Nakamba’s rollercoaster ride

25 Sep, 2020 - 00:09 0 Views
Nakamba’s rollercoaster ride Marvellous Nakamba

The ManicaPost

Moffat Mungazi Sports Correspondent

ZIMBABWE international midfielder Marvellous Nakamba and his club Aston Villa endured a season of mixed fortunes in the English Premiership — one that can be described as a rollercoaster ride punctuated by high and low points.

This was the Birmingham-based side’s return to the top-tier league since their demotion at the end of the 2015-16 term, while Nakamba was only making his debut in that division.

Subsequently, the 26-year-old powerhouse’s first outing in the popular league has sharply divided opinion among pundits and followers of the game on whether he has been a success or flop for the Claret and Blue.

While running the rule over the players, Birmingham Mail’s specialist writer Ashley Preece passed a “reserved judgement” verdict on the former Bantu Rovers starlet, thereby showing that he had a mixture of hits and misses.

Below we digest the major talking points on how Nakamba fared.

Breakthrough season

With Villa re-joining the big boys of the English game after four seasons in the wilderness, it was imperative that they took the monkey off their backs and lived by the law of the jungle to survive.

This was a new challenge with its own peculiar demands as the club sought some staying power and ensure that this would not be a hello-and-goodbye affair in the elite league.

Also, the Belgian, Dutch and French leagues where Nakamba had previously starred pale considerably in comparison to the English Premiership — touted as the globe’s most competitive league.

As such, slow starters and late bloomers who take time to flourish always find the going tough in England. Even after getting used to playing there, the Premiership is never an easy competition.

The Covid-19 enforced lull did not help matters either as action suffered a hiccup. As the start-stop season meandered to an eventual conclusion, some teams’ form dipped while others’ peaked.

Illustratively, before the coronavirus pandemic struck, Nakamba had appeared a nailed-on starter and earned some plaudits for his commanding performances in the centre of the pitch, although it was not a stroll in the park.

Yet upon resumption, he had effectively been shunted out to being a squad player appearing off the bench.

With a lot at stake, the club collectively had a lot to fight for and prove during the marathon as they huffed and puffed to discard the pushovers tag.

Difficult league

Only a handful of new entrants have immediately hit the ground running when debuting in this competition.

Manchester City tactician Pep Guardiola — widely regarded as one of the game’s leading lights — came in carrying a lofty reputation from his hugely successful and trophy-decorated spells with Barcelona in Spain and Bayern Munich in Germany, but went empty-handed during his opening season in England before coming right.

His Liverpool counterpart Jurgen Klopp, another one of football’s sharpest minds, also somewhat wobbled in his first four years at Anfield before eventually striking gold.

And while they had a memorable run in the League Cup and went all the way as loosing finalists to defending champions Manchester City, coach Dean Smith and his charges were off colour and perennially struggled during much of the league campaign. The highest they climbed on the log standings was mid-table.

By his own admission, the Aston Villa Number 11 acknowledged: “You can always get better and better and better. Compared to other leagues, the Premier League is at a different level. Now I want to improve.”

Struggling squad

Interestingly, Villa were lavish off-season spenders who came only second to Manchester United after splashing around £150 million on a dozen new signings.

The way the squad was put together, with ex-sporting director Jesus “Suso” Pitarch on two different occasions cherry-picking players other than those preferred by the manager, left a lot to be desired.

The Villa Park hierarchy then pulled the trigger on Suso, who engineered some of the moves, and was forced to leave his role following a surgical post-season assessment of the bitter-sweet campaign.

Smith was refreshingly honest with how they went on about their business: “We need to be smart in the market now . . . people had questioned the amount we had spent but we had such a big turnaround — 13 players. It’s been a tough season but a really enjoyable one. I have learned a lot, about myself, about the players. It’s a magnificent achievement, it shouldn’t be overlooked.”

The Villans were also ravaged by injuries with top performers forward Wesley and keeper Tom Heaton suffering cruel season-ending injuries, while defender Bjorn Engles was also side-lined.

Tellingly, of the three teams promoted, only Sheffield United pulled their weight — finishing a respectable ninth. Norwich City, firmly rooted at the foot of the table for virtually the entirety of the term, unsurprisingly went down; while Villa stayed up by the barest of margins — only a point above safety.

In hot pursuit of positive results and a winning formula, Smith frantically shuffled his pack. He understandably tinkered with the squad in search of the elusive precious points as a desperate attempt to save both his side and own job, during which spell some players lost match rhythm.

Overall, Aston Villa collected a ratio of 0.92 points per game as they finished 17th on 35 points from nine wins, eight draws and 21 losses over 38 games. Averaging 1, 08 goals per game, they scored 41 and conceded 67 from 1,76 per game with a goal difference of minus 26 throughout the season.

At home they picked 24 points from seven wins, three draws and nine defeats, while on the road they managed 11 points from two victories, five draws and 12 losses.

Under pressure

With 12 new recruits, ostensibly brought in to add value and strength in depth, inevitably the spotlight would fall on them as the club looked to recoup its investment.

Nakamba fetched a handsome £11million to entice from Club Brugge and his cost was relatively handsome among the rest of the arrivals and he might have tried too hard to justify his price.

Following in the footsteps of compatriots Benjani Mwaruwari, Peter Ndlovu and Bruce Grobbelaar — all three Warriors legends — who had turned on the power at their respective clubs at the highest level of the game in England, might have somewhat put him under pressure.

Although he was running his own race, the expectation for Nakamba to do well in the Queen’s land was always high.

But having been side-lined for the greater chunk of Zimbabwe’s participation at the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) through injury, the Hwange-born star started his Premiership pilgrimage on the wrong footing as he was short of match fitness.

Coupled with that, the delay in announcing his Villa deal deprived him of a full pre-season, which saw him sit out the club’s first games.

Along the way, Nakamba returned to his European base from the Warriors’ 2021 Afcon qualifiers against Botswana and Zambia to be relegated to the bench.

The numbers

Crunching the figures, his numbers paint the picture of a player who has what it takes to make it. He can come right and deliver. In this game, it is common knowledge that form is temporary while class is permanent.

Nakamba exudes the latter.

The Zimbabwe superstar was among Aston Villa’s dozen top performers who featured prominently for the side in terms of matches played, games started and minutes raked up.

This shows how important he was to the team and how much the manager relied on him.

Marvellous had 19 starts from 29 league games and completed 1 836 minutes. He also played in all of Villa’s five domestic cup games and completed 434 minutes. For a defensive midfielder, whose forte is to break up the opposition’s offensive play and mop the mess, the midfield dynamo picked only seven yellow cards in the domestic league, which shows just how smart he was.

To his credit, the Villa man came out tops in man-of-the-match polls on several occasions.

The former Warriors coach Charles Mhlauri therefore sees the player’s brilliance.

“I have seen Nakamba progress over the years as I am very close to his mentor — Methembe. Playing in the English Premier League is a great achievement for both the player and Zimbabwean football in general. I think he (Nakamba) has done exceptionally well given that this was his debut season in this highly demanding league. It will be good for Zimbabwean football if he stays in this top division,” Mhlauri told our sister publication, The Sunday Mail.

Share This:

Sponsored Links

We value your opinion! Take a moment to complete our survey

This will close in 20 seconds