These days Aston Villa are flying high in the Premiership and, while all the people are praising manager Marin O’Neill for lifting the club so much since arriving at the club, Villa midfielder Gareth Barry has underlined the significance of his fellow midfielder Nigel Reo-Coker to the Aston Villa resurgence.
Barry says:
We are different sorts of players.
Generally Nigel plays a deeper role.
He does get forward a bit but, rather than try and play the killer ball, he will find me and hopefully I can get it up to the other lads.
We complement each other very well and I think it is going very well. We both work hard to try to get the ball back although Nigel’s role is one that won’t get him the headlines.
But we all realise Nigel is doing a job for the team and he is not the sort of person to worry too much about not getting the headlines.
As long as he plays well and we pick up points, then that is more than enough for him.
Similar to last season, isn’t it? Last season West Ham United escaped relegation by the skin of the teeth and everyone was hailing Carlos Tevez. Yet Nigel Reo-Coker was in no way less pivotal in altering the Hammers’ fortunes towards the tail-end of last season and he is certainly worth a round of applause.