Villa’s United test

Friday, 02/12/2011

by Steven Green, Shoot's Aston Villa blogger

Before I start I must express my sadness at the news from last weekend concerning Gary Speed’s death. As someone who grew up watching him play the sudden, out-of-the-blue nature of his untimely passing sent a chill down my spine.

Although it’s been good to know that British football fans have united in celebrating his great life I think it’s fair to say that we’d all prefer he still be around as a consummate professional, great guy and a very capable young manager.

In my opinion last week's game against Swansea shouldn’t have gone ahead and it was quite clear that the players' heads weren’t properly in the game so it’d be unfair to judge too harshly on what was a subdued affair. Praise should go to Shay Given though, after just learning of his friend's passing he managed to gather himself and pull off a couple of fine saves towards the end.

Many saw the Swansea game as a must-win, especially as our opponents on Saturday are a team who we haven’t beaten at home in 14 years. Oh, they just happen to be the current league champions too.

Last season when Manchester United visited Villa Park they came away with a very lucky point. For the best part of 90 minutes they were second best to a Villa side largely comprised of the youth and reserve players.

The ‘kids’ ran United ragged and even had the audacity to take a 2-0 lead but it was perhaps the inexperience that meant they couldn’t hold on and settled for a 2-2 draw.

“You’ll never win anything with kids,” is now a long-standing football cliché but with United currently a little off colour could there be a case for fielding a younger side?

There’ll most likely be a healthy crowd at the game and with the Holte End in full swing behind them giving the youngsters the confidence to push on and attack and the more experienced players licence to keep calm and mop anything up at the back.

Of course this is probably wishful thinking and McLeish will set the side up defensively as we’ve all come to expect and none of this will happen. It’s increasingly frustrating how we no longer seem to go for the throat when the game is there for the taking.

Hopefully Portuguese striker/winger Yannick Djalo will help remedy that. It was reported this week that he’ll be joining the Villains in January from French side Nice.

Equally capable on the wing or up front he could be a solution to our lack of service to Agbonlahor and Bent, replacing the often-static Emile Heskey. It has since transpired that he’ll be arriving for a trial but at 25 and a few Portuguese caps to his name one couldn’t imagine why he won’t join.

Good news after fans had been told there would be no new additions in the transfer window, hopefully, there’ll be a few more surprises in store.

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