Is the Benteke and Delph exodus from Aston Villa such a bad thing?
Aston Villa’s pre-season plans were undoubtedly rocked after the shock departure of Fabian Delph to Manchester City and Christian Benteke to Liverpool.
Tim Sherwood’s media silence particularly during the Delph saga was fascinating: was he hiding a simmering resentment towards the players in question and/or the club itself? Or was he tactfully avoiding the inevitable questions whilst concentrating on bringing new players in?
Delph’s shocking U-turn
on his Villa future, just six days after pledging loyalty to the Midlands club,
left fans and the wider football community outraged. It is without doubt one of
the most incredible transfer stories in recent years. It’s hard to imagine how
Delph will recover from this PR disaster and the ferocity of abuse he will face
at grounds up and down the country this season.
Benteke’s transfer to
Liverpool is less shocking as he stated his desire for a move to a club with European
ambitions and Manchester United were also linked with the muscular Belgian
striker. He had already shown
loyalty to Villa by agreeing to stay in the 2013/2014 season under Paul Lambert
and he clearly felt it was time for a new challenge.
Many have suggested
that Villa will struggle this season after losing two players who form the
midfield and attacking spine of their team. Does this necessarily spell trouble
for Aston Villa?
Delph was praised for
his high energy displays last term but only managed a paltry 3 assists and no
goals in the Premier League. He is
arguably neither an effective attacking midfielder nor a defensive midfielder.
Villa acted quickly and have bolstered
their midfield by acquiring Idrissa Gueye from Lille: a promising, highly rated U21 French midfielder who
has looked sure-footed in pre-season.
Jordan Veretout, an
exciting and dynamic French midfielder from Nantes will add the guile and
elegance that has been sorely missing in recent years from Villa’s midfield. His stats are superior to Delph’s, scoring seven goals, providing six assists last season, contributing
44% of Nante’s total goals and assists in the league.
Benteke performed
poorly for most of the season under Paul Lambert. Often out of sorts and forlorn,
Benteke’s form picked up dramatically under Sherwood. Villa’s play was often
one dimensional, relying on the Belgian’s physical attributes, firing long
balls in the air. They also relied far too heavily on his goals to rescue them
from relegation trouble.
The £32.5 million has
been reinvested in Rudy Gestede,26, from Blackburn Rovers. He is a player with
similar attributes to Benteke and an impressive goal ratio of 32 goals in 50
appearances albeit at Championship level.
Jordan Ayew from Lorient is a versatile attacker who can play across the
front. Rumours of Berbatov
and/or Adebayor on loan are also tweeting loudly currently.
Benteke and Delph
leaving has has also allowed other areas to be strengthened; the marauding
Jordan Amavi is a significant upgrade on Kieran Richardson, Jose Crespo comes
in as a defensive squad player to push Alan Hutton all the way out of the exit
some would hope and Mark Bunn will fight with Brad Guzan for the goalkeeping
berth.
Although largely
untested, the new players represent a number of things for Aston Villa: a broom
that sweeps out the sense of failure and defeat that has lingered for many
seasons now; a change in policy to spending on young, promising talent instead of costly British players
(Nigel Reo Coker?) and young, cheap, dismal talent (apologies to Enda Stevens,
Aleksander Tonev).
In the first few
months of this season Villa have, arguably, an easier set of fixtures than
most, opening with Bournmouth away and Crystal Palace and Leicester amongst
these fixtures. After this run it
will become more apparent whether the new players can gel effectively and
indeed what shape the club’s fortunes are in. After Exodus, faith might well be restored in Jordan. Three
of them. Clumsy metaphor indeed, but Aston Villa will cling to it nonetheless.
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