Martin O'Neill sees both sides now of Aston Villa with absence of tall striker John Carew
Dec 3 2008 by Mathew Kendrick, Birmingham Post
THE opportunity to ask whether Martin O’Neill’s eclectic music catalogue includes Joni Mitchell, alongside The Clash and Leonard Cohen, has not yet presented itself.
However, where the subject of striker John Carew is concerned, the Aston Villa manager may wish to familiarise himself with Mitchell’s pop hit, Big Yelllow Taxi.
Not the bit about paving paradise – O’Neill is still some way off concreting a claret and blue utopia at Villa Park – but the lyrics: ‘Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone?’.
O’Neill and his Villa players have never under-estimated Carew’s contribution to the team although, after gaining four points from Arsenal and Manchester United, it was clear they could, on occasion, cope without him.
However, the big Norwegian was a substitute for those two games and in hindsight his mere presence on the bench might even have played its part, albeit a tiny one, in the positive results.
Only when Carew was completely unavailable for selection during last Saturday’s scoreless stalemate against Fulham did Villa’s need for the towering target-man truly arise.
Never mind the countless chances Villa squandered against Roy Hodgson’s Cottagers, the ‘biggest miss’ was surely the absence of Carew, sidelined by a back problem.
“I said last week six or seven weeks ago us playing without John Carew for a length of time would cause us a lot of concern,” said O’Neill, before discussing Carew’s importance in breaking down defensive-minded opponents.
