Aston Villa 2 – Wales 0 – Insight into our great escape?

So England beat Wales. Hardly the most amazing challenge that the Three Lions will have to face, but still one that could have gone wrong. At least two Aston Villa players were involved in the win, what with Ashley Young getting the penalty, and Darren Bent getting a goal. In a way, I sense a parallel with how we have been playing this year – we could have won a lot of the matches, but we managed to some how do the more difficult thing and lose them. Anyway, the difference is that England won, and we haven’t been doing so for a long while.

So what’s that got to do with Villa?

When you look at how England were set up today, it makes you wonder if some of the tactical play could help us out of the relegation situation. We’ve often been critical of Ashley Young in his new forward role, but England were doing something not too dissimilar. Whereas we were playing in a variation of 4-5-1, England were playing something akin to a 4-3-3 formation with both Young, Rooney, and Bent playing up front. What this makes me wonder is whether we should revert to a style that we used a long while back when Gabby was playing in a front three.

You have to think that a front three of Gabby, Ashley Young, and Bent would provide goals and, let’s face it, if there’s something we need now, it is goals. With the position that we are in, we need to really start going out and attacking teams from the outset. This attitude of playing 4-5-1 (especially at home) is not enough any more. We are not going to win the rest of the games by playing 4-5-1 style slow play. We NEED to score goals, and a 4-3-3 may be our only option.

Midfield Trio

So with that front line, who goes in the middle? Logic would suggest that keep Stewart Downing on the left, Marc Albrighton on the right, and stick Jean II Makoun in the middle. In the case of Makoun, I would have him floating just in front of the defence (a la Claude Makalele) – with passing like his he can afford to be playing precise balls out to the wings in order to dictate the tempo. It also means that with potentially 5 fast attacking players, Villa could turn from attack to defence really quickly, and utilise one of our major strengths -pace.

Pace, as well as passing

I think we all know that keeping things as they are, and playing a passing game through the trapdoor, is going to cause us some real upset. We need to forget fear, and go for it. I’d rather we go out fighting, than out with a whimper. Things need to change now, and whilst I don’t imagine the manager will be someone who changes before the end of the season, I think tactics will need to, or we are in real danger of trying to be Barcelona, and ending up with Barnsley.