Analysis: Dire Den defeat highlights why Aston Villa simply must get their next managerial appointment right

Saturday’s 2-1 defeat at Millwall also provided a few pointers to whoever the newest incumbent of the Villa Park hotseat might be, the clearest being their first task will be to sort out the team’s slipshod defence.

Yet the deepest impression will still surely have been left on the mind of chief executive Christian Purslow, the man tasked with leading the search for Steve Bruce’s successor.

Find the right man and a push for promotion this term is far from out of the question. Bring in the wrong one, however, and a different kind of battle at the other end of the table also cannot be ruled out.

That may sound faintly ludicrous, considering the talent upon which Villa can call. It won’t to those 2,000-or-so supporters at The Den who, not for the first time this season, saw their team’s soft underbelly ruthlessly exposed.

For 20 minutes, Villa were very good and Tammy Abraham’s excellently executed early opener should have provided the platform to plough on for victory at the end of a tumultuous week. Instead it took the only the merest Millwall pressure for the cracks to show. Shane Ferguson levelled for the hosts, before Tom Elliott blasted them ahead early in the second half.

The fact there were no more goals was chiefly down to the home side’s poor finishing. Armed with a killer instinct, a team who prior to Saturday had won been winless in 10 matches might have inflicted a defeat on Villa equally as humiliating as the one suffered at Sheffield United a month ago.

Some significant caveats must also be included. Villa, managed for what is likely to be the only time by caretaker boss Kevin MacDonald, were without skipper James Chester for the first time in more than two years.

This was also the kind of rough-and-tumble occasion upon which the skills of Mile Jedinak, missing through injury, would have been ideal. MacDonald, bereft of alternatives, was forced to field Alan Hutton in central defence.

The trouble facing the new man is that the defensive issues seen on Saturday, Villa’s lack of organisation and leadership, have been present all season.

Only Preston, who sit two places off the bottom of the table, have let in more than the 20 goals conceded by Villa. Saturday, meanwhile, was the second time in five days they had failed to win after scoring first. In total, Villa have now dropped nine points from winning positions, more than they have salvaged thanks to four stoppage time goals.

Amid all the clamour for a progressive managerial appointment, such statistics give rise to the question of whether a stabilising force – a David Moyes or Sam Allardyce for example – might be the better option.

The theory can be quickly countered by the fact, in Bruce, that is precisely the kind of ethos Villa have just dispensed with. For all the good he did over nearly two years at the helm, it is fair to say Bruce did himself nor his successor any favours with a summer recruitment strategy which neglected the backline.

The on-field influence of both John Terry and Robert Snodgrass is also sorely missed.

Now Villa have been left with a squad for whom, at least until January, attack may be the best form of defence.

Whether any manager would be able to fix this Villa backline, with the current resources at their disposal, is open to question.

For a brief period at The Den, MacDonald appeared to have found a solution as Villa matched the intensity of their hosts and moved the ball about with a swagger seen only fleetingly in recent months.

Alas, it did not last. Ferguson’s leveller, after the recalled Neil Taylor had been guilty of ball watching, turned the tide and Millwall’s grip on proceedings only strengthened as the game progressed.

MacDonald introduced Jonathan Kodjia, Yannick Bolasie and Albert Adomah off the bench but rather than wrestle back the initiative, Villa ended the game going round in circles.

Whoever arrives to replace Bruce in the next few days needs to find a decisive new direction.

And quickly.