Disarming Honesty

There have always been players that one could describe as being plagued by demons. Think of Tony Cascarino bearing down on goal for the Republic of Ireland with little voices in the back of his head telling him that he's going to miss, or Stan Collymore and the seemingly unstoppable course of self-destruction that ruined what promised to be a glittering career. Step forward, then, Curtis Davies of Aston Villa, whose honesty in interviews over the course of the last week or so has left me scratching my had and somewhat concerned over his well-being.

After his multi-million pound transfer from West Bromwich Albion to Aston Villa a couple of weeks ago, he finally made his debut at Villa Park in the League Cup against Leicester City on Wednesday night. It should have been a fairly routine night's work for the Premier League, but Villa were beaten 2-0 by Leicester, and poor old Davies seems to be shouldering the blame for this himself. In an interview on Aston Villa's web site, he said that, "I don't know what it was. I feel fit, I feel fine, so I'm not using any excuses like that. It was just on the day I choked". Ouch.

Most footballers (most famously Michael Owen) get considerable media training from a very young age, and they are trained to not say anything of any interest to anybody. Davies, it would appear, hasn't had the benefit of this yet. Later in the week, in an interview with Tribal Football, he expressed his disappointment at the reaction of Albion supporters to his departure from The Hawthorns, but couldn't help himself from touching upon the Villa-Leicester match again: ""I've just got to impress Villa's fans better than I did against Leicester. I'm hoping it's a one-off. But I need to pick myself up and improve because that was just dreadful".

Poor Curtis. He needs to lift himself before Villa's next match. It's also worth pointing out that, for all the applause he deserves for such honesty, a little bit of arrogance can also go a long way.