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Why Aston Villa need this star to shine once again:

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His off-field misdemeanours have earned him few fans and many critics. However it perhaps paints a false picture of a young man who must have some genuine resilience. He played through most of his adolescence suffering with Osgood-Schlatter disease, a pretty debilitating knee condition when working hard to earn the interest of professional clubs. Also he puts in far more tackles and defensive work than expected for a player often utilised behind a frontman. If he can tap back into the steely determination he needed to become a Man City player and a highly rated one at that, then Villa may still have player on their hands. And Aston Villa definitely needs one.

The solid team that Martin O’Neil built over four seasons and with some reasonable spending has now changed significantly. Key changes started during his tenure with the team. Martin Laursen and Freddy Bouma’s injuries, then the departures of Gareth Barry followed by James Milner and finally the sales of wide men Ashley Young and Stewart Downing this summer. Less talked about but perhaps just as important was Kyle Walker’s return to Spurs. The speedy right back made a real impact last season. While Given neatly replaces Friedel, there are still some issues. Richard Dunne was awful last season doing his best impression of a wardrobe so far but he is difficult to get rid of.

He has been excellent for Villa in the past and is deceptively quick given those thunder-thighs. More alarming was Stephen Warnock’s contribution. Having looked a little suspect for a while, last season saw Warnock dropped to the reserves with the likes of Luke Young, Ciaran Clark and even Fabian Delph rightly preferred to the hard-tackling scouser at left back. He had become a total liability who would have struggled to keep a pub player quiet on the flank. All is not lost however for Villa. They do lack some quality to really stake a claim to be fighting for a top 8 finish, but there are some strengths. Captain Stiliyan Petrov is still a great player, Charles N’Zogbia should go some way in replacing the sales this season and few teams outside the super-six can boast a goal machine like Darren Bent.

Stephen Ireland could have a huge impact this season, the perfect player to have supporting Bent and adding much needed creativity to the Villa team. If he can recapture some of his past form, they may well be ‘the-best-of-the-rest’ finishing seventh and playing some attractive football. If not, and the laddish-cum-strange behaviour continues, I think Villa will struggle, striving to avoid a relegation battle with mid-table obscurity the most to be achieved.

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