Aston Villa have failed to win eight of their opening nine Championship games this season.
David Prutton during his time with Leeds United
Sky Sports pundit David Prutton was speaking live on Sky Sports Now this morning at 10:53 am, and had his say on the current problems at Aston Villa.
The Villans have struggled to adapt to life in the Championship and currently sit in 17th position in the table, after recording just one victory from their opening nine games.
The table can be quite deceiving, however, as Roberto Di Matteo’s men have only lost two games, and Prutton told Sky Sports that it could just be a case of waiting for their new singings to gel together before they begin their inevitable climb up the table:
Aston Villa manager Roberto Di Matteo
“The sense that you get with Villa is that they’ve made some good signings, and maybe it’s a sense of not immediately gelling as a team, not necessarily playing consciously as individuals, but you can do that when you put teams together.”
Prutton went on to highlight the detrimental effect that Jack Grealish’s off-field behaviour could be having on the team, whilst making it clear that they cannot allow that to deflect away from the glaring problems they have on the field:
Aston Villa Manager Roberto Di Matteo celebrates
“Also the underlying element of Jack Grealish, and his activities away from the pitch taking away from what is an on-the-pitch problem to be solved. I think they no doubt have the strength as a squad to be able to challenge, it’s just whether it goes beyond purely football, and there becomes an atmosphere in and around the team, and whether they can perform at home.”
The Midlands outfit face two huge games in the Championship, starting tonight with a trip to Barnsley before another away game against Preston North-End on Saturday, and they will have to be looking to take six points from those fixtures if they are to get their season back on track.
Aston Villa manager Roberto Di Matteo
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