Losing Gareth Barry is Not A Problem. Is it?
When questioned by Sky Sports this weekend about whether losing Gareth Barry for the next game is a problem, Capello’s response was ‘No’ and that he’d have to find a new solution. I couldn’t help but spot the pertinence of these words to us.
Martin O’Neill and Villa find themselves in this same position; needing to find a solution for the new-found lack of Barry. Where England have Frank Lampard, Steve Gerrard, Michael Carrick and David Beckham in the central midfield position, Villa have Steve Sidwell and Nigel Reo-Coker and others.
Nigel Reo-Coker
Villa signed NRC for £8.5m but last season he spent most his time on the bench and when he did play it was out of position. £8.5m seems a lot to pay for a utility player, so does this mean he will be filling Barry’s role next season? During the pre-Milner games, Reo-Coker played right midfield and showed an aptitude for attacking play, so could he be the yin to Petrov’s yang?
Steve Sidwell
Sidders was brought in for that familiar Villa fee; £undisclosed. The plan was for Sidders to replace Gareth Barry when he left for Liverpool. Neither happened. Barry stayed and Sidwell got injured.
On his recovery, Sidwell forced his way into the side as part of the notorious 4-5-1, that the fans loved but MON wasn’t so keen on and stubbornly refused to go back to it if he could help it. Sidwell had some good moments, scored some great goals, but then again got injured and disappeared from the team on his return.
Others
There is a feeling amongst some fans that James Milner could make the switch from right wing to central mdifield and do a good job there. It would mean a change to the focus of his game, looking to pick out clinical passes and penetrative through balls, as opposed to his runs down the wings and crossing (not his specialty anyway). Could he do it?
Craig Garnder has played in almost every position on the park for the first team, being used as more of a utility player than NRC! Gardner is a player who always gives 100% and certainly has ability, but does he have enough to be the new mainstay in the middle for Villa?
We also have Salifou and Osbourne but I can already imagine what you lot will think of them as solutions to this puzzle.
Newbie
The other option for us is to look elsewhere. There have been no shortage of names linked with us by the papers including Jenas, Huddlestone, Defour & Delph amongst many more.
What’s the answer for Villa then? Do we need to look around or take one of the internal propsects?
If these rumours are true, we could be in for a much less successful season next term, so enjoy this one while it lasts
It’s not exactly new information, but it is now time that it’s ugly head needs to be reared and dealt with as an imminent reality. The word on the street is that Randy Lerner is suffering due to the credit crunch and won’t be in a position to fork out for the players we so desperately need to continue our growth and to complete the job we were doing so well at for a large part of this season.
It is being suggested that we will need to sell in order to raise cash for transfers, with Harewood, Shorey, Knight and Gardner mentioned by the Express & Star.
Progress-wise I wouldn’t be averse to seeing them go, but I do have my reservations;
- Gardner is a great bloke to have in the squad as he will always give 100% and is very versatile
- Shorey is finally starting to look the part and there is no guarantee that Bouma will be able to rekindle his old form and fitness, so we could be left exposed at left back (which we all know would see Luke Young switched to there and a makeshift RB drafted in)
- Knight is a lifelong Villa fan, so as one myself, I will always have a bond with him, I concede that we would probably be better off cashing in though
- Harewood wouldn’t be a great loss but is doubtful to raise the kind of cash that would buy us anyone great
As mentioned though, none of these would bring us rakes of cash, so we’d probably only get one big player from selling all four of them and we have already shown that to grow, we need both a bigger and better squad.
You have to sympathise with Lerner in some ways; the guy has done some great stuff for the club so far and has raised us from a club who were struggling to stay in the top flight, to pushing on the Big Four and knocking on the Champions League’s door. But until we achieve that goal, the club will probably cost him more in transfers than he will make back and at the end of the day the guy is a businessman.
If we made it into the Champions League for a few seasons and started to progress in the competition, then he would be laughing, but he must be seeing that as a very big IF right now, with the US and the UK in financial struggles and his fortunes looking far from stable.
The irony is, that to get the kind of money we need, we’d have to sell the players who are most likely to get us there. You have to fancy that Barry will be going either way, which will bring us some money (not as much as last summer’s figure, but still not a bad figure) but also the rumours of Chelsea offering big money for Ashley Young could prove very tempting for Lerner.
The Champions League has distorted football since it’s inception, making the top clubs so much harder to compete with. If you can get into it you have much more chance of staying in it, but now that we have the Big Four situation here, it is going to take years for any club to properly get amongst them, even Man City will need time. How they can fix it is a whole-nother subject and all ideas have their downfalls. Maybe they could limit how much of the earnings can be spent on signing new players and paying wages, but as I say that’s another topic for another day.
So will he be willing to splash the cash this summer? Is his heart and faith strong enough to take the risk during a time of uncertainty or will he play it safe and risk the wrath of some fans?
Villa 1-2 MSK Zilina – What went wrong?
Did MON get it wrong last night? Not necessarily
Last night’s loss was an embarrassing scoreline that will not help us to rebuild our confidence after failing to score against Fulham despite such dominance. The game was won and lost (won by them and lost by us) in a 3 minute spell, just after the quarter of an hour mark. MSK started stronger than anyone had expected but it was still a huge shock when Vladimir Leitner’s cross was left by Zat Knight and it ended up in the net.
Villa were shocked and stunned, and while we were still pondering how on earth we were losing, Zilina caught us on the backfoot with a well worked passing movement and doubled that lead. Villa had to snap out of it and fast. We continued to push forward but Ashley Young’s crossing and Marlon Harewood’s positioning weren’t marrying up too well. Just before the half hour mark up stepped the new Villa youth wonderkid, Nathan Delfouneso, with a wonderful strike that was supposed to be the beginning of our comeback.
It didn’t happen.
Gardner plays superb for England U21s, Agbonlahor and Young now with good chance of senior England action… at last and Barry remains regular in the national side
Filed under: Ashley Young, Aston Villa, Craig Gardner, Gabriel Agbonlahor, Gareth Barry, International Football, Match Previews, Match Reports, Player Profiles
Last night saw an England international friendly take place, not quite to the same media frenzy as tonight’s senior game against Germany, but successful all the same. Stuart Pearce’s U21 side took on the Czech Republic U21 at Bramall Lane and triumphed 2-0, thanks to goals from Manchester United’s Fraizer Campbell, currently out on loan at Harry Rednkapp’s Tottenham Hotspur, and none other than Villa’s own home-grown talent; Craig Gardner.
Campbell opened the scoring ten minutes into the game with a deftly taken goal, played through by Peterborough goalie Joe Lewis, who had a great game till he went off injured. The second goal came at the same length into the second half, from a free-kick by Gardner that you couldn’t quite tell if he meant it or not. It was a low free-kick, that went under the wall and into the bottom corner of the net. Through pride for one of our own, we’ll say: Played for… and got! Well done Craig.
In addition to the goal, Gardner also played a good commanding role in the midfield for the side, showing he could have potential to get back in the Villa side, but with our current crop of players you can only see him making it if injuries help him out. A loan move would certainly benefit him, but I doubt O’Neill would sanction letting players go when we still don’t have the largest of squads.
On to the senior England team Read more
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