YORKE FIRES VILLA TO A ROUSING FAREWELL

ONCE again Villa proved they can play with determination and style.

As they also showed they can be ponderous and lazy-minded, you will understand why their fans were receiving mixed messages.

First half: Villa no shots; Liverpool seven, one goal.

Second half: Villa eight shots, two goals; Liverpool two shots.

The biggest crowd on a League ground this season watched a transformation as complete as Superman's, from being kicked around for 45 minutes to providing the Holte End stand era with a final and enduring memory of victory against one of the world's great clubs.

Villa's abject first half caused us to ponder whether it was more disconcerting that they were not doing their best or that they were.

Either way, Ron Atkinson has a summer problem of elephantine dimension.

The answer came quickly. In two minutes they had expended more energy than in the previous 45 and by the end of the game they were reproducing the kind of play which had blessed Wembley five weeks ago.

Atkinson, already disturbed by a post-Wembley disintegration that wrecked any top-six hopes, must have had sharp half-time words to say about a bon voyage that had become a bad trip.

For the hammers to have echoed a last Holte End lament would have struck at the heart of his pride. The players' response was thrilling and none more so than from Dwight Yorke whose season in the shadows - only one goal and two starts - ended in the sunshine of both goals.

Whatever his recent statements about little or no change in his roster, no-one with an inkling of Atkinson's character will be fooled into believing that he thinks this season's campaign has been good enough.

He has been let down too many times by players who are high-class one day and bottom of it the next.

The gnawing hunger for consistent achievement is missing from several of his veteran players whose occasional indolence and fitful lack of discipline has affected impressionable young team-mates.

This was not concealed by Saturday's second half, rather it was highlighted. No question about it, Villa need a couple of powerfully hungry players of the Carlton Palmer variety.

It has been made clear to Atkinson that he does not have much money to play with.

However, the manager is a maestro of knockout competitions and three already beckon him.

On the positive side he has three or four younger players Mark Bosnich, Graham Fenton, Ugo Ehiogu and Yorke on which to found a future side and it may be that Villa fans will have to be content to watch a transition next season as the thirty somethings begin to make way for a new generation.

Bosnich, Ehiogu and Yorke, along with Earl Barrett, were Villa's four outstanding performers against Liverpool.

Yorke made a late play for regular first-team place next season. This may seem a ridiculously premature statement but Atkinson must have seen enough from him to believe that he has a potential 20-goals-a-season man on his books.

If so, a number of pieces fall into place. He would have one or even two strikers for transfer during a summer that will surely see him replenish his playing staff.

Villa found space on the left to provide a low cross which Yorke converted from the edge of the six-yard box in the 65th minute for his first goal of the season.

Liverpool who had previously dominated the midfield, suddenly lost their way and it was another of their old players Ray Houghton who created the opening for the second. The Republic of Ireland international sent Yorke racing clear down the middle in the 81st minute and the Villa player produced a clinical finish.