AVFC – What Happened To Our 4-5-1?

What do we have to do to realise 4-5-1 works for Villa?

Oh dear…. Another poor performance we all cry. Actually, I thought we were average last night (which should be enough to see off the likes of rapid Vienna), but were let down by a couple of individual standout performances. I say standout because they stood out as being very very poor in relation to the team. I’ll not dwell too long on last nights game though because this topic is to bang the drum again that almost every sane villa fan has been saying for the last couple of seasons: we need 4-5-1.

I actually believe the tactics were an improvement last night, but the team selection was woeful.
I say an improvement, because to address how lightweight we looked in midfield, he introduced NRC in on the right (I noticed he was operating more on the centre right), and told Ireland to come a bit deeper, and indeed, there was actually hardly any threat that came from the middle last night despite what some are saying. Their goals came from the wings – more specifically the left wing that should have been covered by Habib Beye. This brings me to the team selection.

I must confess I don`t really rate Beye at the best of times, but playing him on the left had us exposed time & time again. He was caught out of position several times, he lost the ball several times, he gave the ball away several times… it’s been some time since I’ve seen such an inept performance quite frankly. Then Davis at centre back who is usually a lot more solid than that showed why he is currently our 4th choice – several shoddy attempted clearances, and the ‘passback slice’ that gave away the needless corner that led to the 2nd goal undid what was overall a reasonable performance, and should have been enough to win the match. Oh, and Heskey…. Need I say more? I think we’ve found the only way we can actually get him to score – kick the ball hard at him and hope it bounces into the net!

Anyway, back on topic…. 4-5-1 – why would it work? For me, because our wingers usually hug the touchline, this leaves a 2-man midfield with a lot of hard graft to do, and unless it’s 2 very hardworking players (NRC / Milner as was), we get overrun far too easily. I’d play Petrov/NRC/Ireland in a 3-man midfield, and Young/Albrighton as wide players. Then either Gabby(away), or Carew(home) as the front man. I’d also tell young/Albrighton to take the fullback on and shoot more, as we’d be more dependant on our striker getting into the box.

Hey, at the end of the day, we tried this, and it worked in the past!!!

Lastly, lets all get behind the lads – UTV