Why their attempt to build a team, may not be successful in the long-term.
Last week, I wrote an article underlining why I thought any talk of Di Matteo’s future, at this early stage, were way off the mark.
I still hold that opinion, but having watched their game with Newcastle yesterday, there were some key areas that I felt Villa’s recruitment drive had failed in.
Although they eventually rescued a point, through a late goal from Aaron Tshibola, they for large parts looked, as a team, a lot less comfortable than their North-East opponents.
It looked from the outset that the Villa management staff had fallen into the very tempting recruitment trap that is available to the club’s that are better-equipped financially.
They have all the money in the world to blow. Parachute payments are, in my opinion, a poor entitlement. it is basically rewarding failure. But for whatever reasons, it exists. So we just have to get on with it.
That encourages expensive signings, obviously, the equivalent of a free attempt at promotion.
For a club like Villa, stabilising is important.
To stabilise, you need a base. A pre-picked system if you like to build around. To me, yesterday, it looked like this was the thing they had failed to do.
It looked more like the management team, due to the financial power handed to them, had signed a bunch of names and attempt to fit them into the system rather than pick a system and sign players who suit it. Too many looked out-of-place yesterday and some didn’t even look like they understood where they were meant to be playing.
Much like my criticism of England at The Euros in the summer, the system looked unbalanced, the type of player they had didn’t buy into that.
The key to restructuring is finding something to restructure around. Otherwise, the rebuilding programme can never truly begin.
