I’ll be honest…didn’t catch the Swansea match. Too chuffed to finish 2011 with a solid, respectable win. Too much drinking (about 16 hours’ worth following that win and the new year celebration that followed). Recovery time. A family birthday dinner. A son dying to buy his first car.
It’s really a bit stupid to fill the festive season with games so close to each other. If anything, the action should be reduced, not compressed and compounded. Asking players to play 48 hours after a big game…Well, it’s okay in some sports, a bit daft and counterproductive in others.
I’m not making excuses. But if, on New Year’s Eve, you travel to London and record the biggest win of your season, and 48 hours later you’re back at home playing Swansea when you’d really rather be doing anything else…It means anything is on the cards. They’re people. And they spent a lot of themselves on Saturday.
I thought Matt’s summary yesterday was spot on. Better than Swansea? Yes. Better than Chelsea? No. Three points out of the two games? What you would’ve hoped for, but likely reversed in how they were attained. Me, I’m not at all surprised Villa followed up the fantastic Chelsea triumph with a letdown against Swansea. I might’ve been a little more surprised if the game had followed a week later, as usual. Time to celebrate. Time to digest. Time to refocus and come back to earth.
Time for a team to recover, settle down, and get back down to the basics that saw them playing better the previous three outings and get their their heads on straight.
So, I’m not going to panic. Am I happy? No. But I had a wonderful New Year with family and friends launched into fine form by the Chelsea win. A contrived afterthought of a game following that that was just stupid.
I’m not so starved of entertainment that I needed the game. The scheduling is silly and capricious. Instead of a well-deserved slow down, it all goes to hyperdrive—which means anything can happen.
To quote Maximus-Decimus-whatever-his-name-was, “Are you not entertained?!” It’s a farce, really.
So, Villa came back after a famous victory and didn’t quite rise to the occasion. I’m hard-pressed to wonder why they, or anyone else, should have to. Are our lives so empty we need this many games in so short a time?
The real point isn’t the Swansea loss. It’s the Chelsea win. On the road, down one to a team worth at least 5 or 6 times what Villa’s squad are, a team fighting for their professional pride and points in a title race rapidly falling out of grasp, Villa scored three unanswered. Villa weathered the big-time substitutions of Lampard and Torres. Villa pressed, fought, countered and prevailed.
That’s the game I’ll remember. You’re measured, as a warrior, by the valor and strength of your opponent. All well and good Swansea doing all they could. Fair play.
But beating Chelsea was what counted. Beating Chelsea is the thing that stays in the players’ minds. Beating Chelsea is what you build on. Not beating or losing to Swansea. I doubt anyone in the dressing room really cared, to be honest. It was like dinner with the in-laws, who you don’t like very much, after one of the best days you’ve had in years.
And what would you have preferred? The results reversed? Would you have given up the joy of Villa’s second and third against the detestable nouveau riche of Chelsea for a win against Swansea? I don’t think so.
I know I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t have screamed like a madman at the telly if we’d scored a knockout blow against Swansea. I wouldn’t have considered it a meaningful win. I wouldn’t have considered it much of anything, really. I guess I would’ve been relieved, if we’d lost to Chelsea beforehand.
We know the team is flawed. We know, as Matt said, that they’ve routinely disappointed us over the last years with lousy performances following big wins. That’s Villa. O’Neill’s Villa. O’Leary’s Villa. Houllier’s Villa. McLeish’s Villa.
Take the Chelsea win, forget Swansea, and look forward to a regular schedule. Villa have it in them. We know that, now. Let’s see them produce it more often than not, and everything will be just fine.
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