The Taxman

Hello...

This is my first story. I was kind of lost about the format to use and all of that so I just started writing. Here we go...

Who would have thought that David O'Leary would just throw it all away like that?

Promising squad, club, fans, a club seemingly on the up, why would he leave so suddenly?

Papers speculated that it was a spat with chairman Doug Ellis over the wage budget and transfer budget for the new season that turned ugly....some speculated with some more wild accussations that shall not be delved into without the presence of lawyers.

But the fact remains, Aston Villa needed a new boss. A new face to take the club to the top.

But was Emerson Smith, a bloke as unfamiliar to the average man than the one next to him on the stool at the pub, the answer? Appointing an unknown to a PL club is always a risky move and the press just loved to jump onto this one and run with it. Looking at the papers the day after the press conference, it looked like they had taken it and ran a marathon.

Villa's odds for relegation shortened and it was speculated a number of stars were annoyed at the decision. I had some work to do...let's go shopping...

Although I dabbled around and had a look in the transfer market there was little in the way of player transactions made before the season's opening day. The squad was decent looking, for a top half finish at least, with some solid structure down back in the centre looking like the pillar to hold the club up on. An extremely promising playmaker from Germany named Thomas Hitzlsperger made my eyes light up, and there were a few decent strikers to choose from. That's my basic squad assessment.

Olof Mellberg, the player who I have earmarked as the club's captain, has attracted a fair bit of interest in Spain, from major clubs Sevilla and Barcalona, however I have decided to hold onto him and build my defense around him in the club's quest for the Champions League. The sole signing of the pre-season in the player's squad was Patrik Berger from Portsmouth for 600K. I felt that we are lacking a little in the way of depth in attacking midfielders and wingers on the left and I'm confident that Patrik will provide some good backup and experience, having been a mainstay at Liverpool for well over 5 seasons. One player disagreed with me though, and this was unfortunately Lee Hendrie, who came through the Villa system and has been here well over 10 seasons. Recognizing his status as a clear-cut fan favourite I decided to be lenient on him after his outburst, worried at the signing of Patrik, because I didn't want to create an enemy of myself to the clubs fans this early on. At least wait until the losing streak hits! Subconsciously I was looking at Lee's stats and thinking that he wouldn't stay in my plans very long passed this season, although his relatively low wages helped his cause.

To complement my backroom and give myself some more backup and assisstance the ad was put out for a 2nd right hand man to complement Roy Aitken. All rumours of sacking were firmly denied to the press when Sammy Lee was signed as my 2nd assistant manager, on some nice and lean wages. Scouts were sent out around Europe and beyond to scope some possible transfer targets for the future and I installed the training regime I designed on the club which involved training all of the three squads (senior, reserves, under 18) together in the hopes of giving the younger players some more experience and confidence, by training with the "stars" of the club.

Finally, it was coming up to the beginning of the season, the big day, August 15, 2004 and I was getting excited and nervous, for the first game of the season was a big derby at St Andrews against of course Birmingham City. With three major strikers I had a hard time picking the two who would represent us up front, and in the end I made the hard decision of relegating usual fan-favourite Darius Vassell to the substitute bench in favour of Charlton Cole and Juan Angel. Looking into the future to the end of the season, I would absolutely love to nab young Charlton Cole on a permanent deal...

EPL, Game 1
Birmingham vs. Aston Villa

So, finally the first game of the year for my side...I was nervous as all hell but determined to put up a poker face for the cameras and my players. Deep down I knew that a flogging at the hands of Brum this afternoon and the press and fans would be on my back like vultures, playing up my perceived inexperience and surprise hiring for the job. All I could do was get on with it the best I could.

As I stood on the sideline and looked up into the stands to see the 30,000 fans before the first whistle it was an awesome sight. I was almost in awe of the occasion......I sent out my players with hard pressing instructions to keep the opposition honest and deny them an early advantage and particularly an early goal. I knew that an early goal would set us on the back foot for the rest of the game and first time in, it would probably be hard to recover from with confidence not established. The early pace was frantic. The atmosphere was great, I almost forgot I have a side to manage!

Luckily it was Brum who blinked first. 9 minutes in, Nobby Solano whipped in a brilliant cross from deep right, which caused their usual infallible captain Kenny Cunningham to knock over Charlton Cole in the box. PENALTY! The assigned kicker, the experienced Juan Angel, slid the kick past Taylor and we were 1-0 up after 9 mins. Great start! Couldn't linger though...

Worried about a quick backlash but knowing we can't sit on the back foot for the other 80 minutes, Gareth Barry on the left was told to hold back a little on his forward runs and play a slightly more pressing and defensive role complementing McCann, my holding midfielder, next to him. Things worked well, our hard working midfield denied them space and they were unable to even get a shot on goal within the first half hour. We actually had them on the back foot and we took full advantage on the half hour mark, when an attempted clearence went wrong and Juan Angel put his 2nd passed the keeper. We managed to hold onto half time with our advantage despite being on the backfoot for the last 10 minutes of the half. Half time and 2-0 up, a great result so far.

Into the 2nd half we managed to keep up our intensity for the first 20 minutes and continue to deny them space in their attacking third. To deny them even more space I decided to bring in Lee Hendrie for Juan Angel and play a 5 person midfield for the rest of the game. The strategy worked and we held them off for the rest of the match, through the expected late match surge we came unscatched and I was proud and delighted for my first outing, turning the 2nd half into a fizzer was exactly what we wanted. I was particularly delighted with the hard working midfield, Gareth Barry on the left leading the team in the tackle count (despite being subbed with Berger after an hour), which was a great sign.

Birmingham 0
Aston Villa 2
Juan Pablo Angel 9 pen, 26

Could you imagine my delight when I arrived for training the next day and was approached by the chairman, personally to express his delight with the result the previous afternoon? The smile couldn't be wiped off my face. Things were looking good so far....but things can turn upside down so quickly.....


*coffee break*


Arriving in my office I was informed of a fax that came through, another Spanish club this time Athletic Madrid, enquiring about Olof Mellberg. Well it would take a decent-sized bid to prise him awya from my books and my response was 8 Million pounds. To be honest I am not even sure if I will even sell at that price, maybe not, although I am curious to see if they would match that. No they wouldn't I found out soon after....not to worry, I want to keep him anyway.

After thinking about expanding the squad before the transfer deadline in 10 days, one player I have been looking at has been defensive midfielder Gerardo Torrado, Mexican international from Sevilla. He can speak English and has orange stats for markign, fitness, bravery, team work, work rate and stamina and I think he may be an ideal player to further boost my midfield's work rate and depth. Sounds good and all plus points, but with his wages I would be around 30,000 over the wage budget which I was hoping to keep to, and my budget for the rest of the season barring and sales would be down to around 2.5M which would leave little room for strengthening the squad should I want to in the new year.....within the next week and a half I'll have to reach a decision.....

Updates coming soon. Any words would not go un read.

The Taxman

EPL, Game 2
Middlesbrough vs. Aston Villa

Consecutive away games to kick off the season....considering Boro's impressive start to the year I'm not as confident as maybe I should be before this one. Although I've seen what the side were capable of 6 days ago against Brum. An unchanged lineup was named with Barry acting as a defensive-tyle of winger on the left and Solano attacking from the right.

Things didn't start off the way I had planned, when Nobby Solano went down after only 7 mins. I couldn't really tell if the injury was serious or not, I will have to wait for the physio report after the match....on the sideline I quickly had to make a decision to throw Lee Hendrie on instead of Vassell on the right. Vassell would have given me more pace and a better attacking option but I feel required to uphold some defensive ability....my attacking should become a little more narrower with Hitzlsperger hopefully playing a bigger role as playmaker.

Our midfield once again was hard at work and we managed to deny them some space through the park, especially in our own third to give ourselves a handy possession advantage...at the half hour mark only 61% of their passes were hitting their targets to our 75%. However, their 3 centre backs (all quality) were providing a formidable wall for us which we were having a tough time breaking through. It was becoming a little bit of a stalemate as we denied them access to their goals, although when they shifted Downing to an attacking position behind the strikers (AMC) he began to cause a few niggling problems for us with some attacking runs, almost scoring when he, unmarked, blazed a shot over the bar from a Mendieta cross from a wide free kick. That was their first shot and they really should have nailed it, I thought. What I decided to do was to widen my strategy a little to the flanks, trying to go around their three centre backs a little more and past their wingers who were starting in defensive positions but making long sweeping runs forward....maybe this will leave them more vulnerable on the flanks? I was starting to think I should have put Vassell on instead of Hendrie, but oh well...

...the plan didn't work out so far as I expected, almost immediattely after they caught us on the break with some quick passing, getting through our defense and allowing Viduka to put one passed us. 34 mins and we are 1-0 down. Their centrebacks were really providing not only a great wall but some great counter attacking ability and they were troubling me. The first half petered out a little, although Downing was injured and forced to head off forcing them to play a left winger on the right wing (Zenden). I decided to make a tough decision and slot Berger in for Barry on hte left, Berger being fresh and a more attacking player.

We started trying to open the game up a little as they tried to shut it down....I decided to bring on Vassell for Angel to speed up the attacking line, to give us some more bite against a defense which is ageing a little. The game was certainly opened up and we had some chances, but none of them were really taken advantage of. They had started hitting us on the counter-attack as well we were definitely vulnerable to conceding a 2nd. Well.....we had hit injury time, all the players on both sides were tiring and I had all but conceded the game...but then, BAM! Vassell broke open down a gap on the right and put a ball in front of Hendrie who had drifted centrally. Hendrie found Charlton Cole who was open in the box, who put it past the big Aussie, Mark Schwarzer! An equaliser 3 minutes into stoppage time! The whistle sounded right after....I was delighted to have snatched a draw in the end! How one's mood can change so quickly....

Middlesbrough 1
Viduka 34
Aston Villa 1
Cole 90

The news was good again once I got back to the rooms after match...Nobby and Thomas Hitzlsperger had only picked up minor knocks and were out for 5 days apiece, although both would miss my next match, my first home game of the season hosting Newcastle United.

Back facing the media circus and they had calmed down a little following my promising start to the season.

What your goals for the season?
Will you be buying or selling anyone else before the end of the window?
What do you think of the fans who have protested against your signing to the club?

and so on....were all questions I was facing every moment of the day, everywhere I trod. I had to give the same answers each time and feign interest and surprise when I was asked those questions...although I was able to answer the 2nd one...I had decided to make my interest in Gerardo Torrado, the mexican defensive midfielder from Spain, concrete and we had a 1.7M bid for his services accepted. He quickly passed a medical and found himself at Villa Park training with the squad in time to be included for the next match, the next day. Now, within the first team squad I had three adequate DMCs at my disposal, which I was happy with, but Mathieu Berson, my third DMC who is a new signing from France made before I arrived, didn't share the feeling and started to get cold feet about his decision to join the club.

EPL, Game 3
Aston Villa vs. Newcastle

I was pumped up for our first home game...I was hoping the players were too. We were facing a Newcastle team that hadn't yet won this season in 3 tries and a win would set us up for a promising year. Today our opponents would be showcasing their new signing, Fabian Ernst from Germany, and another, centre back Sam Kouffer from FC Bayern. For me, with Solano and Hitzlsperger sitting out I had decided to put Hendrie on the right and Berger through the middle, otherwise all of it was the same except new signing Torrado was on the bench.

Kick off...the game looked like it would be fairly open with Berger already slicing their defense open and showing some promise through the centre, and Dyer and Robert sprinting down the wings for them. I was slightly worried about the height of my defense against the might of Shearer and this was realised under 10 minutes in, with Robert placing a brilliant cross to Shearer, who beat out Mellberg and put an early one passed my keeper.

QUICK REPLY! My decision to up the tempo and play a little more direct payed off almost instantly, when only 4 mins later Berger and Barry exchanged passes before Barry slid a quick pass to Cole who beat their new signing Kouffor and put it passed Given to level the score. I had decided to try and keep up this pace and put them onto the back foot.....it was working, we started to gain ascendency but my players were beginning to wear out faster than theirs. We kept at it though and by half time though the score was still equal, we had the upper hand and had equalled the possession stats.

Hearing the roar as the players came down the race for the 2nd half, infront of 42,000 screaming fans, was just amazing. I couldn't believe it. I had decided to up the pressing and put the players on hard tackling for the first 15 mins of the 2nd half to try and chase another goal....they countered well though, slowing the game down to quite a slower pace. I decided after an hour to once again take of Angel and bring on my super sub, Vassell.

Their new defensive signings though were doing a good job at holding us back, and the game was stuck at 1-1 for a while as their sat the majority of their players back and let us come at them, but they were dealing with it quite well. Another late last gasp goal was possibly too much to ask for, and for the 2nd time in a row the match ended up as a 1-1 draw. Had we not cendeded first in both games I think we would have won. Newcastle were quite impressive, and we were a little flat without two of our attacking midfielders in the side and a draw was probably a fair result in the end.

Aston Villa 1
Cole 14
Newcastle 1
Shearer 10

I'm quite enjoying writing this...and things are looking promising for my side.

Brian of Nazareth

Excellent As a die hard Villa fan, I'll definitely be reading :thup: 2-0 over the sc*m on your debut - nice start :thup: A couple of solid draws, though I just hope Carlton Cole hasn't already hit his limit for the season. ( Real life total for season just gone: 3 )

Anyway - keep up the good work and let's get into Europe

T!mbo

Interesting to read and a good standard of English. Great start Taxman :thup:

The Taxman

Thanks for the encouraging words. I am struggling a little whether to use past tense or present tense. Although rather than just describing what happens I'm trying to give an insight to the psychie of Emerson Smith and what is going through his mind.

League Cup 2nd Round draw - away to League One side, Bournemouth. Good draw, we should go through.

Picking up the paper on the way to the game against West Brom, I read the following article.

I couldn't help but laugh a little. 16+Million spent and I considered my 1.7M signing of Gerardo Torrado from Sevilla at least more than small fries?

EPL, Game 4
West Brown vs. Aston Villa

Brom hadn't won yet this season but they had only conceded 5 goals in their 3 matches to date, and this included matches against Man Utd and Liverpool. I knew this would be far from an easy game and with any complacency at all we could well be travelling home with nothing in our pockets to show. We were being broadcast live on skysports and the prediction was that we would win in a close one...I'll take that! To keep them on edge I decided to start Vassell up front with Cole for his first game of the year - I wanted a pacy attacking line. Unfortunately Solano and Hitzlsperger were taking longer than I thought to recuperate from their injury and I was still without them, so in the middle my lineup remained unchanged.

So off the whistle goes and my players definitely looked up to it. We surged forward through the wings early on, particularly down the left through Barry, although their defense was holding on strongly with Cole and Vassell unable to break through. They started regaining some possession, hitting us on the rebound and they troubled us numerous times from corners.

On 36 minutes Scott Dobie headed through a corner only for Sorenson to produce a reaction save to rival the best of them. We were very very lucky to keep them out and keep the score at 0-0. The game started to peter out, and I had even had the first bite of my traditional half time orange when Jlloyd Samuel came screaming down the left, fed through Cole who beat two defenders and slid a goal passed Hoult to make it his third straight scoring game and put us up 1 to the good in the 4th minute of stoppage time.

With Cole's great form I thought I could forsee a situation coming where he performs that well that Chelsea will be unwilling to sell him to me on a permanent deal, so my eyes are starting to wander around to potential transfer targets come next season....so far two names I have been impressed with are Dirk Kuijt from Feyenoord and another Chelsea striker out on loan (to the Brum scum), Mikael Forssell. Although I am a long way off this situation yet, I like to keep my eyes open.

Into the 2nd half I wanted to slow down the pace a little and keep a little more possession with shorter passing, but I knew we couldn't shut up shop yet. I was worried about Jason Koumas who had already fired off 6 shots at the goal in the first half, though only 1 was on target, we posed probably their most significant threat.

BAM! Quickly and suddenly, 10 minutes in the 2nd half as things were drifting along at a desirable pace, we nabbed them on the counter attack. Gavin McCann proved he is more than just a defensive midfield rock but lobbing a pass over their midfield towards Cole, who ran into open space and knocked home a 2nd in a move that looked quite simple....I was really starting to like this Cole fellow.

After our second, maybe they gave up a little or maybe or side is finding some form, or maybe both, but the game turned into a fizzer which was exactly what we were looking for. After moving to a 4-5-1 strategy again after about 70 minutes they looked even more denied of space and resorted to long balls at the goal from outside the box.

The game looked set for a 2-0 finish when in the last minute Thomas Sorensen, obviously thinking of the post-game celebrations, muffed a clearance straight to their striker Robert Earnshaw who slotted it straight into the net. This really was ridiculous and it shouldn't really happen, but I can forgive Thomas this time because of the certain goal he saved from the corner in the 1st half....after some tight defending and minor scares with them desperately seeking an equaliser, the final whistle was blown and the win in the pocket. Another away win, huzzah!

As we headed back into the rooms I congratulated the boys on a stellar effort, but reminded them that lapses like the late one will cost us much bigger against the top teams, and that's who we wanted to compete against. I didn't need to pat Cole on the back - he knew it, and I didn't need to repremand Sorensen, he saved us earlier on. But I went over and patted Gerardo Torrado on the back for a solid debut from the subs bench after replacing Berger in the 2nd half.

West Brom 1
Earnshaw 90
Aston Villa 2
Cole 45, 55

We have come to the first international break and in brief, we are sitting 5th with 2 wins and 2 draws. Both wins have been away which I am delighted with....

...I was quite ready for a holiday for a few days to enjoy the good start we had made, when the following fax came through in my office...

This just floored me....although Henrik is 32 years of age, a player of that worldclass reputation being offered to Villa? With news coming through to my office that Juan Angel was suffering some personal problems and may be forced to go home for a leave of absense soon, I had to consider this offer. I couldn't just reject a player like Henrik Larsson easily.....wow....I really had some thinking to do during the next before the deadline closes tomorrow night...whatever decision needs to be made, needs to be made quickly...

Henrik Larsson! As I close my eyes and imagine him in a Villa jersey the decision is getting tougher...

The Taxman

Thanks brownie.

I sat at my desk for a number of minutes, looking over the fax....I had to weigh up the long term future of the club and considering Henrik could probably only give my 2 seasons of decent service at most, and considering the fact that I was intending to build the side from the back forward instead of the forward back, then I had to reject the offer. It was a very tough decision, I would have loved to see Larsson lining up in Villa colours....

So, the first transfer deadline has now passed and the first monthy awards have been released. Not that they mean a whole lot to me, but I was proud for Charlton Cole getting 2nd runner up for young player of the month. 4 goals from 4 starts, 2 man of the match efforts, quite a good month for him.

Well we now had 10 days off before we hosted Tottenham at home on the 11th. I sat back at home and watched the match between Chelsea and Man Utd, a great game finishing 2-2 with Michael Ballack scoring a goal on debut. On the international front things looked quite good, my young midfielder Peter Whittingham showed some promise with a great performance for the England under-21 side against Austria, but the greedy young lad wants a new contract straight away! I've got him until 2007 so he can wait for that and earn it first....the main side, England, also defeated Austria with Gareth Barry getting a start on the left and setting up a goal for Heskey. Darius Vassell was selected as a sub but not used...

EPL, Game 5
Aston Villa vs. Tottenham

After resting Juan Angel last time around I brought him back into the side to partner Charlton Cole. I thought they complemented eachother quite well and I was quite happy when Cole came to me and told me that he thought he worked well with Juan. Nobby Solano and Hitzlsperger were brought straight back into the starting lineup....we were facing a Tottenham team who have already faced Liverpool, Chelsea and Man Utd so a standing of 9th with 5 goals conceded wasn't something to laugh at.

It was a wet and miserable day which slowed things down considerably. Although the fans had still turned out in force to watch us, and I was proud of them. We didn't exactly get the start we wanted when, after 5 minutes Robbie Keane headed in a wide free kick to put us one goal down....we are starting to develop a horrible habit of conceding the first goal as it has happened in 3 games so far this season now.

Things evened up on the quick though, to my delight of course, with Cole netting yet another goal after Juan Angel whipped in a cross...now I thought that Angel would be the one heading in cross from Cole but not to worry, I won't complain about this one. It looked to me like our direct passing style was putting them off somewhat...they wanted to sit back and play the game at a slower pace, but it was our turf. We wouldn't let them. They were definitely rattled and it only took another 2 minutes before Cole had returned the favour to his strike partner and slotted him through to put home a 2nd goal. 10 minutes gone and we were already 2-1 up....

...and now the game took another turn only 2 minutes later. Our defense was centralised quite a bit for some reason and they had some room on the wings....and when a cross came in there was nothing my DCs could do to stop Kanoute putting home the equaliser....now I was standing on the sideline just stunned after seeing 4 goals scored in less than 15 minutes. I wasn't really sure what to do, so I just sat back and let things play themselves out....

...and well 2 minutes later, they did. Gareth Barry broke open and put a long ball through to Charlton Cole who put home his 2nd....15 minutes gone and we were 3-2 up, this was incredible! I couldn't believe it! It was time to slow things down a little, but it was difficult as they pressed hard for an equaliser. Instead of trying to slow the pace down when it was becoming clear we couldn't really, I decided to match them once more. This had a bad effect on Nobby Solano once again, who injured himself again and was forced off at half an hour....I had considered playing Berger out of position on the right instead though, I chose to put Vassell in there.

We started gaining the ascendency, we started to break them down...my instructions telling Gareth Barry to hold back a little on the left meant that he was firing nice long balls through to my strikers and maybe it was the wet weather hindering their defenders abilities to keep up, but five minutes before half time Juan Angel was set free and put home his 2nd goal, and we had a 2 goal buffer. Gareth Barry is developing nicely so far and I might say that I am glad I didn't bow to interest coming for him from Spain.

Into the 2nd half, I hope it wont be as eventful as the first...!

Well, it wasn't. We shut them down magnificently, promising signs coming from new signing Torrado who formed a two man holding midfield as well as Liam Ridgewell, a young central defender who held the fort proudly over the last minutes of the match.

Aston Villa 4
Cole 8, 16
Juan Angel 10, 40
Tottenham 2
Keane 5
Kanoute 12

What an eventful first 15 minutes! The match took its toll on the players though, Gareth Barry and Nobby Solano will miss another week and Jlloyd Samuel will be out for 5 days...all three would miss the next match, at home to Blackburn...

Back at training the next day I was handed a newspaper...

Quite good news on that front...now I don't like being surprised, so when I got a tap on the shoulder from the clubs chairman himself after training, maybe I assumed the worst (it is my nature). The board were beginning to get concerned about the wage budget, the budget being 230,000 p/w while the wages came in at 261,000 p/w. There needed to be some culling of the squad done, or some significant wage cuts taken...

nerf

Doug Ellis getting concerned about the wage budget? Surely not!

Nice start, KUTGW :thup:. I think you made the right choice about Ollie

bartley_m

Excellent work, I always found Villa difficult to take charge of - guess you're a better manager than I

KUTGW :thup:

T!mbo

Good stuff again :thup:

Nice to see someone taking their time over a story and adhering to the forum rules.

Always knew they weren't that difficult to grasp despite some of the efforts this forum has seen

The Taxman

EPL, Game 6
Aston Villa vs. Blackburn

With Samuel, Barry and Solano out I had to reshuffle the pack a bit for the next match against Blackburn. I thought that a win here would be pretty important, considering we have Man Utd, Chelsea and Liverpool in our next three league matches, with the League Cup tie thrown in the middle (to tire our players out even more during our busy period). This would certainly be a testing period for us....we will definitely find out where we stand....

...but we are hosting Blackburn now, who sit below us one spot on the table in 5th.

Taking a bit of a defensive move I put players on the wings who aren't normally wingers...Whittington was rewarded for his good effort in the England U21s with a start on the left and Hendrie was drafted back in ont he right. We started out on the front foot, with the wingers whipping in crosses from deep after being told not to run at the defenders as much, their long balls were causing a few problems for them and they were finding my strikers fairly well. They weren't troubling us much with their attack, most of it was long shots bombing over our goals, however their defense was holding up quite well and we were unable to break through. This was why I was especially frustrated when, right before half time, Charlton Cole broke open chasing a long ball from our own half, beat 2 defenders and failed to get the back of the net.

I was starting to get a bit worried that Cole had hit the wall just like Brian of Nazareth predicted!

Maybe the disappointing crowd, 34,000 out of a possible 42,000, bummed the players a bit, but they looked a bit flat and I wasn't so sure we would be able to break the deadlock. - we were breaking through their defense with, mainly, long balls, but their keeper, Brad Friedel, had built a brick wall on the goal line which we couldn't get past.

As the hour mark passed nothing much was changing....so I decided to make a move. I took off Juan Angel and brang on Vassell, some more pace up front...and with Hendrie injuring himself on the right perhaps being a blessing in disguise as I was able to bring on Patrik Berger, the more attacking player, in his place. To counter our strategy though, they set themselves on the backfoot even more, and let us come at them, and we still couldn't break through. We really seemed to miss some bite in our attacking line when Nobby Solano is missing and maybe this is something I will need to look at in the future, another winger who can give me some attacking spark and preferably someone who can play on both sides...hmmm....a name like Darren Ambrose comes to mind...a quickly jot the name down on the pad as the side walks off the pitch with a draw, which is enough to put us ahead of Man Utd and into third on goal difference behind Chelsea and Arsenal (the latter of which who has not only not lost a point yet, but not even conceded a goal yet this season. I noticed that their goalkeeper picked up the man of the match award, and while it was deserved, it is really our own fault we didn't hit the onion bag...

Aston Villa 0

Blackburn 0

Now, coming up on the saturday was the big trip to Manchester United....we had surpassed them on the table on goal difference which to me was a significant psychological hurdle...this was what I was drilling into the players at training....we are above them, they are nothing to fear....

I wanted us to head out there and play confident football. If we surrender into our shells then we will, for lack of a better word, get flogged.


EPL, Game 7
Man Utd vs. Aston Villa

What a big game for us....a good start to the year and now we find out where we really stand. Nobby Solano is still out for us and Lee Hendrie has joined the casualty list alongside Solano and Barry. Darius Vassell was brought in on the right wing, and despite doing nothing overly wrong, the experienced Patrik Berger was brought in on the left wing for the big game.

This saturday afternoon was also a big match for them with their 20M pound signing Wayne Rooney scheduled to make his debut...and with their midfield reading Giggs, Keane, Scholes and Ronaldo backing up Van Nistelrooy and Rooney I started to get a bit worried. To show the opposition that we weren't intimidated I told the players to go out there and tackle hard...the weather was wet and cold, just perfect, a dogfight would suit us to the ground.

We were being forced to work hard, very hard, but this was expected and after 20 mins we had kept them at bay and only to two shots at goal. Our tackling down the back was commendable...and we had a couple of opportunities to get them on the break with Charlton Cole particularly using his pace...although just as things were looking good, once again we concede the first goal with Van Nistelrooy knocking it over to Rooney for an easy finish to give the kid his first goal for the club. We managed to regain our compusure and restablish a rythym in the match, but on the half hour mark our minds went blank and Mellberg, who was struggling to keep with Ruud's pace, let him through and couldn't catch up, giving them a second. Only 2 minutes later Rooney got put through again by Ruud and the match was over after only half an hour.

What a disappointment. I have certainly found out that we have a long way to go.

By the hour mark the players were totally stuffed. They have worked hard but the stand of play just isn't there to match it with a Man Utd....already I was looking forward to our next EPL fixture against Chelsea in exactly a weeks time on Saturday....as the match went on we conceded another one to Van Nistelrooy who had now scored 2 of theirs and set up the other two...the guy was playing out of his skin! After that the players kind of fell asleep and we were just on the backfoot taking all of their punishment. Quite surprisingly we managed to snatch one back, although I suspect they just took their feet off the gas allowing Cole to break free and put one through the net at a completely useless time.

I really wanted to scream out from the sidelines, "You missed the exact same chance against Blackburn when it could have won us the game!"

Finally the game whistle ended. I waited for the players and told them all, before they walked off, to remember this feeling. "Not a good feeling, huh?" I told them as we walked off the pitch...

Man Utd 4
Rooney 22, 34
Van Nistelrooy 31, 79
Aston Villa 1
Cole 87

After the game, I was told Charlton Cole had twisted his knee and would miss two weeks including our matches against Chelsea and Liverpool...How things can go from good to bad so quickly!

Our good start ended pretty abruptly!