Benteke’s performance raises Villa’s ambitions
After 12 goals in 42 league appearances between the start of last season and the end of this February, Christian Benteke has scored eight in his last seven games. But for 20 minutes in the second half, when a fog briefly settled over all combatants in an otherwise frantic fixture, this was a return to his muscular best. It was not just the goals – impressive as the last two, in particular, may have been – but his quality and confidence outside the penalty area, where he spent the first half riffling through a dictionary of flicks, feints and backheels. On two occasions he and his side reacted brilliantly and, it must be said, atypically to falling behind, and his form in particular gives his side hope (even if this result encouraged mainly the teams that weren’t involved in it).
QPR hardly helped by depressing defending
This game pitted the Premier League’s weakest attack against the poorest defence. Benteke’s rampant menace gave Villa the threat they have so often missed, but QPR’s’ poor defending was more easily exposed. Until they switched from a back four to a three a few minutes into the second half they were distressingly fragile, while the midfield’s repeated refusal to cover Tom Cleverley, Jack Grealish and, later, Joe Cole when they ran from deep left them further exposed. Sandro’s halfway-line assault on Gabriel Agbonlahor in the build-up to Villa’s second suggested a collective failure in defensive decision-making. Villa were only marginally stronger, with Kieran Richardson and Carlos Sánchez inexplicably allowing Matt Phillips to twist into space and set up QPR’s third.
Bench-based buddies show opposites attract
“We appear to be bad cop and bad cop,” said Chris Ramsey before the game of his partnership with Tim Sherwood, the pair having become friends during several years coaching together at Tottenham. At Villa Park they were more like rational cop and over-excited cop, as Sherwood put on a bravura display of mascot-hugging, jacket-flinging, fist-pumping, touchline-skipping, face-pulling madness while his erstwhile colleague stood, arms folded, static of body if not of brow. And their opinions were as different as their body language: “On our second-half performance we are disappointed we have not got three points – we were fantastic,” said Ramsey. “He’s disappointed? He he must be delighted because we dominated the match,” countered Sherwood.
Grealish makes impressive impact
Before this match Jack Grealish had been used only sporadically, and known mainly for being fined by Paul Lambert in January for tweeting that he “can’t wait to be happy playing football again”. Perhaps it won’t be long: Sherwood recently predicted that he “could be the hero” his side need, and he impressed on this full league debut. The lifelong Villa fan immediately assumed a central role, linking play well, taking attacking set pieces and even trying to catch out Robert Green with a cheeky shot at the near post from wide. His corners were unexceptional but other contributions impressive, until he was eventually replaced by Joe Cole, a midfielder at the other end of his career. Perhaps Grealish could do with pulling his socks up, but only in the literal sense. As it happened, it was a year to the day since Sherwood, then at Spurs, gave another youngster a full league debut – and everything has worked out OK for Harry Kane.
You wouldn’t want to bet against Villa
The Holte End was decorated with a new sign, bearing a picture of Ron Saunders and the quote, “Do you want to bet against us?” It recalled the moment Saunders, then Villa’s manager, was asked about his side’s title chances after defeat to their only rivals, Ipswich, in April 1981. They did indeed win the league that season, though only because Ipswich, who had lost two of their first 32 league games that season, proceeded to lose seven of the last 10. After that game Villa took seven points from a possible 12: hardly awe-inspiring, but good enough. The message, perhaps more pertinent now than ever with the threat of relegation still hanging over the club, is that it doesn’t matter if your own form is a bit ropey, so long as everyone else’s is worse.
