Dan Bardell: Only a matter of time for Steven Gerrard at Aston Villa on current form
We’re delighted to welcome The Athletic’s Dan Bardell as our exclusive Aston Villa columnist each week he’ll be giving his views on the biggest talking points at the club…
Steven Gerrard losing his job as Aston Villa manager is only a matter of time unless things improve significantly, according to Dan Bardell.
Chelsea visit Villa Park on Sunday afternoon (16 October) with the Lions four-games unbeaten but labouring to disappointing draws in the previous two, having won only twice all season, and with fans turning on the manager at the City Ground on Monday (10 October).
Apart from the odd exception Bardell feels there hasn’t been much to shout about this year, or anything like the advances that the club themselves made had clear were expected in that time, and he fears that the team is being set up to avoid defeats rather than actually push on.
On whether it’s only a matter of time for Gerrard’s job, he exclusively told Villa News:“Yeah at the moment because we’re only a defeat away from the fans completely turning.
“That defeat could come on Sunday at Villa Park against Chelsea. The draw against Forest felt like a defeat.
“Gerrard will point to the stability over the last four games. He’s mentioned himself that he thinks we’ve turned a corner. We’re four unbeaten but we’ve won one game, and only two games all season.
“The fixtures Villa have had that isn’t good enough. I don’t think that can be dressed up in any way. There’s very few positives at the moment.
“In the last two games they’ve played a Leeds side with 10 men, took a point, should have won (2 October). They’ve played a poor Forest team where many teams will go to the City Ground and score a lot of goals, got a point.
“Even when they won the game before against Southampton it was a horrible, horrible game (16 September). Not even one the fans could enjoy.
“It feels at the moment, although I can’t know this as a fact, that the way Villa are playing is more to protect Steven Gerrard’s reputation than it is to move Aston Villa forward.
“That’s just me watching Aston Villa and that’s my opinion at the moment, based on the idea that they’ve lost one game in a month and drew with Man City.
“The Man City game was a really good performance and an excellent point (3 September). I came away from that game happy.
“I’m not coming away from games happy even when we are winning games now, not that we win very often.
“Villa fans will get a bad rap. Other fans will say, ‘They’re calling for the manager’s head after a point?’
“But it’s been a long 12 months, and especially a long 2022, and Villa made a rod for their own back because they sacked the last manager when they said they weren’t going to get the continuous improvement they were looking for.
“This isn’t continuous improvement, and that’s they’re own words and they’re own basis for sacking the last manager.”
Perhaps the visit of another one of the Premier League’s big six to Villa Park, in front of the home crowd, will provide the kind of motivation that appeared almost from nowhere for the encouraging draw against City.
Despite the subsequent three games unbeaten it feels like the encounter with the reigning champions was a false dawn since it has been such heavy going thereafter.
A repeat of that showing against Graham Potter’s Blues would be extremely welcome for the supporters, but if things go the other way it could be a long afternoon for the man in the home dugout.
In other Aston Villa News, Douglas Luiz spoke about how happy he is at the club after the summer transfer saga.