Blog: The Villa rollercoaster

Here we are after two Premiership games. Week one delerium, week two extreme disappointment. Welcome to the rollercoaster that is Aston Villa, writes blogger Dave Bytheway.

After the demolition of Man City, we headed to Stoke always looking good to come away with three points and a comfortable afternoon. How wrong we were.

Much has been made about the way Stoke play, but it’s not too dissimilar to our own direct style, albeit with the unsightly addition of Rory Delap’s long throw. At the end of the day, they used their tactics better than us, and came away worthy winners in the end. A gloomy day for Villa fans, who again sold their allocation of tickets in days, and did the club proud, unlike the players.

This week is the final week to add players before the close of the summer transfer window, and if we can take one thing from the game, it’s we need some, and quick. We showed little creativity apart from Petrov, who again had a good game, and the lack of flair could come back and haunt us if its not addressed this week.

Expect two, maybe three players this week, with Kevin Doyle looking a strong possibility to add to our striking options.

On Thursday we welcome Icelandic outfit FH Hafnarfjordur to Villa Park in the Uefa cup. Going into the game leading 4-1, I think we will see a few appearances from fringe players as Martin O’Neill won’t risk the senior members before the Liverpool game on Sunday. There are two players who have caught my eye in pre season, Nathan Delfouneso, and a Scottish Midfielder called Barry Bannan. These two will hopefully get a run soon, and have shown that they are ready in the reserves. I predict Villa to come out easy winners and progress into the next round with a 4-0 win.

Sunday brings the “big one”. After the summer of confusion regarding Gareth Barry, we host Liverpool. I don’t want to comment too much, but I anticipate a very hostile reception for Messrs Gerrard and Benitez, and surely with a win, Barry might see what we are trying to achieve here, and be thankful that they couldn’t scrape together to extra few pounds they claimed they didn’t have, but spent it on Keane.

A big week ahead, lets hope this time on Monday, we feel a little better than we did this week.

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