Charlie Nicholas and Mark Lawrenson heavily criticised Aston Villa.
Pundits Charlie Nicholas and Mark Lawrenson have predicted trouble ahead for Aston Villa, with the former expecting the club to get relegated.
Nicholas shared his concerns with Sky Sports about Villa defensively, while Lawrenson told BBC he did not expect them to be in this much trouble at this stage of the season.
Nicholas said: “Aston Villa are not physical enough and they do not rough people up. They accept the possession and they make mistakes. Until they solve that and disrupt the game, then this team is going down. They need to understand that side of things. It is when they do not have the ball that the issue is evident. The mistakes keep coming.”
Lawrenson added: “Villa are in big trouble. Individual mistakes are costing them in a big way and they seem to be making them at crucial times. I didn’t think they would be so deep in the mire but they have not been able to address their main problem at the back, where they have conceded an average of two goals a game in the Premier League this season.”
Villa have conceded more goals than any team in the Premier League this season and that 4-0 defeat against Leicester on Monday has got alarm bells ringing.
Plenty has been made of Villa’s goalscoring woes but it’s at the back they have been badly impacted. If you can keep clean sheets, winning games becomes very difficult for sides down near the bottom.
Something needs to change and it remains to be seen whether Dean Smith, a man who likes to play football the right way, will be more pragmatic.
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