Aston Villa suffered a 2-1 defeat against Everton on Wednesday, as we exited the Carabao Cup in the third round on a disappointing night at Villa Park.
It was a woeful performance from Unai Emery’s side, as we were deservedly punished having been lacklustre throughout, with Boubacar Kamara’s late goal nothing more than a consolation strike.
READ MORE: Villa player ratings vs Everton: Woeful display as duo poor in defeat
Focus now switches to Brighton at home in the Premier League on Saturday, and it’s crucial that we bounce back and produce a much-improved performance, just as we did last week at Chelsea.
Nevertheless, the disappointment over exiting a cup competition that we had hopes of winning this season, and so early on given it was the first round we entered, will sting for a while, and the players must step up and deliver a response this weekend.
Rotation again fails to deliver desired results
Albeit Emery named a strong starting XI, there were still five changes and our squad players were given another chance to come in and make a positive impression.
However, they failed to do so in a dreadful performance, and so question marks will be raised over the quality and reliability of those coming in, particularly after our struggles in Warsaw last week too.
It’s undoubtedly a problem and a headache for Emery, as if he can’t rely on his fringe players, it puts more pressure on our regular starters and burdens them with a heavier workload than the Villa boss would like them to have.
Panicky Olsen continues to be a problem
To his credit, Robin Olsen did make a number of decent saves to keep us ‘in the game’, and so the shot-stopping side of his game isn’t particularly in question.
However, the sense of panic and the rush with which he looks to get rid of the ball when it’s passed back to him, and especially when there is even a little bit of pressure from the opposition, is a real problem.
Villa want to be composed and measured in our build-up play out from the back. However, we simply don’t have a back-up goalkeeper capable of doing it efficiently and consistently. His teammates didn’t help him for the opening goal, but two wild swipes at clearing it eventually ended up in the opener and that in turn was the start of our problems.
Pre-season Tielemans goes missing
Youri Tielemans played a key role in our recent comeback win over Crystal Palace, and when he’s brought on late in games to help us see it out, he generally does a good job.
However, that’s now back-to-back starts in which he has struggled and looked really poor. The positional tweak to the left side of our midfield clearly doesn’t suit him, but a player with his experience and quality should be doing much more.
It’s a real problem as he was meant to be a key option to rotate and give the likes of Douglas Luiz and Boubacar Kamara a rest, but if he continues to falter, it will mean we’ll have to lean on our first-choice pairing more over a gruelling campaign. Perhaps having John McGinn back in the heart of the midfield instead would be a better option.
Concern over collective performance
We’ve been treated to some wonderful football over the last year, but this was arguably the worst performance under Emery, certainly one of them at least.
Sloppy, devoid of quality, lacking in urgency and intensity, it was a painful watch. The Villa boss and the players talk about wanting to win trophies, but perform at this level, and we’re not even close.
There will be a reaction on Saturday and the atmosphere will be different. However, Villa need take a long look at this display and address where we went wrong immediately in terms of the approach and execution of our game-plan, as we looked disjointed and frankly disinterested at times given the tempo and lacklustre effort.
Squad players may not get too many more chances
With the Carabao Cup now off the fixture list and the FA Cup starting in January, the focus in the next couple of months will solely be on the Premier League and Europa Conference League.
Having suffered defeat in our European opener, there is less room for error now, and so the expectation is that Emery won’t take unnecessary risks and will start as strong a side as possible in the next couple of games out of the five remaining at least, to put ourselves in a stronger position to advance.
So, depending on injuries, will we even see the likes of Olsen, Calum Chambers, Clement Lenglet, Leander Dendoncker and others feature in the starting XI again any time soon? The hope is that Diego Carlos, Alex Moreno and Jacob Ramsey will recover from their knocks and be consistent options for Emery moving forward, and that adds more capable starters to the group, thus limiting the involvement of those who haven’t taken their chances.