THE six pointer in the battle for 5th, bad injury news and O’Neill gets a smacked bum
Villa face Everton on Sunday and we have to face the reality that (at least until we get a few wins under our belt); we are now battling with Everton for 5th.
The fight with Arsenal is either;
- over and lost, or
- a few weeks in the future, when we have picked ourselves up off the ground.
Arsenal have received more bad injury news, something that has hounded their season all along, with Almunia and Clichy out for a few weeks and Gallas out for the season. Van Persie and Eduardo are on the brink of fitness though, but it can’t be seen as anything other than good news for us that they are having a few problems at the back.
Unfortunately the same goes for us. Martin Laursen and Freddie Bouma are both taking much longer to return than was expected and we are struggling at the back as a result. Nicky Shorey may have finally got himself into the team which will add some balance, but both him and Luke Young love to attack, which can leave us exposed occasionally. This wouldn’t be so much of a problem if we had the rock that is Laursen at the back, but Davies, Knight and Cuellar are struggling to be at their best without the inspirational captain alongside them.
Finally, Martin O’Neill has had his wrist slapped by the FA for his behaviour after the Man Utd game, when he protested to the ref about the 5 minutes of added time. It seemed a lot, but I hear that Sky Sports worked out that it should’ve been at least 4 minutes, so I won’t argue about the length of time. What I did want to clear up though, is that Man U fans keep singing the same tune; “the goal was scored just 2 minutes into added time”.
I know we’re from Midlands, but we’re not stupid. We understand that the goal was scored early into added time, we were just gutted by the psychological blow that 5 minutes represented. By that point in the game, United had come back at us and were looking very dangerous. They got a goal through Ronaldo and that gave them a huge lift, and our defence rode a real storm for the last 10 minutes… then they were told they had to carry on for 5 more minutes, after the battle had seemed almost over.
Manchester United are (loathe though we may sometimes be to admit it) an expceptionally good team, with pace, skill, determination and stamina that can be very difficult to defend against. So to suddenly be told that the battle isn’t over, can be just the kick in the teeth to make you concede. Which is exactly what went down.
So Man U fans, a large part of our upset about the 5 minutes is actually in respect of your club. And most importantly, it’s fricking GUTTING to lose like that (just ask Everton), so we were bound to moan about something!
You HAVE to take your chances…
…especially at Old Trafford.
Villa created more chances than Man Utd yesterday but failed to convert as many into goals. Which adds up to a loss.
The way that we lost was heart-breaking, made even more so by the fact that half of my family are from Stretford and are therefore (bona-fide) Man U fans, and they gave me loads of stick.
But… (and it’s a big but)
I was proud of the way our boys bounced back.
We are in the middle of a disastrous losing streak and this was the first game since our scalping, but we came out and played great. We played the way we played that got us 4th. We made many chances. We attacked fiercely and were excellent in midfield.
And we didn’t even drop our heads when we went one-down either.
We rallied and through perseverance and determination and teamwork we got ourselves in front. Not many teams can go behind at Old Trafford and then go on to win the game. If the game had been 80 minutes long then we would’ve.
In fact, if the game had been 90 minutes long we’d have surely got something.
My dad said to me after Ronaldo equalised “You watch now, the ref will allow an hour of injury time so that Man U can win”. And whilst an hour is obviously an exaggeration;
Where did FIVE minutes come from?
Five minutes of injury time usually occurs when someone gets seriously injured and has to be stretchered off. It seemed unjust to me. I’m not the type to claim ‘cheating’, but I’d be interested to know how it was made up.
But I won’t spend too long being down because our boys did us proud. Now we have to take that performance to the last games of the season because that would get us plenty of wins. Fingers crossed Arsenal slip up, but I’m far from expecting it, I’m more interested in Everton results now.
Clash of the losing streaks
Villa travel up the M6 again on Sunday, exactly 2 weeks after the incident that we won’t mention. This time we will travel up there either feeling;
- Re-invigorated from the international break and ready to re-attack the Premier League, or
- Even more sheepish and crapping our pants that we will get another spanking.
I pray that it is option 1, but I can’t seem to kill off the devil on my shoulder telling me it’s option 2. Another humiliating defeat will drop our heads even lower than they already are.
So much has been made of ‘Villa’s demise’, but for some of it we haven’t played bad football. We made Chelsea really work hard for their victory, we outclassed Stoke for the vast majority of the game, we gave Spurs a torrid time in the first half, we had some good play against Man City, we even had our moments against Liverpool. The problems seem to be;
- Turning our chances into goals (I know, taking our chances has been a problem all season, but now we are having less of them it’s become more imperative)
- Remembering that a football game lasts 90 minutes!
So are things really as bad as the media will have you believe? Not quite, but if drop our guard on Sunday and get spanked then they will have a horrid end of season time.
How did we become such LOSERS and is 4-5-1 the only way to bring it to an END?
Not too long ago, though it’s beginning to feel like a lifetime, Aston Villa were winning games left right and centre. We were 4th in the Premier League, well ahead of Arsenal, and coasting towards the Champions League qualification spot. Villa press was more about whether they had a chance of catching 3rd placed Chelsea, than whether Arsenal could overtake us.
We broke the clubs all-time record for away wins on the bounce and we were all on cloud 9 and loving every minute of the best season to be a Villa fan for far too long.
Villa went on an unbeaten league run from 15th Nov, when we beat the aforementioned Arsenal at their own ground, until 21st Feb when we hosted a rejuvinated Chelsea and gave them a damn good run for their money.
But since the victory at Ewood Park, Villa have seen a dramatic downturn in fortunes; losing to Everton to fall out of the FA Cup, losing to CSKA Moscow to fall out of the UEFA Cup and losing to Man City, Chelsea and Tottenham in the league, dropping us below Arsenal and out of the Champions League spot we’ve strived for.
We had become losers. Losing was something we had begun to forget the feeling of. And we liked it that way thank you very much. But now the losing feeling has well and truly set itself back in and is showing no signs of going just yet. We don’t like it!
Then it all culminated in a humiliating thrashing at the hands of Liverpool on Sunday. A 5-0 beating is not the kind of result you expect a team to get who are supposed to be challenging to break into the top four.
Will Villa bounce back from it? With the next 2 games being a trip to the league leaders and then a tough clash against Everton, it doesn’t look all that rosy. We can take solace in the fact that they both lost this weekend so wins are possible, but a huge attitude change is required by Villa.
Many (me included) will be screaming out for a 4-5-1 formation in both those games, as midfield domination and counter attacks have proved to be the winning formula for Villa. Yes, teams have ‘figured us out’ but even if they have sussed us, that doesn’t make them able to contain us. Do people really think that all the teams we beat were stupid enough not to know our formula? Of course they knew our strengths, just the same as every team that faces Man Utd et al knows their strengths, they just aren’t able to do much about it.
It wasn’t until Villa changed the formula and stopped playing to our strengths, that we stopped winning.
I’m calling for MON to bring back the old style. Bring back the 5-4-1. Bring back the confidence. And bring back the wins. There’s still plenty time.
Who is with me?
Up the Villa.
Laursen return on-again again, Mellberg may play against us in the summer and transfer rumours
Filed under: Aston Villa, Injury News, Transfer News
It’s becoming a real on-again off-again affair, but now Laursen’s return date is being re-suggested as the Man Utd trip. I’m not sure whether Setanta Sports are simply out of date or if Laursen now re-plans to be back by that game. It had originally been pencilled in for him to return then, but after a training setback it looked to be delayed till the Everton game of the following Sunday.
Hopefully Laursen isn’t rushing back because of the panic that is growing at the club. I’d really hate to see him rush back and then end up going straight back out injured again as a result. If we are to mount any kind of challenge on 4th place, I see Laursen as a figurehead of it. He gives us a lot more stability and confidence when he’s on the pitch.
Peace Cup
Never heard of it? You can be forgiven for that because it has only taken place 3 times before, every two years since 2003. Tottenham have won it in the past, along with PSV and Lyon.
The competition will be druing this summer’s close season break and the confirmed teams so far are: Real Madrid, Sevilla, Juventus, Ajax, Porto, Lyon and us. So there are decent chances of Mellberg playing against his former club, which will mean a lot to him as he still holds us in very high regard, as do we him.
The tournament will be a decent chance for us to get used to playing high quality European teams, preparing us for our goal of reaching the Champions League.
Transfer rumours
Villa are rumoured to be interested in Bosnia and Herzegovina international striker; Edin Dzeko. The striker is also believed to be on the radar of Arsenal and Valencia, after a successful couple of seasons for Wolfsburg in the Bundesliga and a near 1-in-2 goals ratio for his country.
Also on the rumour mill is Portugal defender Miguel, who could fill our problem position of right back. The player is currently out of form, so unless O’Neill feels he can get him back to his best, I don’t see this one as that likely. We have Luke Young, who has fit into the team as well as can be expected for someone playing out of position, so hoepfully we will look more eagerly for a left back than right.
Finally on my transfer rumour radar is Tom Huddlestone. The Tottenham youngster is proving himself to be full of potential and ability and may well have a promising career ahead of him. He has been mentioned as a £6m target, but whether he is ready yet to fill Barry’s boots is unclear.
It just keeps getting better and better for Villa
Villa fans - happy as a pig in sh.... errr.... errr..... excrement!
Twice Liverpool got our hopes up that we would finish the weekend level on points with them but eventually took a little of the shine off Saturday night by winning in the final minutes and Man Utd gave glimmers of hope by taking an hour to score, but the most important game to Villa fans (other than our own, of course!) was the North London derby and that turned out pretty nice.
Arsenal went into the weekend 5 points south of us but we will still be looking over our shoulders all the way as the Gunners are reknowned for going the distance, and we are still considered the new boys, punching above our weight.
Mixed results for Villa’s rivals
After the Wigan game Martin O’Neill said ‘we just couldn’t force the ball over the line’ and never has that been so true! On another occasion the boys in Claret and Blue would have hammered the Latics but on the day it just wasn’t too be.
Luke Young may have said earlier in the week that he feels Villa have a chance at winning the title, in terms of current league standings that is true but a more realistic ambition is Champions League qualification and the draw at Wigan didn’t hurt as much as it could. I’m going to review the games involving the teams around the Villa and see how the competition is performing.
I’ll start Read more
Sunderland vs Villa – How to watch the action
It says "Ha'way the lads"... the air is thinner up there!
Today at 3pm GMT, Villa face Sunderland and hope that it won’t be grim up north. There are a number of other games that affect us this weekend (Monday night is now part of the weekend, didn’t you hear?) too:
- As hard as it is to believe, we will actually be challenging Chelsea for positions this weekend. Now if you’ve been in a coma for 6 months and just woke up and read that sentence, you may question just how long you’ve been gone for, but if we win today and Chelsea don’t, we go above them. Honest. No games in hand or anything like that either, just a string of great results for us and some less than convincing games from the boys in blue.
- Talking of boys in blue, Everton may be 6 points behind us, but with the steam train they’ve been riding recently we can never take our eyes off them. They play on Monday night in a new venture for the Merseyside derby and though it’s at Anfield and though they may end up giving Tony Cottee a start if any more strikers get injured, I think they may well nick it.
- Man Utd are away to Bolton and would need to lose 6-0 while we win 6-0 for us to go above them. If you put a pound on those 2 scores and they happen you’ll be rich, but I think you’d be better off spending the pound on half a pint to be honest. Man U are in winning form and they have top of the league
- in their sights so don’t go expecting us to be above them by tonight.
- Finally 2 teams who have been our main rivals at different points this season are facing each other today; Hull host Arsenal. Hull’s drop in form has seen them fall from rivalry with us for places but Arsenal can go above us if they win and we lose. We stay above them as long as we get a point but that gives them a chance to close the 3 point gap. Watch it live on Setanta from 17.00 GMT.
Where will Villa be in the table at the end of the season?
The Premier League table at present makes for some very interesting reading, Liverpool are top for a start, so you can be forgiven for seeing it and thinking it’s from the 80s. The main point of note though is how in-the-thick-of-it Villa are, currently ahead of Arsenal, level on points with Man U (but they have 2 games in hand) and, most amazingly, just 1 point behind Chelsea.
Both Villa and Chelsea have this season found better form on the road than at home, Chelsea going as far as winning twice as many away than at the Bridge. Villa are unbeaten in the Prem for over 2 months, during which time we have picked up 6 wins and not many of those wins have involved convincing performances. Luck has undoubtedly shined on us, but has that distorted the table? Or do you create your own luck?
Villa have won Read more
Gillingham vs Aston Villa – Why confidence could be our downfall – Match preview
In the FA Cup we have become pretty used to being unceremoniously dumped out by Manchester United in the 3rd or 4th round, so when this year’s draw came out the hat and we had Stockport or Gillingham, a wave of relief (or shock) passed over Villa fans. But for us to go into this game thinking “We’ll win this easy” can be just as dangerous as when we go into previous FA Cup games against Man U thinking “We’ve got no chance”. Cockiness got us stung in the League Cup, when we were beaten by QPR in a game we failed miserably to control.
We must avoid this today against the Gills.
The FA Cup’s prominence is a helpful factor, being a Saturday game rather than a midweek game sandwiched in between important league fixtures. So we should head into this game with a full strength side, rather than a mixture of A- and B-team players. The problem with playing fringe players in these games is that a) they are not as accustomed to playing as a team and b) they can let their heads drop very easily and play desperate football, as has been seen 3 times this season.
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