What a difference a few weeks make. Or, to put it in more pessimistic but increasingly popular terms, what an extraordinary lack of difference a radical transformation in a manager’s policy makes. Aston Villa struggled under Paul Lambert in the past two seasons and now, following a drastic strategic switch by the Scot during the summer, Aston Villa are struggling again.
Yet in the first month of this season it really did look like this campaign would banish the smog of dismay that has polluted Villa Park for several years. The team took 10 points from their four opening Premier League matches and, in the wake of a heartening 1-0 victory at Anfield in mid-September, Lambert signed a new four-year contract at the club.
That seemed a rather sudden reversal of fortune for a manager whom many bookmakers had ranked among the favourites to be sacked following hairy brawls against relegation in his first two seasons at the club. No sooner had the club and manager renewed their vows than the team’s performances sagged: Villa have lost five straight matches since then, failing to score a single goal. Shooting more blanks at home to Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday would really strain the patience of the Villa Park crowd, still wincing from watching their team suffer a record 10 home league defeats last season.
In fairness to Lambert, the recent hapless streak featured four particularly difficult assignments – against Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City and Everton – but the last match, Monday’s sorry defeat to lowly Queens Park Rangers, is the one that convinced some supporters that their early season successes were but a blip and the current run a more accurate reflection of what to expect under the manager despite his change of philosophy in the summer.
Lambert has had to cope with the constraints arising from club owner Randy Lerner’s loss of enthusiasm. The American, who put the club up for sale in May, had already begun cost-cutting when Lambert was entrusted in June 2012 with a mission to spruce up the drab team he inherited from the spectacularly unpopular Alex McLeish while also trimming the payroll. Lambert decided to put his faith in youth and froze out established Premier League players such as Darren Bent and Alan Hutton.
There followed two harrowing campaigns in which Villa narrowly avoided relegation and rarely entertained. So in the summer Lambert decided to alter his approach by leaping to the other extreme, hiring players with years of Premier League experience. A reasonable idea, but the ensuing recruitment has not yet been justified: Joe Cole, 33 next Saturday, has only managed 29 minutes of league action so far; Philippe Senderos, whom Fulham jilted in the middle of their doomed battle against the drop last season, began well and then reverted to his more familiar form and is now injured; Hutton, brought back in from the cold, followed a similar pattern; Aly Cissokho has so far not looked like the solution to the club’s problems at left-back.
Bent, as well as Hutton, was welcomed back into the fold, and the latter even offered a new contract, while Villa also borrowed Tom Cleverley from Manchester United but he has so far not been able to address the side’s grievous lack of creativity and barely seems an upgrade on Ashley Westwood, a neat but not especially inventive midfielder.
Villa’s defence was rickety last term but showed signs of new-found solidity in the early weeks of the season, in part due to the appointment of Roy Keane as Lambert’s assistant and to the arrival of the new old-stagers alongside Ron Vlaar, the Holland centreback whose decision to remain at the club after a fine World Cup was warmly welcomed. But the solidity did not last and basic errors have re-emerged, with Keane deriding their defending as “shocking” after the defeat to QPR.
Lambert’s job has been further complicated by injuries. Fabian Delph dislocating a shoulder just after his excellent form earned him an England debut in September was typical of the Scot’s luck and deprives Villa of their most influential midfielder until after Christmas.
Hope has not yet been abandoned. The omens are bad but it is too early to say conclusively that Lambert’s new approach has failed. Christian Benteke has just returned after six months out with an achilles injury. The Belgian’s goals saved Villa from the drop in Lambert’s first season at the club, and may have to do so again.
