Mellberg – More To Come For Villa

The bearded wonder says more players will arrive in the summer and admits that puts pressure on the current players.

Olof Mellberg told the official site: ‘The pressure is now on us to match the club’s ambitions.’

How different is that? No more players wanting out because the club is drifting? Just how good would we have been if we’d been able to match the ambitions of all those players who left out of frustration including Gareth Southgate and Dwight Yorke?

Ho hum, onwards and upwards, we are on the right road now!

The Swedish international defender added: ‘People can now see the ambition at this club. That has not been the case for years and players have moved on to other clubs to fulfil their ambitions. That has changed, but now there is more pressure to do well. In the end it’s up to the players to perform on the pitch and get the points to lift us up the table. We have to live up to the ambition here now. I don’t think we’re satisfied with the position we’re in, but there have been some really good spells and some really good performances.’

‘Lately we’ve performed well without coming away with enough points. I think it’s a while since we had a really poor performance, so we need to start turning the good performances into results. The mood and the atmosphere within the group is very good – as good as I’ve known it – we just all want to get into the top half of the table.’

‘You can see that’s what the chairman and the gaffer are trying to do now and we’ve already seen some changes. There are probably more to come in the summer and we’ll have the new training ground as well next season.’