Aston Villa were many peoples' (ok, our) tip for relegation before the season started but ten points from the first five games stood them in good stead. Things have gone a little awry since though.
There were notable highlights last season, but most of them came before Christmas. They won 3-1 at Arsenal on the opening day to bust everybody’s coupon and subsequently beat Manchester City 3-2 at Villa Park.
But they won just one of 17 after that famous win against the eventual champions, failing to score on eight occasions. The won one home game in eight attempts. They were knocked out of the FA Cup at home against League One side Sheffield United. They won just one of their last nine, losing seven and conceding 23 goals in the process including four each against Stoke, Man Utd, Swansea, Man City and five at Spurs on the last day. They lost at home to Fulham. Fulham.
That was against the backdrop of US-based owner Randy Lerner trying to sell the club, and rarely attending the matches. Once held up as a bastion of calm, quiet, sanity in a raging torrent of ego and newspaper headlines generated by other Premier League owners, Lerner spent big with Martin O’Neill trying to reach the Champions League but after three successive sixth placed finishes gave it up as a bad job. Any attempts to stabilise Villa as a more sensible midtable organisation thereafter were badly hampered by a managerial selection policy similar to the one Deirdre uses for new husbands on Coronation Street — when you thought it couldn’t get worse than walking coronary Gerrard Houllier, Alex McLeish pitched up.
It’s unclear to this point whether Paul Lambert deserves credit for preventing the wheels falling off completely, or whether Villa should actually be doing better. Costs have had to be cut, money has had to be saved, players have been bought from Crewe and Sheffield United as opposed to Ashley Young for £8m, Darren Bent for £18m and so on. Big earners being moved out, replaced by lower ranking kids and hopefuls from the division below isn’t going to yield immediate success, if it yields success at all. It’s a long term thing, and all conducted while Lerner has been touting for buyers — unsettling.
By the summer, Lerner’s attempts to offload the stricken giant had regressed to him walking around New Street station asking if anybody fancies taking a football club off his hands and his chief executive Paul Faulkener snuck out while nobody was looking and legged it.
Lambert, whose transfer budget amounted to little more than a couple of moths found lurking at the bottom of an old wallet in the Villa Park boardroom, backed Philippe Senderos to plug that colander-like defence — a frightening prospect for anybody unfortunate enough to pay to get into any of his previous Premier League appearances at Fulham and Arsenal.
Kieran Richardson didn’t look a bad signing but Joe Cole has been on the slide for some time — Harry Redknapp would surely have been all over him like a donkey on waffles if there was anything left to wring out from his largely wasted talent.
The situation also forced Lambert to bring players like Darren Bent, Alan Hutton and Charles N’Zogbia back into the fold after ostracising them but failing to find a permanent buyer. Ask Gary Waddock how well that works following a similar failed policy with the likes of Steve Lomas, Marc Bircham and Ian Evatt at QPR. Don’t bomb a player out unless you know you can get rid of him, otherwise you may end up relying on him later and he’s not going to be overly motivated in saving your arse when that time comes.
The fixture list also looked particularly unkind. From September 13 Villa had Liverpool A, Arsenal H, Chelsea A, Man City H, Everton A, QPR A and Spurs H. Pre-season we said to expect a managerial change somewhere in amongst that mess (probably just before the Loftus Road trip knowing our luck) with the thinking man’s psychopath Roy Keane — an odd choice as a new assistant manager to Lambert — waiting to assume control.
"Expectations should probably be low this season. If they can get to May with the ground still intact and without killing anybody they should probably see that as an achievement,” said LFW’s pre-season preview.
And with Villa arriving at Loftus Road on a run of four straight defeats without scoring a goal you could make us dead right. But prior to that Lambert’s side made an excellent start to the season. They began with a clear shape, with three tight central midfielders and advanced wing backs, and a strong sense of how they were going to go about their work. It was a plan too well-drilled and executed for Stoke, where they won on day one, and Liverpool, who they deservedly beat 1-0 at Anfield. A home win against Hull City doesn’t look too shabby either in the context of the Tigers’ continued rise, and nor does a current position of twelfth with ten points. There’s even talk of Lerner showing more interest, attending games again, perhaps even investing in January. Far from a car crash, Villa 2014/15 could be one of football’s great survival stories, furthering Lambert’s reputation and restoring that of Keane who’d like to be known as a sharp-tongued hard man but whose managerial CV is headlined by selling Jordan Rhodes for £250k and buying Tamas Priskin for £1.6m in the same summer transfer window at Ipswich.
Or they could be as bad as their last four results, and the performance last time out in a 3-0 defeat at Everton, suggest. We shall see, starting on Monday.
Read the Villa perspective, in our opposition fan interview with Nelson Rahi by clicking here.
Villa lined up with a back four at Anfield, missing dominant centre half Ron Vlaar. Nathan Baker deputised for the Dutchman alongside Senderos with Hutton wide right and Cissokho wide left. They key to the victory came further forward though. In front of that back four they stationed a tight central midfield three of Delph, Westwood and Cleverley who suffocated the space in front of the defence that Liverpool enjoyed working in and picking holes through last season. Wide of them Kieran Richardson played left and Andreas Weimann right, advancing to support lone-striker Gabby Agbonlahor in a 4-3-3 when in possession and then quickly filing back to form an almost flat midfield five when out of it.
Richardson and Weimann worked harder than anybody else on the field that day and did a great service for their team — nice to see Richardson being used further forward, where he was so good for West Brom he earned an England call up before being marooned at left back by first Sunderland and then Fulham.
You’d expect Lambert, working under the restrictions he is, to have Villa drilled in the basics, particularly with Roy Keane around this season. That shone through here — fitness, organisation, and, above all else, quality set pieces. Westwood took most, from both sides, and while Liverpool are a bit vampire-like with crosses this season there was no doubting the quality of two corners and a wide free kick in the first quarter of an hour. QPR aren’t so crash hot themselves from opposition dead balls this season and with Christian Benteke now back in the mix — injured for the Liverpool game — that has to be a concern. As does Villa’s counter-attacking style that worked well for them away from home last season, notably at Southampton where they won with less than a third of the possession, given the way Liverpool broke QPR hearts at the weekend.
Senderos marked Mario Balotelli in this game and found that after a couple of sly early kicks off the ball the Italian didn’t want to know. Watch out for that behind the referee’s back if QPR start either Eduardo Vargas or - you never know - Adel Taarabt on Monday.
Liverpool, to a certain extent, played right into Villa’s hands. No Raheem Sterling for this one, benched, so they were markedly slower on the break and the attack than they usually are and that allowed Villa time to funnel back into the four and three shape in the middle, with the wing backs flying back to form a five in wide areas, all too easily. Once set and in shape, Villa never looked troubled at all. QPR must try and find some pace to go at them with.
The other thing was that Cissokho was absolutely terrible on the ball in possession. Any pressure caused a panic and possession concession so Rangers must not let the high-pressing game that troubled Liverpool so much on Sunday drop away here.
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