Play with matches and you're gonna get burnt

We've more than touched on the insanity of Steven Gerrard's squad management on numerous occasions, going so far as to call it "squad vandalism".

Gerrard's approach seems to be to run with a small squad, a squad bereft of youth and bizarrely brought up to number with players that have never, or perhaps will never, play.

Olsen, Steer, Sanson, Nakamba, Augustinsson, Guilbert and Archer spring to mind.

It's not that they aren't good enough - we know the quality is there for Archer, a properly used Nakamba and Guilbert, Sanson and Jed - but we have a manager who seemingly has little appetite for them.

Indeed it was startling (though welcome) to see each of them named in Villa's 25 (24) man Premier League squad given Gerrard's seeming distaste for them.

Now though, and all too predictably, the self harm of Gerrard's approach to squad management is mercilessly being punished for the folly that it is.

Losing Diego Carlos in the second game of the season was hugely disappointing yet anyone on even nodding terms with Villa will know that such things happen to our new signings all too often.

Now though we have lost:

• Lucas Digne for the next couple of weeks.

• Matty Cash for the next couple of games

• Boubacar Kamara until late December at the earliest.

• Robin Olsen with an ongoing knee issue (having sat on the bench against Southampton despite the injury)

We've seen it said that Villa have been unlucky.

They haven't been.

What they have done is utterly failed to accept the reality of the rigours of top flight football - especially in a season of fixture congestion - and have entered the season with a squad utterly ill-equipped to cope with one major injury let alone five.

Digne's likely replacement - Ludwig Augustinsson - has never played for the club.

More concerning however is the fact that he barely featured for his parent club prior to his arrival on loan for the season. We simply do not know whether he is a quality option or not, but Gerrard's reluctance to give him even a minute of game time since his arrival suggests we shouldn't expect an upgrade.

Matty Cash's replacement - Ashley Young - is 37.

Age is no barrier of course. Until it is. If Villa have been fortunate it is that in this period of self inflicted calamity the often highly effective Young has had plenty of time between games to rest and recover. Under a more pressured schedule Villa would really be taking a gamble.

Spare a thought then for Frédéric Guilbert, ostracised by Gerrard, despite never having let the club down, another squad member whose presence is in name alone.

With Boubacar Kamara out until after the World Cup another brace of badly treated players will be expected to reintegrate - only, on past history, to be barely used and quickly jettisoned.

A squad of 25 players then has five injured, another never having played and at least one expected to never play again.

Assuming Augustinsson actually is given game time that is just a 19 man squad 'available'.

Add in Cam Archer's continued absence from squad and team selection and we're down to 18.

We then have to factor in that the jettisoned Nakamba and Sanson are being used to purely make up the numbers, and we're at 16.

So we literally have a, shall we call it "palatable to Gerrard" squad of just sixteen available for Leeds:

GK Emiliano Martínez | 🇦🇷 |

CB Tyrone Mings | 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 |

CB Ezri Konsa | 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 |

CB Jan Bederak | 🇵🇱 |

CB Calum Chambers | 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 |

LB Ludwig Augustinsson | 🇸🇪 |

RB Ashley Young | 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 |

M Philippe Coutinho | 🇧🇷 |

M Douglas Luiz | 🇧🇷 |

M John McGinn | 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 |

M Jacob Ramsey | 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 |

M Leander Dendoncker | 🇧🇪 |

W Emiliano Buendía | 🇦🇷 |

W Leon Bailey | 🇯🇲 |

CF Ollie Watkins | 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 |

CF Danny Ings | 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 |

Gerrard either needs to make better use of the full squad he has available, recall the youth sent out on loan or hope and pray Villa avoid injury for the rest of the campaign.

It might look better of course if Cash isn't brought back in a panic prematurely and is instead allowed to fully recover, although the approach to Olsen's injury does not bode well for patience.

Plus if Digne doesn't see a repeat his issues of last season where an injury led to repeated niggles and absences.

And if Olsen's knee complaint does finally clear.

At that point we'd have the luxury of a squad of nineteen.

As it is though, Gerrard has been playing with fire, and entirely predictably, Villa are the ones getting burnt.