AstonVilla don’t need to emulate Wolves – just be a BETTER Villa
Football Editor gives his verdict on the humbling derby-day defeat at Molineux
AT times on Saturday evening my colleagues in the Molineux press box were drooling – and it wasn’t just because of the double-choc muffins.
Wolves had comprehensively swept aside Villa in as fluent a Championship display as you will see.
No sooner had the referee put Villa out of their misery by blowing the final whistle, there was already a degree of Nuno-envy among the claret-and-blue faithful.
Now I fully understand why supporters would like their team to emulate Nuno Espirito Santo’s team. Who wouldn’t? What’s not to love?
But Villa fans wishing for that kind of approach from their team might as well dream of a Ballon d’Or for Gabby Agbonlahor for all the good it would do them.
Although Nuno has transformed the Molineux men in the time it took his predecessor to say ‘We’ll be fine’, Villa are a different project.
Sections of the Villa Park fanbase would love their club to rip up the current claret-and-blueprint and adopt the same free-flowing footballing philosophy as their neighbours.
Whisper it, but having seen Diogo Jota strutting his stuff in front of a heaving South Bank, I can definitely see the appeal of such an approach. But there’s more than one way to skin a defender.
Villa are committed to the ‘Steve Bruce Guide to Championship Climbing’, with a squad pieced together by the manager over two transfer windows.
What disappointed me most about Bruce’s side was not that they couldn’t match their hosts in terms of swagger.
It was that they couldn’t match them in terms of endeavour, let alone impose their own game. Okay, so it’s a chicken-or-egg argument. Was it the rapid, hunting and breaking-inpacks mentality of Wolves that stopped Villa from getting out of their own half, or was it a return of their own in-built retreat-at-signs-of-trouble mindset that had seen them concede and crumble in the recent past? Probably a bit of both. Villa don’t have the midfield quality and speed of thought and deed of Jota, who even at 20 is destined for the top.
Bruce will always favour a 4-4-2 for covering the pitch over Nuno’s 3-4-3. But for all the pros and cons of certain systems and individual players it still comes down to tempo, intent and playing to a plan.
Few Wolves fans would have thought Matt Doherty capable of operating like a marauding Dani Alves wannabe a few months back!
Wolves’ players carried out their head coach’s instructions to the letter. Did Villa’s? Well if they did, then Bruce clearly got it wrong.
Okay, so the opposition were far superior to what Villa faced during their winning run, but there was none of the power and resilience that saw off Barnsley, Nottingham Forest, Burton and Bolton.
In truth, Bruce was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t in terms of the formation.
Had he sensed what was coming in the second half and put on an extra midfielder at the break he would have been blasted for being negative – and, in truth, Wolves would still, in all likelihood, have found a way past Villa anyway.
It was less about method and more about mindset. Because of the way the game developed, Robert Snodgrass and Albert Adomah found themselves being employed as sec- ondary full-backs to protect Ahmed Elmohamady and Alan Hutton, while Conor Hourihane was forced so deep he became a second Glenn Whelan.
With Bruce’s players treating the football like a hot potato, the strike pairing of Jonathan Kodjia and Keinan Davis barely got a touch, allowing Conor Coady to stroll out like a Black Country Beckenbauer.
The thing that so impressed about Wolves was how relentless they were off the ball as well as in possession – and that is a Nuno element Villa CAN aspire to.
Bruce recently praised the increased fitness levels of his players and likened their output to having an extra player.
It didn’t look like it on Saturday and Wolves carved through them, ran round them and got behind them with far too much ease.
Villa weren’t good enough and the match, especially the second half, often resembled a cup tie between a Premier League side and lowerleague opponents – only without the underdog spirit of the opponents.
Bruce is right, it is a long old season and they won’t come up against foes as ruthlessly slick as Wolves every week and neither will Villa’s players perform as poorly every week as they did at Molineux.
They will watch with interest over the coming weeks and months to see whether the Nuno project has legs.
It will be intriguing to see how the clubs are faring come the rematch at Villa Park on March 10.
Villa fans should not waste time wanting to be like Wolves, but Bruce and his players do need to limit these off-days and consistently be the absolute best of who and what they are to stand a chance of being anywhere near the position their local rivals occupy.