‘Sleeping Giants’ is a term commonly used in football. Trouble is with Aston Villa, they’ve been fast asleep for a fair while now and getting back into the Premier League and staying there isn’t going to be an easy task at all.
Last year was an absolute disaster for the club. They showed little fight and most of the entertainment came from their online arguments with Stan Collymore. The fans suffered month after month as their rather clueless French manager failed dismally to keep them in the top flight. The arrival of Roberto Di Matteo didn’t spark an immediate revival in the Championship. Villa soon found themselves in the relegation zone and quickly pressed the panic button and gave their Italian boss the sack. He usually has to win the Champions League to get that.
So ‘desperate’ were Villa, they went and appointed a former Birmingham City manager in his place. The best bit about Steve Bruce taking over is that it keeps him away from the England job, though he still dreams of landing that job sometime in the future, He might need to take his hands out of his pockets to be successful at Villa Park though.
Bruce sees this job as his hardest ever and there’s huge pressure on him. At the time of writing a glance at the markets and football results on Paddy Power have Villa 9/2 to be promoted. Villa are five points adrift of the play-offs and 13 away from automatic promotion. Bruce certainly has a big task on his hands if the club are to get into contention but he is rather a dab hand at getting teams promoted; trouble is he knows how to take them down again too.
Villa have to get rid of the draw habit first of all. Nine in the first 16 league games simply isn’t going to help you one little bit in a division as tight as the Championship. Just converting three of those nine draws into victories would have Villa in the promotion shake-up. Goals are a big problem at the club at present with Villa only managing to score twice in a game on three occasions so far and two of those were against sides in the bottom five.
It’s hard to believe that a few decades ago Villa were the top team in Europe, but now they’re not even the best side in Birmingham. Confidence is a key factor at any time but even more so at Villa Park. After the constant battering they took last season and slow start to this campaign, it’s heartening to hear Gary Gardner declare that under their new boss “it feels like we can’t lose.” A run of seven points from three games is heartening but that’s a rather foolish comment and one that opposing fans will remind him of the next time Villa do get beaten.
Bruce has the experience to turn this situation round, November and December will be key months for the club. He needs to get Gabby Agbonlahor back in the fold after being frozen out by the past two managers. If he can return to the side and start scoring on a regular basis, then Bruce might just find himself back on familiar stamping ground at Wembley in May chasing yet another play-off final triumph.
