During the November international break, our series of 2015-16 team progress reports continues with an examination of Aston Villa’s season so far.
What has gone right?
Not much, quite frankly. The Midlands’ most decorated club is currently languishing bottom of the Premier League table, five points from safety ahead of the festive fixture list.
Tim Sherwood kept the Villans up last season by injecting a belief into his troops but that honeymoon period quickly dissipated. What was left behind was an increasingly forlorn figure on the touchline and one which seemed either unable or unwilling to select his best XI.
Sherwood was sacked and in has come Frenchman Remi Garde, a young manager who is highly rated from his three years at Lyon, but with a certain lack of experience in the English league despite his playing career at Arsenal. A run of seven straight league defeats was halted with a 0-0 draw against Manchester City in Garde’s first game in charge and the most pleasing aspect for Villa fans would have been the wholesale changes the new boss made. Gone were the largely overrated and experienced British players and back into the side were Villa’s young promising summer recruits who really never got a chance under Sherwood’s stewardship.
What’s gone wrong?
Plenty. A manager (Sherwood) failing to recognise his best players with the likes of Carles Gil left on the bench was always going to mean an uphill struggle. Losing the spine of the team in the summer was also a blow and while many feel the replacements brought in were of a reasonable quality, nobody would object to the fact that star Belgium striker Christian Benteke has definitely not been replaced.
Jordan Ayew has shown encouraging progress recently but is very unlikely to reach the talismanic heights that Benteke reached in a claret and blue shirt, while Rudy Gestede looks no more than an impact substitute. A man who does have a proven track-record of scoring goals at the top level, Libor Kozak, has fallen horribly out of favour since returning from a long injury lay-off but he will be hoping to get more of an opportunity under Garde.
Best player so far?
So poor has Villa’s start to the season been; this is a far harder question to answer than it should have been. Villa’s captain Micah Richards has put in some impressive performances however and would probably lay claim to being Villa’s best player of the season so far.
He clearly has leadership qualities and that coupled with his speed and strength in Villa’s back line plus a dogged determination to keep battling has seen Richards’ quality shine through so far. That said, he let his emotions get the better of him against Swansea City and following a scuffle in the tunnel after the match, Richards received a one-game ban from the FA. He will not want to repeat that as Villa need all their best players on the pitch to stand any chance of surviving the drop. Special mentions should also be made for Idrissa Gana Gueye, Jordan Amavi and Gil who have all impressed when on the pitch.
What’s next?
It feels like the start of the season again for Villa with the appointment of Garde ahead of the Christmas run-in. Everyone will be hoping to use the positive energy from the last game to kick on and put some more wins on the board – they still only have the solitary 1-0 win at Bournemouth to show for their efforts thus far.
Villa received another big blow over the international weekend with highly-rated full-back Amavi now ruled out for the rest of the season with a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament injury. Garde will nonetheless work with what he has and inject a far more free-flowing passing style to Villa’s game. The big question is: Can they turn attacks into goals after failing to hit the target once in their last game? If they are still bottom come the January transfer window, expect Villa owner Randy Lerner to splash the cash for a forward to save Villa’s season as he did by buying Darren Bent from Sunderland a few seasons ago.
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