With Paul Lambert slowly settling down into his role as Aston Villa manager, a new, brighter future appears to be unfurling in front of our very eyes. For those of us tired of seasons of decline amidst even larger periods of a lack of silverware, such progress is the cause of much excitement.
After all, when a neutral looks at a club like Aston Villa, the common view on past seasons is that Villa have been a club without a plan, without hope, and with more than enough anger to give psychotherapists enough reason to start a practice up in the Aston area.
For fans of the club, such as you or I, any kind of change will have been seen as progress. This isn’t to sleight anything that Lambert is currently in the process of doing – quite the opposite – but rather that the “Anything is better than Alex McLeish” brigade will have seen, well, anything as better.
Opening signs of Lambert’s reign show great promise with transfer targets appearing regularly in the headlines of newspapers and websites alike – something fans will invariably have missed during the time of austerity under the unpopular McLeish.
Speaking personally, my thoughts are, as always, pragmatic. Just as I refused to get swept away in the furore and anger that rose up in the era of McLeish, so I will not be down the betting shop putting money on instant glory for us Villans. The future may well be bright but, as we have seen in many areas of life, there is often a period where things must be proven before we can count on them.
This in itself is a reflection on much of the club’s history, from the academy products to expensively bought signings. As with all things in life, there will never been 100% certainties, nor should there be expectation that any one facet of the club can bring the club’s future to bear. Even when looking at England’s greatest show of youth progress in recent years – Manchester United’s golden generation – there were still supplements to the (once) youthful exuberance of David Beckham, Paul Scholes, the Neville brothers, and all of the other youngsters who flourished as United set the league alight.
To draw some kind of parallel, United’s period before this success was, much like Villa’s, bereft of much silverware. Such a simplistic analysis may well draw the reasoning of some fans for picking large portions of the reserves to build around. However, such analysis goes in the face of some certifiable truths – that many of Villa’s youngsters can not hold a candle to the United model.
No, such an interpretation does not mean I have any allegiance to United anymore than commenting on the positive steps that Manchester City have made – rather those that other clubs can actually mimic – would make me a Blue.
Villa, like any other club or any other individual, must learn lessons. Some of the lessons are illustrated in stark terms – the failure of maintaining a wage bill or of harsh austerity measures – whilst others are far more subtle, such as whether the next youth product will make it in the team.
As with life in general, the process of learning will be a combination of experience as well as trial and error which means, as the manager has already stated, that there will be downs as well as ups. Acceptance of this reality is key, as doing anything but will just result in far more hurt than good.
This doesn’t mean that we should all enshroud in ourselves in blind optimism, nor that we should sit around never choosing to argue that things could have been done better. What we must do is support the team – a logical idea in theory – as we also hope that Lambert can get more success than failure from his plans.
With targets continuing to arrive in the stream of consciousness of Villa fans, such as Yacine Brahimi and Ivan Ramis, as well as suggested sales being vaunted, such as Richard Dunne and Gabriel Agbonlahor, much will change in the next few weeks and months.
We may not be seeing the finished article when it comes to our club, nor may we see it for a long while, but the initial stages, as early as it may be, look to provide far more optimism than any period under our past few managers. That, with no extras on top, is enough for me to feel proud to be a Villan.
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