Another defeat, and a route out of the FA Cup, as Aston Villa exhausted what was left invested in cup competitions, meaning that Friday night didn’t go to plan – that is if the “plan” was a Villa win.
In reality neither Villa’s season, nor the career of Paul Lambert will be defined by another miserable night, this time in Milwall. Cup losses to lesser teams are far from surprising but, as Villa reach what fans may hope is the nadir of their recent slump, anger may well be free-flowing.
Which isn’t to make a suggestion that I am happy to lose tonight (when I wrote this piece), or that we should be making the usual trite managerial small-talk about how “we didn’t want to focus on this competition because our season isn’t going to be defined by it”.
What may be ironic after saying the last statement is that another cup run is probably, all being said, the last thing we needed. With a team that seems able to be cut in two by teams that are as disparate as Chelsea and Bradford City, another cup run is irrelevant if the team can’t stop the rot – what Villa need now is league salvation.
The sad part of this is that salvation – whether league based, cup based, or anything based – can seem so far from where the club currently stand. As I stated months ago, the decline the club see themselves in is far from an overnight phenomenon, and whilst it may well be Lambert who draws the criticism last night and this morning, the issues are far bigger, and started far earlier than, the employment of Villa’s latest affable Scot.
What may well be the most important matter for fans of the club is precisely how Villa can pull themselves out of the tailspin they are in. With many seeing the usual controls not on the table – spending money or changing manager being the two main ones – then it is wholly understandable why rage is bubbling up.
With that said, at least one of the above does seem sensible. Whilst Lambert may not be the favourite manager of many Villa fans this Saturday morning, he has got a (mostly) good record in his career, and sacking him would potentially have a more destablising effect on the team rather than the latter.
Why? If one considers such a plan – that to remove the manager – his replacement wouldn’t be in place before the transfer window shuts, leaving whoever is in control with a team that has no chance to spend, and a combination of failed academy products mixed with the purchases of another man.
Does that spell any kind of success? Sure, there’s the fantasy-like Roy of the Rovers thought that a new man could instill something, anything, to make the club better, though I imagine we’re all in agreement that confidence, or rather a lack thereof, is what has destroyed our team for the most part.
I mean, yes, there are players in our team that aren’t good enough, but many of these are just a group who have to be played – I may well lambast Ciaran Clark as being awful at defending, but the truth remains that Villa have few options who are better.
Which, in a nutshell, explains precisely why the Villa job is an unenviable task nowadays. In addition to that, there is the harsh reality that who in their right mind would, assuming the manager was sacked, want the job. Last season, Alex McLeish was one of a very short list. If changes were rung now, expect an even shorter one with no manager worth his salt willing to jump on-board.
For me, it is all a bit of a blur. In recent times, I have been promised by those at the club that “things are in the works”, and that whilst Villa’s spending may not have the same massive weight that is had in recent years, that something was happening.
Call it blind faith, idiocy, or hope, but I would like to think that something will happen before next month in terms of getting extra players in order for the manager to be able to stand a chance of making a difference.
Paul Lambert isn’t a manager who has gone bad overnight, rather Villa are a club that have gotten worse over the past few seasons. So, before calling for the sacking of a manager at the club, look a little deeper and ask yourself what, if anything, his removal would do – only worse things in my opinion.
Randy, on the off-chance you’re reading – save our season. If you choose not to, we’ll know where we stand and, mark my words, you’ll soon hear from the terraces as to how far you’ve fallen in the eyes of many of our club’s fans.
The Author
