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?
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.
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