Villa's opening defeat at Bournemouth was a result of an uninspiring and poor Villa performance and it looks decidedly worse when looking at Bournemouth's (the Cherries') record since, over 3 games: 0-4, 0-3 (home) and now 0-9. Zero goals were scored and 16 were conceded in that time. Certainly, those three defeats were against three of the League's best teams, but where, exactly, does that put the Villa's pretensions to coming close to these 'best teams'?
Well, at least Gerrard has not set his sights on emulating the strongest teams in the land just yet. He decided that West Ham and their performances of the last few seasons would be the immediate target. But, lo and behold, West Ham arrived at Villa Park today with zero points on the board and zero goals to go with it. So, just how did he set Villa's tactics to face such a team, who - surely - would be short of confidence after their opening lack of success this season?
It seemed to me that Gerrard set his team up to be cautious, not trusting West Ham's position in the league. That might have been a fair approach, but it was soon apparent that there was some nervousness in the West Ham defence. Even Declan Rice square passed across to a defender and expected him to stretch for the ball with every sinew.
More speed and less ponderous thought should have produced a good lead for Villa by half-time.
Surely, a team with Leon Bailey in their attack - especially supported by Buendia - would have punished them in that first half? I think so. The trouble was he was not hauled on until only 15 minutes remained on the clock, and in those 15 minutes he, Buendia and Ramsey - while not perfect - looked at least to be making a fighting statement.
But David Moyes is too canny a guy. Having obtained a fortuitous lead, West Ham did pretty well everything they needed to do to keep Villa at bay. Their keeper did not have one really serious save to make all match. Not that Martinez had too much to do either, except pick the ball out of the net on one occasion, unluckily beaten by a shot that had a wicked deflection on it.
Villa for me, though controlling the first half, looked so ultra-cautious. And though I thought Luiz deserved a starting position after recent displays, he again reverted to passing backwards when Villa needed to go forwards.
No player - apart from Little Phil (more later) - wanted to take full control going forward until the subs came on in the 65th minute.
So, I can imagine David Moyes thinking at half-time, "If we muster up some energy we can beat this lot!". And they did - both mustered the energy and beat the Villa. Quite deservedly too based on their performance after the interval, although Villa's defence looked competent most of the time. It was the play going forward that was the problem - Villa could not get control second half.
Digne, in fact, did one great thing in this match in tracking back and robbing Bowen when he was about to pull the trigger. For the rest of the match, Digne seemed to me to be either forever allowing West Ham to block his passes out of defence or centring the ball straight to the head of a West Ham defender, and doing this over and over again.
Despite the fact that this is the first Gerrard full season and that you would not expect everything to be not yet quite right and dusted, for me he has passed up a good chance of getting 9 points on the board so far this season. Perhaps 10. These opening fixtures were not against the top rank. And who do we face next? Oh, just the Gunners and Man City!
Just where are Villa's goals going to come from? Little Phil must surely be rested now; he does try but seems not to be up to the rigours of the Premier League in his more advanced years. Buendia is significantly more effective in my opinion, but still we are missing something in midfield, and I actually now think there is a problem with McGinn. For me he is not the player he was before Gerrard arrived and after being made to be more of an automaton, it seems to me. The captaincy is not helping methinks.
As things stand I do not think that Gerrard is good for Villa. Even as a statement of the club's aspirations, he needs to back it up with capable team selection and management. He is failing i.m.o. But if Gerrard goes, then there's also an argument that Purslow should accompany him, but it may well be that his achievements on the business side will save him from that ignominy.
Well, if Villa get taken apart by the Gunners and Man City there will surely be nothing left by way of an argument for Gerrard to stay. Continually getting rid of managers is certainly not the best way, but looking at the achievements of Vieira and Howe in such short a time I really do have to ask just how can we be so bad by comparison?
UTV!
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