, VILLA S GREAT SEASON
Birmingham City fan KEITH DIXON admits Aston Villa’s desperate season has provided bundles of laughs…
... for a Bluenose!
IN BIRMINGHAM at the moment there is great concern within the media and associated football communities about the demise of Aston Villa.
The fact that this ‘great’ club could lose its Premier League membership, which it has held since the formation of the league in 1992, seems too much to bear for the local community and the Villa fans.
Villa appear certain to lose their annual relegation battle this time around, American owner Randy Lerner guiding them to the second tier.
Perhaps Villa fans should have been alerted to the limit of their club’s ambitions for 2015/16 when Christian Benteke (£32.5m to Liverpool) and Fabian Delph (£8m to Manchester City) were sold last summer and replaced with unknown foreign players with no experience of English football let alone the Premier League and a potential relegation dogfight. And with things
looking bleak in the new year, there wasn’t much comfort for the fans when the January transfer window closed with no business done.
Whilst one half of England’s second city is in mourning, the fans of Birmingham City are virtually ecstatic or as my wife would say,“You get as much pleasure from the Villa losing as you do from the Blues winning!”
It’s not the 4-0 defeat away to Manchester City or the 6-0 humiliation at home to Liverpool that gives the Bluenoses the most pleasure, it’s the way the fans, the club and the media find it so difficult to accept the disappointments.
The problem for Villa is that they believe their own publicity. They believe, totally erroneously, that they are a ‘great’ club, endorsed in some way by the media referring to their European Cup victory whenever the opportunity arises.
So what does the future hold for Villa? Well, I fear things could get a lot worse.
After Birmingham were relegated from the Premier League in 2011, the majority of our squad were shipped out to cut the wage bill. At least we had players that were worthy of top division status.
Is that the case at Villa Park? I think not. They could be lumbered with a lot of players on hefty contracts. Perhaps a few transfer fees will come their way, but there aren’t too many top-class players there.
Okay, they’ll receive parachute payments, though Birmingham City saw very little of those income streams – the money drifted to the other side of the world.
Paul Lambert, Tim Sherwood and Remi Garde failed to produce performances on the pitch that at least gave the Villa fans hope. I believe a factor in their inability to create a team of players that will give their all for the jersey is the lack of connection at the club.
I have sat with my son and watched my team lose 8-0 at home to Bournemouth.Whilst we were well-beaten, the players never gave up.
We then appointed an ex-player who took virtually the same group of players and gave us respectability before, this season, leading us to a league position just outside the play-offs (at the time of writing). Manager Gary Rowett joined in October 2014, bringing with him a further two ex-Blues in the form of Mark Sale and Kevin Summerfield as part of his coaching team.
St Andrew’s has returned to the status of a fortress, we get a regular attendance of around 18,000 and our away allocation is always sold out.
Believe me,Villa will find it incredibly difficult to adapt to life in the Championship. It’s a rough and tumble league where their failed aristocrats will have to fight for every ball and every point.
It delights me to say I think they will struggle in the Championship but at least we are guaranteed six points next season, unless we get promoted!
That would be a dream come true, Blues in the Premier League and Villa in the Championship!
I cannot bring myself to join in with the Tilton Road End’s chant to “Sh*t on the Villa”. However, although I am 69 and should know better, I delight in the Villa’s downfall.