Aston Villa vs. Burnley: Will the Struggles Continue?

First off, hope everyone had a good Christmas. I might have overindulged in some of the revelry, but what can you do. It was family, friends, and fun. And a hangover was the perfect sedative for watching us blow a 2-0 lead at Old Trafford.

That gutted me a bit, mainly because it was so uncharacteristic under Emery. But when you’re starting Dendoncker (and I truly appreciate his goal), you know you’re up against it a little bit. For me, two things: Out-battled in midfield and Garnacho. He made us pay like an in-form Ronaldo. And yeah, there was that combination of luck, timing, errors, all of that. It happens. As we know, not a deep squad, and injuries and suspension whittled down our best XI and bench options. The streak of not losing points from a winning position has ended like all streaks do.

So there was that. But as others have said, the strange season continues, and results around us have generally been favorable. I’ve obviously not been one to embrace ‘winning the league’ talk…I think top four or five would be a massive achievement. The main thing right now is to make do, get results, and see what January might bring. No one’s running away with anything yet. The doomsayers? Well, losing like that to United was going to trigger a lot of trauma, and I just stayed away from it.

From what we’ve seen, Emery doesn’t add players for the sake of adding players, and January is January. But you never know when it comes to contracts winding down, release clauses, whatever might propel a deal forward. For me, a little bit more depth would be welcome, but it has to be players you’re willing to live with at the very least. I’m sure that as far as NSWE and Monchi go, they’re very well aware where Villa are and what we have. I think a couple moves could well be made, which is to say that if Emery is on board, we’ll do business. We also simply need more impact from Diaby and Zaniolo, which isn’t to say that they were going to address the specific needs on Boxing Day.

Beyond that, I’m guessing there’s been a lot of introspection and a healthy dose of pragmatism around Bodymoor the last couple days. I think we’ll be ready to play and redeem ourselves. But as we’ve seen more and more, there simply are no easy games. There are teams you ‘should’ beat on paper, but you have to actually beat them on the pitch, and the competition up and down the league is impressive.

Me, it’s fingers crossed. The errors, well, they’ll have been discussed. The midfield battle analyzed. The players will know it was a missed opportunity. They’ll know within and from Emery how it went wrong. Burnley? Well, we just have to see what’s in those legs, hearts, and tactical tweaks.

Over to you.