Why are Aston Villa not scoring?

Things aren't great for Paul Lambert and Aston Villa right now

Oh Aston Villa. If you have any Villa midfielders or strikers in your fantasy team, why? Alex Johnson looks at their woeful attack.

Yet again Aston Villa are involved in a goalscoring drought.

At the beginning of the season Villa went over 500 Premier League minutes without registering on the scoresheet.

After an all too short revival in early December, they now find themselves without a goal since before Christmas in the league and just one in their last six Premier League outings.

It is a woeful record - seven behind the top flights next poorest scorers Sunderland - and is threatening to push Paul Lambert's team into a relegation scrap.

What is going wrong for the Midlands club?

The 1-0 reverse at Leicester last weekend meant that Villa had failed to score in more than half of their league games this season - eleven of 21 before firing another blank on Saturday in a 2-0 defeat against Liverpool.

In truth they had scarcely looked like troubling the league's bottom side with just one shot on target in 90 minutes.

Lambert believes patience is required but the Villa fans are finding that virtue is wearing thin on the ground.

"We have to put it right, we have to do better in the last third. We have to keep working hard and hopefully it will come," was the Scot's assessment of the performance at the Kingpower Stadium.

Lambert has clearly identified a tactic of improving Villa's style of play this season following two finishes of 15th place in his time in charge.

Goalkeeper Brad Guzan admitted after the Leicester defeat the Villa are not interested in punting long balls forward to Christian Benteke and Gabby Agbonlahor.

The American says that Villa are content to retain possession and make their opponents work hard, in the hope that their luck will turn and creativity will win eventually shine through.

That theory patently did not work against the struggling Foxes and although they looked a little more dangerous against Liverpool, with Arsenal and Chelsea looming large Villa are likely to find themselves doing the chasing.

Perhaps it is time for Lambert to admit defeat - for now - and allow his players return to a more direct style.

It is tactic that would appear to play to the strengths of both Benteke and Agbonlahor.

Agbonlahor and Andreas Weimann have contributed three goals each in the league this season while Benteke, in the midst of an interrupted campaign, has hit the net just twice.

Veteran Joe Cole was signed in the summer to try and add some creative spark to the midfield while Charles N'Zogbia and Kieran Richardson have been unable to recapture the form of old.

England midfielder Fabian Delph has also spent time on the sidelines but the 25-year-old has failed to build on the promise of last season.

Lambert is attempting to recruit some creative spark in the early days of the transfer window having landed Valencia playmaker Carles Gil.

At 22, Gil has got plenty La Liga experience under his belt during a loan spell at Elche and Lambert was happy to take a gamble on the Spaniard.

These are worrying times for Villa. After their victory over Chelsea on March 15 last year, they went on to lose seven of their last nine games in the league - winning only once.

Their current position finds them only three points clear of the relegation zone and a similar dip in form to end this campaign could see Lambert taking the club into the second tier for the first time since 1988.

On recent evidence, Villa have neither the goalscorers nor creative influences to put things right.

Much more than some of his Premier League rivals, the Villa boss needs a helping hand from the January transfer window. Whether Villa owner Randy Lerner provides the impetus remains to be seen.