Gabriel Agbonlahor has it all to do

It is an often forgotten fact that Gabriel Agbonlahor has played for England against Spain and Germany.

Both were friendly performances in the early Fabio Capello era, and he has three caps to his name in total, the last coming against Belarus in 2009.

He is 25 now, no longer the young kid on the block, and has been overtaken in the bright prospect department by the likes of Danny Welbeck and Daniel Sturridge.

He is one of the few stars of Martin O'Neill's successful Aston Villa team to remain with the club, with Ashley Young, Gareth Barry, and James Milner among those to move on.

Right now, the England squad could not be further away from Agbonlahor, he has lost a lot of momentum he had early in his career, and he has seen his own form dip with Villa's malaise, in no small part to the disastrous managerial reigns of Gerard Houllier and Alex McLeish.

So Paul Lambert has a big job on his hands to reinvigorate the attacker, and if he can then the rewards could be vital.

Agbonlahor started last season in fine form, scoring five goals early on. But he did not score a single league goal after November 5, in a 3-2 home win over Lambert's Norwich.

The striker was clearly out of sorts in 2012, and admitted as early as March he could not wait for the season to finish, so the club could finally move forward. In the end they were fortunate not to be relegated.

Over the summer the striker was linked with a move away to rejoin O'Neill at Sunderland. Perhaps a change of scenery may have been good for him, but it did not materialise, and as an Aston Villa supporter, he will be hoping to focus his efforts on helping the team move forward.

It is time now surely for him to do just that. At 25, the next few years should be the best of his career. A knee injury kept him out of Villa's start to the season, but he came on as a substitute against Newcastle in Villa's 1-1 draw, where they picked up their first point of the season.

The challenge for Agbonlahor is to make himself indispensable. There is competition for places up front, with Christian Benteke, Andi Weimann, and Jordan Bowery all battling for position in the striking spot. Lambert's preferred 4-4-2 set up means he is unlikely to be deployed out wide, as he could be if the club were playing a 4-3-3/4-5-1 formation.

Agbonlahor needs not to do what he did last season, score a few goals in a purple patch, but step up and have a consistently good campaign.

He scored 16 goals in total in 2009/10. In the two seasons since he has scored just 11 combined. He will know this isn't good enough, and its time to improve. The question is whether he can do it or not?

If he can, you never know, he might even get the chance to wear the Three Lions shirt once again.

Can Gabriel Agbonlahor get back to top form for Villa this season? 

image: © mollyig