> **Villa lose at Brentford with Dave Woodhall waiting for inspiration.**
**Last week I repeated my old saying that at this stage of the season performance is more important than results. I said then that I hope it doesn’t happen this season because last Saturday Villa were poor.**
I doubly hope it’s not true now because against Brentford, whose biggest aim this season seems to be survival, both performance and result were ominously poor. Indeed, they reminded me of another Wise Old Man saying – give a footballer an excuse and chances are they’ll take it.
Villa have been shafted more than any others by the financial rules designed to prevent ambitious, wealthy and debt-free clubs from bettering themselves. We’ve lost players we’d preferred to have kept – Jacob Ramsey being the most obvious – and been unable to bring in others that we need.
Unai’s said so, Damian Vidagany’s tried to rally the troops about it. But rather than bringing about a siege mentality, our travails seem to have everyone feeling a bit sorry for themselves.
The team was largely unchanged, and there’s still no place for Donyell Malen or Evann Guessand. You do wonder why the former was bought, considering he’s been with us since January and the best word to describe the manager’s use of him so far is ‘sparingly’.
Whether we’d have been better off with him starting this one is debatable. Villa went a goal down after twelve minutes when Pau Torres was far too flimsy in the challenge and although Emiliano Martinez came out well to stop the initial chance, the ball ell for the home sid to go into the lead.
That was bad, and things were worse not long after when Boubacar Kamara went off, to be replaced surprisingly by Villa’s second Emiliano but Buendia showed that a year in Germany hasn’t improved a skilful but lightweight attacker.
The rest of the game was like much of that opening day performance. Villa were ponderous, risk-averse, played far too narrowly. There was no player able to put through the killer pass, and if there had been there was no-one to take advantage. None of the team was capable of taking the game and imposing themselves and in this team there’s not a player you could hope for a moment of matchwinning magic.
Against that Amadou Onana was having another off-day and Morgan Rogers seems to be falling into the trap we’ve seen too often over the years, when a Villa player’s arrival in the England squad is duly followed by a drop in his club form.
Malan and Ian Maatsen were introduced midway though the second half,and Buendia was replaced by Guessand ten minutes later. The Frenchman made a bit of an impression but it was nowhere near enough to get a anything from a match where Villa, indeed, got what they deserved.
So, where do we go from here? Villa have a week to bring in some sort of inspirational signings to raise morale off the pitch and add flair on it. What we also need is three points, and the best way of getting them would be a Fortress Villa Park fixture against a team we always beat. Who is is we’ve got coming up next?
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