Aston Villa’s manager Ron Saunders, attempting to end a slump in which his team has gathered only three points from six games, looks towards youth for today’s home match with York.

Added to the team which lost 1-0 at Bristol City are 20-year-old Tony Betts - substitute last Saturday - 18-year-old Bobby Campbell and 17-year-old Frank Pimblett.

Pimblett is the only one not to have played in the first team but Saunders promised yesterday: “He will either play or be named as substitute.”

Pimblett said: “The nearest I have been to the first team Is when I was in the party for the League Cup game with Colchester. The manager told me today that he had an open mind about playing me.”

Plmblett was brought to Villa Park by the father of the England Under 23 full back John Gidman, who scouts for the club in the Liverpool area.

“I preferred to move from home because you avoid the temptations of going out with your mates,” Pimblett said.

He receives his chance only two months after turning professional because of the length of Villa’s injury list.

Gidman and Northern Ireland’s centre forward Sammy Morgan have long term injuries while Leighton Phillips was ruled out for the second successive match yesterday because of an ankle injury.

Part of Villa’s problem is that in the past success in the League Cup paralleled by failure in the League.

It happened in 1971 when they reached the final and failed to win promotion from the Third Division and now the prospects of ending their centenary season with promotion to the First Division are receding.

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*Birmingham Daily Post*
Monday, 16 December 1974

Villa miss out on glut of goals By RANDALL NORTHAM

Aston Villa’s immediate problems were assuaged but still some of their smallest League crowd of the season left Villa Park less than satisfied after this thrashing of York on Saturday.

It was not difficult to understand why, although the four goals moved Villa once again to the top of the Second Division’s home goalscorers list.

It was not that Villa were so good, but that York were so bad. Their trembling defence was shot with uncertainty and their marking was often non-existent. Which, of course, doesn’t help Villa’s cause because they can only beat what is put in front of them.

They did not win with style, a more incisive attack could have doubled the scoreline. Although they scored four times their finishing was frequently hesitant, as if the players could not believe that York could be cut apart so easily.

Having criticised Villa for not scoring more, it should be mentioned that their confidence must have been damaged by a sequence of results that brought only three points from six games.

They were given the perfect start of two goals inside ten minutes and afterwards they worked hard and enthusiastically but a crowd as demanding as Villa’s expects more than that from a team so comfortably in the lead.

They wanted the victory - or victory it was clearly to be after Ray Graydon and Chris Nichol! had scored the first two - to be achieved with an arrogant flow and superior air.

Instead, Villa too often twittered like a flock of starlings. In their anxiety not to make mistakes, and their eagerness to cover, they usually failed to exploit York’s most glaring faults.

All four goals were well made and well taken, there wasn’t a sloppy one amongst the lot, unless you came from York, that is.

From the third minute, when Brian Little slipped sweetly through on the left to give Graydon the opportunity to score his 17th goal of the season, the door was open.

Next, Nicholl ran, jumped and headed perfectly to send Jimmy Brown’s free kick past Graeme Crawford and we waited, thinking there might even be double figures.

The next goal did not come until the 71st minute although the chances arrived regularly and Jim Cumbes, the goalkeeper had to make a brilliant save from a close range volley from Micky Cave to prevent York getting a stake the game they did not deserve.

Then Graydon took a right wing corner, Nicholl nodded it forward, and Brian Little turned neatly to whip it on the volley into the net.

Cumbes made a good save from Alan Ogden, although a York goal at this juncture would have done nothing more than ease their injured self respect, before Chico Hamilton ended a panoramic move with a stunning shot.

The real test will come next week at The Hawthorns when steel will meet steel and the only thing that will be given away is sparks.