The home campaign kicks off this afternoon and it’s back – football at Villa Park after either four or sixteen months depending on if you qualify last season as “football”.
With Aston Villa looking to open up the home campaign with a win, some fans will be expecting more than was on show at West Ham United. Paul Lambert, speaking in his press conference ahead of the Everton games said himself that he expects more, and that he knows the fans need the team to play well in order to garner their support.
Quite how this might translate at present is anyone’s guess. Whilst I understand the reticence of fans to adopt a 4-2-3-1 formation, the reality is that such a style is actually very effective. The truth is that formations themselves don’t win games, it is how they are executed by the teams playing.
For Villa, two of the three players playing behind Bent, arguably all three, didn’t have a great game against West Ham. Brett Holman and Charles N’Zogbia both got substituted and Stephen Ireland wasn’t as cutting in his role as he arguably should have been. The bottom line here is that if those three players have a good game in the same formation, they could arguably beat most teams in the league.
When you look at today’s adoption of footballing tactics, some fans consider 4-4-2 to be a more attacking formation than 4-5-1 simply because two is a bigger than number ergo two strikers means more goals scored than one.
Whilst such an analysis is likely why fans may feel irked if Villa line up with Darren Bent as the sole striker against Everton, one has to look deeper to see that what many of us would call 4-4-2, using wingers to cross the ball on to the head or feet of a traditional striker, is clearly something we’re not overly interested in doing.
It’s quite funny when you think about as having followed Villa all my life there is a viewpoint, often seen as purely contrarian, by groups of supporters. In the Martin O’Neill era fans lambasted his 4-4-2 tactics with the owner of another blog saying that the solution was 4-5-1. Now, in the era where 4-5-1, or some variation of it, we have fans saying that we should return to 4-4-2.
Dissecting this might have some people considering it fickle, but that kind of statement is a tad disingenuous. Fickle would mean going to support whoever was winning, what fans want in these instances in success. However, and this is something many people in and out of football have said to me, merely saying “we should have done something else” when the results that occur aren’t what we desire doesn’t actually go anywhere towards solving the problem.
For us fans, frustrating as it may be, we will have to sit and see what happens. We may not want to see what happens, but whether we sit patiently or scream bloody murder, the result will be the same – what will happen, will happen.
The Everton game gives us all the excitement of seeing some good football being played at Villa Park after a season where most fans were unimpressed. Whilst I can’t guarantee a win, and Villa vs Everton is most known for the draws the fixture provides, the fun factor should be back at Villa Park as we all take our familiar strolls down to the ground.
If all goes well, the biggest complaint I should have is how long it took to get out of the car park and not how bad the football was. Fingers crossed I’m happy when I write my Sunday review, and that Clarky is happy enough writing his report up directly after the game.
Oh and if anyone wants to get in my good books at the ground, a small tip – cup of Bovril and a pie and I’m as happy as Larry. Whoever Larry is.
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