May 2009 Archives

All this fuss about expenses.

It reminds me of the tale I was told a couple of years ago of the club director here in the midlands who used to claim mileage from his midlands home to attend home matches.

Yes, home matches.

Nothing in football should ever surprise you.

Nothing.

I've just finished one of those live web chats we do every three weeks, or so.

The level of criticism levelled at Martin O'Neill was in part understandable. This has been a truly wretched 15 game run. Moscow was bad enough. But throwing away fourth place and then fifth.

If ever Villa needed to finish on a high it is Sunday.

The most important final home game since, well, since Sunderland in May 2003. Then it was all about staying in the division. Now it is all about sending out a ray of hope for next season.

Villa were four points clear of West Ham with two games to go six years back. Sunderland and Albion were already down but the Hammers were making a fight of it.

No one fancied the final game, away at struggling Leeds.

Marcus Allback scored with ten minutes to go and Villa stayed up by the skin of their teeth - four points clear of West Ham who went down on 42 points, a Premier League record high.

Sunday represents an incredible occasion for Villa but not for the reasons you would have imagined last August.

A Villa win and Newcastle, one of the best supported teams in the country, will be down.

I know an awful lot of Villa supporters who can see the funny side in that.

Indeed, a great many football fans in general will have little sympathy for Mike Ashley.

As for Villa? Is fifth really worth fighting for?

Is beating last season's 60 points worth anything whatsoever?

Is attaining 62 points and therefore getting the most points since 1996 worth anything?

Well, it will never make up for the way Villa have tossed away such a tremendous position on February 7.

It will never make up for Moscow and the decision that announced to the world that silverware meant little and that the finances of fourth meant everything.

But still the level of criticism of Martin O'Neill shocks me.

We are in a league where results mean everything. Look at Stoke. Playing hoof-the-ball football for eight months having spent a small fortune and where Tony Pullis is talked about as a contender for Manager of the Season. Laughable.

So if it is results you want then fifth or sixth place should not see the manager facing the level of criticism he is now facing, both on the internet chat rooms and in our letters pages.

Everything he has done, or is doing, is now under scrutiny.

All of a sudden the bad buys, they often point to the likes of Harewood, Shorey, Cuellar, Davies, Knight, Sidwell, Reo-Coker, Milner and Heskey out-weigh the good: Ashley and Luke Young and Petrov (admittedly after an 18 month wait).

All of a sudden the substitutions are laughable (taking off to full-backs at Fulham) and the team selections puzzling (Milner at right back) when only three months ago the Irishman was a tactical whizz, playing five in midfield and out-thinking Arsene Wenger at home and away (undoubtedly, the best 45 minutes of the season was in the draw at Villa Park and the best 90 minutes came at The Emirates).

It's going to be a massive summer as ever.

Martin Laursen has already gone. Gareth Barry may decide to join him in the fulness of time - although Rafa Benitez' promise to play Barry as a left-back or a left-sided midfielder has not gone down well with the player. That's not exactly a ringing endorsement of his qualities.

Villa have kept Petrov, which was great news. They may well decide to cash in on John Carew should a big offer come in, but that is down to them.

You never know. Bouma could be back to finally hand the club a quality left-back.

Shorey, Osbourne, Knight, Sidwell, Reo-Coker, Harewood, Taylor, Salifou and Gardner will each have decisons to make: whether to make a break or to sit on their contracts.

I can forsee any one of them moving on, but of course not all.

Then the tricky part. Spending wisely to take the club forward.

Only then, come October or November at the very earliest, should O'Neill's management of the club even start to be questioned.

Just thank your lucky stars that you are not a Newcastle supporter.

First the bad news.... one win in 15 matches.

Now the good news, Stiliyan Petrov is signing a new lengthy four year contract today.

That really is terrific news for Villa.

The Supporters and Players' Player of the Season had just next season on his contract and, as I have said before, there was interest in the Bulgarian from elsewhere in the Premier League from serious challengers to Villa's 5th/6th spot next season.

Petrov's future was in doubt until last week.

I would not bet against him being captain next season if, as expected, Gareth Barry moves on.

Petrov would also not have signed had he not been given some sort of assurances about team rebuilding.

The last few months have been frustrating for one and all - even sports writers.

No one wants to talk when the team is doing poorly, although I have to give a special commendation to James Milner for facing up to the music after the 5-0 drubbing at Liverpool.

Saturday's draw at Middlesbrough once again served up a right mixture.

The first half was bad. Very bad. As bad as that second half at Fulham.

But the second saw Villa back to somewhere near the form of late November to early February, at least for a sizeable portion of that 45 minutes.

Ashley Young and Gabby Agbonlahor are struggling for form.

What on earth has happened to Villa's ability to take a free-kick? Young's were appalling at Boro and have been for some time. This from a player who is the nearest Villa fans have seen to David Beckham in years and years.

The winners for me were Milner who will surely not have expected to be playing at right-back from the start.

The early exit of Stewart Downing certainly helped Milner settle after a difficult start to the game.

But against, it must be said, a poor side apart from Tuncay Milner then picked up his game and came out with his head held high.

And I thought the centre-backs of Curtis Davies and Carlos Cuellar deserved massive credit.

Yes I know they were not up against much. But they did everything and more at The Riverside to suggest that actually they aren't bad players at all.

Martin Laursen's retirement was a massive blow to the preparations for next season.

The notion among many supporters I have spoken to over the last few months is that Cuellar has not been good enough and that Davies is a different player without Laursen shepherding him through games.

Well, let me tell you Davies has come out with some very strong words on that subject which will be printed in the Birmingham Mail later this week.

Congratulations to the 2,500 or so supporters who made the trip to The Riverside - and not just the row of 20 or so bananas - and made it such a joyous spectacle.

They could quite easily have decided to stay at home after such a depressing run but the fans have stayed with the team and the manager.

Ah - the manager!

I knew I'd have to address that one. He's still paying the price for Moscow and I have to say some of his public utterances since have hardly curried favour with the masses.

But now he finds his tactical prowess questioned at every level.

His critics are worried about an over emphasis on one or two favoured players, the fact that he plays so many out of position and that when he has to find cover for one position there seem to have to be five people moving around.

For two and-a-half seasons tactics was never an issue.

It goes back to the old saying of Graham Taylor. You will never win an argument if you are not winning football matches.

Anyway, back to Petrov. That's stage one in the rebuilding process for next season.

Stage two is to move out the dead wood - and there is plenty of that. Marlon Harewood, Isiah Osbourne - you know who they are.

Stage three is the tricky part - bringing in real quality. You might be surprised at one of the players who I have been told, by a good source, is on the list.

'Blast from the past' you might say.

"I'm not talking top of the range but he fitted in with our budget," said the Villa manager of the time after a signing a centre-back for £3 milion five years back.

The manager? David O'Leary of course. The player? Martin Laursen.

O'Leary whittered something about having lost Ronny Johnsen - who failed to even turn up for the last match of the season after learning on the eve of the game he would not be getting a new contract - and Dion Dublin, similarly having learnt via the media that he would not be kept on - and Alpay.

Moan, moan, moan....

Martin Laursen was by no means an unknown quantity when he arrived.

12 months earlier he had turned down Wolves. Unthinkable, I know.

Graham Taylor had scouted him for Villa before the 2002 World Cup but was hamstrung by the club's financial commitments to Alpay and Bosko Balaban, both of whom he had wanted to pay off but was not given the authority that was soon afforded David O'Leary.

Taylor signed Ronny Johnsen on a free transfer instead and he certainly gave good value.

Laursen's debut gave no hint of the impact he would make in years to come, a 2-1 friendly defeat at Walsall.

"I don't want to be horrible but I thought Laursen looked a bit shaky," said Walsall boss Paul Merson at the time.

Well, Laursen's career came to an official end today at the age of just 31.

Five years and 89 starts at Villa. A pitiful return I know, but Villa folk will hold him in high esteem for years and years to come.

Not just because of his robust, brave approach to the game but also his quiet, dignified, graceful leadership off the pitch.

Do 89 starts in five years at the £3 million transfer fee plus around £1.5million a season, including a full year out of the game spent in Bologna recuperating and a new contract in January 2008 represent value for money?

Well, foer four of those seasons the answer would be probably not. But the 38 league games that he played last season will long live in the memory.

Mellberg, Southgate, Ehiogu - all fine central defenders indeed over the past 15 years.

Many folk though see Laursen right up there with the best of the lot, Paul McGrath.

The warning signs were blaring in March 2005.

"I've a serious cartilage problem," Laursen told the Danish media. "It makes me think of the future."

He admitted that his joints were rubbing together and that he could not walk properly down a flight of stairs.

O'Leary and Doug Ellis would privately aportion blame on each other that a more detailed medical was not carried out before the player jetted off to the Euro 2004 finals where he was a major star.

"He is as brave as a lion, said Martin O'Neill after the League Cup defeat at Chelsea when injury, medial ligaments this time, had struck again.

Then after a goalless draw at Newcastle in August 2007 O'Neill was repeating the metaphor.

"He is a very brave boy when you think of the problems he has been through with his knee it is amazing he is even able to play Premier League football. He is vital to us," gushed the manager.

Finally, another injury, at West Ham in December. One more appearance later, against Albion the following month, and another knee operation was necessary.

After that he broke down on a training camp in Dubai in March and faced 12 further months on the sidelines and yet another operation.

So finally today he has admitted his battle is lost.

Both as a player and person of real substance, Laursen will be sadly missed.

The future for Villa suddenly does not look so bright.

Congratulations to Stiliyan Petrov.

As I'd said in an earlier post he was the expected recipient of the Player of the Year award. Fully deserved.

I myself expected Gareth Barry to win at least the Players' award, but the Bulgarian has had a consistent season.

Petrov's full turnaround will be complete when he lines up against Newcastle next weekend.

Remember him being hauled off at half-time against the Toon last February? Along with Olof Mellberg?

Of course you'd have had to have paid £95 plus VAT to see Petrov pick up his gong in person on Tuesday night.

Who says football is for the common man?!

It was intriguing to see that Ashley Young picked up nothing at all. It seems his team-mates think rather less of him than they do at other clubs.

If only there was an award for Walk of the Season. Nicky Shorey would have waltzed that one with his snail-esque walk of shame after being subbed at Craven Cottage.

Like a lone foot soldier at the Somme, driving on from the trenches through the mud and over the bodies with bullets and bombs either side.

Rumour has it he is still making his way to the team coach.

Elsewhere today I see that Randy Lerner is running Aston Villa "just like Doug Ellis," according to one former senior executive at the club.

I think I know exactly where this story has come from. A long-standing former employee of the Ellis era, part of the furniture it has to be said, appears to be having a pop at the Americans?

I would not read too much into such gripes. Not unless this person wanted to stick his name to the article and then lose his season tickets.

Lerner passed the litmus test as an owner in my book by handing out nigh-on £50 million last summer to Martin O'Neill.

Of course the test ahead is to replicate that again this summer. Villa are streets ahead of where they were off the pitch three years ago but you'll never win over the supporters if the team are struggling, regardless of your training ground or stadium.

Ellis always backed his managers with money, whatever you might think to the contrary.

I personally wish Villa weren't so corporate. But how else would they compete with the bigger clubs? The closest club to Villa, arguably, in terms of make-up Everton are looking to move into a new stadium.

Will that allow them to leave Villa in their slip-stream?

Anyhow, to this weekend and the trip to Middlesbrough.

How many Villa supporters want to see Gareth Southgate relegated on Saturday?

I'm guessing quite a few. Which is a pity. If ever there was a loyal and proud Villa club man it was Southgate.

The villain of the piece was not he, and that said villain is no longer in football.

Of course the story this Saturday is all about Boro. No one cares a jot about whether Villa win, lose or draw.

But I do.

And just think of the scenario should Everton get a point at home to West Ham and Villa lose? Or Villa draw and Everton win.

That would push Villa down to sixth and would represent quite a fall from grace after the first six months of the season where anything looked possible.

Villa first held a top four place after their win at Tottenham in mid-September.

They broke back into the top four after the home win against Blackburn at the end of October. The home draw against Manchester United in November saw Villa regain fourth.

They regained it again after the home win to Bolton in mid-December and apart from a four day period prior to the away win at Hull City in late December they
remained there until they lost to Tottenham in mid-March.

But if ever you want a fixture to put smiles back on faces it is Middlesbrough away.

Boro have won only seven matches all season. Villa had managed that with their win at Arsenal on November 15, ironically six days after being beaten at home by Boro.

Villa's Premier League record at Boro is immense. Played 13, won 8 drawn 2 lost 3, goals for 30, against 15, pts 26. That's including five wins in the last six visits, having scored 17 goals.

I remember Joey Gudjonsson's 30-yarder six years ago and thought Villa had pinched the missing link. Unfortunately, Gudjonsson's only other memorable event at Villa Park was that two-footed lunge on Matthew Upson.

But he scored against Boro that January 2003 night when Graham Taylor's side got their first away win of the season in spectacular fashion, winning 5-2.

Indeed, such is Villa's domination up there (and I am not even going to mention Lee Cattermole's tears) their best performance arguably of the lot was a rare defeat, 3-0 under David Whatsisname when they absolutely battered Boro from start to finish.

So regardless of the fact that Villa were plain awful in the second half at Fulham, surely it will be three points in the bag?

Surely? But then again Luke Moore is now an Albion player and his goal against Boro used to be almost guaranteed.

YOU know when you are getting old when the music you have always listened to and thought was trendy starts appearing on budget cd's at Asda.

There I was mulling around the store last week. Just browsing. Not too hopeful of finding a gem.

Then, all of a sudden, I spot BA Robertson's seventies pop ditty "Bang Bang" on a £2.74 compilation.

Then on the next shelf, an eighties compilation featuring not only Musical Youth's "Pass the Dutchie", but Paul Hardcastle's "19". Classics.

I bought both Musical Youth albums and still do a turn at parties.

On another cd, titled Alternative 80s: Big Audio Dynamite, The Blow Monkeys, Lotus Eaters and Einstein A Go-Go by Landscape. All for £3.

Three discs, £8.48 between 'em. Not great songs but mine nonetheless.

It's always been the same with football with me.

I don't want the 'best' football in the world.

I rarely watch the Champions League on TV. I haven't an interest in La Liga or Serie A. I really could not give a monkeys.

I had only a passing interest in the last European Championships last summer.

I have a passing interest in the most exciting of the lot, the Bundesliga where any of the top six can still clinch it, but just because a friend just happens to be captain of one of the teams pushing for the title, Thomas Hitzlsperger at Stuttgart.

Despite all the guff that the Premier League has never been as good, I admit there really cannot be much doubt that it has never been richer or more hyped.

There has never been more top foreign players over here. But is the end product any better than it was when I was a lad in the seventies?

Yes it's quicker, yes it's more technically advanced. A Cruyff turn used to drop jaws. Now you'd think you have to do a dozen step-overs whilst catching the ball on the back of your neck and roll it down your sleeves to beat a full-back.

But the pitches are bowling greens to what they used to be. And the balls now are like those orange and black Fido balls I used to kick about on the beach. Balls that would swerve and swoop, rise and fall on the breeze.

Thank goodness the Premier League appear to be making some sort of strides to correct the obsence amounts of debt that some clubs have entered into.

Perhaps if Ledley King wasn't on £80,000 a week I might have some sympathy for him being caught with his pants down after one too many.

But thanks to ITV4 for bringing back so many good memories and bringing to life football when it really was the beautiful game.

For the past couple of weeks Big Match Revisited on ITV4 have been showing the nation some of the best action from Sunday afternoons in April 1979.

Wolves have just stolen a point at Albion. Frank Worthington has just flicked the ball on his foot a couple of times with his back to goal from a miscleared Ipswich corner, chipped it over the defence and rifled the ball into the corner of the net.

Afterwards the interviewer wanted to speak to Arnold Muhren, one of Town's two Dutch midfielders, about the balding Pole trying to make his way at Bolton. I missed his name.

Martin O'Neill has just nodded one in on a beach of a pitch at Derby County.

Cyrille Regis and Len Cantello join West Ham's Pop Robson and a few others in the hunt for Goal of the Season. The winner gets a ticket to the European Cup Final with Forest taking on Malmo.

Brighton have just clinched promotion by winning at Newcastle. Though they did manage a win the week before courtesy of a smoke bomb thrown from their crowd behind the goal into the six yard box just as they were about to score against Blackburn. The goalkeeper didn't have a clue.

"Maybe the referee should have disallowed that one," said Brian Moore. "But it is a tricky one..."

The managers afterwards? Never a hint of an excuse about small squads, injuries or offsides.

Sunderland hope to join them having won at Wrexham courtesy of two late goals. Stoke are already up. Crystal Palace under Terry Venables hope to join them and with two games in hand they have a good chance.

"Everyone's getting nervous," jokes Terry in the dressing room after a Vince Hilaire inspired win over a Notts County team for whom Dave McVay appeared as a half-time sub (McVay is now a fine sports journalist and author).

"The secretary asked me if I wanted a cup of tea. I said yes. And she said; 'how do you want it - white or red?!'"

Oh Terry! There is a cabaret and a nightclub waiting for you one day, my son.

Stuff it! I can't wait for the outcome. I've just googled the league table and Palace made it. Up as Champions.

So, when the Premier League reaches it climax tomorrow at Wigan, I'll be thinking more about 1979 and the FA Cup Final between Arsenal and Manchester United which is being shown on Thursday.

I hear Alan Sunderland has passed a late test. That might just swing it.

IT'S a funny thing history.

Not Henry VIII and his penchant for wives or Charles I and his penchant for wearing loose-neck sweaters.

No, I'm talking about how things have a habit of recurring.

Or more precisely how in football, what comes around seems to go around.

Take this article I stumbled across in the week.

It was written by myself in the Evening Mail (as it was then titled) in July 2004.

"GARETH Barry has warned Villa they face a 'strange' season ahead because of expectations now heaped on their shoulders," it started.

Hmm, strange indeed.

The article goes on: "Villa finished sixth last term and are expected to again keep pace with the big guns despite a modest £3million summer outlay so far. Barry puts the club's task into perspective."

That £3 million was one of the best pieces of business any Villa manager has put together in the last decade.

A pity it was David O'Leary. The player? Easy. Martin Laursen.

Anyway, Barry went on: "We should have done a lot better than 16th two years ago with the squad we had available. To improve on that was always on the cards because of the internationals we have at the club.

'This season, though, will be strange because if we want to finish above sixth then we will have to finish higher than Liverpool or Newcastle.

"But that's what we have to aim for. That's what the fans expect and it's what the players want. Our supporters argue that we should always finish in the top six because of the size of the club and the fact that in only two seasons in the Premiership have we finished outside the top eight.

"But this season there will be other so-called 'big' clubs looking to make up lost ground. The likes of Tottenham look to be spending big and then you have the likes of Everton who did ever so well two years ago but then struggled last season, so they'll be looking to get back up there.

"We have to look at ourselves and that means looking to put in another solid season."

Remarkable eh?

Apart from the reference to Newcastle, for which you can now substitute Manchester City, the words are pretty prophetic for the summer that now faces Martin O'Neill.

Barry may well be gone. Laursen would appear to be so. Stiliyan Petrov has not signed. Wilfred Bouma is back on crutches.

A flurry of others need their contracts addressed, noteably John Carew.

Will O'Neill get the funds necessary to compete with the big guns?

Only one man can answer that. Randy Lerner.

Anyway, Barry ended this interview five years ago by waxing lyrical about the needs of a goalscorer.

The article ended: "Villa scored 48 goals in 38 games - the same as relegated Leicester.

Barry adds: 'Any team with a goalscorer in their ranks is going to be up there. We had one last year in Juan Pablo Angel and that gives you a head-start on most teams. A goalscorer is always worth points on the board."

Five years later and Villa are still waiting for one.

TOTTENHAM have had an appalling season. Well, they have... haven't they?

Does anyone hear think that when David Bentley close White Hart Lane ahead of Villa Park and joined a summer influx including Vedran Corluka, Heurelho Gomes, Roman Pavlyuchenko and Luka Modric that Spurs would be sitting in eighth place in the Premier League a full ten points behind Villa?

Of course, such is the start that Tottenham endured under Juande Ramos, such were the riches lavished by Harry Redknapp on the likes of Robbie Keane and Jermain Defoe in January, such was their fortune in getting to the Carling Cup Final over Burnley that no one even mutters how miserable another season in North London has been.

All is rosey it would appear.

Now take Villa. All is doom and gloom. Fifth place with little to play for. All this from a team sitting third on 7 February, a full eight points clear of Arsenal and three points off the top of the tree.

This at a time when neither Chelsea or Liverpool were pulling up trees.

Chelsea needed two last-gasp goals to see off Stoke the day Villa were winning at Sunderland in January - their fifth straight away win.

They'd recently been embarrassed at both Man United and at Liverpool. West Ham, Everton and Fulham had held them. Southend had drawn at Stamford Bridge in the FA Cup. And minutes after Villa had completed a seventh straight away victory at Blackburn on February 7 news seeped through that they'd been held at home by Hull.

Liverpool? Won at Portsmouth on February 7 after coming from behind with five minutes remaining. This at a time when Everton had just knocked them out of the FA Cup and drawn with them in the league along with Stoke City and Wigan.

It seemed that glorious February day at Ewood Park as if Villa might be able to sustain a challenge to United.

But eleven games later and Villa have only moved seven points further on. United have taken 30 points from 12 games, Liverpool 26 points from 11 games, Chelsea 28 from 11 games and Arsenal 25 from 12 games.

Bottom club Albion have taken nine points in their eleven matches since February 7. That sort of puts into perspective the awful run Villa have been on.

But a season isn't judged on eleven matches, nor 25, it is judged on 38 games.

Tottenham, yes back to them again, had picked up nine points from their opening eleven matches and yet, as I say, everyone is judging theirs as a truly remarkable season.

So when all the frustrations of the past three months are forgotten, perhaps supporters will still judge Martin O'Neill's class of 2008/09 as worthy of a fifth place finish in the Premier League for the first time in a dozen years?

I realise at the time of writing that is asking quite a lot.

The 3,000 - 3,500 who made the trip to Fulham will not forget that abject second half so quickly.

In a season of such immense highs: that Blackburn win, the win at Arsenal, the delirium of that late winner at Everton, the European experience against Ajax and away win in Prague and those rare away wins in London at Tottenham and West Ham, the lows have been just as extreme: the five goal mauling at Anfield, the late turnaround at Old Trafford, a shocking first half at Manchester City, that appalling late surrender to Stoke and cup exits to QPR, Everton and Moscow.

It was so satisfying to be able to write about a win again against Hull last Monday night, but Craven Cottage - including that walk of shame by Nicky Shorey - sent Villa one step backwards.

The sizzle had long been a fizzle to Villa's season and the pop had almost become a bang.

Martin O'Neill's side had gone a dozen games without a win before they mauled of the tamest tigers you'll ever meet in Hull.

Poor George Boateng. His legs have gone. He'd still get in my best Villa X1 over the past decade (acting as a shield for the magic man Merson).

But the leg-weary ones were in claret and blue shirts beside the Thames on Saturday.

53 games since mid-July has taken its toll regardless of what the manager says.

So why exactly didn't Martin O'Neill buy some replacements in January?

O'Neill and bad runs have gone hand in hand at Villa over each of his three seasons. Expectations have been shot down before. They will be shot down again.

It is just that this season it felt like an anti-tank weapon had done the damage and not a Starsky and Hutch pistol.

O'Neill also delivered a 12-game winless run during his first season in charge, in 2006/07, although expectations were never anywhere near as high.

After sitting third with one defeat in their opening dozen games, the O'Neill-Randy Lerner honeymoon was in full sway when Chris Sutton struck the winning goal at Everton that November.

Villa proceeded to draw five league games and lose another six to slip to 14th before they finally got the better of a bedraggled Watford in January.

Perhaps the current season is probably more reminiscent of 1998/99?

Gregory's side were top of the pile in November after an unbeaten start of 12 matches that saw them lead Manchester United by three points.

Two months later Villa were level on points with leaders Chelsea after 22 games. They travelled to Newcastle at the end of January and were beaten by an early goal from Alan Shearer and another from Temuri Ketsbaia.

A run of three draws and seven defeats followed and it was not until April when they would get their next win, at home to Southampton, and they limped in sixth to miss out on Europe.

The following season Gregory's Villa were at it again.

Lying joint-second with Arsenal after eight games in September they went on a run of nine league games without a win which saw them drop to 15th.

Like Ron Atkinson's side who were challenging Manchester United for the first Premiership crown in 1992/93 only to lose their final three games to Blackburn, Oldham and QPR.

Or Graham Taylor's team of February 1990, five points clear of Liverpool with nine to play but winning only three more matches.

O'Neill isn't the first to take Villa to the brink and see them come up short - and he probably won't be the last.

But without replacements for Martin Laursen and Gareth Barry and then some major investment you would have to put your money on Villa slipping back towards mid-table next year.