With Aston Villa playing out a pretty poor score draw with Stoke City last weekend, plenty of fans have been pointing to a largely woeful opening 45 minutes, but once again, there was a significant improvement in the second period.
Head coach Dean Smith admitted he had to have some strong words with the players at the halftime break and he was pleased with how we stepped up the performance, but basically only turning up for 45 minutes has long been a subject of frustration at the club.
Tommy Elphick was speaking to the Birmingham Mail following the game and the centre-half admitted that with so many players in different boats at this moment (presumably out of favour, out of form, potentially out of contract next summer) it does mean that we are lacking a unity and togetherness and ultimately, the team are paying the price for that at the minute.
“There are different people in different situations at the moment and I think if we all realised that Aston Villa in the top six is beneficial to everyone, we will start winning games. When things are not going right for us on the pitch, we can become a bit individual and start playing on our own. When things aren’t going right different people react in different ways. I think sometimes we are naive through our own honesty, people chasing on our own, trying to press balls we are not going to get. Sometimes we just need to get through the next five minutes and build from there. The second half was a real positive and a performance we have to take forward now.”
It’s a pretty revealing set of words really, and Elphick’s future itself is unresolved with his own contract expiring, but I can’t not read that as him admitting there are splits in the camp and a lack of focus whereby some players are focusing on themselves and their own futures, rather than the job they are contracted to do.
Maybe I’m being too cynical and reading too much into it and all he was trying to point to was a lack of confidence and a soft underbelly when things go against us, but there has to be a reason why the effort levels and determination that we saw towards the close of the game have never been our natural standard – it goes back a few years really.
Stoke City v Aston Villa Forum Match Thread – usual caveats of tasty language and a wide range of in the moment opinions.
