Marcus Rashford, Marco Asensio and Donyell Malen all scored in Villa's 3-0 win over Brighton last night.
Rashford has 7 goals and assists in six starts for Villa, Asensio has 8 goals in seven appearances and Malen scored his first for his new club.
This is the example I'm talking about: all three players came in January and were in an area of the pitch where they felt they needed to improve. We're now starating to see just how brilliant these deals were as all three players are shining for their new club.
Even if they're on loan, they can make a major impact for the course of the current season which can take it from a good one to a great one.
Villa were already fighting for European positions before the arrival of these players. They moved into 7th after last night's win and are just 3 points behind City in 4th although with how well English teams are doing in Europe, there is a strong chance that 5th might be good enough to qualify for next season's Champions League. Villa are 2 behind Newcastle in that 5th spot.
Speaking of Europe, Villa are in the quarter finals of the CL where they will take on manager Unai Emery's former side PSG.
Villa in the QF of the CL. What an achievement 👏.
They are also in the semis of the FA Cup where they take on Palace for a place in the final.
These are some amazing feats for a club that one doesn't necessarily associate with when it comes to reaching the latter stages of major tournaments and challenging for top 4, at least not in recent times.
This tells you how far they've come and what a fantastic job Emery has done at Villa Park.
Good ebening.
The Villans were already a top team when looking at the talent they had with the likes of Morgan Rogers, Ollie Watkins, Lucas Digne, Emi Martinez, Leon Bailey, Jacob Ramsay and others so to add another top talent in Malen as well as the experience and quality of Rashford and Asensio (who's won the CL multiple times with Real Madrid), this took them to one hell of a side with perhaps one of the best attacks in the league.
Therein lies the lesson for United: do business in January even if it is loans.
We have been struggling up front for a little while now. Hojlund and Zirkzee don't fill us with much confidence in their abilities as strikers. The alternatives to them is to either move players out of position and try something truly out there like Maguire as a number 9 😬, or use an academy player. Both options reek of desperation. This would also put unnecessary pressure onto a 17-year-old like Chido Obi.
Despite a surge in goals in recent games (bar Forest) there has been very little to suggest that our forwards are the players to take us forward. A lot of these goals have also come from skipper Bruno Fernandes who has been deployed deeper yet still manages to produce more output than any of our strikers.
Some would say that even Maguire showed more than either of Hojlund or Zirkzee when he was thrown up front in the final stages of the defeat to Forest.
Signing players in January in areas where we need to strengthen even if it is on loan, can make such a difference to our season. While they were underperforming and did need to go (and still do) and the fact that Ruben Amorim wasn't using them, just having Rashford and Antony meant that there were some options for him in attack. They are also experienced.
Over the past month or two, the United boss was having to field a bench full of academy players because of all the injuries. Had he had Rashford and/or Antony on there, it would've given him better options, to an extent.
The club also didn't reaplce those two players which did weaken the squad regardless of whether they needed to be moved on or not.
Now that Rashford and Antony have found form at other clubs - Antony has 4 goals and 4 assists in his 12 matches for Real Betis including a couple of MOTM awards - people now believe it was a mistake to let them go. Even after his MOTM and winning goal against us on Tuesday night, everyone is talking about how perhaps we were foolish to let Anthony Elanga leave all those years ago.
This was always going to happen due to the forms of them as well as those who've remained at United.
Everybody and their dog is upset with Garnacho after his performance against Forest. He was terrible and this isn't the first time where we've seen him play like this.
While he is only 20, it's not as though he's just making his way into the team as he's been around for a couple of seasons. 20 is also not that young anymore when considering the ages of other players like Chido Obi or Heaven who are teenagers.
Garnacho has loads of talent but due to his inconsistent and frankly selfish style of play, he will go nowhere fast. Fans have begun to question whether he is good enough to play for Amorim and United, a question one would've been absurd to ask a year ago when he was scoring important goals and bicycle kicks.
There's even been reports that the manager himself feels that perhaps he isn't a player who can work in his team.
I for one, have been thinking about this too. I'm at a point now where I feel that should we sell him, it will hurt but not that much. I'm actually open to us doing it which again, isn't something I would've thought about going back to last season.
Where I will defend Garnacho is that we shouldn't be expecting the finished article of young (ish) players. They are always going to be inconsistent as it's very rare that you find these players to be complete, shall we say. Lamine Yamal is probably the closest we see to this yet he is the only one.
United have also put a lot on Garnacho's shoulders at such a young age as we have become almost reliant on him in the past two seasons to be one of our main players because those that were supposed to be, weren't. And also that the club didn't go and get experience in that area where he plays.
Taking this on as a young player was always going to be a tough ask.
People really do have short memories though, because when Rashford and Antony were at United, they weren't playing anywhere near as well as they are now. They were awful with people rightfully questioning Rashford's attitude as he looked completely out of it throughout the course of the campaign even last. Amorim even stated specifically about Rashford not long after becoming manager that the player "has to want it" in terms of trying to help himself improve as the coach can only do so much.
Rashford never really displayed at any point that he truly wanted it and wanted to prove the manager wrong and ended up being cast aside for a long time as he didn't play for United since the previous Derby back in November. He then left on loan to Villa in January.
Antony also had his poor performances over the course of his time at the club let alone just this season. Everyone was unhappy at them both and wanted them moved on. Now that they're playing well at clubs with all due respect, that don't have the pressures of United due to size and following, perhaps that has helped them perform at the level we know they can. Maybe teams of that level are better for them?
Elanga was another who showed promise but as he never got his fair shot, he decided to leave. He's gone on to do great things with Forest but it was the right move for his development as a young player. United seemed to have lost that ability to develop players over the years and one cannot say that had the Swede remained at Old Trafford, he would be the player he is today. This is probably one of the reasons why he chose to leave.
INEOS and the Glazers have to look at themselves here big time. The summer window was good and removing at least a couple of players that did need to be moved on was also correct, but when you don't back the manager by giving him the tools he needs, he was always going to fail.
Amorim may have failed anyway had we signed a couple more players that actually made a massive difference to our team (with all due respect to Dorgu and Heaven) and in areas where we needed improving but it would've been nice to see what he could've done all the same.
I'm repeating myself here in saying that the club had to have given Amorim reassurances when he took the job at a time when he didn't want to, that they would give him what he needed in order to try and make what was already looking like an awful season when he took over a success.
Part of that would've been January signings as that was the only time they could've brought in new recruits. Signing two young up-and-comers in defense was never really going to make us feel like perhaps there's a chance we can make something of a horrible campaign.
We're now starting to see just how much that is affecting us as we're struggling in attack. United had 23 shots at goal with just 6 on target at Forest, none of which came from the striker other than Maguire at the end, indicating just how desperate we are for a proper centre-forward.
The club have failed Amorim and Villa serves as a reminder of just what a difference bringing in a couple of good players in an area that needs improving can be.
Instead of us comparing or thinking that we should've kept this player and sold that one, perhaps we should just look at things in a different perspective and try to learn from other clubs. Going back to the past won't help as we've seen before with the likes of Paul Pogba and Cristiano Ronaldo and we have to try and improve what we already have because they're here. We might as well look to improve them rather than think what could've been.
Background Image: Marco Asensio and Marcus Rashford have been flying at Aston Villa | Creator: Neal Simpson/Allstar | Credit: Getty Images via SuperSport