How can Aston Villa and others be allowed to get away with this?

I’ve written this article before the kick off in the Rapid Vienna against Aston Villa Europa League play-off game so it may turn out that Villa have won 5-0 and the questions I ask are less relevant.

Criticised

Under Martin O’Neill, Aston Villa were sometimes criticised, not least by their own fans, for fielding a substantially weakened side in the Europa League.

Many people could not understand what the point of finishing in the top six is if you are then not going to take the resulting European competition seriously. Maybe more importantly, people were unhappy that loyal fans spent a huge amount of time and money to travel across Europe to watch their reserve side lose. Some people felt that showed a lack of respect to the fans.

Change

With Martin O’Neill now gone and caretaker manager Kevin MacDonald in charge, maybe things would change? Not a bit of it!

Speaking ahead of the game MacDonald told the BBC,

“It is a very big game. Villa have had some outstanding nights in Europe, and it is very important to stay in the competition for the squad players to play games and for the youngsters to try to develop so we will do our utmost to do that. The players were outstanding in the 3-0 home victory over West Ham on Saturday and now some of the youngsters will get an opportunity.”

Clarification

I need clarification about what he means. Is he saying that the competition is important because it gives his fringe players and young players a chance? That just sounds a bit disrespectful to the fans and the competition as a whole, doesn’t it?

The weakness of the side Villa are putting out, together with the comments from their manager may well surprise Rapid Vienna a little. Having beaten a weakened Villa side in 2009, they assumed that Villa would not make the same mistake again. Their midfielder Steffen Hofmann has been quoted as saying,

“Aston Villa will not underestimate us again. We showed last year we can compete, and if we play like we did against Salzburg in a 2-1 home win earlier this month and storm their goal, it will be difficult for Villa to beat us at home.”

Rested

Villa will point to the fact that Richard Dunne is suspended, whilst John Carew, Gabby Agbonlahor, Carlos Cuellar and James Collins, are all “injured.” The fact that Stiliyan Petrov, Luke Young and Ashley Young are all being rested does bring into question whether any of those others would have played anyway.

A number of youngsters, including James Collins Jnr, Eric Lichaj, Shane Lowry and Andreas Weimann (no, I haven’t heard of them either) have been included in the squad, together with keeper Brad Guzan, and some players called Baker, Parish, Bannan and Hogg. There is even someone called Emile Heskey who I am told is allegedly a striker but doesn’t actually score any goals.

Wrong

I do not want to be unkind to the players MacDonald is sending out to represent Villa as I have no doubt they are all fine young players who will give it their all and get some great experience, but it just feels totally wrong to me.

Shouldn’t teams be made to select their best players or be asked to step aside and let another club who may be interested in winning the tournament to take over? What can it mean to win this trophy if teams are doing this?

I should point out that Villa are far from the only team doing this but I use them as a perfect example.