central defence conundrum
Super Skipper
Without Martin Laursen there is no doubt that Villa are leaky at the back. Brad Friedel, whilst still very capable and with some very valuable experience, needs a little more protection than Knight and Davies offer. Carlos Cuellar is injured almost as often as Laursen and when he is fit he is often played out of position.
So what is the answer to Villa’s defensive riddle?
There’s no two ways about it; Villa miss Laursen MASSIVELY. We are dangerously reliant on the injury prone skipper and while he has been out we have seen our first bad run this season, with goals leaking in far more than any challenge on the top four can sustain.
The partnership of Curtis Davies and Zat Knight initially looked like it was capable of being solid, with a couple of good games where they played with confidence but it soon deteriorated and now they just look shaky and like they don’t trust each other or even sometimes; like they don’t want to be there. The job of a central defender is an often thankless task, but it is also a VERY important cog in a winning machine. Our cog is looking very rusty and it is showing in the results.
Carlos Cuellar has spent far too much of his Villa spell so far on the sidelines or at full back. He initially looked like he has potential but has struggled to adjust fully and is still a long way from the quality we need at the back. I think if he and Laursen were fully fit they could forge a great partnership, but that doesn’t look likely at all. In fact, we Villans may have to accept that Martin Laursen will never return to full fitness. There have even been suggestions that his career is over.
Come the summer we will definitely need to purchase at least one centre back. We need a proven, reliable, solid player. Not a youngster hoping to come good or a player who used to be good (I’ll let you assign names there).
If we want to mount a better challenge next season, then we need new defensive signings to make sure the wheels don’t come off mid-flow again.
FOUR. FIVE. ONE. It HAS to be!
Gabby Agbonlahor is out with a virus (which probably means a snotty nose) and Emile Heskey is out (thanks Fabio) which means that MON may well revert back to the fan favourite formation of 4-5-1. Carew (also the fan’s choice at present) should find himself alone up front today, with Milner and Young not far behind him on either side and Petrov, Reo-Coker and Barry in the midfield.
It’s not a forgone conclusion, we know how stubborn O’Neill can be, but the other likely option he could choose would be to give Delfouneso a start, which would also go down well with the fans. I’d be surprised to see him start the lad in such a crucial and difficult game though.
Also out for Villa is Carlos Cuellar, so we are well short at the back (as we have been for large parts of the season). The back four will most likely be Young, Knight, Davies and Shorey. Hopefully he won’t go with any of his hare-brained plans of playing midfielders at full back and/or full backs on the wrong sides. We will need to be tight at the back today and a mifielder with straying tendencies could well work against us.
Cuellar shut up!, Osbourne out, Wenger rallying cry and are Villa off the rails?
OK then, for today’s blog post, I promise I won’t mention Arsenal!
There’s been no shortage of press coverage for our beloved club this last week or two, and a lot of it has been pretty negative. A season that was powering forward at full steam, seems to have come off the rails in recent weeks. So is it time to panic? Nah, I don’t think so. Yeah we haven’t had much in the way of convincing results, but if you look at it closely it’s not panic time yet.
- Everton in the FA Cup was always going to be difficult; they had a point to prove after the previous meeting and let’s be honest, when Everton are on their game (and by Everton I mainly mean Arteta and Cahill), they are very hard to beat. And they wanted it more than us, because try as we might to convince ourselves, our mind was on the league moreso than the FA Cup.
- CSKA at home wasn’t bad and away the kids gave it a damn good go. We lost, but you can’t help but feel that MON engineered it that way.
- Chelsea were on their new-manager buzz, but we still made it very hard for them and if Young’s free kick had been an inch or two lower that may have given us a draw.
- And Stoke was going well for 88 minutes. Enough said on that though.
So yeah, whilst it’s all been a bit of a cacker, it isn’t time to give up yet. We’re still 4th and still 6 points clear of our nearest rival… errr… can’t think of their name at the minute.
Nobody panic, keep the love and keep the faith, we’ll get back to winning ways soon (Wednesday hopefully).
What else has been going on then?
Isaiah Osbourne is going out on loan to Nottingham Forest for 2 months. I think this is a good thing, as the lad is never going to improve or build his confidence by sitting on our bench (at best), and we have plenty of options in the middle of the park. Whether he will ever be good enough for the ‘new improved Villa’ is debatable, but I’m willing to give the guy some patience as he, like me, is a huge life-long Villa fan.
Sky Sports have reported that Carlos Cuellar thinks Ronaldo should stay with Man Utd, as a move to Real Madrid wouldn’t suit his style. My advice: Shut up Carlos, let the nob leave!
And finally, our last minute decaying against Stoke may have given that team in 5th a kick up the arse to drive the remainder of their season. So we need to get back on our game and quick, a 6 point gap can disappear quickly if you relax.
Sweet, I got through with no mention of Arsenal, well I mentioned them once but I think I got away with it 
Injuries mount up ahead of the visit of the Ruskies
With the UEFA Cup knockout round against CSKA Moscow now upon us, Villa are feeling the pinch of our small squad as the number of injuries stack up in our physio room. In the Premier League, Villa have so far only fielded 19 different players, 10 less than the league leaders, a sign of the slimness of our numbers.
The injury concerns on MON’s plate for tonight are as follows Read more
Villa vs Sunderland – Is Kenwyne Jones playing against his team-mates-to-be?
With Kenwyne Jones being one of the main links to Villa during the transfer window (although it seems Spurs are determined to outbid us), how will he feel about facing us on Saturday? The tall striker had been linked with a £5m move and now a vastly improved £12m bid from Villa, a rumour which O’Neill hasn’t denied, but at the same time he hasn’t confirmed it either.
That’s the thing with MON, he’s very cagey about transfers. He doesn’t admit to anything in press conferences, so us Villa fans are left murmuring about the rumours we’ve heard in papers or on websites or down Honest Joe’s Cafe. Maybe he’s pondering a move for teenage whiz-kid Masal Bugduv! Bugduv is believed to be the next big thing, taking the world of Fantasy Football to new realms.
The game
McGrath thinks we can paste the Baggies and there’s positive vibes on the injury scene
Filed under: Aston Villa, Injury News, Match Previews, Transfer News
It’s not just the Villa fans buzzing with the hope for the claret and blue future, there’s also ex-players bigging us up these days. When I refer to an ‘ex-player’, I don’t just mean some shit player who played once for us under David O’Leary, had a crap game and scored an own goal, no I am talking about the man many Villa fans refer to as God; Paul McGrath.
McGrath, a legend to Villans, reckons we will smash 4 past Scott Carson, our goalie of last season. He feels the challenge of our pace and skill will be too much for the Baggies to cope with on Saturday morning, a sentiment I have to agree with. Our strengths are exactly the kind that West Brom struggle with and if Ashley Young is on form, he will do a lot of penetrating into the ‘Bramich’ box.
Villa vs Hull – Match preview – Finish the year in the top four
Tomorrow night Villa take on the team that going into this month were our rivals as far as positions in the Prem table, but a poor run of form for them and a good run of form for us has seen them fall 8 points behind us and our new rivals are Arsenal.
Villa have been temporarilyknocked out of the top four by the Arsenal’s victory over Pompey yesterday, but it’s only on goal difference so provided we don’t lose up in Hull, we will finish the year in the top four. In fact if we get a better result than Man U do tonight against Middlesbrough, we will finish the year THIRD. We’re all Middlesbrough fans for a day.
To Hull and back
Injury concerns for Villa vs Arsenal
Filed under: Aston Villa, Injury News, Match Previews
The bad news for Villa fans is that our captain Martin Laursen is not going to be fit to face the Arse on Boxing Day, thanks to a knee injury picked up in the victory over West Ham last Saturday. This is bad news for Villa as he has been in superb form this season.
Laursen (or as my wife calls him; Mouthbreather) has spent a large amount of his career on the physio table, so the fear is that this is a niggle not a serious injury.
Injury blows for the Fulham game
Filed under: Aston Villa, Carlos Cuéllar, Injury News, John Carew, Luke Young, Nigel Reo-Coker
Everything was going swimmingly, Carlos Cuellar had returned to training so was a possibility, but if he failed to recover fitness NRC could ably deputise, and we even had a selection headache between the five man midfield or a 4-4-2 which saw Carew return to the fold…
Then problems hit.
Down goes Carew Read more
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