Shay Given agreed a £3.5m move to Aston Villa on Monday night, signing a five-year deal which will see him rake in approximately £60,000 a week until he hits the ripe old age of 40. But will Villa be any better next season?
On the face of it, a transfer to Aston Villa is a decent move for Ireland’s number one: he’s joining a traditionally strong club, one of precious few outside the Premier League’s ‘Big’ 4/5/6 that’s seemingly in no real danger of relegation.
But is that really true? Villa could well be the next Newcastle, a supposedly established club which was unable to stop the slide when it started to set in.
They weren’t very good last season, and even with Given as the last line of defence things don’t exactly look rosy. Here’s a few reasons we reckon Villa will still be crap in 2011/12.
1. Alex McLeish
There’s no avoiding this – McLeish is a manager devoid of charm, charisma and flair, and his teams are sent onto the field in his image.
Over the last couple of years, Birmingham were both dismal and dismal to watch, their entire game-plan seemingly revolving around mauling, kicking and scrapping their way to results. They had two good centre halves in Roger Johnson and Scott Dann, both of whom were snapped up by McLeish, who knows a thing or two about centre half play, but it was just a case of more of the same robustness in areas where teams should be in some way attractive.
McLeish doesn’t do attractive, and the Villa fans who opposed his appointment were all too mindful of the prospect of watching a team that was a decidedly unappealing combination of ugly and unsuccessful.
2. The loss of Stewart Downing
Downing has been likened to a one-tricky pony, but I think he’s a bit more than that. Maybe “one-trick thoroughbred” might be a more accurate description, because he’s very, very good at that thing he does – kicking the ball past the full back, racing it to the end-line and, if he wins that race, slinging a pretty damn good ball across the six-yard box.
Liverpool’s new one-trick thoroughbred
Downing provided nine assists last season, and chipping in with seven league goals himself was a bit of a bonus, given that he spends so much time on the flanks.
The debate about whether he’s worth £20m could go on forever, but Villa will miss him, particularly as the club was effectively without a proper centre forward (i.e., one that didn’t resemble John Carew or Emile Heskey) until the arrival of Darren Bent in January. Downing could have formed a productive alliance with his sometime England teammate but he’s found a new teammate in Andy Carroll instead.
3. No Ashley Young
Ashley Young is not everyone’s cup of tea. If he was, he would have commanded a much bigger transfer fee than the £17m forked out by Manchester United earlier this summer, given that he’s only just turned 26 and should be coming into the peak of his career. Although he was entering the final year of his contract, it still pales in comparison with the possible £20-25m figures bandied about for Samir Nasri.
Young’s departure is not as significant as that of Downing, but there’s no denying that Young was Villa’s go-to guy for much of his four-and-a-half years at the club. If he played well, Villa always had a chance. His elusive positioning – did he play out wide, in the hole, up front, or all three? – made him difficult to mark and always dangerous. He’ll be hard to replace, if he is replaced at all.
4. Lerner driver
As football club backers go, Randy Lerner is one of the good guys. Everyone seems to like him – he’s certainly not as shamelessly triumphalist as Roman Abramovich, as shady as Alisher Usmanov or as injudicious as Sheikh Mansour.
But there could be a strong correlation between Lerner’s apparent amiability and his lack of cold, hard cash. He backed Martin O’Neill with tens of millions of pounds a couple of years back, but since then the money has dried up.
The sale of James Milner to Manchester City financed any transfer moves last year, and the departure of Young and Downing could bring in enough funds for McLeish to leave his mark, but Villa are a selling club these days.
Far from the top four aspirations of free-spending Martin O’Neill’s early days, it’s now a case of seventh place being Villa’s absolute limit. And even that will look pie in the sky come Christmas.
5. Shocking lack of squad depth
Villa’s possible first XI for the start of the new season won’t be the worst in the League. They’ll have Shay Given, Richard Dunne, Stiliyan Petrov, Darren Bent. Charles N’Zogbia, the £10m-rated Wigan wide man, could also be in by then. Ciaran Clark, the young Ireland international, has looked promising at centre half, left back and central midfield at Villa.
If Marc Albrighton can build on a breakthrough season then he’s a potential star. Stephen Ireland could, if Villa fans close their eyes tight, eats rabbits’ feet and wish upon a star, rediscover his best form.
Long before you’ve even named eleven players, though, you start to realise that Villa are painfully bereft of what it takes to challenge any of the top sides.
And that’s not taking the lack of cover into account. Villa’s summer transfer see-saw, as it stands today, is Given alone on one side, 13 departed players on the other.
It’s a recipe for disaster. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
[Main picture via ell brown/Flickr Creative Commons]
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