Aston Villa Fan View: Villains half term report

If I was writing this report a month ago, it would have been very different. Villa had won four games in November, and the fan-base was starting to believe that Villa were going to sneak into the top two. These victories came without influential pair John Terry, who had broken his toe, and Jonathan Kodjia, who looks like he may be sidelined for the rest of the season.

But then the make-or-break December fixtures came around, where Villa faced much more difficult opposition, and this was the acid test for Bruce and his players. Needless to say, the month has been nothing short of a disaster (as owner Dr Tony Xia has tweeted), with a section of fans now calling for Bruce to be sacked. Life comes at you fast in the world of football!

Wolves are an anomaly this year. With heavy investment, they will walk the rest of the year and will be in the Premier League from August. It does just show that if you have the right people in charge, investment will get you out of the Championship quickly. Dr Tony Xia’s money has not been spent well, and now Villa find themselves in an unenviable situation. This means that there is only one automatic promotion slot left, and Villa are nine points off with Bristol City and Cardiff jockeying for position.

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Positives: The discovery of young Keinan Davis has been a joy to watch, whilst he has only scored two goals, his ability to bring others into attack and hold up play is impressive for a 19-year-old. Sam Johnstone is another youngster who has acquitted himself well. He has been a highlight with solid performances in goal. Villa’s history of dreadfully poor away form has stopped, with impressive away victories at Barnsley and Preston in particular.

Negatives: The recent form is extremely worrying and for all of Villa’s investment, who/what are they as a team? They don’t have a distinctive style of play, the team just seems to muddle through games and hope a bit of individual brilliance (mainly from Albert Adomah) will see Villa through. Villa have been played off the park on several occasions with teams that have a quarter of the resources – Brentford and Cardiff immediately spring to mind. Villa have a collection of good players, they don’t have a team.

Conclusion: If this was a school report, it would be B-, simply must do better. Villa are nine points off automatic promotion, with 22 games to play, so its not a huge mountain to climb, just yet. But if the poor performances continues, Villa will be fighting just to make the playoffs.