Villa lost at home on Saturday, for a change. Dave Woodhall comments.
I’ve said before that I wouldn’t start to worry about this Villa side until Christmas. There’s too many new players to expect them to have an immediate impact, they’re having to learn how to play together and for most there’s the additional effect of a new country to contend with.
I’ll stick by that belief, although I’m starting to get a bit concerned. On Saturday the team should have been ready to race away from the off, determined to put the thiry-minute debacle of Leicester behind them. With a bit more luck they could be higher up the table and they should have been absolutely focused on getting it right this time, against an Albion side who are organised but are also as limited as a Tony Pullis side invariably are. Add the needle between the two clubs left over from last year and this was a perfect opportunity to kick-start the season, to instil some belief into the team.
What happened, of course, was the opposite. Villa rarely looked like scoring, and frequently looked like conceding. Too many players were below par, motivation didn’t seem there and in a game like this, there’s only going to be one outcome.
Tim Sherwood didn’t help with an odd starting line-up and the sort of substitutions best suited to protecting a lead rather than chasing the game – unfortunately it was six days too late. It’s one thing to be forever piling forward, but there were too many long balls and there isn’t the instinctive goal poacher in the team who can make the most of such limited service. Whatever else can be said about the summer’s transfer dealings, Sherwood seems to have gone for the option of buying two forwards cheaply in the hope that one will come off, when a single top-quality striker would have been the better idea. It’s something that will have to be remedied in January.
One thing that the manager has singularly failed to put right, though, is something he’s spoken about almost from his first day at Villa Park. There’s a losing culture here; whether it’s because players have become used to losing, or life at Villa is too easy, or whatever the reason, you get the definite feeling that getting beat doesn’t hurt as much as it should. Tim Sherwood may have made that his top priority, but one win in six league games this season shows that whatever he’s doing hasn’t had much effect so far.
I like Sherwood, and he deserved to go into the season with a reservoir of goodwill after what he did following his appointment in February. However, this is starting to run out and if the worst comes to the worst on Tuesday evening the doubts about his long-term effectiveness will begin to multiply.