Albion reaction, and a points target for the next four games

Credit where credit is due, Alex McLeish managed to pull out a real firecracker with the pre-contract signing agreement of Brett Holman in January. Deservedly “man of the match” on Sunday, Holman is basically the human equivalent of the great racehorse Red Rum. Rumour has it his lung capacity is so great he can blow up 1000 birthday balloons without even stopping for air. He’s an absolute machine.

A far from capacity crowd of less than 35,000 bundled into Villa Park on Sunday afternoon to witness a quick-tempo score draw, leaving Villa with a solitary win from six. Our last fixture before the international break falls this Sunday at White Hart Lane against a Tottenham Hotspur side who will be sure to have their tails up having secured a memorable victory at Old Trafford last weekend.

I thought we were the better side for the majority of the 90 versus West Brom, again we kept and passed the ball really well for long periods, and when we lost it we were niggling away to win it back—positive traits that we’re seeing more and more under Paul Lambert. But once again it was all rather lackadaisical in the final third. There was plenty of huffing and puffing but we just couldn’t seem to find that much-needed creative spark or killer ball. And as a supporter it’s very frustrating to watch.

When I looked at the Albion starting XI in a 4-5-1 with Shane Long up front on his lonesome, it seemed fairly obvious as to the way they were going to play the game; simply flood the midfield and get bodies behind the ball with the hope that they can nick one on the break, or from a set-piece with one of their big men getting on the end of something.

At half-time I genuinely thought that our opponents were there for the taking if only we could find that elusive penetrating ball in behind their two centre-halves for Gabby to latch onto. But then just several minutes into the second half we give away a sloppy goal when attempting to play James Morrison offside thirty-five yards from our goal. Matthew Lowton misreads the step-up before Morrison crosses for Long who couldn’t miss.

I personally cannot fathom as to why we felt the need to play an absurd high-risk offside trap in this scenario when Albion had only two players that could then affect the next passage of play. There’s nobody else up in support of them, and so the majority of the time if we just let Morrison bring the ball down and get bodies behind again, he then has no choice but to recycle it.

From a Villa perspective the next half-an-hour proved to be very painful viewing. Albion were happy to hold onto their lead and kept the ball for short spells, frustrating us. And any half-chance that we did create we spurned—until DB9 came off the bench to bag an equaliser with 10 minutes to go. One would now think he’s in line to start against his former club this weekend but as we all know predicting a Lambert team sheet is a fruitless act.

“Good point for us in the end yesterday [Sunday] and really pleased to get on the score sheet again.” – @DarrenBent

In the wake of Christian Benteke’s poor showing against the Baggies many non-Villans have been quick to label him the

“new Emile Heskey”. This I find more than a little harsh as he’s certainly more mobile, and also has a greater presence than the former England man. I’m confident that we’ll see plenty of positive things from him just as soon as he settles into his new Premier League surroundings. If anything, the lad is just guilty of trying a bit too hard.

Benteke wasn’t brought in to bag 20-plus goals per season. He’s there to act as a foil for his partner up front, and to rattle defences. I say that because in the West Brom match there were a couple of occasions when he should have squared the ball to a colleague with a much better shooting opportunity than him. The Villa Park crowd don’t just warm to players who score goals, but also to ones that play a pivotal role in the build up. Ashley Young, Milner, and Downing are all fine examples of that.

Now we’ve had our “settling in period” I sense that the next four games could potentially make or break our season; Tottenham (a), Fulham (a), Norwich City (h) and Sunderland (a). I know many of you who comment on the articles here on AVL aren’t ones for setting targets but we have to be looking for seven points off these fixtures before a horrid trio of matches against Manchester United (h), Manchester City (a) and Arsenal (h). Otherwise we could soon see ourselves slipping well off the pace.

Here’s hoping we can dig deep and muster up three points this weekend. Up the Villa.