Villa’s 3-3 home draw with their Premier League relegation rivals produced several talking points.
Christian Benteke is back
Benteke scored as many goals in 73 minutes as he managed in 18 games this season under Paul Lambert, with the hat-trick hero now on a run of seven strikes in five matches.
He’s looked reinvigorated during Tim Sherwood’s short reign and Villa fans can feel a lot better about their survival chances as long as he’s on form.
Instead, their man concern might be over how they’re going to hold onto him in the summer.
Carles Gil is in the doghouse
After the promising start he made to his Villa career, Gil’s diminished role since Sherwood’s appointment has been one of the more baffling developments around the team in recent weeks.
After lasting 58 minutes into the new manger’s first game in charge against Stoke, the Spaniard has been restricted to just a one-minute cameo since and even saw fellow substitute Joe Cole used ahead of him in the weekend’s 3-1 defeat at Manchester United.
Things got even worse last night, as he was left out of the squad altogether and one now has to wonder whether there’s something going on behind the scenes between him and Sherwood.
The former Tottenham Hotspur boss insisted in the run-up to the match that he had been impressing in training but, having added that some members of his squad are ill-equipped for a battle at the bottom, it looks like he includes Gil in that equation.
Jack Grealish is the real deal
Earning a surprise first Premier League start, some could be forgiven for wondering whether Grealish would be able to handle the big occasion but he soon put those concerns to bed with an encouraging performance.
While he perhaps should have put Villa 2-1 up in the 17th-minute, forcing a close-range save from Rob Green, there were numerous other positives to take from his showing, as the teenage winger proved central to the home side’s affairs in the final third.
Before going for Joe Cole in the 70th-minute, he recorded an impressive 93 per cent pass completion rate, four shots, two key passes, five crosses and completed all four of his attempted dribbles, while also recovering the ball a team-leading nine times.
The interesting thing now will be to see whether his outing was enough to earn him a second consecutive start for the weekend’s trip to Tottenham Hotspur.
Leandro Bacuna and Kieran Richardson just aren’t full-backs
Both have been forced back into defence on several occasions this season due to injuries but last night’s match showcased their limitations.
Bacuna impressed going forward, as usual, but his poor headed clearance led to Matt Phillips’ 14th-minute opener, while he was later guilty of awful marking on Clint Hill’s second-half equaliser.
Richardson, meanwhile, showed little in attack on the night and was even worse at the back than his teammate, with all three QPR goals coming from moves down Villa’s left.
Bacuna might well have a future at the club in midfield but, as for the former Fulham man, he’s done little this season to suggest that he’s worth keeping around.
It’s going to be a nervy run in
With six Premier League games left, Villa remain just three points above the relegation zone and, with games at Tottenham, Manchester City and Southampton to come, things are still very much in the balance.
Back-to-back home matches against Everton and West Ham United in the final month of the season could provide a chance to create some separation between them and their relegation rivals but it’s looking more than likely that the final day visit of Burnley will end up being a survival showdown.
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