Villa Striker Has Fewest Premier League Touches

[KevinGage]

Apologies if posted elsewhere.


clicky

Aston Villa must make better use of Darren Bent, says Alex McLeish

• England striker has fewest touches in Premier League
• Manager adamant he will not be forced out by fans


Rob Bagchi and Ewan Murray
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 6 December 2011 00.00 GMT

Aston Villa's manager, Alex McLeish, has pinpointed the need to supply the England striker Darren Bent with better service if the club are to turn around their disappointing run this season.

Villa's 1-0 home defeat by Manchester United on Saturday has left the club with a record of P14 W3 D7 L4 this season –matching precisely that of Birmingham City last season, the team McLeish managed before switching to Villa after Blues were relegated.

McLeish said "I'm not a quitter" after Villa's latest setback when his side were booed off at Villa Park on Saturday and insisted he is focused on providing better service to Bent. The England forward has touched the ball on average only 24.6 times per game this season, a figure that makes him comfortably the Premier League player with the fewest touches this season.

Worryingly for McLeish, Bent's strike partner Gabriel Agbonlahor is also in the bottom 10 for fewest touches this season with an average of 39 per game but it is making more use of Bent that is at the forefront of the manager's plans.

"He does make great movement, it's just a pity that sometimes we don't have quite the quality to see the runs and his movement," said McLeish.

"It's not easy, I'm just juggling the balls and asking for players to give me outstanding performances to stay in this team. We're looking for horses for courses every week now rather than saying: ' I can't leave him out.'

"There's seven out of 10 but we're looking for nines, eights or nines, and any of the midfielders that are ready to do that will be in this team. We created 10 chances in the Norwich game and he [Bent] got a couple of goals and could have had another couple so we are capable of doing it depending on our personnel.

"I've watched a couple of games from last season and Bent only had one chance in the Man City game, his debut, and scored so he was starved of service that night as well but the guy only needs one chance and he could have been rolled in by Emile [Heskey] and it may have been different.

"We've got to plug away. [Gabriel] Agbonlahor in the game last week had more efforts on goal than Bent but sometimes it will happen that way, we can't just rely on Bent to score us the goals. Gabby has been fantastic this season and we look for the kid to retain his consistency and to be an even bigger threat than he has been and obviously [Charles] N'Zogbia, guys like Mark Albrighton, who I thought did really well in the second half, to come to the fore also."

McLeish accepts Villa's form has not been good enough – the team were not only canned off at full-time on Saturday but left the field at half-time to a chorus of boos – but he is adamant that he will not be forced out by fan power.

"I'm not going to criticise the fans," he said. "You know how difficult it was for me coming here in the first place and I've just got to persevere. As I've told you guys, I'm not a quitter and I'll go as far as I can to get this club turned around. But you know where you have to improve the quality, we have to make sure we defend with concentration and we've got to be a threat in the last third."

Of the team's performance against the champions, he said: "We didn't pass it well, gave the ball away willy-nilly. I don't think we really believed in ourselves. Fans did not like it. I wasn't particularly keen on it either. I was in unison with the fans on that one and the second half was better and they went right to the very end which I would have demanded of every team I've coached or managed. We got that."

McLeish admitted he might need to ask the chairman, Randy Lerner, to make funds available to bolster his squad in January. "Yes, that will be a fact. But, as I said, we've still got to try and trade carefully. But if we need emergencies, we have to seriously consider that as a club."

McLeish has one prominent supporter in the Manchester United manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, who gave him some advice after Saturday's match. "He just said: 'You've got to keep going,'" said McLeish. "He said a few other things which will remain private but he said they were sweating a bit at the death after our second half."

[Monty]

The stats get more and more astonishing.

[KevinGage]

Not one but two strikers in the bottom ten.

Combined with a possession rate superior only to Stoke and it's not looking too clever, whichever way he wants to dress it up.

[Hookeysmith]

You see this is exactly my problem with him - when he talks he sound like he knows what the problems are and will do something about it

But then this does not transfer onto the pitch or to the players and that is beyond me why?

If the players are not carrying out his instructions - drop the bastards

If what he says is just bullshit to placate fans etc - then he has to go

And pleeeeeeeeease drop the Fergie comments in almost every piece - not only is it boring but also quite insulting that we lap at the red faced ones feet all the time

[KevinGage]

A B-lose supporting mate of mine -one of the few non Villa hating less rabid ones-  warned me that this is what we would face in the summer.

"No,"   I confidently predicted.  "If nothing else, he'll have to try and have a go. Otherwise there is no chance of the supporters taking to him."

[tremzvillain]

"But if we need emergencies, we have to seriously consider that as a club."

Sorry Alex, but Aston Villa, as a club, should not 'need emergencies.'

[Rudy Can't Fail]

I wouldn't expect Gabby likes being referred to as a "kid". That kid has been saving AM's bacon until now.

For me he can say what the hell he wants providing he sorts out the current mess. Plenty of managers are dealing with far less quality and are still managing to play some decent football and get results.

[PaulWinch again]

This will lead to 'Villa strike demands to leave for sake of career'.

[pauliewalnuts]

His remedy to this will probably be to get Collins to hoof it ten yards further, in the hope it reaches Bent.

It is also not about "plugging away" as he says. That's the last thing anyone wants to see. It's about fundamentally changing your tactical approach, Alex, not keeping on doing the same thing.

That'll get you the sack.

[pauliewalnuts]

This will lead to 'Villa strike demands to leave for sake of career'.

Who can blame him?

[MarkM]

This will lead to 'Villa strike demands to leave for sake of career'.

and who would blame him?

[PaulWinch again]

Not me at all, which is another reason why I think Mcleish needs to go.

[darren woolley]

We do need to get better service to Gabby and Bent I just wish we can sort this problem out.

[Concrete John]

You see this is exactly my problem with him - when he talks he sound like he knows what the problems are and will do something about it

But then this does not transfer onto the pitch or to the players and that is beyond me why?

Fully agree. 

I can't believe it's a lack of quality as even after losing Young and Ash, we have enough to be better than we've seen.  Why hasn't he been able to sort Albrighton and N'Zogbia's form out?  Why the continual use of Heskey?

I'm not one of those calling for his head or writing off the season as a relegation dogfight, but actions speak loader than words, Alex.

[Merv]

This is kinda odd. You'd think, with us not exactly stroking the ball about in midfield and playing a possession game, we'd at least be getting the ball to our strikers, arguably our best two players and both with the ability to hurt the opposition. But we're not doing that effectively, either.

So... what are we actually doing?