How was your Saturday? Mine didn’t start too well when I found out that Bovril wasn’t available from the Doug Ellis refreshment area. Perhaps I should have seen that as a way to see into the future from that first bit of information. Three minutes into the game, it felt like the tone had been set.
It’s never good to go behind, especially so soon in to a game, and it took the wind out of our sails. Our newly taught, methodical approach seemed to quickly go out of the window in favour of punted balls from Barry Bannan and Ciaran Clark.
Last season, people were quick to blame hoofing long balls on our former manager. This season, when I know for a fact Paul Lambert (much like I knew the last manager wasn’t saying pass long) isn’t telling them to hoof the ball, it is becoming painfully evident that the players, not the manager, are the problem at Aston Villa, and clearing out players will take time.
If this change of passing taught us one thing it was neither Clark or Bannan are realistically good enough for the team in the long term. In fact, I’ll go so far as saying that when Richard Dunne comes back from injury, I’d put him in besides Ron Vlaar if a new centre half isn’t sought.
I could spend the whole article sitting here and saying that Paul Lambert needs to buy players but I don’t need to repeat it. He knows it, we know it, Randy Lerner knows it, and we still have a week to do something before the transfer window closes.
I’m not going to sit here and suggest that I’m delighted with our two performances in the league, or that I’m smiling because we are currently sitting 19th. What I am going to do is try to explain what did and didn’t happen against Everton.
As John intimated yesterday, there were some puzzling picks. While I was sitting talking to my brother before the game started, I couldn’t work out if we were trying to play 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1 in light of Nathan Delfouneso. Why was Delfouneso in the team anyway? Was petite Bannan really being pickrd in a head to head against a gigantic Marouane Fellaini?
Neither of us could work out where Chris Herd was supposed to be playing from the initial line-up, eventually working out he was supposed to be playing wide? Why Herd though? Haven’t we got other options? Either way, I figured Lambert knows best and we’d find out what it was all about even if his selections were puzzling to me. After all, he’s the guy who is professionally qualified as a manager, whilst I am just a youth team coach at best.
Sadly, the result wasn’t exactly what we wanted. Some fans on social media have acted like a 3-1 loss was and is the harbinger of doom. One guy a few seats down from me shouted over to his friend on the 80th minute as he was leaving “That’s McLeish in the dugout! I don’t believe it’s Lambert! It’s the same old rubbish we got last year!”.
He was obviously trying to be comedic by making the point that this game was awful in his eyes, ergo the king of all awfulness could be the only person capable of such a performance, as though any manager with the current tools available could do more than we did this weekend. I disagree – Lambert attacked more though a 3-1 loss argues that his attacking plan didn’t work out correctly, most likely because his strikers were isolated and otherwise unable to contribute. That and many of the players seemed either uninterested, incapable, or both.
As many of us have said, a lot of the team just aren’t that good. People can lay the blame on the doorstep of players, of managers, of the owner, of anyone under the sun. Some of it may be down to some of those people, part of it may be down to all of them. All that matters is that things change.
The only understanding people must have is that change takes time and that time isn’t measure in single games or even single months. Getting back to where we were in league position terms under Martin O’Neill will mean years of progress, and progress that may well appear minuscule from game to game. Face facts – McLeish had a rubbish hand and Lambert’s options are only a bit better due to minimal spending. A bit better means a little more progress, and many fans won’t be happy with such marginal progress.
I said before the season started that Villa could lose the first six games of the campaign and I’ll still back the manager. I stand by that, and I hope other fans do too. I was ashamed to see the team booed off for the first half but I understood why it happened. Not my style, and I wasn’t booing, but probably what some fans want to do in the heat of the moment.
However, even that outpouring of emotion was dwarfed by the story of a man who sits next to my friend Trevor who, in a fit of rage, forced his season ticket into Trev’s hand stating that he didn’t want it if that’s the football we’re dishing up. I bet the same guy who gave that ticket away is calling the ticket office tomorrow saying he’s lost it – as big a gesture as throwing away your ticket makes, I doubt said man will stick to it. Some gestures just look histrionic.
Some fans left early despite it being the first game of the season. Why do people do that? Have they not seen enough comebacks in their lifetimes to know that leaving before the game ends is premature? Is your time that valuable that after paying up to nearly £50 for a ticket, you can’t even wait till the end? What message does it send out when fans can’t even back the team when we are struggling? Sure, the players didn’t give us much to cheer about, but it is a two-way deal.
Each to their own I guess but it was hard to argue that on a day where fans were touted to roar for Lambert, Everton fans were singing “Your support is f***ing s**t”. In the face of some of the impatient stuff I heard shouted by our own fans, I had no retort to that. I said rebuilding may be a four year process. On yesterday’s evidence, I doubt some fans have the patience to support the team for four games as is.
If we are still having these same conversations in a few months and no players have signed, while we are still conceding goals and not scoring them, then it might well be a real cause for concern. However, with the transfer window still open and Lambert a mere two games into the real campaign proper, there’s time to fix the problems that are there. It ain’t time to panic just yet lads and lasses and I’m sure we will see multiple new faces before the next week is up.
The only question is how much of our squad will survive in the long term – if I were manager, the answer would be not many at all. Beyond Ireland, El-Ahmadi, Holman, N’Zogbia, Vlaar, Lowton, maybe Agbonlahor, and possibly Guzan, I’d sell pretty much the whole lot, and I imagine Lambert will do so too sooner or later.
Hold on to your hats because the next seven days may be bumpy but I am still hopeful that Villa will be stronger once we are the other side of the transfer window. I will deal with the tactical analysis in full tomorrow.
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