The Villa never fail to do it, do they?
Raise your hopes and then fail to produce on a consistent basis, that is.
I was thinking about this yesterday and it led to me wondering why we’ve never any consistent success in my 50+ years of supporting the Villa. I mean, think about it and you’ll see what I’m on about.
Man U, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Man City and Everton have all had good stints in the limelight, but the second city’s biggest club has never achieved on a similar level. Yes, we won the league and the European cup, along with a few league cups and they’re great achievements, but it just seems to me that we’ve never really had our fair share. After all, you could probably say that Leeds and Forest have had more success than us.
Of course, we’re not quite alone in this. Spurs, Newcastle and maybe others could be classed as similar, but I’d emphasise the second city part in our case. Mind you, I’ve never been convinced that Birmingham (the actual city) has had it’s fair share of much either. Certainly Manchester always seems to be pushed ahead of us, Liverpool has some sort of romanticism about it. Glasgow does too and as for London, well, I’m not even going there.
So what am I getting at?
I don’t know really, apart from hopes being raised and us nearly always failing to produce on the seeming promise.
And we did it again on Wednesday night against Brentford, in producing what I thought was a good first half performance after what I again think of us being poor for months and being on a bad run, in our league outings at least.
Have we turned the corner?
Squad news then and Ramsey is a couple of weeks away, but Onana is close and will be assessed this morning. Perhaps most concerning is the fact that Unai himself doesn’t know who will be available;
“Today I don’t know exactly which players are available for tomorrow – some are doubts, yesterday they were in some pain and as well some were really tired.
We are going to train now, this afternoon, but even training this afternoon, I think until tomorrow morning it’s not going to be clear for me which players will start the match”
Hence it would seem anybody might start.
As for Southampton, they have Taylor Harwood-Bellis, Flynn Downes and Tyler Dibling all back from injuries, but are still not in very good shape. Captain Jack Stephens starts a four match ban after a midweek sending off, Aaron Ramsdale is out with a finger injury, Paul Onuachu is a week away and a certain Jan Bednarek is touch and go. I believe they have other players out too so overall we’re probably doing fairly well injury-wise.
So there we have it. We’re at home to an injury ravaged team, that is struggling at the bottom end of the table. It should all be a very straightforward win to the Villa, shouldn’t it?
Except Southampton have the ability to break on you with very decent pace, something we all know we’ve been very susceptible too, with way we play such a high line. It’s looking pretty windy and that might affect things, so maybe a freaky sort of goal is very much a possibilty. That Dibling kid looks very useful and has a few very nice twists and turns in his box of tricks, combined with some decent pace that could see our right back posed with some very serious problems.
Prediction time then and I’m going to stick my neck out. If Mings plays (and yes, I thought he was great midweek) I’m feeling quite confident and will go for a 3-1 win to the Villa.
See, that’s what they do to you. One win and suddenly the world’s our lobster again!
Fingers crossed and Up the Villa!
A bit of calm. Lovely
YEEEEEEEESSSSS!!!!
GAME MANAGEMENT! GAME MANAGEMENT! DON’T F IT UP NOW!!!
Wow!!! Just hold on!!!!
Please just blow the effing whistle!!!!!
Back to normal EMI. Good lad.
GAME MANAGEMEEEEEEENT!
Get the F in. Deserved that. Created plenty of chances. Defence still a worry.
Nicely oin third place. Who would have thought it, well maybe our manager. Great stuff.
Can I stop holding my breath now???
What a bloody roller-coaster!!!!
Why is the ref crying at the end???
I noticed that BFR. Does anyone know why?
Yeeeaaaaasssss woooooo hoooooo sooooo buuzzzzingyesssss
Bet that fucking juventus ref is haaaaaaaaaa
3 points and one more win needed should be enough. I think we made that harder than it should have been but thankfully the win was achieved!
Focus switches to premier league and Forest. A much tougher game but a win would move us up to at least 5th.
Momentum is key.
Does ‘a much tougher game’ (which is true), suggest Forest are CL quality? And if ‘yes’, does that mean Villa are (theoretically) capable of winning the CL? Finally, with the new format, is the CL now easier to win, and is it easier to win than the PL?
Much to ponder.
3 wins since last Wednesday! Get in there.
No more matches until the back end of January. Now a chance to focus on the league.
No more criticism from me, Unai obviously knows how to balance a thin squad on two fronts and at the same time stay within PSR regs.
My apologies Saint Unai.
Ref was crying as it was his last ever game before retiring.
He was quite good tonight I thought.
I think my heart rate has just subsided…
Thought he was the best ref (by a long distance) we’ve had in the CL – shame he’s having to retire.
Ye just seen that with the ref crying fair play obviously doing the job out of love for the game
Ye just seen the ref crying obviously doing the job for the love of the game, nice to see
Good Result! Villa are now through to the playoff round at least. One more win gives us a 95% chance of being in the top 8 and there is a 20% chance that 2 draws would be enough.
Saturday is another story. Black Tart Day. When Vic Crowe was manager I travelled to Nottingham to find the ‘Trip’ was shut following a fire. Then got soaked in the open at the City Ground watching a 6-0 thrashing – Crowe fired. Not in a good mood on return to St Pancras hence the encounter. Never again.
I realise that AVFC’s women’s team doesn’t hold much interest for many on here but I do enjoy women’s football and I want our women’s team to be successful.
De Pauw who succeeded Carla Ward has been sacked after six months with just one win in the WSL. The timing of this is interesting coming shortly after Carla Ward (who resigned to take time out of the game) announced she wanted to come back into management.
It would not surprise me in the slightest if Villa reappoint her. She was NSWE’s pick in the first place and they certainly didn’t want to lose her.
Personally I hope she is reappointed.