Post-City conclusions

Sunday’s game was encouraging. Almost nobody gave the Villans a hope of picking up anything on Sunday afternoon against Manchester City. We certainly rode our luck but to get anything against the Citizens you undoubtedly have to hope for elements of fortune. I believe we deserved a bit of luck at last and there is plenty for Villa fans to chew on going in to the international break. For once, it seems to have come at a good time as it will give our new manager time to get to know those who are left at Bodymoor.

A good start

Nothing was expected of the Villans and their new manager on Sunday but it was vital that we stopped the rot: losing eight games in a row would have been desperate, even for the Aston Villa of recent seasons. Garde picked the kind of team that the fans have been crying out for for weeks. We looked organised, which is a far cry from the teams Sherwood and MacDonald gave us. Clark played ahead of Lescott and Amavi replaced Richardson. Both Clark and Amavi are superior players to those they replaced, in my opinion, and I do think that their inclusion contributed to the team looking more solid. We kept ourselves compact, as you’d expect against City, and, largely, it worked.

Garde has many tasks on his hands. Keeping our first clean sheet since August 7th represents a good start to the long term task of sorting out our tendency to look sloppy at the back and concede goals.

French connection

Garde opted to start with Frenchmen Amavi and Veretout, whilst other Ligue 1 summer signings Ayew and Gana also started. This represented a complete overhaul from MacDonald’s somewhat bizarre policy of leaving them all out against Spurs six days earlier. Our transfer policy has been questioned by the media but I don’t think the ‘moneyball’ signings are the issue: you can see that they are good footballers and better than a lot of the players Garde has at his disposal.

The only way they will adapt is to play more games and the fact that they came through with their reputations unscathed against an elite side will do them no harm. It may also go some way to alleviating the media campaign suggesting that proven Premier League quality is the way forward. After all, arguably our worst players this season all have the ‘Premier League experience’ box ticked.

Another Frenchman, Charles N’Zogbia, also returned to the fray after five months without Premier League football. With his contract expiring at the end of the season, this really is N’Zogbia’s last chance at Villa Park. Can Remi Garde get the best out of him as Roberto Martinez did during Wigan’s great escape a few years ago?

Gil glee

Villa fans rejoice – Carles Gil started a football match.

The little Spaniard was a joy to watch. He possesses magic feet and the way he glides with the ball is a sight to behold. His fitness is an issue, as he looked exhausted when he went off. However, he was doing a lot more defensive work than he was used to and, in the main, he did that well.

Gil is simply a majestic footballer. It beggars belief that he has been consigned to a bit part role at best since he arrived at Villa Park. We need wins and to get them we need to score goals. The fact that we look so much more penetrating with the former Valencia man in our side means that he must start games, particularly at home. Grade will have no doubt been impressed with Gil so I hope that we see much more of him under our new manager. I genuinely believe he could make a big difference to our chances of staying up.

Rock steady

When playing with a three man central midfield, Carlos Sanchez should always play. When we operate with two central midfielders, he shouldn’t. He just looks so comfortable as the anchor in the three man midfield. Yaya Toure was invisible, operating in the ‘number ten’ role for City. While this was not purely down to Sanchez, he was certainly an obstacle in the way of the Ivory Coast midfielder.

Incidentally, Sanchez’s best spell came last season around this time when performing the anchor role, as it’s the role he was built for. He seems to know his exact role and he also offers the back four some protection. When asked to play in a two, Sanchez can look somewhat wayward and unsure. On Sunday there was no sign of this. He was playing the way he does so effectively for Colombia.

Identifying the strengths of the squad over the coming months will be vital to Garde and I expect that playing Sanchez at the base of the midfield  is one he identified on Sunday.

Return of the ex

If you’re like me then Fabian Delph’s departure still rankles you. Sunday saw our former captain return to Villa Park for the first time since his controversial move. His return went as expected: he sat on the bench for most of the game, got booed a lot and there were a fair few chants against him before and after he came on.

I saw a few City fans failing to understand why we have so much hatred towards him and comparing it to the booing of Gareth Barry when he played against us for City. Gareth Barry didn’t deserve a bad reception, having been a dedicated servant to Aston Villa. Although he made a mistake with the ‘News of the World’ interview, he was otherwise a model professional for Aston Villa.

Delph deserved everything he got and he is now a back-up for probably the best team in the Premier League. He is a fantastic player, I won’t shy away from that, but any success he gains at City will hopefully be from the bench and I hope he never truly feels he played a part in earning any of the trophies the team will inevitably win.

The way he acted towards the football club I love and his sheer disrespect to the fans who idolised him leaves me wishing him nothing but ill in his career. Seeing him run over to the City fans at the end to give one of them his shirt smacks of someone who knows it is gestures like that that will endear him to his new supporters, for he won’t get enough time on the pitch to show them what he’s about. Thank the Lord his final shot trickled just past the post, as he didn’t deserve to score the winner against us. That miss shows me that there is such a thing as karma.