“How is the season going: good or bad?” Unai Emery said, posing a question many Aston Villa supporters have been asking themselves. It is one with no simple answer. “It depends, if we are watching Champions League, wow, fantastic,” the Villa manager said, applauding like an enthusiastic theatregoer, dusting off his hands at qualifying automatically for the last 16. “If we are watching the FA Cup, fantastic, after a long time we are playing, close to progress,” he said of the club reaching the fifth round for the first time in 10 years. Then came an aching, juddering groan. “If we are watching the Premier League, errr, it’s not enough.”
The other thing Emery knows is this is a significant week for Villa, who host Liverpool on Wednesday night and Chelsea on Saturday hoping to breathe life into their quest to qualify for the Champions League in successive seasons, with fifth spot likely to offer a route on to that stage given English clubs’ success in Europe this term. Villa visit Crystal Palace next Tuesday and the following Friday they entertain Cardiff City, at risk of relegation to League One, for a place in the Cup quarter-finals.
The visit of Arne Slot’s side is the second of five games in 13 days but, while Villa are angry over the precise rescheduling of the fixture after the opposition reached the Carabao Cup final, victory would provide a timely lift, just as two wins against Manchester City and Arsenal inside four December days did last season.
If Villa are to beat Liverpool, the chances are a new signing will play a part. Marcus Rashford and Marco Asensio could make their first starts, while Axel Disasi and Andrés García, signed as a prospect from Levante, will likely continue in defence. Donyell Malen could keep his place in attack. Villa are a rarity in that they are one of few elite clubs to lean on the loan market but all three players borrowed – Rashford, Asensio and Disasi, from Manchester United, Paris Saint‑Germain and Chelsea respectively – are central to Villa’s hopes. In the short term Disasi is perhaps most important given injuries to Ezri Konsa, Pau Torres and Boubacar Kamara, who has been playing as a makeshift centre-back.
Emery knows there is likely to be correlation between the performances of his loan trio and the club’s season. “They chose to come here, they decided to join us for different reasons,” he said. “I think they need to show or to try to use this period – four months – to increase again and recover their level and confidence. My challenge with them is to get the best out of them. Each one has an individual challenge and of course we are going to be very demanding with them to help them get it, because if it’s better for them, it’s better for us. Success for them is success for us.”
This mini-season, before their Champions League fixtures resume in March, could shape their entire campaign. If Villa do not progress in the Cup, they face a 24-day break between trips to Brentford and Brighton in the league, the latter on 1 April. Villa need momentum, not a lull. They also need to improve their record against direct rivals, those they are vying with in the table. Of the current top 10 Villa have beaten only City and Brighton this season – the former during their peculiar pre‑Christmas run of one win in 13 – taking nine points from a possible 30 against those teams.
The reality is Villa have struggled for rhythm all season. They have not won three games in a row in the league since September and, now winless in four, they have taken two points from their past three matches, all of which were against teams in the bottom five: West Ham, Wolves and Ipswich. Villa face nine of the current top 11 before matches against Tottenham and Manchester United, a trip to Old Trafford on the final day. Failure to beat 10-man Ipswich last weekend added to the underlying sense of frustration around a team coming up slightly short, one punished for naivety at times. The obvious caveat is Villa’s progress in the Champions League. The evidence to date is that it has come at a cost: they have won six points from a possible 24 in games following their European matches.
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This fixture last season threw up a classic, Villa fighting back to secure a 3-3 draw as two Jhon Durán goals in the final five minutes of normal time in effect secured qualification for the Champions League. Jürgen Klopp grinned as the Hollywood actor Tom Hanks, a Villa fan, addressed the crowd pre-match that May day and, while the teams have shared 33 goals across their past seven meetings at Villa Park, how Emery would settle for a drama-free night, and a clean sheet, this time. “I prefer to close my goal,” he said, laughing. “We are going to [make] the goals smaller.”
Source: theguardian.com
