Following on from the extremely poor performance and result against Newcastle United last weekend, new head coach Unai Emery is now in the building and on the training pitches, and he knows exactly what he needs to do to turn the club around.
Emery will have undoubtedly done his homework on us and in a microcosm both the Brentford and Newcastle games show us at our best and worst, our new gaffers biggest task is to simply instil some consistency across games, and finally introduce a style of play that suits the strengths of the players that they find comfortable playing. For those who like a flutter, World Cup 2022 Betting Offers could be your friend, and in fairness given Villa’s current form, there are probably odds on which players might get a call up if their form now dramatically improves.
Whilst all the focus is currently on Emery, the backroom changes that have already begun – a departure for Big Cuts and a potential demotion for Aaron Danks – and exactly what will he change moving forward, a big focus needs to be on the players themselves.
This group are not a poor group of players, but they each undoubtedly have their flaws and if those flaws cannot be improved upon, eventually we as a club will need to move on from them. But with that said, we should be performing and playing a hell of a lot better than we have been for the last eleven odd months, and that improvement should happen almost overnight with a proper game plan in place and proper in game management from the dug out.
It will still take time to settle properly, and for consistency, confidence and belief to build, but for our bigger players and existing internationals, whatever the feelings and enjoyment levels (or lack thereof) of the always doomed to failure experiment that we now call ‘Purslow’s Gerrard Vanity Project’ (well I do anyway), they should need no greater motivation that the upcoming unique winter World Cup out in highly sunny Qatar.
Given results and performances we have seen, our internationals should know their places are not guaranteed across the European Nations that will be taking part, and others have slight injury issues that they will want to prove are well in the rear view mirror as we now approach the daftly timed Premier League sports washing break.
If this group of players cannot get themselves motivated for a manager with Emery’s record, plus the added temptation of maybe a World Cup adventure with their country – then maybe we have to accept that some of them will be needed to be moved on quicker than originally thought.