VILLA CRISIS TURNS NASTY
Richards in bitter row with fans as sorry Villa held by League Two Wycombe
FIVE minutes before kick-off, a troupe of six or seven-year-olds walked across the pitch in front of the Aston Villa fans on their way to forming a guard of honour for the players when they emerged from the tunnel.
The kids looked tiny and cold in the winter gloom but that did not deter the Villa supporters. ‘Sign them up, sign them up, sign them up,’ they sang. These are desperate times for a grand old club and this was a day for gallows humour.
Even when their captain, Micah Richards, opened the scoring for them with a low shot midway through the first half, the rejoicing was laced with sarcasm. ‘We scored a goal,’ the Villa fans sang.
But if there was humour, there was also anger. And plenty of it. After Villa had squandered their lead against Wycombe Wanderers — a League Two team 54 places below them in the pyramid — the jokes stopped and the mood turned ugly.
Richards, who had been taken off, was embroiled in a bitter exchange of views with a furious group of Villa fans behind the away dug-out. Richards tried to mollify them. ‘We’re trying,’ he kept saying, but dismay and disillusion were etched all over their faces.
When the final whistle went, the anger felt by that group of fans was replicated across the entire Villa support. Wycombe’s fans celebrated. Villa’s did not. ‘You’re not fit to wear the shirt,’ they sang at their hapless players.
Villa fans surrounded the team bus after the match too, as it waited to leave and their players were told to stay inside the ground until everyone was ready to get on it.
So much for the idea that this might be the game to lift the sense of siege enveloping Villa’s beleaguered boss Remi Garde and his side. This result merely underlined the reality that Villa are a shambles.
An FA Cup third-round tie against a limited Wycombe team should have been a gimme for a manager still searching for his first win as Villa boss two months after he took over. When he took off Carles Gil 20 minutes from time, the fans turned on Garde too. ‘You don’t know what you’re doing,’ they jeered.
After the game, Garde had to field questions about whether he was the man to turn things around. ‘I still believe that,’ he said. ‘The day I believe I cannot do anything positive for this big football club, you will know it.’
The Villa crisis has reached the stage where, before the game, no one could quite be sure whether Wycombe or their visitors should be the underdogs. The best their fans could hope for here was a brief distraction from their woes. They did not get it.
Even after Richards had put them ahead, supporters probably sensed what was coming. They knew this team was not good enough or strong enough mentally to hold on to a lead even against a League Two side of limited craft and ambition. They knew an equaliser was coming and early in the second half it did.
They now face a replay at Villa Park that they are dreading and Wycombe are relishing. The main concern of Wycombe boss Gareth Ainsworth was that the Villa fans are not so disheartened that they fail to turn up for the return. ‘I am hoping the Villa fans won’t boycott the game,’ said Ainsworth. ‘Because we need the cash.’
But then yesterday never held out the promise of being any sort of turning point for Villa. There was no hope that a cup run might provide the catalyst for some sort of great escape in the league, as cup runs sometimes do. The reality is that Villa are too far gone for that.
This is a team that has only won once in the Premier League all season and is 11 points adrift of safety at the foot of the table. There is so little hope that it seemed strange to see Garde resting players yesterday. Resting them for what? Victory here would only have provided the flimsiest of sticking plasters anyway. Villa are a club run by an owner, Randy Lerner, who lost conviction long ago and a chief executive, Tom Fox, who was still seeking solace and vindication in shirt sales even last week. Victory at Adams Park would have been a salve but they were not even capable of achieving that. Villa took the lead after 22 minutes when Gil bamboozled the Wycombe defence with a series of step-overs. He made space and cut the ball back for Richards, who had time to pick his spot and roll a right-foot shot past Wycombe keeper Alex Lynch.
Wycombe began the second half like a different side. Villa are so fragile that they could not cope. Wycombe flew at Villa right from the start and within three minutes Ashley Westwood felled Matt Bloomfield with an arm in the box and referee Michael Oliver gave a penalty. Joe Jacobson converted.
Villa reeled. This felt familiar. Wycombe smelled their fear and tore into them. Sam Wood almost put the home side ahead but Jores Okore headed his volley off the line. But Wycombe could not press home their advantage and Villa recovered enough to hold on.
Garde could not disguise his disappointment. Ainsworth could not hide his joy. ‘I’ve got a group of boys who just don’t know when they’re beat,’ he said. If only Garde could claim the same.