As you might’ve noticed, the first “weekend” of competitive matches yielded 5 draws and 4 wins, with Everton and Tottenham sitting things out. Perhaps surprisingly, only the Manchesters of the top tier came out winners, joined by Bolton (who got one of the easier assignments with new boys QPR), and Wolves, who took three from Blackburn.
Chelsea and Arsenal equaled Villa’s performance on the road, tallying zero goals between them. Our point doesn’t look so bad. But the three points were there for the taking against Fulham. I’m told we didn’t have a single clean sheet on the road last year, so I’ll take the point, the more so since we didn’t concede.
Stoke, Sunderland, and Newcastle managed to nick points off Chelsea, Liverpool, and Arsenal. Liverpool might be the most disappointed, given they were at home and have spent quite a bit of money. Barton got booked, but Gervinho got sent off. It’s a funny old game.
A Tough League
If the opening round is any indication, the league may well be as tight this year as last. Perhaps QPR, Swansea, and Norwich have enough to make the relegation battle interesting. Maybe they’re simply overmatched. But with the exception of a couple sides like Wigan and Blackburn, there may not be much danger of getting sucked into a fight at the bottom.
The league overall has gotten tougher, as teams already in the top flight are learning how to stay up. When you can’t impose your will as an attacking force, you opt for making life hard and play to different, less expensive strengths. Discipline and physicality can make you hard to beat. It won’t win you championships, but it keeps you up.
And, let’s face it, in the modern age, that and a decent cup run are about all most of the EPL teams have to play for, including our beloved Aston Villa. Well, I suppose we should be playing for a European place, even if it is Europa. I can’t say it’s on the cards this year, though, even if we’d like it to be.
It’s not necessarily pretty or right, but that’s the way it is.
Swansea’s Baptism
The Welsh newcomers started well enough, and looked to play their passing game. An outstanding performance from keeper Vorm helped keep things even through halftime, but eventually the damn burst, and City started to have fun. Aguero burst on the scene in no uncertain terms, and with Balotelli and Tevez not even in the action, City ultimately cruised to an easy win.
That’s the thing about pretty football. We all like it and aspire to it, but unless you have world-class players, it can be an express elevator to disappointment. Even if you’re leading in possession, you can still find yourself 3-0 down to superior players.
Don’t get me wrong. I like pretty football, and I want Villa to look good and win looking good. But in this day and age especially, results are all that matter.
Swansea aren’t going to lose every week. They won’t be playing an ascending team like City every week. But there will be different challenges.
Villa’s Challenge
Aston Villa cleared one hurdle with the clean sheet. That’s a step in right direction of whittling down the atrocious goals-against tally away from home last season.
Given that, and given how precious we saw points become last season, it’s hard to fault McLeish for setting Villa up the way he did. Considering the pressure he’s under, it’s also understandable that he’d be well satisfied in the opener with a draw on the road to a team that should’ve been much sharper than us.
Now, I’m not going to be a fan of Gabby and Heskey playing together if we continue to fail to score. I can understand what McLeish looked to be doing, and given that Heskey and Gabby are supposed to be strikers, it was actually an attacking lineup in theory. But I would hope that at home we’ll see more creativity on the pitch when conditions warrant, like the majority of most home games.
McLeish said of the lineup that it was horses for courses, and maybe that’s hard to argue with, but I just don’t see a lot of goals in that set-up. Of course, given the graft and physicality, maybe that particular lineup won’t concede a lot. But we’ll need to do better than draw a majority of matches, and we’ll likely need to score to get three points.
But Delph got a start, which was good, and got singled out for praise. Petrov, of course, started as well, which probably isn’t so good, but isn’t surprising.
I can see one of either Gabby or Heskey playing in a more traditional 4-4-2 as conditions warrant, but unless the 4-2-4/4-3-3 formation proves an unmitigated disaster, we may see it employed more often than we might imagine.
And, given that it’s a results business, if it turns out to be a tactic that yields some degree of success, even if it’s not exciting, it will continue to be hard to argue with. We’ll get a feeling for how much flexibility McLeish is really willing to entertain over the next couple of games.
Perhaps he’ll rotate for freshness. Perhaps he’ll rotate for the sake of more experimentation. Perhaps he’ll rotate for more creativity and goals. Ireland, Bannan, Albrighton, and Makoun are going to have to make their presences felt when they get their chances. To me, it’s imperative that either Ireland or Bannan really makes a case for inclusion, and likely Albrighton, too, if we’re to get Bent enough of the ball. But we do have to figure out a way to not be lightweight.
I’d like to see how we play in a real 4-5-1 with Albrighton, N’Zogbia and Ireland/Bannan starting, and we have two games that ought to give us the chance. But it all depends on what McLeish really intends for the set-up we saw. Is it one option, or is the preferred option?
Villa’s challenge, beyond more clean sheets, will be to find a balance. The league will be a scrap from start to finish. There will be plenty of teams we’d like to think we should beat that we’ll likely be happy to draw with, in the end, especially on the road. The tough fact for us is that we’re not set up like Stoke, nor are we set up like the top tier. We’re caught in between, and that’s a tricky place to be.
The key is obviously making the most of home matches along with getting more on the road than we did last year. We’ll get some idea of how McLeish proposes to do this against Blackburn and Wolves. It should be three points each time, as we have the players for it, and it should give us some idea as the team comes together what McLeish is thinking in how and why he rotates.
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