The Reason Keinan Davis was Missing From Villa’s Line-up

AWOL Davis

A lot has been made of Aston Villa’s injuries in recent weeks, but Villa have had a squad to deal with it in large. However, with Jonathan Kodjia out and the other big striker buys misfiring, the position of striker was always a precarious situation, if the impressive Keinan Davis wasn’t fit.

The 19-year-old’s absence from the first team against Derby was a surprise to supporters, as the player didn’t have any known injury or knock in the run-up to the game.

“We were rocked with Keinan Davis being ill overnight, but I don’t want to make excuses,” reflected Bruce, after the game.

“He’s sick. He was ok yesterday but then we spoke to him this morning and he was so sick he couldn’t get out of bed.

“It’s disappointing but in the middle of winter these things happen.

“Of all the people you need it to happen to at the moment, it’s not Davis.”

Equally surprising was the Villa bosses’ decision to not replace Davis directly with a recognised striker. Since both Scott Hogan and Gabby Agbonlahor were on the bench, it was a bold decision.

“In hindsight you could say maybe I should have started one of them but I decided to go the way we did,” admitted Bruce.

Ultimately, it back-fired, but whether Hogan or Agbonlahor would have done any better is open to debate.

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5 COMMENTS

  1. I agree with Colin. If we do get up it will be in spite of Bruce and not because of him. We have a great squad/youth coming thro’ but Bruce doesn’t know how to use them. He keeps making stupid selections and his subs are often pathetic.

    Poor selections against Wolves (h) and Sheff Wed (h), when he played his 4-2-4, cost us points and he keeps playing Whelan and Hourihane, two sitting midfielders with no real energy and drive, alongside each other and Onomah, who is a box to box no. 8, at 10 where he hasn’t got a clue (even worse yesterday he played him at 9!!).

    He needs to play a proper 4, 8 and 10 and give us a balanced CM and a striker. He did it for the first time in the last 30 minutes away at Leeds and we looked a different side!

  2. although i agree with you and i think it will be a bad month for us bruce just might bring in a couple of players to get us firing again,,, without kodja we just lack that bit of quality that you need up front,,,
    davies has been great but his form has dropped and he needs resting
    despite my reservations about bruce i do think he knows what we need,,,, its just getting it

    • Without Kodja, I’m not being funny where was he when he came back early season? Nowhere, I personally can’t believe o’hare not getting a look in, yesterday’s team selection was woeful praying for better Saturday night 3pts a must

  3. Yes the striker problem is massive especially when the manager doesn’t play any of them, how can you justify taking the field with no strikers when we have two bench warming and O’Hare not even in the squad. We can forget automatic promotion and we will be very lucky if we hold on to a play off place, but having said that if we do get into the play offs we have zero chance of getting through, and if by some chance we did let’s be honest we are a million miles away from being a premiership team. My own opinion is if we had Rowett we would be In the automatic promotion places by now but with Bruce I see mid table at best.

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