Steven Gerrard has urged his Aston Villa players to use Saturday’s lunchtime clash with Arsenal to prove they can start competing with the top sides in the Premier League.
Both teams go into the match at Villa Park after seeing recent momentum halted by defeat – Arsenal’s run of five straight wins was ended by Liverpool on Wednesday night while Villa had won three on the bounce before being beaten 2-1 at West Ham last weekend.
For Villa, that was another match in which they failed to take points off a side in the fight for Europe – this season they have garnered only four points from 11 matches against sides in the top eight.
With a 10-point gap to eight-placed Wolves, Villa realistically know they cannot improve on their current ninth place, but Gerrard’s ambitions are set higher in the long term.
“The teams at the top are there for a reason,” Gerrard said. “It’s about consistency, they’ve recruited well, they’ve got experience and some have got managers who have been with them for some time.
“There’s a reality to where we’re at at the moment but that’s the area of the league we need to strive for, it’s where we want to be operating of course.
“I’m very much aware of the stats and those results but tomorrow gives us another opportunity to try to prove that when we’re at our best we can take points off the top teams and the teams that are above us.”
A busy January, in which Gerrard brought in Philippe Coutinho, Lucas Digne and Calum Chambers, played a major role in steering Villa away from the relegation battle and to the top of the mid-table mini league – although Digne will miss out this weekend with a hamstring injury.
Finding more players who can make the sort of impact Coutinho has had since joining on loan from Barcelona – not to mention trying to secure his permanent signature – is the next challenge, as well as developing the likes of Jacob Ramsey into the future England international Gerrard is convinced he is.
“We need to work with what we’ve got and keep trying to improve them, pushing them, challenging and provoking them to be better,” he said.
“In the last window we tried to recruit in a positive way to move forward and evolve and I think we did that very well, and I think it’s no secret we’ve got eyes on trying to move the group forward again when the possibility is there.
“But the priority is always the players you’ve got. We’ve got belief as a staff we can improve this group on a daily basis to close the gap that’s obviously there in terms of league positions.”
Arsenal have improved markedly under Mikel Arteta this season but the Spaniard, 39, was under severe pressure after they started the season with three straight league defeats.
Gerrard said their progress now was a reward for the club sticking by him.
“Mikel has done a fantastic job and really found that consistency that Arsenal have been looking for so credit to him for that,” he said.
“He’s come through a couple of periods where the pressure was on him and his team and you’ve got to give people at Arsenal credit for backing him and giving him the time to really stamp his authority and philosophy on how they want to play.”
