Aston Villa have had a rather disappointing run of results since the start of their latest Premier League campaign under Steven Gerrard.
After eight matches, the Villans have won two, drawn two and lost four, leaving them with eight points on the board and just 14th in the table.
Another worrying factor of Villa’s campaign so far is that they have netted more than one goal in a match on just one occasion this term, failing to score in three of their eight top-flight outings so far.
To remedy this issue, we feel that Gerrard should make a big decision in terms of his team selection ahead of their upcoming league games and take Ollie Watkins out of the starting line-up.
Having played the full 90 minutes in each of Villa’s seven previous league outings, the striker has only netted one goal, which came during the 3-1 defeat against Crystal Palace in August.
Despite getting eight of his 14 shots taken on target so far this season, leaving him with the highest percentage of shots on target (57.1%) at Villa Park, it’s clear that the Englishman has not been particularly clinical when it comes to converting those into goals.
Watkins also has the joint-fourth highest average of unsuccessful touches per game (1.6) at the club, showing that he can be quite risky in possession when the ball gets played to him.
With the striker also having the worst percentage of aerial duels won (31%) in Gerrard’s squad, this highlights his ineffectiveness in the air as well as with his feet.
Taking all this into account, now could be the time for Gerrard to make a change and bring in either Danny Ings or Cameron Archer to help freshen things up at the top of the pitch.
Bearing in mind the reports suggesting that the Villa manager is under pressure as a result of his team’s stuttering start to the season, making a big decision which gets his team firing could be what saves him from getting sacked.
