Aston Villa 0, Wigan 2: Mat Kendrick's big match verdict
ONE fed-up fan remarked that Aston Villa should change their name to Asterisk Villa after all the ******* swear words which were being used to sum up this sorry start at Villa Park.
Villa’s victims in pre-season included Porto, Juventus and Fiorentina but Martin O’Neill’s team were no match for mighty Wigan during this Premier League opening-day debacle.
One swallow doesn’t make a summer; likewise one hard-to-swallow performance shouldn’t break a summer.
It’s unjust to judge Villa over 90 minutes, although the next 14 days before the transfer window slams shut should give a clearer indication of what lies ahead this season.
Villa simply need to do more business and if they weren’t patently aware of that before, then they will be now because the only big cheque to be signed, sealed and delivered on Saturday was a reality check.
It was a story of one senior player who really ought to have been playing and one rookie who probably shouldn’t.
With John Carew’s cult status comes conspiracy theories and when it emerged that the Holte End hero was not even in the match-day squad rumours were rocketing around Villa Park.
Carew’s absence was nothing more sinister than a foot injury sustained in the pre-match warm-up, which he felt would be too painful to play on. Thus the manager left him out of the starting XI and Carew ruled himself out of a place on the bench.
The Norwegian later banished unfounded terrace gossip that he had stormed off at the start by facing the press at the end and then hobbling away with a walk as limp as his team’s performance.
For Fabian Delph the pressure of prospering in the Premier League proved too much as stage-fright seemed to get the better of the teenage top-flight debutant.
It is unfair to describe Delph as a little boy lost as both the former Leeds star and experienced new captain Stiliyan Petrov were overrun in the centre of the park.
But let’s just say it didn’t need Match of the Day’s Alan Hansen drooling over the highlights of Gareth Barry’s winning Manchester City debut to reveal the gaping hole in Villa’s midfield.
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