In a game where Villa didn’t pick up a point, the casual bystander might consider a lack of points another nail in McLeish’s coffin. However, swift generalisations and casual analysis would be wide of the mark tonight. Villa lost a game, but this game showed a lot more to be positive about.

Of course, nobody wants to drop points. Villa, however, were arguably unlucky to come away with nothing, and I mean that sincerely, not in the manner that the official site might try to pad a surrender.

Players Needed To Play Football

With Villa playing a more passing game, including the likes of Stephen Ireland and Charles N’Zogbia who are, in my opinion, both real talents when it comes to skill and passing ability, and saw the results of their labour. It was unfortunate for Ireland that he had to leave the pitch before the end of the first half, but it was evident that his movement was being utilised well, and that he will cause a few selection headaches going forwards.

Some might suggest that this was a formation and tactic that was forced upon McLeish, that he had somehow only stumbled on the style when it came to an accident, caused more by injuries than managerial ability. With the greatest of respects, and speaking as someone who has managed a team before, I say that is nonsense.

Anyone who has managed a group of lads (or lasses) in the real world knows that you can’t just impose your system on them immediately. For me, that was the exact way that Alex McLeish has looked at it too. He’s figured that you have to get a team working in a system for it to work. He’s figured, and known all along, that Villa had to play to whatever they could find to start with.

To start with, that meant a lot of panic in the defence. It’s pretty evident that kicking the ball up field was borne out of panic from the defence rather than instruction. Some might suggest that his Blues team illustrate that he doesn’t know any better, to which I’d say I disagree. McLeish hasn’t signed Zarate, Hleb, and Arteta because he wants to play kick and rush. He isn’t linked with Chelsea youngster Josh McEachran because he wants to avoid passing.

No, what he has had to do is make the most out of a bad situation. As we all know, we nearly went down last season. Finishing 9th made it look like things were rosy, but they weren’t. Part of the reason why we capitulated so quickly was because we tried to change the world of Villa overnight. Nice idea, sure, but change rarely happens like that. It changes progressively.

And this is exactly what Alex has had to do. He’s had to get by on doing what Villa do best in the short term. He’s had to understand that when you move forwards with a football team, you have to mould it progressively. You have to take what you have and make the most of it and, after that, you can start imposing your long term strategy, and I include in that your tactics.

Tactics Don’t Stick As Fast As Football Manager May Have You Believe

Martin O’Neill once lost his rag whilst at Villa suggesting that a generation of fans raised on Football Manager thought that it posed some kind of realistic simulation of the beautiful game. That it was somehow plausible to manage any team, impose your own strategy – even if it was wildly different to the one played before you were there – and subsequently just have the team take it onboard.

Even with professional footballers, flexibility isn’t just a instantaneous ability. Many players, even highly paid Premier League players, can’t just adapt to systems instantly. A lot of the time, it takes hard work and effort to get these men playing the way you want them to. Doing it on the training ground is one thing, but as anyone who has stepped out on to a pitch even if, like me, it wasn’t to play for a Premier League team, having an audience as large as the stadia in top flight football has, it’ll make you realise that that game of football bears no resemblance to playing on a training pitch.

It doesn’t because, strangely, it doesn’t feel very big out there. Sure, the crowd make the event very loud and, sometimes, frightening, but it’s just another pitch. Except this one is hemmed in by thousands of people who aren’t as polite to you as your coach might be if you fluff a ball. No – paying customers rarely make things easy for you.

Which leads me on to the fear factor. Whether you want to accept it or not, or even believe it, even Premier League footballers can be affected by fear. Whether it is fear in the sense of playing in the Premier League as a youngster, or cultivated fear in an experienced player who is either out of form or afraid of losing, it’s fear all the same.

Fear can make you do a lot of strange things as we all know. Even with the most well rehearsed and practiced idea of passing the ball to an open outlet, fear can ruin that. It can make you think that you’ve not got the time you might really have and, when you get like that, you panic and the ball gets punted as far away from you as possible. The result – long balls. Regardless of the managerial direction, panic hits players. Players punt balls. Till that panic is dissolved, it repeats again and again. And again for good measure.

Then something will click. Whether the fear dissolves by accident, or by comfort playing in a working system, it stops becoming an extra hurdle to jump. In my opinion, this is exactly what happened tonight. For the first time in a long time, I was happy with the team. I was happy with the play. I was happy with the way things were being done.

Of course, I’d have preferred a win or draw, but what matters more is progress. The fact that we didn’t beat Arsenal isn’t as much of as travesty as not beating Wigan or Blackburn. I’ll never want to lose a match, but losing to a bigger team is at least more tolerable than losing to a minnow.

In the second half in particular, I felt things were changing. At one point, it felt like Villa had a lion’s share of the possession, and not just 51%, more like 71%. Against Arsenal, that is no mean feat. After all, injuries aside, this is a team that knows how to play football, and plays it well. Outplaying Arsenal with passing and possession should be commended, and I do commend it.

Clark’s sloppy conceding of a penalty was a tad unlucky, and Villa still need to work on set pieces. There’s a lot of work to be done, but it actually feels different now. It feels like a team. It feels like McLeish’s suggestion of fluid 4-3-3 football and passing is actually working. I’ll admit that when Marc put the ball in with, what was, far from an easy finish, my spine was tingling. It was like someone had put the magic back in Villa. Hutton getting sent off might even make Steamer feel like it’s Christmas.

The fact that a local lad thumped his badge and, as I found out later, had scored the 20,000 Premier League goal, made me believe again much the same as I believed when I was a lad dreaming of scoring at the Holte End. Add into that the fact that Charles N’Zogbia, a player I have asked people to have faith in, is starting to show his real levels of skill that he has, well, it makes me feel proud of my club again.

So we lost, but all isn’t lost. The big question is if that system works, then what are we going to do when Bent is fit again?

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