Legend has it that former Villa manager Ron Atkinson once conducted a team talk with the simple words: "Ball. Score." When an English player protested that the foreign signings didn't need to be patronized such, Big Ron replied: "I know they don't! I'm talking about YOU lot!"
Never were such words more apt than at the end of last season with Villa being torn apart at Norwich. Failure to score on that outing meant that their goal average slipped to under one a game, the lowest in the league by quite some distance. Even no-hopers Wolves and Blackburn managed far more than that.
What has been slightly bemusing though is that new manager Paul Lambert has so far focused on strengthening defense. While his time at Borussia Dortmund certainly underscored the importance of building from the back to gain success, defense can surely not be Villa's greatest priority. For even teams with far worse defenders than Villa ended up scoring more goals last term.
As of August 3rd, no recognized new striker has walked in through the Villa Park gates however. This might well be because towering Andi Weimann showed promise at the end of last season, and seems to be straining at the leash for a starting birth. But a 20-year-old still relatively untested, who is hardly blessed with the finishing finesse of Michael Owen, seems an unusually big risk for a person of Lambert's prudent nature.
Villa, it appears, have been suffering from a bit of English disease in recent seasons. Commendable as it is that they are continually striving to develop the next generation of English talent, they have forced themselves to bite the bullet on technical limitations.
Midfielders such as Albrighton have a lot of the distribution nailed, but neither the touch nor the guile of a genuinely outstanding playmaker such as Robert Pires, who even at 37 two years ago, gave Villa a tremendous array of passing options.
Similarly, strikers such as Bent and Agbonlahor, however muscular and determined they may be, do not possess the deftness of movement that a young Dwight Yorke or Juan Pablo Angel might have exhibited.
Difficult-to-beat this side may be, and their record as draw specialists speaks for itself, but unless the guile and creativity is found, opposition goal nets will remain hopelessly unmoved.
Emile Heskey's departure will at least prevent the Villa investing large heaps of faith in a big name who might score 20 goals over 500 games or so. But the question posed now is the same as that of three months ago. From where are the goals going to come?
Never were such words more apt than at the end of last season with Villa being torn apart at Norwich. Failure to score on that outing meant that their goal average slipped to under one a game, the lowest in the league by quite some distance. Even no-hopers Wolves and Blackburn managed far more than that.
What has been slightly bemusing though is that new manager Paul Lambert has so far focused on strengthening defense. While his time at Borussia Dortmund certainly underscored the importance of building from the back to gain success, defense can surely not be Villa's greatest priority. For even teams with far worse defenders than Villa ended up scoring more goals last term.
As of August 3rd, no recognized new striker has walked in through the Villa Park gates however. This might well be because towering Andi Weimann showed promise at the end of last season, and seems to be straining at the leash for a starting birth. But a 20-year-old still relatively untested, who is hardly blessed with the finishing finesse of Michael Owen, seems an unusually big risk for a person of Lambert's prudent nature.
Villa, it appears, have been suffering from a bit of English disease in recent seasons. Commendable as it is that they are continually striving to develop the next generation of English talent, they have forced themselves to bite the bullet on technical limitations.
Midfielders such as Albrighton have a lot of the distribution nailed, but neither the touch nor the guile of a genuinely outstanding playmaker such as Robert Pires, who even at 37 two years ago, gave Villa a tremendous array of passing options.
Similarly, strikers such as Bent and Agbonlahor, however muscular and determined they may be, do not possess the deftness of movement that a young Dwight Yorke or Juan Pablo Angel might have exhibited.
Difficult-to-beat this side may be, and their record as draw specialists speaks for itself, but unless the guile and creativity is found, opposition goal nets will remain hopelessly unmoved.
Emile Heskey's departure will at least prevent the Villa investing large heaps of faith in a big name who might score 20 goals over 500 games or so. But the question posed now is the same as that of three months ago. From where are the goals going to come?
