It has been a tough start to life in the Championship for Aston Villa. It gets no easier against Newcastle on Saturday.
Ask any club who has dropped down from the Premier League to the Championship over the years, and they will tell how hard it is to adapt to the second tier of English Football.
Aston Villa are one club that can testify to that, having only eight points to their name after eight games of the season.
Villa’s biggest issue has been that they have not been able turn draws into three points, having only one win compared to five draws.
When they have been in front they have thrown the three points down the drain, conceding goals in the last 10 minutes against Huddersfield, Brentford and Nottingham Forest.
You can look at this both ways. Firstly, the positive is that they have been in winning positions, which is the ideal starting point to build from.
The flipside to that is the lack of concentration at the crucial moments of games which has seen them give up their leads. For a relatively experienced line-up like Villa, this brittleness is inexcusable.
They take on a fellow relegated team in Newcastle at Villa Park tomorrow evening and it is the perfect opportunity for the Villans to get their season on track.
In their most recent clashes against the Magpies last season they claimed two draws.
However, a wider look at the fixture shows it has not been kind to the claret-and-blues. You have to go all the way back to April 2011 for their last win in the fixture, 10 games ago.
While confidence is low with the lack of wins at the moment, being able to overcome that sort of hoodoo can do wonders for a side.
The Championship season is a marathon not a sprint, and their early season issues will be long forgotten if they start winning on a consistent basis, starting against Newcastle.
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