Bonfire Night. Known amongst people in the UK as Guy Fawkes Night, in which we remember the day where a man once planned to blow up a rather large establishment.
On Saturday, the day that Bonfire Night falls on this year, Paul Lambert threatens to do a “Guy Fawkes” and place a big explosive barrel of disruption under the already destabilised Aston Villa.
Fans are already demanding the three points from a newly promoted Norwich. I can’t say I blame them because we sure need them. The only issue with demanding results nowadays from newly promoted sides, it that they aren’t the sacrificial lambs they may have been five years ago.
Norwich will come to Villa with nothing to lose. They’ll come with an angle of taking a point is great, but taking three would be fantastic. No fear, no expectation, and a great get-out clause if things don’t go well for them.
Villa sit firmly on the other side of the fence. The expectation will be three points. Anything less will just enrage the fan base, whether it is a point or none. Should McLeish drop a few points or all three, the questions being asked of him will only serve to validate the views of some fans that he doesn’t know what he is doing, even though he is likely just the hired scapegoat in this situation.
What Is A Good Result?
Which leads me on to perception. Aston Villa have largely assumed that there is an entitlement to a good position in the league, and to getting good players playing a great style of fluid attacking football.
Are they really entitled to that though? What, in recent years, has made us believe that we really are true contenders on any level?
Have we had a massive run of contending for the biggest prizes in recent years?
Have we played fantastic “Total Football” for the past decade?
Have we won anything at all in years?
The answer to them all is no. So why the assumption that now will be any different, especially with less money?
The closest we came to success was coming second in the League Cup under Martin O’Neill but then, in the same breath, that same competition was lauded as “Mickey Mouse” by Villa fans when Blues won it last year. Paradoxical? You bet.
We got to sixth in the league as well, for whatever that actually did for us. Why bother to compete for a place in Europe if you want to ignore the competition so much once you are in it? It was hardly like we were doing it to attract Europe’s elite to the club. Instead we shopped in the bargain bin for the best players from teams that went down. It honestly made no sense.
Of course such brutal honesty probably isn’t what people will want to hear. People want to hear that Villa will win matches regardless. Expectation is set up in a way that anything less than a win against “beatable opposition” equals disappointment equals anger equals the usual. Furore that doesn’t go away. Normally directed at McLeish and the board.
Would you want to manage that kind of club given the choice? Where the expectations are set so high, and the tools that are provided aren’t anywhere near suitable? Where the fans expect Villa to compete in the upper echelons of the table but without the talent to do so? No? Me either, and that is pretty much how the other candidates who were looked at by Villa responded.
Ask yourself just how many of our squad would get a place in a regular top six team, and use that to align yourself with whether we deserve a place there. I’d hazard a guess if you can only think of one or two, if that many, then that tells its own story.
What Do We Deserve?
For what it’s worth, I think that Villa have become something of a bloated and over-assuming organisation. When I mentioned earlier in the season that Venkys, the owners of Blackburn, didn’t know teams could be relegated, we all laughed.
Nowadays, we aren’t forgetting that we can be relegated, but we are making assumptions that we deserve to be in a certain place.
Ken McNaught said to me a month ago regarding the 1982 European Cup squad being inducted into the Football Museum Hall of Fame – “If Villa won again in Europe, the fans would forget about us tomorrow. The only reason we are still remembered is because of what we did, and the fact Villa haven’t won anything big since.”
Which is really quite true. The only reason we know and care who Tony Morley is, is because Gabby Agbonlahor hasn’t won the European Cup with Villa. Harsh? Probably, but ultimately true.
From here, it seems to be a case of misaligned expectations.
Last season, with a manager who has a CV as good as any other who has been at our club, we finished 9th, and that wasn’t even a fair representation of a “solid” 9th placed finish.
Since Houllier left, we have sold or released far more players than we have bought. Whilst there is justification in business terms for this realignment of financial outlay, it can’t be done without realigning expectation in a football sense.
When Martinez was mentioned as a candidate for the job, many thought it was a view of the board to create attacking, interesting football. The true reality was his selection was to find a man who could get by on a shoestring. The “good football” bit wasn’t why they wanted him and why, ultimately, Alex McLeish was an alternative candidate, again because he could get by on less money.
You can’t spend less money and do better if you keep doing it. Make a few savings, sure, but the fact remains that football requires money. If you don’t have it, you don’t survive. The problem is you can’t keep spending what you don’t have either. So it’s being stuck between a rock and a hard place. Hardly the definition of a fun place to be.
Will The Real Aston Villa Please Stand Up
So amidst all this confusion about the club, just who are the real Aston Villa? Are they the team we have playing in our head scoring for fun? Or the one that currently seems unable to take three points? More to the point, why are we seemingly thinking A and getting B?
To end up with a worse team than the one that avoided relegation last year by two games, and expect better results is pretty naive. Naive in the extreme in my personal opinion. Whilst N’Zogbia is a good player, and Given is a great keeper, they aren’t going to replace the hordes of players that did leave.
We lost Friedel, Downing & Young, sure, but we also lost others. Carew. Pires. Reo-Coker. Whether you want to suggest any of those players had an impact on things, the fact remains that they were a) experienced Premier League players and b) simply extra players in the squad.
Nowadays, when the first team don’t do well, the options left are playing the kids, who both don’t have the experience, and are hyped to kingdom come out of desperation.
So whilst we are all wanting wins going forwards, perhaps we should question whether or not we actually are entitled to them. Yes, we should beat Norwich on Saturday but, sooner or later, we need to realise that all the expectation does is weigh the club down under excess pressure.
I thought nearly going down last year would have been a wake-up call, but it appears not. Do we really have to wait until we are in the abyss again before we stop taking things for granted? I hope not.
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