Aston Villa vs Brentford Preview: Villa must maximise Bees away day woes to turn fortunes around

 

For close to two years - two full years - Aston Villa did everything right. In the perilous world of football, where poor decisions feel ubiquitous, running a club so well, so sensibly, is an incredibly difficult bar to hit. 

 

 

Buoyed by the appointment of Unai Emery in October 2022, Villa surged from relegation candidates to Europe in the space of six months. The following season they accrued 68 points, qualified for the Champions League and reached a European semi-final.  

 

The summer saw top players brought in and existing players star on the biggest stages: midfielder Amadou Onana signed for £50m; goalkeeper Emi Martinez won the Copa America (again); and striker Ollie Watkins fired England to a Euro 2024 final.  

 

They began the season with nine wins from the first 13 games, lost only to Arsenal, and beat Bayern Munich 1-0 in a famous night at Villa Park. Not only was the top four a realistic aim once again, but a top-eight Champions League berth looked good to go too. 

 

But fast-forward just one month from that night against Bayern and things have fallen apart. Defeat to Chelsea made it eight games without a win. Almost every player’s form has dropped off a cliff. Comical mistakes are being made in almost every game, the latest of which came at Stamford Bridge, where Pau Torres gave away an indirect free-kick inside the box from a back pass, then Martinez passed the ball straight to Nicolas Jackson and injured himself recovering the situation. 

 

 

It was a signal that November’s wretched form may well creep into December - a reality fans are struggling to come to terms with, as the performances are at complete odds with those that came for two years before. 

 

Villa have gone from managing games extremely well and often taking the lead, therefore positively influencing games, to regularly conceding first and often conceding early. They’ve played Crystal Palace twice recently and conceded in the eighth and fourth minutes, respectively; against Chelsea they conceded in the seventh; against Liverpool they at least hung on until the 20th. Only West Ham (6) and Wolves (5) have conceded more goals than Villa (4) in in the opening 10 minutes of games this season. 

 

Just as concerningly, they’re missing chances like no tomorrow. Villa have created and wasted 30 big chances in the Premier League this season, the second-most in the league. Recently against Palace, they missed a penalty to go 2-1 up, then conceded to the resulting counter-attack, going 2-1 down. That shocking, hapless minute felt like a perfect microcosm of their broader struggles. 

 

Villa have dropped into the bottom half of the league table ahead of this crucial midweek round, and although the all-important points column suggests there remains little between fourth and 13th, the mere presence of them in 12th should serve as a wake-up call. This is a top-seven squad, led by a very good manager, but the performances don’t reflect this at all. 

 

Brentford at home on Wednesday should be viewed as a winnable game, and therefore a great opportunity to draw a line in the sand and reset the form book. And yet, Villa head into the game without their first-choice goalkeeper, with big questions over the form of Watkins, Youri Tielemans and co., and without a domestic clean sheet in two months.  

 

 

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The Bees present as a team who can be got at, sure, but they’re also the joint-second-highest scorers (26) in the division, with relentless pace up front that is guaranteed to cause bedlam among a defence who can’t keep a lid on things. Fortunately for the Villans, the west London side do boast the second worst away record in the division having claimed just one point and scored only four league goals on their travels this term. 

 

Brentford, Southampton, a quick trip to winless, struggling RB Leipzig in the Champions League, then back to play Nottingham Forest. On paper it’s as soft as you can ask for in the Premier League, but in reality, absolutely nothing is coming easy to Aston Villa right now.  

 

Something needs to change - and fast.

Aston Villa vs Brentford Preview: Villa must maximise Bees away day woes to turn fortunes around