Aston Villa Season Preview
It’s hard to look at Aston Villa’s current squad and remain optimistic. The team just sold its two best players by a wide margin – Christian Benteke and Fabian Delph - and have yet to bring in anyone to replace them. They barely avoided relegation last season, finishing 17th with 38 points, just three ahead of relegated Hull City. They only scored 31 Premier League goals, 15 of which were scored or created by Benteke in a mere 29 matches. Yes, that’s correct, in 29 matches, Benteke scored or assisted on 48% of Aston Villa’s goals for the season.
It gets worse. They conceded the third most goals in the league, 57, after only Queens Park Rangers and Newcastle. They only had one win that was by more than one goal, against Sunderland on the 14th of March, but that was more of a Sunderland non-effort on defense than anything good Villa did. Did I mention they’re going into the season with a goalkeeper they benched at the end of last season?
The Brad Guzan Question
The Brad Guzan question is an important one for Aston Villa. The American goalkeeper has been at the club since 2008 and has 116 appearances for the club. He was considered a strong point at the beginning of last season, but for unknown circumstances, his form dropped considerably and things went south when he did gifted Sergio Aguero with an empty net in what was likely the biggest goalkeeper blunder last season. He was benched after that match in favor of…..39 year old Shay Given.
Shay Given is now at Stoke City and Villa haven’t signed a new number one goalkeeper. It appears as of Guzan will be their number one on opening day, at least according to Tim Sherwood, but will he have enough confidence to get back into form? Guzan is not old by goalkeeper standards, he’s only 30 years old, and he figures to have time left in his prime. He was fairly average when playing for team USA this summer and it’s not out of the question he returns to form, but Villa are out of options if he doesn’t play well. Their number two is Jed Steer, who is 22, and might not even be on the roster by September if he goes out on loan. It’s scary back there for Villa.
Defense wins championships
They say defense wins championships, and Villa will have to rely on their defense to win the right to stay in the Premier League another year. It’s not that their defense is great, but they could at least be competitive in that regard. They will likely start Ciaran Clark, who had a fantastic season last year, and new signing Micah Richards at center back. I can’t say enough about how impressive Clark was last season before suffering a knee injury, and he figured to be heading into the new season healthy. That duo has enough experience and skill to keep teams out, and new signing Jordan Amavi is not a bad left-back at age 21. They’ll probably rotate Alan Hutton and Leandro Bacuna at right-back, where they could at least provide some level of offensive spark from the back. If anything were to happen to Clark or Richards, they have Jores Okore waiting on the bench. Okore was solid last season and is still developing, while certainly providing a security blanket at the position. They could even try to play five across to back and park the bus for 38 match weeks, which wouldn’t be the worst of ideas at this moment considering the rest of the squad.
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Midfield
Midfield is where things start to get murky. Losing Fabian Delph hurt more than people are realizing. He was the only solid piece in that midfield and kept the whole team together. Tom Cleverley was also good for the majority of the last campaign and they lost him as well. Without those two, Villa is left with Carlos Sanchez, Ashley Westwood, and Idrissa Gueye in central midfield. Neither of those is horrible but they also don’t really provide much, if any, offensive skill. Sanchez and Gueye are both defensive specialists and Westwood is a very poor man’s box-to-box midfielder, if you could call him that. On the wings, Villa can feature some sort of combination of Jack Grealish, Charles N’Zogbia, and Scott Sinclair. Grealish has all the potential in the world but is unpolished and only recorded one assist last season while N’Zogbia was in and out of the rotation all season. Sinclair wasn’t liked by Sherwood towards the end of the campaign, and what’s to change this year? Villa desperately need some solid midfield pieces and they’d be wise to spend some of the Benteke money in midfield. A box-to-box attacking midfielder would be a great start, but anyone who can control the ball and play passes through the middle would be an improvement over what’s currently there. Andros Townsend was rumored to be going to Villa for a while but the rumors are dying down and it’s becoming more unlikely he ends up there. On the bench, they have Kieran Richardson, who could move up to play in midfield since Amavi will be starting in his left-back spot, but it’s hard to get excited about Richardson as a main attacking option. There just isn’t much here for Sherwood to work with right now, and Villa need to start spending soon.
Forwards
If you thought midfield was bad, wait until you hear the attacking options. There is Libor Kozak and Gabriel Agbonlahor. Welp. Kozak missed almost all of last season with a serious injury and we don’t even know if he’ll be healthy to start in week one. Agbonlahor is an average supporting forward but is far from a goal-scorer and cannot lead the line for a Premier League club. Charlie Austin is an option here, especially with all that Benteke money, but Villa haven’t been prone to spend much in recent seasons and Austin might be a bit too much for them. But help is needed, and it’s needed fast.
Trying to predict a starting XI is difficult, but the most likely scenario probably looks like:
Predicted Starting XI
Good luck, Mr. Sherwood.
Also check out other Season Previews: Everton | Sunderland | Watford | Bournemouth | Norwich
