It’s Wednesday, and I’m still feeling irked about the manner in which we capitulated against Spurs. It wasn’t just wrong, it was disastrous.
Fingers point at so many different people, that solely pegging it on one fall guy is too easy an option, so I’m going to do my best to offer a little more than just the obvious “McLeish out” posts that will invariably be flooding the internet as we speak. Don’t worry though, I am not about to absolve McLeish of blame either.
What the Spurs match told me about the team was multifaceted. It is very easy to suggest that all faults come down to McLeish, and he is certainly significantly responsible, but we can’t say he is the sole person responsible for what has gone wrong. A poor and one dimensional tactician he may be on that evidence, but he doesn’t tell teams to play without effort.
Villa, for all their supposed abilities failed to perform on Monday night. Players were slow, uninterested, and fearful of Spurs. Outside of Agbonlahor and Herd, as well as Given in goal, the team were lacking effort, never mind quality and, without effort, it is invariable that Spurs would come out on top. We can consider ourselves lucky we only conceded two with that kind of commitment.
Isolating Bale was a plan for McLeish but, with the likes of van der Vaart, Parker, Lennon, Adebayor, Walker, Modric, as well as Bale’s attacking talents, Villa were hardly wise to focus on one particular player. Gareth Bale is undoubtedly a talented individual, but to double up on him at the expense of the six players listed is somewhat foolish.
This Situation Is Deeper Than The Manager
McLeish chose the tactics and, to that end, that side of the blame needs to fall on his shoulders. McLeish is far from free from blame, but he is not the sole person on which blame should fall. After the Spurs game, at least eight players failed to perform as I would expect from a Premier League team.
The problem I have here is that there is a cancer at Villa. Losses are expected at times like at any football club, but lack of effort is always inexcusable. Whether you play football and earn £200 a week, or £200,000, the premise is the same – work hard when you play.
I’ve played football, albeit nothing like at the level of the Premier League, and I understand, much like anyone who has played in a football league, that effort is paramount to any successful team. Skill is certainly a component of success but, minus effort, a lack of work rate is always going to conjure the same result – failure.
The same goes with management. I stop short of holding a Pro License and a job in the Premier League but I do know from my own experience that concepts of good defending, and teamwork are universal.
Teaching players how to hold a solid defensive line by sticking string to their back via tape, and making them push up as a unit is a basic tenet of defending. It isn’t complex, but it doesn’t need to be. What it needs to be is effective.
Which leads me on to the defensive “display” that Monday night illustrated for us. The zonal marking, if one can even call it that, was woefully inexcusable. Whilst I see zonal marking as a primary source of defensive setup in the modern game, when defenders lack pace, I reinforce the need for man-to-man marking. If players can’t have the defensive nous to make decisions that zonal marking needs, just make them track one player per man.
Lacking pace in defence? Make sure you stick to your man like glue. Apart from a striker bursting forwards in the final yards when receiving a ball, it shouldn’t be a problem for a professional defender to keep on top of a professional striker. One player might be outpaced, but surely not every player?
Block the ball as it is passed, or before it is received. That is two chances per pass with the right positional play. If the current players lack the pace to do this, play younger players who can do it. Simple.
Again, this leads me into another analysis, and that is about defenders being imposing. When you have players like Collins and Dunne, you need to impose that physical side on the game.
In the absence of the silky skills of defenders like Puyol and Pique, being big and tough is a good secondary choice. Bottom line – if you want to try and get past me as a defender, you had better be prepared to get through a brick wall. Why? Because as a defender, I am going to impose that on to any player trying to attack my area.
Against Spurs, I felt the defence were something of an antithesis of a brick wall. Whether the breaches came via crosses that left only Dunne & Collins free, or whether it was down to tactical issues, the fact remains the same – the defending was not good enough.
Considering McLeish’s professional career as a defender, if you thought he could do one thing right, it would be defending. At Birmingham, his side weren’t the most technical, but they were nasty to play against. At Villa, that streak I thought McLeish would bring is just absent. I know he is capable of at least that, so why isn’t even that happening?
Curing The Cancer Of The Club
After Habib Beye was dispatched to Doncaster Rovers, I honestly felt like we had cut away part of a cancer of Aston Villa. Here was, in my opinion at least, a player who was being paid to do nothing. Sure, Beye turned up to training but, beyond that, he was doing nothing else. Wasn’t in a starting eleven, and wasn’t even on the bench.
After the Spurs match, I am starting to think that the cancer is spreading. After James Collins put a ball over Shay Given to gift Adebayor a second goal, it made me think that not only were these players not good enough, they weren’t putting enough effort in either. The play was sloppy, and the organisation was lacking. Communication is another basic skill as a footballer in a team, so why did Collins slide directly into Given’s path despite Given telling him it was covered?
Fear? Sloppy play? Overenthusiasm? I might expect some of those traits from a kid on his debut, but not from players with years of Premier League experience.
Skill is somewhat inherent. For those limited few that display the ability of Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, skill can be the extra 10% of a player that changes them from outstanding to world class. For the rest of us, work rate is an imperative part of playing the game. That isn’t to say Messi or Ronaldo don’t work hard either – the reason they are world class is they marry their skill to effort.
If you can’t put the effort in, at least in my view, you shouldn’t be playing football at any level. Many things irk us as fans of the game, from attacking ability, to the players available for selection. One thing that is universal, regardless of if we are talking about a Premier League team or a Sunday League team is effort. Lack it, and you will soon be reviled. Certain Villa players need to be aware of this and snap out of it.
After all, as fans, we believe we’d rather see the kids lose 2-0 and put effort in than see the senior players lose 1-0 and look apathetic. It’s a cliché, but players get paid a good amount of money. Skills are variable, but work rate is a basic premise. Players not playing well? Have some guts and drop them.
Unless McLeish is being told what to do by someone else, there’s no excuse for keeping failing players in a team. For a hard man from Glasgow, failing to drop clumsy defenders smacks of fear or, perhaps, a total lack of options. Bent seems to have this contract clause excluding him from concepts such as form, but Dunne and Collins? What is the excuse there Alex?
With performances like that, playing the reserves would be a better idea. Hell, give me a shirt and I would put more effort in for the badge. At least I would exhibit some pride in my game.
So if we are to find that players in our squad are lacking work rate and are, by proxy, lacking interest in playing for Villa, we should look to ship them out at the earliest opportunity. Whether these players are seen as peripheral or key, the fact remains that apathy is a corrosive force in the game. In fact, it is the cancer that destroys teams from within.
So whilst I say that McLeish needs to accept responsibility for a poor performance, and make sure this situation doesn’t happen again, Villa need to ensure that the terrible lack of effort for many players is cut out immediately.
Fans expect more than turning up. They expect commitment. Sadly for us, outside of Agbonlahor and Herd, I found commitment to be distinctly lacking in the outfield.
Of those two, only Agbonlahor is proven to work at this level. One player who is capable in terms of work rate and skill in a team of 10 outfield players? Not good enough.
Gabby is our talisman, but he shouldn’t be expected to shoulder all that or, sooner or later, he will get fed up and angry. I know I would if I was putting my heart into the game whilst others jogged around like it was a kick about in the park.
So as for the team, blame McLeish, sure. He deserves some of the blame for the tactical ineptitude.
Demand he is sacked if you want, but the fact remains that under multiple managers, many players have capitulated under apathy. So it isn’t just McLeish who is at fault here.
Cutting McLeish out as manager may solve part of the problem but, without resolving the player issues, Aston Villa will still have a lingering reminder of a cancer that threatens to destroy the club.
The prognosis for Villa’s survival isn’t terminal, yet, but with more performances like that, it is rapidly getting that way.
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