Hong Kong Asia Cup Review

So yesterday the final of the Asia Cup took place and from the news that Darren Bent wouldnt be starting i didnt hold much hope for a win. After 35 seconds the little hope i did have completely diminished. A typical piece of defending from Richard Dunne being easily dispossessed by the Chelsea attacker led to the ball being put across the goal after 2 fantastic saves from the new Villa number one eventually the ball fell to young Josh McEachran to stab it into the back of the net. From then on the first half in my opinion was very hard to watch as a villa supporter. With no attacking play and something as a villa fan i was not used to, no width. We felt so narrow. Hopefully this is something that will change.

After half time Mcleish changed things around and brought on Heskey as a replacement for the quiet Marc Albrighton, and changed the formation to a straight 4-4-2. And things started to look a little better. But still we lacked that magic to make something out of nothing. We were still relying on Given to keep us in the game with save after save of the highest class.

Then after an hour AVB decided to change things around for Chelsea and brought on Torres and Drogba and within 15 seconds Torres saw a ball put through stuck out his foot and knocked it past Given to make it 2 - 0 and virtually hand the cup to Chelsea.

After this goal AM decided to change things around and Bring on Darren Bent for a runout along with Barry Bannan, who had such a great game in the semi against Blackburn. They replaced the once again dissapointing Delfouneso and Stephen Ireland, Who showed on a couple of occasions there is still a player in there somewhere by doing his trademark move of running up to support the striker on the edge of the area.

But at the end of the day it was a preseason and i have seen things wrote in some sections of the Villa fan base saying that we will get relegated based on that performance, thats ridiculous to say that.

With the signing completed now of Nzogbia that automatically gives us the extra width we lacked yesterday. I still feel we need another winger though to make the players fight for their positions. And it will be interesting whether AM finds a way to get a little money to purchase that player as our squad does look rather small like usual.

So leaving Hong Kong What positives can we take from it?

The re-emergence of Stephen Warnock at Left Back?

James Collins re-emerging as the rock he was two years ago?

The possibility that the player Stephen Ireland used to be, could be making a re-appearance this season?

That Shay Given will be a fantastic signing for us?

The way we have spread our name and brand into Hong Kong?


What i take alongside all the earlier mentioned positives is that we still have two weeks of preseason so lets not judge, lets get behind the team and all be their if not at craven cottage on the opening day then at the first home game of the season against the unknown team of Blackburn Rovers, Tickets seem to be selling well so lets hope its a sell out to welcome the boys back to Villa Park!!!!!!  

UTV