I don’t want to enter into a debate about managerial qualities just yet, but if you were screaming out for rotation in the past, you’ve certainly had your fill recently. Last season, Martin O’Neill started just 24 different players in all competitions and received no shortage of criticism, not unfairly in some cases. Just four games into the 2010/11 season and Kevin MacDonald has already used 23 different players in his starting team sheets.

To be fair, MacDonald has certainly had more injuries imposing themselves on his team selection than we’re used to, but senior players have also been “rested”. Take Stephen Warnock and Stewart Downing for instance. I know it’s a long season, but these are 28 and 26 year old professional athletes we’re talking about, do they really need to be rested after three games?

When I saw the starting line-up for last night’s match against Rapid Vienna I was at first thrilled to see that KMac was clearly taking the competition seriously by sending a strong side out, but then couldn’t avoid feeling a little concerned about the lack of natural left footers in the side.

My hope was that he intended to use a 4-3-3 system with Ash and Gabby as additional strikers either side of Heskey with the ability to cover the wings when Rapid had possession, dropping deeper to morph into a 4-5-1. Something like this:-

This was the only way I could see that we could employ the players in the starting XI to best cover the wings. Gabby has played as a right sided wing-forward in the past and did very well. We know Ash can play anywhere across the front, but often puts in his best performances on the left.

But KMac actually seemed to use something more akin to a 4-3-1-2 with Ash as the ‘1’ behind Heskey and Gabby in orthodox dual striker roles. Initially this worked well, but the lack of width in midfield left the full backs with little protection as the central three of Reo-Coker, Petrov and Ireland shuffled from side to side, filling the gaps.

This wasn’t such a huge issue for Cuellar who doesn’t generally over-commit himself going forward and is strong defensively, but Beye’s lack of positional discipline, coupled with almost zero ability to use his left foot made the left wing a massive weakness for Villa. Rapid’s captain, Steffen Hoffmann, is a cultured and skilled right winger and he had a field day in there.

The two goals Rapid scored from open play were crossed in from that side and the corner was also won and fired in from that side too. Speaking of which, there wasn’t anyone on the near post where the ball spooned in after Guzan failed to take enough weight the shot to prevent it going in. I’m not saying Beye should have been there, or anyone neglected their duties for that matter, but it’s ironic that Reo-Coker, I think, was stood at the other post helplessly watching.

I can analyze this to death, or go completely the other direction, proclaiming something vacuous like Rapid “just wanted it more”, but the bottom line for me, like the Newcastle game, was that some of the best players we have available were playing, with one or two exceptions, in roles close to their best positions and they couldn’t get the job done.

Although Villa played some nice football during the first half and the goal was very well worked, the middle three did look good, Ireland in particular, but I didn’t sense there was much urgency in Rapid’s approach. Contrary to my assumption that they would come out looking for the goals they required, they seemed, if anything, to be extremely patient during the first period, even after conceding the opening goal.

Once Rapid had some purpose about their play during the 2nd half and started to work their right flank, Villa started to wobble and collapsed like a house of cards once Rapid equalised. The back four, made up of three centre halves and a full back on the wrong side, looked helpless to provide much protection for Guzan who was simply caught flat footed a couple of times, more than actually playing badly.

Fix The Problem, Not The Blame

I don’t particularly wish to fall into the trap of playing the blame game. Yes, Beye wasn’t great at left back, worse than at centre back recently, but he probably didn’t ask to play there and may well have played to the best of his ability, he was certainly spirited going forward. Equally, there’s little to be gained from engaging in the infinite regress of assigning blame to the man who played him there and then the man who sold Shorey, or the man who bought Shorey, or the man who didn’t buy whichever player you think we should have to play at left back, so on and so forth.

Again, with one or two exceptions, this is essentially the side that were very much in the chase to crash the top four for 36 games last season. Sure, there were a few bad results, Stamford Bridge springs to mind along with this same fixture against Rapid Vienna, but they never felt as dysfunctional as the last couple of games have felt. Not to me.

Perhaps things could have been different in Newcastle had Carew scored that penalty. Maybe the same could be said about this game if Petrov had done the same, or Heskey had bundled the rebound into the empty net, but in both cases, as far as I’m concerned, I don’t much care whether it’s Martin O’Neill, Kevin MacDonald or Jose Mourinho stood on the sidelines, this Aston Villa team should be comprehensively beating Newcastle and Rapid Vienna.

However you analyze the last couple of games, it just feels like something is fundamentally not right. Under the circumstances that might seem a ridiculously obvious point to make, but this clearly isn’t a team “playing for the manager” as was loudly proclaimed following the impressive performance against West Ham just a couple of weeks ago. Not that anything sinister should be read into that, it’s just that we cannot continue this way and something has to change.

It has to be said, we didn’t have the greatest of starts last season and frequently looked disjointed, but still managed to put together the best performance over 38 league games for 17 years, so it’s not impossible to put these poor results behind us and move on.

Martin O’Neill was frequently described as stubborn, but maybe he was just extremely self-assured. In comparison, MacDonald is something of the “tinkerman”, but that could equally appear as indecisive. Maybe, like Habib Beye at left back, this just isn’t the position for Kevin.