Aston Villa boss goes back to basics for elusive win - Luke Young

Apr 21 2009 by Mathew Kendrick, Birmingham Post

“I think if you go into a game and you’re trying to do everything right and get into good habits then nine times out of ten you’re going to come away and have done your job,” he said.

“If you’re not professional off the pitch that’s when mistakes start happening on the field. You’ve just got to do the things that have got you this far and carry on with them. Nobody likes to lose the number of games that we had on the run.

“Obviously there’s been a couple of draws but we haven’t won for a considerable amount of time and it’s been frustrating because it’s the same squad of players that had gone 13 games unbeaten just a couple of months ago and then you look at us now and we can’t get a win. That’s the manager’s job, but he must be banging his head against the wall thinking we were unbeatable for two or three months and now we can’t buy a win.”

Explaining Villa’s slump in the past two months is difficult according to Young, who admits that the run has started to have a psychological effect on the players.

“I’m not sure what the reasons are but when you are losing games the confidence levels drop a little bit, maybe we’re affected by that,” he added. “I believe that when you’re on a winning run the confidence just grows and you’re going out on the pitch thinking we’re going to win this game.

“Vice versa, if you’ve lost a few games on the bounce, you’re thinking ‘Don’t lose today’, instead of being a lot more positive and thinking ‘Come on, we’re going to win this game’.”