Villa’s rise sums up strange start to Premier League
LONDON, Oct 22, (AP): Strange things are happening in the English Premier League, and the improbable rise of Aston Villa might be the most surreal of them all.
The only team with a 100% record, Villa have made their best start to a top-division campaign in 90 years by winning their first four games. Chief among them, of course, was the 7-2 victory over Liverpool, the defending champions, that ranks as one of the most stunning results in a generation.
Beat Leeds on Friday – or even get a point – and Villa’s long-suffering fans will see their team on top of the league for the first time since 2001.
These truly are pinch-yourself times at Villa, European Cup champions in the 1980s who were out of the Premier League from 2016-19 and were nearly relegated last season. And making it all the sweeter, their coach and captain are both boyhood fans of the team. Smith knows that all too well. When soccer was suspended in March because of the coronavirus pandemic, Villa were in a tailspin.
A 4-0 loss at Leicester in what proved to be the final Premier League game before lockdown plunged the team from central England into the relegation zone on the back of four straight defeats.
Smith’s future was under scrutiny, with rumblings among fans about his tactical acumen. And there seemed no way Jack Grealish, Villa’s captain and star player, would be staying at the club beyond the season – relega
tion or not. Lockdown was tough, too, for Smith, who lost his father, Ron, to COVID-19 in May.
So how, a few months on, are Villa in the situation where they are looking down on every team bar Everton in the standings and one of just two teams in Europe’s top five leagues – along with AC Milan in Italy – to have made perfect starts? Key has been a massive improvement defensively, which can partly be attributed to the work behind the scenes of Villa assistant manager
John Terry, the former England and Chelsea captain.
Villa finished last season with the second worst defensive record in the league, with 67 goals conceded in 38 games. But in the final four games, Villa conceded only two goals and the clean sheets earned in hard-fought wins over Crystal Palace and Arsenal were vital in the team escaping relegation on the final day of the season thanks to a nervy draw at West Ham.
So far in this unpredictable season, when teams are scoring at a level never seen before in the Premier League era, Villa have the best defensive record with three clean sheets and only two goals conceded.
Tyrone Mings and Ezri Konsa are unheralded center backs who have grown in assuredness and reliability since the end of last season. They also carry a threat at set-pieces, just like Terry did as a player.
Mings has managed to break into the England squad and the 22-year-old Konsa is on the right track, too, thanks to some sound advice by Terry.
Meanwhile, Everton manager Carlo Ancelotti came to the defense of Jordan Pickford on Thursday after criticism of the goalkeeper for his role in the serious injury sustained by Liverpool defender Virgil van Dijk.
Van Dijk, one of Liverpool’s most important players, is expected to be out for months after damaging cruciate ligaments in his right knee in a challenge by Pickford early in the Merseyside derby on Saturday.
Liverpool midfielder Georginio Wijnaldum has described Pickford’s challenge as stupid and said the goalkeeper “didn’t care what happened” when he went to tackle Van Dijk. Asked about the incident, Ancelotti said Pickford was “really sad, really disappointed” that Van Dijk was injured.