Author: Dale Rutter
Villa will come up against a run of tough games against Midland opposition, starting this Saturday. We start with a trip to Derby County, followed by two home games against Birmingham and Nottingham Forest. It doesn’t get much easier after those either but that’s for another day and another article. I am going to focus on this weekends fixture at Derby and as my title suggests, I’d happily take a point now. Derby are playing very well of late and sit 5th in the Championship table. Defending Derby have scored 25 Championship goals this season. 14 of those have come…
Aston Villa will take on Bolton Wanderers tonight in what will be Dean Smith’s fourth game in charge. Nothing less than three points I required if we are to improve on our poor start to the season. Villa faces a run of tough games against Midland opposition in Derby, Birmingham and Nottingham Forest. Three points would be vital in order to build up some much-needed confidence. Despite a disappointing result against QPR, we all witnessed a much-improved performance. We played a lot better than in recent times and dominated the whole game. The big problem was that we couldn’t put the…
In recent years Norwich has been a tough place for Villa to go to. Our latest trip to Carrow Road proved to be no different. Some would say that maybe we deserved something from the game but its the final score that counts. The result and how the game turned out, however, will certainly help Dean Smith pass judgement over some of the squad as well as notice what work needs to be done. Negatives I’ll start with our final ball. It was lacking. If our final ball was better, the rest could have been very different. I think some of the…
Saturday is going to be a unique day. It’s the beginning of a brand new era and brand new regime and I for one, cannot wait. I cannot wait to see what Dean Smith, Richard O’Kelly and John Terry have managed to do with our squad. They have had very little time with some of the squad to embed their ideas and systems and hopefully, we get to see some of this Saturday. Another reason that will make it unique is because of the very sad passing of Sir Doug Ellis. Hopefully, we can pay tribute to the man as…
I am pleased to say I am so glad that we have acquired Dean Smith as our manager. Yes, he doesn’t possibly have the pull or glamour of Thierry Henry but at least we all know he brings to us a chance to play positive and attractive football. In the current Aston Villa squad, he has the resources there to play great attacking football. There are ample attacking options and if used correctly, we could be devastating and climb up the league. Let’s not mention our defence right now, perhaps, for now, our best form of defence is our offence.…
It is hard not to read or talk about who the potential new upcoming manager will be at Aston Villa. But whoever comes into the club, will have a few issues they will need to address and quickly. I have looked into a few of these issues in more detail: The Defence I was pleased to see Kevin Macdonald bring Neil Taylor back into the first team in the defeat at Millwall. He is our only senior left-back. Yes, I admit his form hasn’t been great since signing from Swansea but a run in the team could help him. We…
News broke today that Roberto Martinez could also be in the running to become the new Aston Villa manager. Thierry Henry has been favourite with the bookies since Steve Bruce’s departure. Both worked together during the World Cup in Russia. They helped guide Belgium to finish third. Martinez being the manager and Henry the student but who would be best for Aston Villa? Roberto Martinez I’ll start with Martinez, someone I rate as a manager. Experience of managing in the Premier League with two different clubs, Wigan and then Everton. He did a tremendous job at Wigan as they always…
After it was announced on Wednesday that Steve Bruce would leave Aston Villa, we all turned our attention to who our new manager would be. Over the coming days and perhaps weeks it will be worse than the transfer window. There will be so much speculation and rumours. I personally hope we stay away from the usual, recycled rubbish from the usual scrap heap, you know who I mean. The likes of Sam Allardyce, Alan Pardew and David Moyes. Some have already suggested that Allardyce should come in to steady the ship until the end of the season. We have…
Steve Bruce made a massive deal about exploiting the loan market and rightly so. But I believe the downward spiral that led to the manager losing his job began in the loan market. Let me explain. £70K a week In recent weeks, it came to light that we would be paying Yannick Bolasie’s wages in full. £70,000 a week and if true, it is sickening. To me, it just rings of desperation. Bruce ran out of options and did what he always seemed to do. Just threw money at it. We should never have agreed to pay his wages in…
I had a written article ready on why Steve Bruce’s time was up but now I’ve amended it as we all now know, he has been sacked. I’ll be honest. Up to about three weeks ago, I was willing to give Bruce time to change our fortunes around. But then I realised that perhaps he wasn’t the man to do it. I personally believe that Bruce contributed to his own downfall. It wasn’t like the players weren’t playing for him any more or he had fallen out with the board. It was just an accumulation of errors that seems to…