A Depressing Familiarity in Villa’s Brentford Failure

I didn’t enjoy Sunday at all. But I wasn’t necessarily surprised. The team is reverting to norm. You can have all the expectations you like, but some are more reasonable than others. The squad is the squad, and despite pressure from above to achieve more now, Villa are still mid-table quality. You can tweak the system a bit, set different standards, emphasize different things, but you’re still working with the same clay.

Norwich vs Aston Villa: Nothing Personal, Dean

Liverpool behind us, it’s time to resume normally scheduled programming. Which means it’s Deano and Norwich tonight. And despite sitting bottom of the table, they’re not exactly pushovers. But they don’t score much. Probably has more than a little to do with breaking up the Pukki-Buendia act. Villa will want six points from tonight and Burnley. They need to be on it and ruthless.

Aston Villa vs. Manchester City: Grealish Returns—Sort Of

We know City will boss possession. We know Villa will have to be disciplined on and off the ball. We know that unless City have a poor game, Villa will have to be at their best, whatever that is at this moment, to give a good account. Even if City are poor, Villa probably have to be at their best to get a result.

In situations like this, it has to be a big plus that Gerrard’s been at the same level and knows what it takes. That should give the squad confidence in the game plan and they’ll know the expectations will be high. Gerrard will rate the performance based on effort, decisions, and executing the plan more so than the result.