London Batteries across the country have run flat in the cold and nowhere are they flatter than at Aston Villa. Two points outside the relegation zone, two Premier League wins in 11 games, and a manager admitting his players are short of confidence. But at least Stewart Downing has attempted to give them a jump-start.
Monday night's 3-0 defeat at Liverpool left the majority of the Villa players downhearted and the message boards clogged with relegation talk. After all, Villa's record under Gerard Houllier makes for grim reading: two league wins, both courtesy of goals in the final two minutes and against sketchy opposition at that (Wolves and Blackpool).
Yet not everyone is so fatalistic. Downing, the midfielder who sunk under Gareth Southgate at Middlesbrough before joining Villa last summer, insists there is a way to go before calling the lifeboats. "It's too early to talk about that," he said. "The table is so tight you can soon fly up."
It is harder to deny that the players' self-belief has taken a hit. Houllier admitted before the Liverpool game that Villa's away record did not give him much hope. Downing said afterwards the manner in which they are conceding goals has been bad for their self-esteem, but added they cannot let their poor form consume them. "When you are shipping goals it is tough to take and confidence can be affected. We have to be man enough in the games coming up whether we are confident or not. We have to fight for points. We shouldn't be where we are with the players we've got."
Confidence, however, is a commodity elusive to pin down and easily lost. The manager is the obvious place. Houllier's suggestion that Liverpool's second goal was "vital", because it meant "the game is over" is worrying. It begs the question: would Manchester United have come back from 2-0 down at Villa Park last month if Ferguson had a similarly defeatist disposition?
