Saturday yielded yet further points thrown away in our battle to beat the drop. Three points from a possible 24 is worse than relegation form—it’s a bloody catastrophe.
Before the game against Everton I would have quite happily taken a point, but for the umpteenth time this season Villa did what Villa do best: drop-off and sit deeper than a deep sea diver in the Great Barrier Reef. Ultimately for us this means conceding goals—and perhaps the funniest thing about it—we all saw it coming.
And to make matters worse Reading won again—for the fourth time in six games. We’re now two points from safety, while QPR are creeping closer towards us. Yup—we could soon be the bottom Premier League club. How embarrassing.
This Sunday’s fixture at home to West Ham is a MUST WIN match, with Arsenal and Manchester City after this one, and the likes of Manchester United and Chelsea still to play between now and May, we can ill-afford to lose matches like this, nor draw them.
If the Football Gods came up to me tomorrow and said to me, “Ryan, Villa will go to Wigan on the final day and have to win. And if they win, Villa will stay up.” I would snap their hand off, because at this rate we are going to be well out of contention by then. In all honesty I don’t think we stand a chance of coming good, because as much as I hate to say it, this group of players just don’t have the character or the bottle for it. I am resigned to our fate.
Does anyone wish to give me a price that I shall be eating my words come 6pm on Sunday 19th May? I’m open to offers.
I fully expect the R’s to sneak back into contention for that 17th place that we’re all scrapping away for, particularly as they strengthened so much in January, but also because fortunately for them, they have still got to play all the teams just above them and on paper they do have the players to pluck themselves out of this mess.
I’ve been thinking about things rather in depth recently about what we can expect should/when the relegation (shoot me—I just said the R—word) does happen and Villa go down.
This crop of players may be lacking both the necessary quality and experience for the Premier League, but I imagine that they would be more than good enough to cope with life in the Championship.
There is a further positive spin to this article; if we were to be playing football in the second tier next season then looking at this squad, I reckon we should be able to keep most of our playing staff.
It’s difficult to estimate, particularly because as fans we don’t know the exact pay packet of each player, but I would say that our first team squad wage bill is now very much in line with what the club brings in. And although we would lose out on TV money and sponsorships – we would receive a substantial parachute payment.
Upon going down question marks would reign supreme around the following player’s futures: Shay Given, Ron Vlaar, Richard Dunne, Stephen Ireland, Charles N’Zogbia, Jean Makoun, Darren Bent, Gabriel Agbonlahor and of course, Christian Benteke.
Dunne’s contract is set to expire and will not be renewed, whilst Given, Makoun and Bent will be told to find other clubs. Seeing as Gabby bleeds claret and blue blood then we may well be able to keep hold of him.
The vultures will come swarming for Christian Benteke, however the club won’t allow him to go on the cheap and could comfortably demand at least double the £7 million fee that we paid K.R.C. Genk for his sublime services last summer.
That leaves us with an intriguing trio of players; if it were sustainable for the club to keep hold of Vlaar, Ireland and N’Zogbia, for what would hopefully be one season in the Championship, and they were all forthcoming and said that they’d be more than happy to help the club return to the top flight, then that would be a bonus.
Paul Lambert would be my man to bring us back up, sign-up half-a-dozen viable additions to the squad and I’d expect a relatively comfortable season and see a return to the Premier League for the 2014/15 season.
The Everton match was the final straw for me. The final nail in the coffin. This season thus far we have won just four games from 25 and I have yet to see anything to convince me that we can win five or six games in our final 13 matches to give us half-a-chance of survival.
We need to do “a Wigan.”
Until next week, Up The Villa.
The Author
