Former Aston Villa manager Martin O'Neill
Former Aston Villa manager Martin O'Neill (Image: Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)
Martin O’Neill believes ‘Aston Villa will be fine’ but has suggested their squad is being stretched by having to play in the Champions and Premier League.
The former Villa manager was at Stamford Bridge to see Unai Emery’s side beaten 3-0 by a rampant Chelsea team thanks to goals from Nicolas Jackson, Enzo Fernandez and Cole Palmer. The reverse extended Villa’s winless run to eight games and they go into Wednesday night’s clash with Brentford in the bottom half of the table.
O’Neill suggested their winless run could be exacerbating fatigue levels. He told talkSPORT. “I suppose on the face of it, one could draw some sort of parallels with Newcastle United last season. Having done so well previously getting into Champions League, I know it's a different format and actually, I think the format really suits teams like Aston Villa at this minute – your first real bash at and you've got 24 teams still involved after you've played eight games. It's amazing. Absolutely amazing.
“But Villa are just going through one of those periods where psychologically and I think physically it's very demanding. The Champions League is demanding if you have not been in it and they haven't been in it since they won the European Cup. Newcastle had similar problems.
“Perhaps it's the strength of the squad as well too. Chelsea have been able to use a lot of players in the Premier League that were not playing in Thursday night's game, Aston Villa played [on Wednesday] and I think they only were able to make two changes for the Chelsea game.
“So those things do take effect and you do need the squad. I'm not exactly sure how big it is but Villa are just finding it tough going at the moment.
"It’s interesting he should mention about the team being looking a little bit leggy. I was at the game against Chelsea and there are comparisons you could draw with the time that I had Aston Villa as well.
“We didn't have the biggest squad I kept playing the same side for a lot of the games and you felt as if there, at some stage or another, might be a little bit of burnout but there was nothing you could do about it.
“We were desperate to try and get into the Champions League. You kept going and hence me making changes in the Europa League way back, I took an awful lot of abuse for playing some of the younger lads on a plastic pitch in Russia.
“Anyway, overall, I think that Aston Villa will be fine. If Aston Villa had not been involved in Europe, you would be thinking Aston Villa are capable of winning both games [vs Brentford and Southampton]. At this minute, not having won for some time that starts to affect the mind, of course and then you feel as if you're a wee bit more tired than you really are.”
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