Huge summer needed but no overreaction - Five takeaways from Aston Villa 4-1 Newcastle
Newcastle United fell to a disappointing defeat at Villa Park as the hosts ran out 4-1 winners in the Easter Weekend sunshine. In what was an unexpected horror show, United were second best as the ceded the five point gap built up in midweek.
Villa goals from Ollie Watkins, Ian Maatsen a Dan Burn o.g, and a Amadou Onana saw Fabian Schär’s header ultimately mean nothing on an afternoon everyone will want to forget quickly.
Here are our five key takeaways from the game:
- Tired legs, tired minds
A game too far. They had a days extra rest. They wanted it more. Whatever the cliche, United were thoroughly dispatched on Saturday evening as Villa ran roughshod all over us.
Trippier was horribly exposed positionally as he bombed forward; and no-one seemed to want to correct it, and I lost count of how many times the midfield was bypassed by one straight ball from Martinez.
It was a horrid performance, one of those where it’s really not worth singling anyone out, however what is clear is that we need more depth and Eddie Howe needs to be back in the dugout ASAP..
- No need to overreact
A Cup in the bag, six wins on the spin. It was all coming up Newcastle before the Villa Park outing, and football does have a nasty habit of kicking you when you least expect it (and when you expect it to be fair.)
I thought we’d give a better account of ourselves but it wasn’t to be and for my small part it’s a result that isn’t worth a massive collective head-loss.
I’ve never forgiven Villa for their unwarranted behaviour following our two relegations and personally I want them to fail at everything they do (as they say, beating PSG [over two legs] isn’t for everyone) and the way the media blabbers on about them is nauseating but the clubs are on similar trajectories like it our not; but I’m still damn sure we’ll get to the next level before they do.
- Fouls: what even is one anymore
Another game, another abject refereeing performance. Even in convincing victory at Palace the ref was awful. In a hammering the ref was even worse.
How McGinn didn’t get booked is beyond me, when they put up the foul stats in reaction to another of Bruno’s poorly timed tackles, the Scot was nowhere to be seen, I was flabbergasted.
Look at the stats from over the season and United are 18th for yellow cards and red cards and 18th for fouls committed per 90 (10.9): we’re too nice. We also don’t throw ourselves to floor looking for penalty’s and trying to get opposition players booked, as Watkins and Tielemanns did. United need to get nasty again and bring the shithousery back asap, because it’ll certainly be prevalent in European competition next season.
- Squad depth dearth
What is clear is that it’s imperative that the squad is strengthened in the summer - no ifs, no buts, no PSR excuses. When one team is bringing on Rashford and the other is bringing on Targett, you know who has the better squad depth.
I don’t agree at all that Villa’s first eleven is better than Untied’s (as some have suggested since the drubbing) but where they certainly have us beat is squad depth.
What’s frustrating is that Villa are another side that appear to be saying ‘to hell’ with financial rules; with a reported wage to turnover ratio of 91% (compared to United’s 68%), which I’m sure is supposed to disqualify them from European competition as the rules for those competitions are even more stringent with this season being 85% before reducing to 70% next season…
- Perfect game to set things right
Ipswich Town at home next weekend has the potential to be a perfect palate cleanser for United as the Tractor Boys are all but relegated (as of writing) although that could be rubber stamped if results go against them on Sunday.
A comfortable 4-0 win at Portman Road was an early victory in the nine game run that propelled the season up from the doldrums of 14th place in early December and a repeat will see us maintain our spot in the top five.
Ultimately, I think United will need about 65 points to qualify; so we need six points from fifteen available and to be honest the difference between 3rd and 5th is negligible (prize money aside) so long as we finish in one of those spots all will be rosy in the garden.
Keep the faith. HWTL
