By and large this season Aston Villa’s performances have been completely uninspiring. Against the bigger clubs, their performances have been far worse as the club has capitulated time and again. The game against Arsenal was the first glimmer of hope that better times could in fact be lying ahead.
Before the season as uncertainty reigned I stated that I could envision the club finishing anywhere from 6th to 15th. Looking at the current table the clubs one would have expected to occupy are starting to separate from the rest of the league. While the idea of Villa pipping one of the established top six is unlikely this season, seventh is still in play. Given who wins the domestic cups, 7th could mean a spot in Europe for the Premier League’s have-nots.
Mathematically Villa are closer to the drop than to seventh at the moment, but if the club can play the way they did against Arsenal consistently there is no reason that we cannot march up the table. Arsene Wenger said as much in his post-match comments. While I am perhaps wearing claret-tinted glasses, this was not an aberrant performance, but it was rather a case of the players finally playing the way that they are capable.
We saw last year that Marc Albrighton is capable of tormenting the opposition with his pace on the flanks. Charles N’Zogbia is finally running at defenders and providing service to the strikers, you can feel that goals from Villa’s number 10 are just around the corner. Richard Dunne was immense against Arsenal as well as finally being separated from James Collins enabled the team to not aimlessly hump the ball up the pitch. Seeing Villa actually keep the ball and create chances was beyond refreshing.
Barry Bannan was picking out passes after his introduction, and even Steven Ireland was making dangerous runs into the box before he gave way due to injury. I just have a feeling once Ireland can score a goal that he could finally gain some confidence and find some form. Watching him play, I’m left with the impression that he expects things to go wrong at this point and he hangs his head after failing to connect on his first chance at goal. The only Villa player who had a poor game was Gabby Agbonlahor. It’s hard to be overly upset with him as he has easily been our player of the year so far. I just hope he is not going through another malaise the likes of which have characterized his career so far. The only thing keeping him from being world class is consistency.
If you slide Darren Bent into this Villa team, playing like this he will be engaged and he will score goals. If he had been available today Villa likely would have won as there were times where crosses were delivered into the box but the midfielders were just a touch too late getting into the box. A poacher would have made a difference.
These players are more than capable of replicating this kind of performance with regularity. More than anything else it was refreshing to see fight from our team. After the penalty and the team fell behind after 15 minutes I fully expected the team to capitulate. I could not have been happier to see them do the exact opposite and keep fighting. This is a team that can play with anybody in this league if the players play to their potential and play with passion.
We’ve all spent the better part of the season asking ourselves why it has not happened to this point. That should be the exception and not the performance we saw against the Gunners. Looking at the table if this club has indeed turned a corner there is no reason Europe should be beyond us. Maybe we’ll win the FA Cup!
The Author
