Aston Villa fans will be feeling the Premier League life force being slowly drained from their club, as they failed to win another game where three points were vital to have any hope of an unlikely survival bid.
Villa’s defensive organisation improved against WBA, restricting their opponents to zero attempts on target, and Rémi Garde’s men controlled the majority of the possession, but they fell down when it came to any imagination or endeavour in the final third – if only players would make runs off the ball and midfielders would get into the opponent’s penalty box!
Draws are no good to Villa, it’s three-point bounties they need. It’s very fast becoming too little, too late.
The end of season fate may already be known, but in the meantime, here’s five reasons to be cheerful as Aston Villa fans…
4. POSSESSION
There is one thing that Villa are definitely doing better than their opponents in recent games and that’s maintaining possession. Since their 2-0 home defeat against Arsenal, Villa have commanded more possession in their last seven games and that includes four away games.
It just further proves that alongside a lack of goal threat possession counts for very little, as Villa have only picked up 7 points out of an available 21 points, despite dominating possession in all of the last seven games – win, draw or lose:
West Brom (a) 61% to 39%
Leicester 57% to 43%
Crystal Palace 51% to 49%
Sunderland (a) 55% to 45%
Norwich (a) 52% to 48%
West Ham 59% to 41%
Newcastle (a) 53% to 47%
No doubt the more regular selection of Carles Gil has helped matters in terms of possession, although he still needs players on his wave length to make him more effective. The lack of running from midfield into the penalty box hasn’t helped the goal count and that was especially painful to see against the Baggies.
If there was a period that could have triggered Villa’s escape, I think the last seven games were probably it. Oh, well.
The only one I can agree with is Okore, however MOM’s it is a BIG stretch to find five positive things about Villa period at the moment, so respect for the attempt.
Possession is useless without scoring, never hear the phrase “Possession wins you games”. However Garde is a good manager and want to keep him, though I think he’ll be gone at the end of the season.
Responsibility – Nope, haven’t seen it. Not yet. CEO had 17 months to put it right, in my industry you get three months probation. Delph’s final contract was a shambles, nothing’s been done about Bodymoor, our one starlet who’s a Villa fan wants talks at the end of the season about his future? Fox is wonderful at Business Development, but doesn’t have the complete skillset IMHO for CEO. Chairman has lost it at the beginning, so out of touch. Fully agree with MOM’s that good football business has to start with good football. Having all 20’000 Under Armour employees know about us doesn’t equate to the one second on CNN when we’re mentioned if we were to be successful.
FA cup, no no no. It can provide a welcome diversion and some momentum if you’re winning well against tough teams. But the fatigue on the few decent players we have is too big a price. Ayew looked burnt out in the last game for instance, and Lescott can’t play two games a week effectively.