Aston Villa make the almost 200 mile journey to Newcastle United this afternoon, with the weather providing a snowy backdrop to, what could be, a massive game for Alex McLeish.
In Villa’s last outing, the 2-2 draw against Queens Park Rangers, the second half performance was par excellence, with shots and attacks flying about as if the club from B6 had swallowed some of the Gallic flair, the kind that Arsene Wenger puts in his team, after the recent trip to the Emirates.
The main issue that Villa need to address is putting together a full game of effort. Multiple times this season, perhaps too many times, Villa have let far too many goals in far too easily. In fact, it is quite remarkable that Villa hold both the record for the most points dropped from winning positions, as well as the most points gained from losing positions. One thing those statistics illustrate is inconsistency.
A Half Isn’t Good Enough
As we are all well aware, this season has been packed with talking points, interspersed with the predicted tumult that employing the former charge of your biggest rivals was likely to cause.
McLeish, for all of the arguably fair criticisms levelled at him in certain games this season, seems to be slowly turning around HMS Aston Villa. Whilst nobody is going to sit here and say that Villa have become a top four contender, nor that they have made a startling development on last season’s progress, the fact that McLeish has got Stephen Ireland playing is, looking at it context, something short of a claret and blue miracle.
We can, of course, lambast McLeish for his purchase of Alan Hutton, as the Scottish international has endured a poor start to his career at the club, but we should also recognise the positives. If Hutton is adjudged to be a failure, and it is only early days, then Ireland’s resurrection must surely be seen as a success, coupled with the signings of Robbie Keane and Charles N’Zogbia.
N’Zogbia, a former Newcastle player, has endured his own trials in the early stages of his Villa career. Given his statistical position last season as the second most prolific dribbler in Europe, behind only footballing God Lionel Messi, it is clearly evident that N’Zogbia’s performances were likely out of form rather than lack of ability.
For me at least, the reason N’Zogbia was failing to flourish until recently is because of the type of players around him. Players like N’Zogbia, the type who I have regularly championed to play for our beloved club, have mostly been eschewed by Villa managers. Whilst fans may have suggested that McLeish’s teams are defensive, the fact remains that most Villa teams of the recent 20 or so years have been built on defence first.
N’Zogbia, you see, is an attacker, and a fluid one at that. When you’re perfectly capable of switching wings and getting down the middle too, you’ve clearly got a talent for tactical flexibility. The missing ingredient though, has been other players of that level.
Keane – The Jigsaw Piece That Villa Have Needed For Years
Of the players at the club, prior to Robbie Keane signing the only man on the same level as N’Zogbia in terms of footballing brain was Stephen Ireland. The only problem with having only one other person who operates on your level is that, when you’re playing, it is pretty evident where interplay is going to go through. Ireland to N’Zogbia, N’Zogbia to Ireland.
This is precisely why, in my opinion at least, the Keane deal has been nothing short of inspired. Keane, lacking the pace and energy that he had in his time at Coventry and Wolverhampton Wanderers, was seen by some as too slow, and as past it. Pace may, like other youthful traits, diminish with age. Keane, however, has not just seem his speed wither away to be replaced with nothing. In fact, the football brain he has developed over the years is of arguably higher value to Villa now than pace ever could be.
After all, pace gets you so far. It’ll drive you past a defender if you’re a winger, and allow you to get the ball in the box. It’ll give a striker the ability to take it past a player. What it won’t do though, is be a team benefit.
Pace is great as a final outlet for a striker, if they can burst ahead of a defender to poach a goal, but it isn’t of any value unless it can have creativity and intelligence supplying it. With Keane’s addition, the intelligence behind the striker is joined up. Just as you or I learned to move and pass in triangle to keep options open, so Villa have three options – Keane, N’Zogbia, and Ireland. With two options from every pass between the trio, teams struggle to know what to do.
Do they double mark both options the ball might go to? If they do, arguably they will leave space available for the rest of Villa’s team to take the ball which was, in my opinion, half of the reason why we ran riot in the second half of the game against QPR. If Villa can impose this midfield trio against Newcastle, especially considering the absence of both Yohan Cabaye and Cheick Tiote in midfield, then it could be the second half of QPR all over again.
If Villa can’t use the creativity of their current Holy Trinity, then things may just splutter, producing another draw or a loss.
For McLeish though, the message is simple – give us two halves of good football in the one game. If we can see that, then he may find himself more able to get some of the detractors off his back.
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