View: Aston Villa will blow Norwich City away if they expose these problems
Aston Villa will welcome their former manager Dean Smith to Villa Park tomorrow as Norwich City come to town fighting for Premier League survival.
The Canaries currently sit rock bottom of the Premier League, almost certainly destined to return to the Championship as they seem to do every other year.
Victory for Burnley against Watford and a defeat against the Villans will relegate Smith’s new side at the place he was still the boss of up until November of this season.
For Villa’s new boss Steven Gerrard though, three points on Saturday afternoon will all but secure their survival although the chances of Everton catching them will be nye on impossible.
He still has to prepare for this fixture like any other and he will like the sight of Norwich’s defending against Newcastle United last time out and fancy his team to score a hatful and send them down.
One thing Vill have been very good at since Gerrard took over from Smith in November is off the ball movement and given the main weakness of the Canaries, it could be highlighted on Saturday.
Above is just one of the many occasions a Norwich player was caught out ball-watching against the Magpies as a fairly simple diagonal ball from Bruno Guimares caused all kinds of problems at the back.
Once they eventually get back into shape having let the ball go over the top far too often, they still have problems defensively.
For Joelinton’s first of two goals at Carrow Road, the Norwich defence was horribly pulled to the right-hand side allowing the Brazilian all the space in the world to curl into the far corner once the ball reached him at the back post.
As a result of the defence’s problems, the right-back, who was marking Joelinton, had to charge out to try and meet Sean Longstaff who would have had a free shot at goal had he not.
The Canaries aren’t just woeful out of possession but even when they get the ball they are vulnerable.
Smith has an insistence on his side playing out from the back and it cost them against Eddie Howe’s resurgent Newcastle as Guimares robbed the ball inexplicably high up the pitch before lobbing Tim Krul in goal.
Any team with half a brain cell would see that they need to go long when it is four on four at the back with no free man and if Villa can punish this tomorrow, it will be a very one-sided afternoon
In other Aston Villa news, Ashley Young has compared Gerrard to one of his most successful former managers.