Aston Villa

Why Aston Villa should snap-up Owen Hargreaves – June 2nd 2012

In theory and in practice, Aston Villa look very light in midfield – especially in the centre. With all due respect to some of the youngsters that have progressed through the academy at Villa Park, there’s nobody in that area of the pitch that has enough experience or quality to properly influence games.

Stylian Petrov used to be that player, but his tragic personal situation has left a hole in that part of the pitch – as secondary a concern as that is.

Villa’s poor return last season was due to myriad factors – Alex McLeish, his negative style of play, and the misallocation of the resources at his disposal. McLeish is thankfully history, and before Paul Lambert can start remodelling the squad, he should take stock of some of the more positive areas that exist in the team.

Darren Bent is a proven goalscorer, Charles N’Zogbia – when focused – is an asset out-wide, and the defensive personnel at the club are capable of far more than they contributed last season.

If Randy Lerner is still imposing his austerity measures on the club, then Owen Hargreaves would be well-worth a look. He didn’t play much for Manchester City, admittedly, but that owed more to do with the quality of their squad then his famed malleability. If he was fit, and if he was given a full pre-season to prepare, then he would immediately inject that midfield with energy, ball-winning ability, and quality on the ball – an excellent signing. Additionally, dropping him in just infront of the defence would provide the kind of security that Villa lacked last year.

When you have a lot of young players in and around a first team squad, you need to balance them with older professionals who know how to react when things don’t go to plan. As it is, Villa are very flimsy, and look very susceptible to pressure.

It’s not without its risks, because obviously there’s a huge question mark over how much he can contribute – but he would never have got a contract from Roberto Mancini in the first place had the Italian not been satisfied with his core level of fitness.

Potentially a very astute signing.

Final thoughts on Alex McLeish’s time at Aston Villa – May 15th 2012

Ron Atkinson is quoted by the BBC this morning as saying that he doesn’t believe Alex McLeish was ‘given a fair crack of the whip’ at Aston Villa.

Oh do one, Ron – it’s always the same with the managers’ club; all sticking up for each other, all making excuses.

“If he’d come straight down from Rangers, everyone would have said he’s a great signing for them.”

No, I don’t think they would. Managing in Scotland is not a proving ground for The Premier League – winning the SPL with Rangers or Celtic is akin to conquering League One with Liverpool. The football public at large can point to the lack of support Villa fans showed the Scot while he was in charge, but while their original hostility was owed to his time – his unsuccessful time – at Birmingham, ultimately their vitriol towards him was a product of the way his team were performing.

There were lots of other quotes given by Atkinson, presumably from a sun lounger in Marbella, where he attributes the problems at Villa Park to the lack of quality in the playing staff, points the fingers at the owners, and describes other myriad factors which ‘hampered’ McLeish.

Here’s what actually prevented Alex McLeish succeeding this season: Alex McLeish. He sets his teams out to play overly-negative football, yet hasn’t the ability to implement a decent enough defensive system. Anybody see the potential issue there? It relegated Birmingham, and it very nearly put-paid to Villa this year.

The situation under Randy Lerner is admittedly tricky – the American clearly wants to scale back both costs and ambition at his club. That being said, the Villa side we all saw this season was, through its approach rather than its composition, a big middle-finger to the fans. That’s McLeish’s doing – Randy Lerner provides the resources, but the manager puts the product on the field.

Ron Atkinson can talk about under-talented players if he likes, but there’s no way that Villa squad should be finishing sixteenth in the Premier League. That’s under-performance. Don’t paint the picture of a diligent manager ‘struggling against the odds’, when the reality is of a tactically-deficient coach who’s out of his depth in English football.

The Villa fans were negative about his appointment because they knew what McLeish would do to their club – and they were right. At what point this season did his performance warrant any backing?

He’s been sacked for poor performance, like anybody else in any other job would be – there’s no mileage in any ‘hard-luck’ stories here.

Lashing out at the silly little boys from Aston Villa – May 4th 2012

The Premier League Owl

James Collins, Fabian Delph and Chris Herd, you’ve embarrassed yourselves.

Supposedly the three of them got themselves involved in a nightclub incident in the middle of Birmingham on Monday night. The paper’s ‘only five days before a crucial game against Tottenham’ line is irrelevant, because it doesn’t actually matter how close to a fixture this kind of thing occurs – it’s still wrong.

This is James Collins’ defence/apology that was issued through the Villa website:

“I let myself get into a position in which I didn’t act responsibly and I apologise for this.

I know I’ve let myself down, I’ve let the club down, I’ve let the manager down and, most of all, I’ve let down the fans of Aston Villa who have been great to me. It was Monday night, it was early in the week and I didn’t have training the next day.

But I know I’ve let myself down, I’ve let the club down, I’ve let the manager down and, most of all, I’ve let down the fans of Aston Villa – who have been great to me.”

So you want some credit for recognising that you’ve behaved like a tosser? Well done, James, well done.

It’s so insincere; it’s a templated apology stuffed with rhetoric. Replace the name of the club, and that could be a statement from any player, from any team, who has ever done anything wrong in their career.

Collins should know better. Whatever occurred in this nightclub is an irrelevance; none of these players should have been there – the Villa fans almost certainly feel short-changed this season, so what does this kind of incident do to the relationship between the supporters and the squad?

Footballers, like the rest of us, need to unwind away from their professions – but there are so many different ways of doing that, most of which don’t involve alcohol or public disorder in any way at all. Players have to smarter than this, in particular those who are deemed not to be performing in line with their wages.

Because of his age and experience, it’s easy to apportion all the blame to Collins, but Fabian Delph and Chris Herd should be hammered for this. Delph has made 26 appearances in three years, and is clearly one of those players with a huge sense of entitlement – lauded as a youngster, heralded as the next big thing while at Leeds, and now an non-factor in the Premier League. Chris Herd is a good player, but he must realise that he hasn’t accumulated enough purchase in the game to be doing things like this.

Big superstar players on a night out? Yeah, keep laughing all the way to the Championship.

Why we should all hope Aston Villa get relegated – April 25th 2012

What Randy Lerner has created at Villa Park is horrifying. A football club devoid of any ambition, who are content to simply exist in the Premier League.

It’s an awful reality for the fans, and to be charged to watch that team amounts to a mugging. From the moment Alex McLeish was appointed, everybody should’ve known what was coming next – this is a managerial Grim Reaper; wherever he goes relegation becomes a threat. Winning trophies in the two-team league north of the border doesn’t count, McLeish has nothing on his footballing CV that qualifies him to manage a club of this size.

“Fuck of McLeish, the Villa is ours” sang the home support in the second city last night, and they’re right. The analogy with this club, is of a hotel shutting down for the winter and putting a skeleton staff in charge, with the hope that nothing goes wrong. McLeish is the caretaker, dour and under-skilled, given a job that nobody else really wanted.

If Randy Lerner succeeds with this type of scaling back, then it creates a template for other sides in the leage – ie. you don’t have to compete, you just to exist and pick up the cheque. It’s an insult to the fans and to the game, because it’s first and foremost a spectator sport – but yet, Villa are behaving like a bankruptcy-threatened company. It’s Randy Lerner’s obligation to put a team on the pitch who do justice to the fans that pay their wages, not to just ‘do the best we can with what we’ve got’. This is a proud football club with a great set of fans and a famous stadium, and between them, Lerner and McLeish are turning it into a laughing-stock.

If Villa go down, which looking at the fixture list appears plausible, it will serve as a warning for any other club owner who tries this approach. For the fans you would feel desperately sorry, but it would be for the greater good. Slashing your wage bill, replacing your best players with kids, and hoping that nobody notices is not a way to run a a Premier League team – and relegation would ultimately prove that. Randy Lerner should be told this: if you’re not willing or able to compete in this league, then sell-up to somebody that is – because all he’s doing at the moment is taking advantage of the fan’s loyalty.

McLeish has the ‘full support of the board’ does he? That says it all.

Gabriel Agbonlahor’s loyalty is hurting his career – March 17th 2012

I admire players that stay at the same club for their entire careers, it’s a dying trend in the game, and in amongst all the money-lust it’s refreshing.

Gabriel Agbonlahor is a good player, definitely one who belongs in the top-6 of the Premier League. Aston Villa are a big club, one whose reputation and size should make them at least top-6 competitive. However, given that it looks increasingly unlikely that Villa are able to offer Agbonlahor the platform his talent should be affording him, how much longer can he afford to stay in the Midlands before his career stagnates?

Agbonlahor is a Villa fan, and again, there’s something really admirable about fan-type loyalty in contemporary players. The problem here, is that the forward’s loyalty to the club is probably going to cost him a chance of an England future. It’s important to clarify this though: it’s not Aston Villa holding Agbonlahor back, it’s Alex McLeish’s management and Randy Lerner’s ownership of the club that is. Villa under Martin O’Neil, the attacking, pacey, ambitious Villa were a perfect fit for him – it’s just the current incarnation that’s stunting his progression.

Clearly, the pace the player has underpins pretty much every aspect of his game – and at twenty-five, there are only a few more years left before that acceleration starts to fade. It’s a classic conundrum for Agbonlahor, it’s loyalty versus ambition.

If McLeish stays as manager, and Lerner progresses with his progression-free directives, could anyone really blame the player for wanting to move. Is Danny Welbeck in the England squad entirely because of his abilities, or is it in part owed to him being a Manchester United player? Is the same not true of Daniel Sturridge? These are the players that Agbonlahor now lags behind, and its horribly unfair, because he hasn’t just cashed in his commitment to Villa and gone to sit on Chelsea’s bench. But that’s football.

Difficult decisions are approaching…