There’s a group of scamps among the Aston Villa fan base who thrive on negativity. That may be the case at all clubs, but it’s always seemed particularly prevalent at Villa.

Among the Villa faithful, there have been persist rumours about John Carew’s relationship with Martin O’Neill that I delight in debunking at every opportunity. That’s as much to do with my enjoyment of proving people wrong as it is with being a Villa fan. That said, I really don’t understand why negative stories are so easily propagated, it’s as if these people actually want things to go wrong!

I was delighted to read recently that Carew has again professed his love for Aston Villa, but has gone further to state that he would actually like to finish his career in Claret & Blue.

I love it here. I love the football, I love the club. The fans have been unbelievable and I will never forget them. If anything happens now, if I had to stop playing football tomorrow, I would still love the Villa fans.

But I hope I have some good years left. As long as my body feels strong and I can perform at this level, and keep up with how football develops. I feel I have some good years left. You never know what’s going to happen but as long as Villa are happy and I’m happy, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be here.

I was about to publish my opinions on this, giddy with excitement that perhaps the rumours about John’s happiness at the club could be put to bed once and for all, when I read Ian’s thoughts about Carew on his blog. Unlike a lot of bloggers, Ian’s pretty pragmatic, but generally positive, so when he’s expressing some frustration in a fan favourite, it gets me thinking.

He was dreadful, he was lacking any kind of desire and how does a defender like Craddock beat him to every ball ? If that performance was by a player called Heskey the Villa fans would have been in uproar, well this time it was Heskey who provided the telling ball and Gabby doing his usual trick of scoring in derbies.

The language might be a little harsher than I would use, but I can’t disagree with the sentiment very much.

The truth is that we appear to be fortunate that Gabby is showing such determination to prove his quality. MON may well have solved the problem at the back by creating the Premiership’s stingiest defense, but the impression that the goals have dried up at the other end persists. Carew and Heskey may not be rippling the net themselves, but have the goals really dried up?

Firstly, football is a result business and we should have little complaint there in comparison with past seasons. 17 points from the first 9 games is exactly where we were at the same stage last year and you’d have to go back to the 2001/02 season to find a better start – 18 points.  Granted, an extra 2 points from Wolves would have made this paragraph much rosier.

But what about the goals, how does 13 scored for 8 conceded stack up against recent seasons? GF | GA:-

• 2008/09 – 16 | 10
• 2007/08 – 13 | 12
• 2006/07 – 11 | 6
• 2005/06 – 9 | 14

Actually, it’s not so bad at all, is it? We might expect Carew and Heskey to get their name on the score sheet more often, but this is a team game and Villa are getting the results. It may also be a sign how how far we’ve come in the last 3 years where the performance and result at Molineux left many feeling disappointed. In fairness to Carew, as a target man, when the final ball from the rest of the team – and I do mean the rest of the team – is such poor quality, how can we reasonably expect him to score?

He may be bigger than me and you, but when the cross is being delivered to row Z, even John Carew won’t be nodding it in!!

Overall, while I share some concerns about Carew’s apparent effort, I’m delighted to hear that he remains happy at Aston Villa and I’m sure he’ll hit a purple patch at some point this season.  But with the goals not exactly flowing from open play or from the main protagonists you might expect, we will surely need him to step up his game soon.