Cahill – Villa Need Some Points

Gary Cahill has spoken about his stature in the Villa squad and says he is happy to have ‘cemented’ his place in the starting line up.

Cahill, who picked up his first cap for the England U21’s at the new Wembley Stadium last weekend said:

‘Obviously I am happy with the run of games that I have had, and I would like to think that I have cemented my place and the manager hopefully looks on me as being one of the two choice centre-halves. But I was on the bench at Fulham and you never know what is around the corner. To find yourself on the bench is frustrating, so it is all about doing as well as you can to stay in there because you don’t want to be sat on the sidelines.’

‘I am obviously going to keep being tagged the ‘young’ centre back, and the ‘rookie’ and all that, probably until I’m 27.’ The rookie continued (!) ‘People still look on me as young – and if I am out of the team that can be used by people as a kind of excuse. But from a personal point of view, being in the team is how you learn and become ‘older’ and more experienced.’

He also says the team know the performance against Liverpool wasn’t good enough:

‘We were a bit down after the Liverpool game, but from a defensive point of view, obviously you head into every game to not concede goals – and that’s what we did, so we did our job. I can imagine that it wasn’t very entertaining to watch at all, if I’m honest.’

Bang on the money that comment!

‘Somehow we need to get some results and get some wins under our belts from now until the end of the season.’ Adding: ‘We have got all the so-called big teams out the way. But is important that we win these games. We can’t lose to the teams below us. We need to push ourselves up the table. It is important we get back to winning games – I can’t really stress that enough. Winning lifts everybody: the club, manager, the players – so hopefully we can do that on Monday night against Everton.’

He also says a few wins would push us back up the table as things are close between a number of clubs but also warns, ‘A few losses, on the other hand, will drop us right back down to where we don’t want to be.’

Just can’t understand how this season has gone, what happened to the attacking football and as being discussed in our forum, why has Ashley Young been pushed out wide when he looked like a tailor made partner for John Carew? Sooner the season is over and Martin O’Neill gets back into the transfer market + has a pre-season the better! Thank God we’ve only eight more games to go because having only 2 wins in 18 odd games is relegation form, luckily with the points on the table and a few worse teams out there, we should hold on. Didn’t think we’d have to be thinking that way this season!

With games against Man City, Wigan, Sheffield United who are all below us, I hope our lads know they are in a fight up until the end of the season, we need to start picking up more than just a point, no more talk of low confidence, just go out there and attack!