Express & Star

Analysis: Saturday night stroll leaves Aston Villa dreaming big

Villa have won matches by greater margins this season, but arguably none so effortlessly.

Published
Last updated

Much of that, admittedly, could be put down to their opponent. Newcastle are the poorest team in the Premier League on current form and so insipid at times on Saturday you wondered whether the Magpies had forgotten the very purpose of the sport.

Yet Villa’s 2-0 victory still represented another sign of their progress and another chance to ponder just how far Dean Smith’s men can go in the weeks ahead?

After all, winning matches in the Premier League has not come easily for Villa over the past decade. Only once since 2010 have they managed more than 10 in a top flight campaign.

This season they already have nine after 17 games, matching their total from the whole of last term and we are not even halfway through.

Already this will be the first season since Martin O’Neill’s resignation when the spectre of relegation is not present in the closing weeks.

Instead, Villa’s sights are very much trained upwards. This win saw them climb to eighth in the table, with matches in hand on everyone above them bar sixth-placed Everton, three points ahead.

Smith is doing his best to keep a lid on expectations, though he did concede his team may be capable of “something special” and it is reaching the point where, whatever is said publicly, a top-six finish simply has to be the target.

Villa’s nine wins have been by an aggregate score of 23-2, while they have also now recorded nine clean sheets. At the very least, it would now be a shame if a challenge for a European place was not sustained until late into the campaign.

They are about to get stronger too, with the imminent arrival of midfielder Morgan Sanson from Marseille for an initial £14million another indication of the club’s willingness to flex their financial muscle in the transfer market.

Smith will hope the 26-year-old can find his feet as quickly as Villa’s signings in the last transfer window, which even just three months on appears to have been the most successful in club history and is the chief reason for their transformation from relegation strugglers last term to top half challengers this.

Against Newcastle it was again two of the summer arrivals who grabbed the headlines.

Record buy Ollie Watkins put Villa ahead and snapped his own nine-match goal drought when he took advantage of some rather hapless defending from Fabian Schar to head beyond Karl Darlow in the 13th minute.

Focusing on Watkins’ goal return feels harsh when factored against how his all-round game has helped improve Villa as a team. The 25-year-old has also been incredibly unlucky, with two goals ruled out by VAR for the most marginal of offside calls.

Still, the broad smile on his face after netting against the Magpies suggested plenty of relief the wait for his seventh Premier League goal of the season was finally over. Watkins thought he had another when he finished smartly past Darlow just past the hour mark only for his celebrations to be cut short by a raised assistant’s flag.

Instead, Villa’s second goal was scored by Bertrand Traore, the predominantly left-footed winger proving he can also use his right when required by sending a shot crashing in off the bar after some lovely link-up play with Jack Grealish.

There are times when Traore frustrates, the Burkina Faso international’s unpredictability fooling not only opponents but also team-mates and quite probably himself. But you cannot argue with his current levels of production. This was his fourth goal in six matches and there is a tantilising sense of plenty more to come from the 25-year-old in the months and years ahead.

Goalscorers aside, this was another performance to suggest Villa’s squad might be a little stronger than thought a couple of months ago.

The absence of John McGinn through suspension resulted in just the second Premier League start of the season for Marvelous Nakamba and while Villa’s midfield perhaps lost a little of its usual cohesion, none of that could be put down to the Zimbabwe international, who was strong in the tackle and close to faultless in possession.

Alongside defender Ezri Konsa, Nakamba was the standout performer in a team display which never quite hit the same heights of others this season but never needed to. So comfortable were Villa, Smith even had the luxury of bringing off Grealish for the first time in 42 Premier League matches.

The skipper’s frustrated reaction to being replaced with two minutes remaining was mirrored by Traore and Ross Barkley when they were withdrawn from the action shortly before. Their exits allowed Anwar El Ghazi and Trezeguet a run out for the final 10 minutes. The fact the former, Villa’s second top goalscorer, finds himself back on the bench speaks volumes about the current competition for places.

Victory also ended a three-match winless run for Villa, though context is of course required when assessing that particular statistic. While Smith’s men had taken only one point from visits to Chelsea, Manchester United and Manchester City, their performances had been worthy of more and but for a couple of questionable refereeing decisions might have received it.

Still, there was a sense of needing to get back on track, particularly after the coronavirus outbreak which had temporarily halted the season and meant their most recent win prior to Saturday was the 3-0 triumph over Crystal Palace on Boxing Day.

The relative ease with which victory was achieved might be taken as further indication of Villa’s growing ability to comfortably win the matches they are expected to. Since suffering back-to-back defeats to Brighton and West Ham in late November, Villa have a close to perfect record against sides in the bottom half, having beaten Wolves, Albion and Palace.

The only team to deny them victory was Burnley, who ground out a 0-0 draw at Villa Park, a result which Smith’s men now have the chance to rectify at Turf Moor on Wednesday night. Then comes matches against Southampton, West Ham and Arsenal, three other teams with designs on the top six which offers Villa the chance to further their own aspirations.