Ruthless boss won’t tolerate any more shockers...
YOU did not need to be a body language expert to determine what was going through Steven Gerrard’s mind while Villa were toiling at Newcastle.
Pictures of him slumped in the dugout told us all we needed to know about the struggle he was witnessing as Villa barely laid a glove on a team who are fighting for survival.
Villa fans pulled no punches in their assessment and, sure enough, Gerrard followed suit in a post-match interview that matched all the qualities he demonstrated as a player for both Liverpool and England.
Tackling the lacklustre nature of the performance head-on, he fired a stark warning that repeats would have Villa looking down rather than up. This should come as no surprise given Gerrard set ruthlessly high standards as a player and the squad at Villa should be in no doubt that he has taken them into coaching.
If Villa supporters ever wanted an insight into what he expects, his former Liverpool team-mate Peter Crouch saw first-hand just how quick he is to identify mediocrity.
“I’ve seen £10 million, £15 million players written off in one training session. Genuinely. Like, ‘Oh he’s crap’,” Crouch revealed in an interview in 2019.
“Gerrard and (Jamie) Carragher were ruthless, ruthless! Gerrard’s standards are so high. He would wrap a pass into you with so much venom and expect you to control it, and he would wrap it in to me and then come at me.
“I’d either lay it off for him first time or take a touch and lay it off for him again. It happened to me a couple of times where if it bounced off me, he’d just look at you like, ‘what am I playing with?’”
Gerrard will not be daft enough to expect the same level of quality he often showered on the Premier League, but he will certainly not tolerate passengers.
Before he rocked up at Villa Park last November, many felt his predecessor, Dean Smith, had simply not got the best out of what was deemed an immensely talented group.
But after the weekend, some fans are now beginning to contemplate whether the squad is as good as everybody on the outside maintains it is.
Lucas Digne and Philippe Coutinho aside, does it genuinely contain the quality needed to achieve the
long-standing ambition of European football?
The arrivals of Coutinho and Digne demonstrated an ambition to take Villa to the next level while Emi Martinez is also a world-class goalkeeper.
But the rest of the squad should be under no illusion that their futures are secure if Sunday’s feeble performance at St James’ Park is repeated on a weekly basis.
The only way they can guarantee they will play a part in what Villa hope is a glorious rebirth is by reaching the standards Gerrard will consistently expect. They cannot say they were not warned.