Given the way that last season ended, I couldn’t be more excited for the new season. Morale around the club and the supporters is as high as it has been in years. For the first time in a long time, the club has a sustainable, long-term plan in place. Reading some of the other previews on the internet, it seems others don’t share my excitement. The Guardian has Villa finishing 10th, which seems perfectly reasonable to me. On the other hand, former Villa player and fan Stan Collymore was quite tepid and only has the club finishing 14th. I am sure Stan probably though McLeish and Martin O’Neil’s signings weren’t “gambles” like Lambert’s. New U.S. Premier League rights holders NBC published this thorough, and well thought out preview making our relegation sound almost inevitable.
I have a few ideas why it seems that others don’t share my outlook for the coming season. People have short memories in football. That the club has been in relegation battles the past three seasons has people thinking that that is what our club is. Until we can reestablish ourselves as a club that competes at the top half and for European qualification that won’t change. When previewing an upcoming season, pundits look at clubs who win the summer by making big signings, or at least signings that they think are shrewd. When a club signs a bunch of guys few have heard of that doesn’t exactly garner excitement or make people think that this year will be different than last year.
What I see almost nobody talk about is the capacity for the players the club already has to improve. Villa, having such a young side should improve as the young holdover players from last season improve. Will they all be better? No. Do players develop in a linear and predictable fashion? No. Is it unreasonable to expect a fair percentage of them to be better than least year? I don’t think so. Did the manager earn the benefit of the doubt when it comes to signing players few are familiar with? I’d say yes. I expect the holdovers to be better, and I expect more hits than misses with the new signings.
NFL Hall of Fame coach Bill Parcells used to say, “You are what your record is.” Last season over the course of 38 games, Villa was the 15th best club in the league. Focusing on the end of the season does run the risk of selection bias. The club did make tangible changes that caused their improved form down the stretch, namely the emergence of the attacking trident of Weimann, Benteke, and Agbonlahor, supported by Sylla, Westwood, and Delph. The manager does have more choices and may well chop and change his personnel and formations as the situation dictates, but that front three is the envy of all of the teams that finished around us last season.
For my preview of last season I borrowed an approach from baseball writer Joe Sheehan who in his season previews estimates the runs scored and runs allowed for each team to forecast their record for the coming season. Clearly my best-case scenario did not come to fruition. Last year the club managed 47 goals. While that was quite an improvement over McLeishball, it wasn’t enough to overcome a porous defense and move up the table. It also doesn’t highlight the trouble the club had scoring in the first half of the season.
The keys to the season will be two-fold: the defense has to be better, and the rest of the team will need to chip in with more goals. To really challenge for Europe, 60 goals scored is a fair target. Even if the defense improves, I don’t expect them to be above average just due to the way the team plays. If the front three of Weimann, Benteke, and Gabby can combine for 40 which seems reasonable, the rest of the team will have to chip in with another 20. The center backs need to be threats on set pieces. Ron Vlaar showed he could be that late last season and in preseason, while Ciaran Clark was a massive disappointment in this area. Ashley Westwood’s set-piece delivery will be huge as well. Thank God we never have to witness another Barry Bannan corner. I would also like to see Westwood pick his spots to get forward a little bit more as he has to have more goals in him than Delph or Sylla. In certain match-ups, especially at home I think Tonev will be trusted to provide that support to the strikers and chip in with goals. He might be the player N’Zogbia was supposed to be.
The only clubs I think that are clearly better than us are the top six, maybe top seven if Roberto Martinez is as he sounds in interviews. I don’t know if this is the year we get back into Europe or lift a trophy, but I do expect us to be in contention for those things. I expect to be looking up and looking forward and not down. If recent seasons are any indication, that could mean anywhere from 7th to 12th. My initial gut reaction at the beginning of the preseason was 8th so I’ll stick with that.
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