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Press article:

Solano helps lift gloom - 01/03/2005

Given the way their team have suddenly begun shipping goals on home soil, February was not a kind month for the Aston Villa.

David O'Leary's men conceded three for the second home game running to Everton on Saturday, but there was at last one shaft of sunlight to pierce the Villa Park gloom - another strike for top scorer Nolberto Solano.

It seemed a safe bet in August that Villa's leading marksman this season would again be of South American origin. But not many would have risked much money on it being Solano.

At the start of the season, Solano had not even scored for the team who joined from Newcastle United in last January's transfer window.

His first goal did not come until the Carling Cup win over QPR in September. And he did not manage one in the Premiership until the 2-0 win over Fulham in late October.

But there have been six more since and Saturday's effort took him back into sole top scorer's spot ahead of Juan Pablo Angel - a bonus for O'Leary at a time when he is under fire from all quarters.

Until Saturday, Villa had not lost any game in which Solano had scored - a fact not unnoticed by Newcastle United manager Graeme Souness, who recognised what a popular move it would be to bring him back to Tyneside, and inquired about him during the January window.

Thankfully for their increasingly worried fans,

Villa held firm. And Solano's goal-making and taking qualities are still there to be admired, his value to the team best summed up by his

Villa midfield colleague Lee Hendrie. "Nobby's a great player to play alongside," said Hendrie, "a surprise absentee for the Everton defeat. He brings out the best in other people around him.

"People just say he's a winger, but he also comes up with more than his fair share of goals.

"He's got a hell of a lot of ability and he's showing it week in, week out."

Solano's lack of goals in his first few months at Villa was even more of a surprise for a man who scored 38 times in his five-and-a-half years with Newcastle, many of them spectacular efforts.

And Hendrie acknowledges that the fact that he is prepared to have a go can be put down to his South American schooling.

"Nobby, Juan and Uli De La Cruz, they're all the same," said Hendrie. "They just want to play football, to pass, shoot and make it look good. And that's the way football should be played.

"It's hard to say whether he's actually the best South American player to come to England, but he's definitely up there. And, don't forget, he's done it with two different clubs now, which gives him the edge over most."

For all Solano's skills, his side are clearly struggling at the other end.

And, with a view to plug the goals at Villa Park in time for Saturday's visit of Middlesbrough, O'Leary will turn to the reserves tonight.

Villa take on Everton again but this time the result is not as important as the fitness of Martin Laursen.

The £3 million Dane has been missing since August with persistent knee trouble but, having been sat on the bench for the past four games, his full first team return is now overdue.

He might have been back at the weekend, had last week's reserves game against Newcastle not been postponed.

But O'Leary was keen for Laursen to get another 90 minutes under his belt and tonight's fifth successive reserve team outing should prove the final step before a first-team comeback.

There will also be a place in the reserves for Darius Vassell, to follow his appearance for the final half-hour against Everton on Saturday.

Sadly, there will be no comeback tonight for Mark Delaney, who has ruled himself out of the game, having not yet returned to training following his latest knee ligament injury.

The Welsh defender is now gearing himself to be fit for the derby return with Blues at St Andrew's on March 20.


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