West Bromwich Albion took their first win at Villa Park since May 1979. Back in May 1979, Margaret Thatcher was taking the reigns of the country as the UK’s first female Prime Minister, The Who played for the first time after the death of Keith Moon, and Villa were to finish 8th in the league, five points behind West Bromwich Albion.
Fast forward 32 years and there’s an alarming similarity. The Tories are in power, “The Who?” could be an appropriate exclamation regarding Darren Bent’s absence of a work rate, and Villa finishing five places behind Albion seems just as likely.
Today’s game was a calamity. Whether one wants to sit and chastise Phil Dowd for his impact on the game or not, Villa simply were not good enough. The calls for McLeish will resonate as predictable as ever following the loss, and whilst I’m not quite at the point of calling for his head, more performances like this will not help his cause.
The game was lost on the pitch, so McLeish is far from alone in blame. Darren Bent again looks a pale shadow of the player Villa fans thought he was last season, but whether this is down to service or being shown up, it isn’t unreasonable to say that Bent shouldn’t be in the first team.
Of course, if contract terms that suggest he must be played whenever fit turn out to actually be definitively true as suggested earlier this season, then it doesn’t just highlight a stupid mistake in a contract negotiation, it highlights a bigger problem.
If Money Is Scarce, Why Throw It Away Randomly?
To give a player who isn’t overly loyal a £5m signing on fee in one lump is naive, but it is only £5m. The indictment isn’t in spending, it is in the continuing short term thinking, the dichotomy of money vs players, the repeated mistakes that align the club with changing values that show a total lack of leadership.
After all, what exactly is Villa’s game plan this year? Save money? Rebuild? Develop a long term view?
It’s very easy to argue one way until Villa then seem to change the goalposts. Long term views are great when they are long term plans. I know exactly what long term plans involve having helped organise business strategies at numerous organisations.
Long term views need a strategic mind, but they also need a short term plan too.
Long term plans without short term ones are a waste of time. You can’t plan for next year if you haven’t sorted out how you’re going to pay for next month.
Buying Darren Bent was just what Villa needed in a moment of madness last year simply because he provided goals. Everyone knew at his purchase, even his most fervent supporters, that all Bent did was score goals. He was lazy, took many goals from penalties and “poaching” (a polite way of saying nicking the result of someone else’s work), but we needed goals.
Nowadays he isn’t scoring goals. A goalscorer without goals is a waste of space, and a waste of time. It’s like playing with ten men. Villa today lost a man to petulance and a refereeing decision. That man actually took Villa down to nine contributing players, not ten. Villa with Bent in the team at present is a total waste of time. A total waste of time that we apparently can’t drop.
People can talk about the lack of support, the lack of supply, the lack of whatever reason Bent is being seen as “underperforming” but the fact of the matter is he always has been like this. He’s played at a big club before at Tottenham, and he left.
He’s proven that he doesn’t fit a team ethic, he fits his own agenda. His own agenda was played to when he got £5m for doing nothing. That was Bent all over – something for nothing, and the kudos without the effort.
You Get Out What You Put In – In Our Case Not Much
People may, by now, be wondering why I haven’t put up a play-by-play match report after a game in the league. Consider this my equivalent contribution after watching Villa at home, paying out money, and then seeing what some players are offering me in effort in return.
If someone wants a succinct description that saves me the 1000 words of how we played, I’ll call it in three words.
Not good enough.
Villa need effort, and whilst it isn’t McLeish playing on the pitch, it is his role to motivate and get players working, and to think about the tactics that win games for Villa. The fact that Villa have lost a player, lost a game, and are starting to lose the plot is a whole lot of losses in one sentence.
All I can hope is that those losses don’t become an increasing feature for the club.
If they do, then the “long term plans” are just waffle. At present, I don’t actually think there are any plans beyond broad ones such as cutting costs.
Cutting costs, whilst great for a business’s bottom line, is not great for a football club if that is your sole choice.
After all, if the wage bill is cut, but we go down, then there’s £38m gone straight away. Saving money short term is great but not if the end result, ironically, actually means you end up losing more money because of austerity.
Villa were fortunate to pull out of the nose dive last year with a short term purchase. The question is can we pull out of poor form this year or will we buy “another Bent” in January out of desperation?
Because we can’t go down this season, can we?
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