If this were the start of the season, many neutrals would suggest that one of the teams in today’s game would be sitting pretty in the league whilst the other narrowly dodged relegation. Few, however, would put Aston Villa as the team sitting on the edge of the abyss.

Perhaps I am being a tad over the top in suggesting that we sit on the edge of survival given the size of the league structure in this country, but many will see it that way – relegation from the Premier League is not really something that a club the size of Villa should be enduring.

Such a statement isn’t, a statement of arrogance, despite the protests of some on my Friday article for the Express & Star’s site. Thankfully I had Darran Nicholas, a commenter from our site to back me up as anything but arrogant so, Darran, thank you for your support. Together we stand after all.

As for arrogance in football, I fully know about the importance, or rather the lack thereof, of a club’s history. History counts for nothing in present terms – zip, zero, zilch.

In fact, in this country in particular, all past glories serve to be for the passer-by is a stick with which to beat the once-successful when they invariably stumble. Saddening? Yes, but altogether understandable in an era where success often appears out of nowhere and disappears in the same time scale.

That isn’t to say that we shouldn’t remember memories that we have with fondness. I, like any other Villa fan out there, will be very proud to say that our team has won the European Cup, though I stop short of using it as some kind of proof of superiority that, sadly, some others may do.

After all, my own father-in-law, Allan, is a long-standing, and long-suffering, Nottingham Forest fan. Villa’s pre-season game may well be an opportunity for us both to attend a game where both of our teams are playing, even though we will be in opposing ends.

Getting back to the point in hand, Allan, like other Forest fans, is happy to remember their European Cup wins in 1979 and 1980. Sadly for him, and the rest of the Forest faithful, he remembers them as a supporter of a team that just survived relegation from the Championship.

So, as it happens, the past counts for nothing. Memory laden as ours may well be, we would still be well advised to not use some past achievement as a belief to consider us immortals, as though we are unable to be relegated no matter what.

The juxtaposition I often find myself observing is that fans, often as self-deprecating as many of us Brummies can be, also get tied into the belief that we are one of the bigger clubs and, thus, should never be in this mess in the first place.

So we end up with this strange combination of feelings that leads many to believe that we are poor and deserve nothing from any game whilst, at the same time, also being apoplectic with rage about the very thought.

Facts remain that the problems at Villa Park are, and will be for a fair period, deeper than the change of any manager may affect. Such a statement neither supports or rejects Alex McLeish as the man in charge, merely serving to illustrate that context needs to be put in place.

Much may well change during the close season, manager and more, but Villa are still on a path that is far from the end of the road. Villa will invariably, in sensible terms, have plans and aspirations of a solid mid-table finish come next season, although the tightness in terms of points earned could mean such an aim meaning anything from eighth to sixteenth.

Such a short term plan isn’t, in any sense, the dawning of the end of the world. Sure, Villa have achieved places above mid-table but they have, as with this season, also managed to end up the other side of the middle too.

The club are, thankfully, on the right track financially, with thoughts that Villa might be on the verge of a Portsmouth or past Leeds team a tad over the top. Sensible spending may need to be continued and it may, in the short term, prove to be contrary to achievement of success. What will matter to the fans, and to the club itself, is if there is a plan that such a set of moves may be underpinned by.

After all, it is fairly easy to placate people if you offer a plan to take the club back to past greatness, although the lack of statements and talk from Villa’s owner may well mean plans continue to go unsaid.

So, as we arrive at the last day of the season, our safety all but secured, we can look back at a season where much anger arose, where men failed to do their job, but where Villa, at least, managed to survive.

That will be the real epitaph of this season of disappointment – Aston Villa survived. They didn’t win anything, but they didn’t go down either, despite poor performances, financial cuts, and other ineptitudes.

Survival may well be a small reward maybe, but at least one that allows us to continue our plight the right side of the relegation zone.

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