Where now for Villa?

By: Martini Extra Dry | June 30th, 2008

After a season of fantastic achievements for Martin O’Neill and the Villa boys, we now have to face the reality of: Where do we go from here? I can’t imagine many Villa fans (or even management and players for that matter) are under the illusion that the top four of the Premiership is a penetrable fortress, so the only possible improvement on a sixth placed finish… is a fifth placed finish. The likelihood of a less successful follow up season seems to loom large for us.

So how do we do it? First on the list of priorities has got to be to try and keep hold of Gareth Barry. Put simply; we wouldn’t have finished sixth without him. Yes, it was a great team effort but good old Captain Fantastic’s contribution was magnanimous. He was majestic in the middle of the park, just take the Bolton game for instance, 2 goals and 2 assists. Without him on the pitch that 4-0 thrashing was a 0-0 bore draw!

To keep him on Birmingham soil, O’Neil and American owner, Randy Lerner, seem to have devised a plan; they seem to want to annoy Liverpool into submission. Every offer Liverpool make is presently being met with rejections and angry words to the press. O’Neill spoke out openly about his anger with Rafa Benitez, prior to the transfer window re-opening and now he is just rebuffing all their offers, it seems.

But what if (should that be when?) Barry does depart for Liverpool, who will fill the gap? First target appears to be Steve Sidwell. Not a bad second best to Barry. Definitely not up to the standard that Barry achieved last season but Reading certainly fell apart after he left them. Hopefully the season spent largely on the sidelines at Chelsea hasn’t knocked his confidence too much.

We also desperately need a right back. Olof Mellberg did his best (slightly out of position) there last season but with his departure we now have a big gap. We don’t really need one of your bomb-down-the-wing, crossover type of players as we have so many young and talented wingers at the club. What would suit us nicely is a player who is very tight at the back, so we don’t have to fear that we’ve thrown too many forward when we get caught on the counter. Tabloid rumours have linked us with Joao Pereira, who is known for his bad temper and aggressiveness. Is that really what we need at the Villa, another Alpay?