No Gray Areas - Aston Villa stars to blame
Aston Villa's current league position will come as a surprise to many. After all, they have consistently finished in the top six for the last few seasons and boast a number of established internationals. Darren Bent and Ashley Young both started for England against Wales in a big qualifier and Stewart Downing then started against Ghana.
Look at the rest of the squad and you'll find plenty of other quality players who are automatic starters for their countries: Richard Dunne, Stiliyan Petrov, Michael Bradley and James Collins to name but a few. And that's without mentioning exciting young talent like Marc Albrighton and Fabian Delph.
So how are they in this mess and who's to blame? Well, for starters, it's not Gerard Houllier, who arrived at the club with the season well under way. I said at the time that Martin O'Neill's departure was ill-timed and inconsiderate and I stand by it. A lot of what is happening now is a direct consequence of that.
As for Houllier, he didn't have a chance to see his players in pre-season or get time to mould the squad as he would have liked to. We saw how Roberto Mancini arrived midway through the campaign last year and also had players at the club who weren't necessarily his cup of tea but couldn't be offloaded immediately.
He had to wait till the summer to pick who he wanted to stay, leave and who he wanted to bring in. If Houllier stays till August, and I hope for Villa's sake he does, he'll also have a chance to do some business in the transfer market and have a squad of players that better matches his philosophy and game-plan.
Don't judge the Frenchman now, judge him in a year's time when he's had sufficient time to do things his own way. I can't see Villa going down so it's only fair he has a chance to make a fresh start in the summer.
As a former Villa player, I've been disappointed to hear players speaking out about training methods and other matters that are not their concern. Once they hang up their boots, they all have the choice to go into management and make all those decisions themselves. For the time being, they're paid to go out and play.
A final word on Ashley Young. He's a super player who can have a very successful career at club and international level. I understand he was offered the biggest contract in the club's history and he decided to reject it.
If he feels that Aston Villa can't give him the opportunities he wants, that's up to him and I wish him all the best, but what isn't fair is for people to suggest he's leaving because he doesn't want to play under Houllier. Ashley decided he wants to leave and it wouldn't have mattered one bit who was in charge at Villa.
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Published: 6 Apr 2011
Charlie (April 3, 2011 6:52 PM) said:
can't argue with these statements at all!!!! a couple more points and a fresh start for Houllier this summer will let him take the blame or credit next fall. with only a few moves villa will have no excuses about finishing any worse than 10-12th next season and could do better than that. There is plenty of potential there. Lets get some big spending bucks from Ashley moving along.