As you may or may not have noticed, I haven’t been around much the last couple weeks. A long weekend with the girlfriend preceded a short week and then another long holiday weekend for Thanksgiving. Which means good food, drink, family, football (mostly American), and some laying about and going out. And not being fussed about watching Villa.
Don’t get me wrong. If the Swansea game had been later in the day, instead of 6:00am my time, I’d have watched and been underwhelmed like everyone else was, I’m sure. But there’s no small difference between 6:00 and 8:00 when you’re lying in a nice warm bed with a beautiful woman on a Sunday morning.
And to be honest, could you say Villa would make waking up that rudely worthwhile? I didn’t think so. After all, the Packers dispatched the Lions with style in the end on Thursday morning as Screwdrivers and Bloodies flowed, and the Sooners, well, they did on Saturday what they’ve been doing all year and made a walkover much more interesting than it needed to be. Alabama played Arkansas and won going away on Friday, setting up a potential rematch with Louisiana State for the national championship. It’s a bad thing that only a playoff can fix, but that’s not really important, and playoffs aren’t happening anytime soon regardless.
None of this means I don’t care about Villa. I do. But the script for this season at least was written over the hills and far away a long long time ago in a galaxy far…never mind. I was just following orders anyway.
To be a little more honest, I didn’t actually anticipate so many draws. I wasn’t alight with prospects of excitement as the summer progressed, but I thought we’d have more wins, more losses, and fewer draws at this stage of proceedings. I understand if that implies more excitement, as I’d probably agree.
While it’s been interesting, it hasn’t been terribly exciting. But we should be careful what we wish for. If you’d watched very exciting and inexplicable losses to Texas A&M and Baylor (for the first time in school history) for Oklahoma, you’d not be very impressed with what passes for exciting these days. If you were rooting for the Sooners, anyway, which you should be.
These were agonizing defeats laced through with unfulfilled promise and unmet expectations, inspired passages of play outweighed by inept and unimposing passages that lost the day and left one with that sour taste that lingers too long because you expected more. Much more. Everything undone in a night. And then new hope undone on another night. The coach says he doesn’t care what critics think. Fans want some sort of action. The last championship was in 2000. It isn’t good enough.
Villa, however, have promised nothing grand, while hinting vaguely of possible thrills toward the business end of the season: the sort of thrills that are inevitably attached to a bottom-half finish. It was always likely thus, as I’ve said.
Whether this is only a boring but prudent course correction or a vessel heeling headlong into the reef, I can’t say. I generally think it’s the former, but you never know. At any rate, we could see the writing on the wall when Young and Downing weren’t replaced like for like and Alex McLeish was in as second or sixth choice. I’ve seen nothing surprising, including the timidity at White Hart Lane.
I’ve not been terribly fussed yet as I do think Villa can ultimately compete for Europe, based on our turnover, once the legacy problems have been addressed. But neither have I been inspired by anything I’ve seen this year.
I thought the idea forwarded yesterday about young side through the middle and font during the upcoming minefield of fixtures wasn’t bad. Keep the veterans in the back (better the devil you know for the youngsters in front of them, never mind the lack of options), give orders to be aggressive and uncowed, keep the big boys off their game by just wanting it as much if not more, and see what happens…there are worse ideas.
Maybe McLeish will say what the hell and go for it. Maybe he’ll think he can get something more out of these games if he’s conservative. We’ll obviously soon see. But Heskey and Petrov…Well, we’re not getting anything memorable happening there. Play actual fullbacks, not four CBs. Get CNZ in the hole, or wherever it is he wants to be. Try to set Gabby up running at the defenders. It’s all very easy, isn’t it?
But if it gets to be a bit much, take a break for a weekend or two—you’ll have to figure out how to entertain yourselves—let it take care of itself, and breathe deeply. Because the sun also rises, Christmas is on the way, and missing a 0-0 draw that will be indistinguishable from a number of other 0-0 draws this season isn’t going to harm you. You’ll know how the script goes. The same with any 7-1 defeats. You’ll know what that looks like, too. If you miss a win over United or some such…well, we wouldn’t have won if you’d been watching, and you know it. If you’ve got a season ticket, let someone else go just for the hell of it. I understand they’ll likely have something to complain about even if you gave them the tickets for free, but it’s the thought that counts.
Don’t tell anyone, but I found it nice to wake up, find I’d missed the match, quickly see I hadn’t missed much, and go back to sleep. The game changed nothing, the arguments remained the same, and, well…This is what this year is going to be like. I’m not going to panic until everyone else has jumped overboard and distracted the sharks first.
Then I’ll just try and swim quietly off in the other direction. But I will get up early next time. Unless I don’t.
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