Angel brings out best of Vassell

Aston Villa striker Darius Vassell has insisted that the best is still to come from his reignited partnership with club record signing Juan Pablo Angel.

Vassell and Angel proved a formidable combination during the first half of the 2001-2002 season when Villa enjoyed the rare luxury of topping the Barclaycard Premiership for a spell.

Angel finally looked to be settling into life in the Premiership after a difficult start but the arrival of Graham Taylor just over 18 months ago soon brought an end to his association with Vassell.

Instead Taylor brought in Peter Crouch – presently on a three month loan to Norwich – for €6.4m from Portsmouth and the Vassell-Angel pairing became a distant memory.

It is only since the arrival of David O’Leary in the Villa hotseat that the duo have been back in harness and they looked sharp in their last outing together – a 3-1 win against Leicester a fortnight ago.

Now the combination will be looking to inspire Villa to only their sixth away victory in their last 41 Premiership away games since the start of the 2001-2002 campaign, at Manchester City on Sunday.

Vassell, who has been battling to recover from the pelvic injury which kept him out of England’s two recent Euro qualifiers, told PA Sport: “Myself and Juan Pablo have always enjoyed playing together.

“In our first season together we were up there in the Premiership challenging at the top for quite a while and I was almost matching him in terms of goals.

“But then there a change of manager and it got changed around and we didn’t get to play together as much after that.

“Now we have been given another opportunity. We are still learning about each other’s game. We didn’t really get past square one in the sense that we have not had a full season together yet. We had six months.

“We have both done well individually at times but we are still trying to gel fully. If we can play well as a team, then things can improve even more.

“I certainly still think the partnership can get better. After the Leicester game I spoke to Juan Pablo and I don’t think there were many instances of where I gave the ball to him or vice versa.

“But if we can build on what we have done and improve, I think there could be more goals to come. If we can have a full crack at it this time, then we will have something to build on.

“We all know that Juan is capable of scoring goals. He just needs to be given the right sort of opportunities. I believe the football we play under David O’Leary is going to help Juan Pablo and help his game.”

O’Leary will again be missing the services of midfielder Gareth Barry who will complete a two-match suspension for his red card against Portsmouth at Fratton Park on the opening day of the season.