This evening brings a visit to Villa Park from London team Queens Park Rangers. Compared to the last time the sides met, the Rs are a fairly different proposition. Not only do they have a new manager in the fairly recently appointed Mark Hughes but they have, literally yesterday in several instances, strengthened a forward line that looked anaemic when we conceded a draw at Loftus Road earlier in the season.

For QPR, Tony Fernandes has clearly looked at their current position and consider investment to be prudent. After looking at how Jay Bothroyd continually failed to connect with multiple chances created for him when we played them away, the purchases of both Bobby Zamora and Djibril Cisse will invariably make their forward line more potent, although Zamora won’t play a part in tonight’s game.

Can The Home Form Improve?

Whilst our away game against QPR was one where we were only moments away from three points before a stupidly conceded goal in the final minutes, I imagine the game this evening will be far more tightly contested. Between the issues Aston Villa are having with home form, combined with increased quality in QPR’s team, it wouldn’t surprise me if Villa concede, even if it is only the one. The suggestion that Alex McLeish would tighten the back line seems unfounded still as it appears that, of all the areas of the pitch, the defence is the one with the most issues.

Villa will need to be wary of the creativity and pace of Shaun Wright-Phillips this evening, in much the same way as they needed to stop Theo Walcott and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain in our match in the FA Cup. The best form of defence needs to be attack in that sense, although it will be the usual quandary for Alex McLeish when faced with a home crowd quick to turn when things go awry for Villa.

For me, whilst it may not happen this evening, the defence, and in particular the full backs, need to be addressed in terms of defensive liability. Nobody can doubt that the likes of Stephen Warnock and Alan Hutton are providing support high up the pitch in attack, but their failure to track back, in the case of Warnock, or to commit to a challenge until on the edge of the area, in the case of Hutton, means far too many chances are being gifted to Villa’s opposition.

Defending Is A Lost Art For Villa

Is it honestly too much to ask that the full backs can press further up the pitch? Given that both Hutton and Warnock have no trouble getting up the pitch, defending up there doesn’t seem a major step to make.

Nobody is expecting Barcelona style levels of play, but even getting Hutton to take a tackling chance 20 yards further up the pitch would be a start. Giving away free kicks in dangerous areas, something that Villa seem to be doing with dangerous regularity, is a sure fire way to gift goals, no matter how good the defence.

Statistics will show too that Villa are conceding large percentages of their goals from free kicks, largely because of how easy the defenders are making it. If Hutton tackles close to the box, the player has two options – fall over Hutton’s trailing leg into the box to win a penalty, or play the ball off Hutton’s leg to get a corner. The result is the same – a free shot at the Villa goal.

No team, not Aston Villa, not Manchester United, nor even Barcelona, can have a modus operandi that involves giving away sloppy free kicks. Honestly, in today’s attack focussed game, keeping the ball out the net is difficult enough at the best of times, so to actively give the opposition more chances to do it is, well, stupid.

Villa may well need to attack to win games, but attacking doesn’t mean ceding responsibility for defensive responsibilities. Defenders, even Hutton given his recent form, must know that taking a player out 35 yards out on a touchline is going to make a free kick harder to deliver than 12 yards from the goal on the edge of the area.

So the defence is doing the right thing in playing high up – in fact I actively put this forward of evidence that McLeish is not being defensive – but they need to commit to defending, and not just in the defensive third. If they don’t, I feel that my protests will start to sound like a broken record but, in reality, if a professional football team can’t fix the basics, how can we expect to build on them?

Everyone Needs To Take Their Part Of The Blame – Manager AND Players

This is why, at least partly, I have more time for McLeish than many fans. The fact that we are messing up basics isn’t down to tactical ineptitude, it’s down to total laziness and inability to apply oneself to the task in hand. McLeish may pick puzzling tactical choices, although some have worked out well, but sloppy play is firmly in the player’s court.

If you wanted evidence of that, just look at the time before McLeish, when Gerard Houllier almost paid with his life because players wouldn’t do what they were told. The problems with failing to do as the manager says isn’t a new thing, it isn’t an Alex McLeish thing, and it isn’t something that a manager should have to tell a player to do.

After all, can you seriously tell me we should have to be telling veteran Premier League defenders how to play as a defender when they have, more than likely, been playing the position for over 20 years since their youth?

Shouldn’t their ability to defend, individually at least as I hold McLeish responsible for team organisation, be honed by now? Otherwise the question “Just what exactly is Alan Hutton doing in the Aston Villa team?” is likely to be a question posed altogether more regularly to the currently under-fire Aston Villa manager.

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