After yesterday’s joy unwrapping gifts, spending time with your loved ones and both eating and drinking yourself silly, it’s now back down to business – it’s football day.
Munching on the leftover turkey and chocolates, placing your festive accumulators at the local betting shop, having a few chilled alcoholic beverages prior to witnessing the main event and
(hopefully) watching your team bag three points – that’s why I friggin’ well love Boxing Day, in fact more so than Christmas Day itself. In my opinon, for the average British man the 26th December is the best day of the calendar year.
Now I’ve bolstered you up with sheer excitement about the day ahead, unfortunately I’m going to have to slap you in the face and re-visit Sundays thumping/annihilation/total obliteration at Stamford Bridge.
It finished 8-0, and if truth be told it could and probably should have been more. After watching his side truly demolish our young and fragile team, Chelsea manager Rafa Benitez remarkably praised our game plan, the way we moved the ball and thought that his players had to “work very hard to control us.” The Blues had an incredible 26 attempts at goal, 19 of which were on target; what game was he watching? Please don’t be so patronising.
However, I did agree with what Benitez had to say about Paul Lambert, “He has very good ideas, and will improve the team – and they (Aston Villa) will finish in a good position.”
Yes – it was embarrassing and, yes, we had to face a 24-hour barrage of being on the end of jokes centering around the following: After Eight’s, ‘I’d 8 to be…’, ‘Alright m8…’ and so forth.
I don’t often react to jibes from supporters of our two neighbouring clubs, my tweet response the other day was bang on point though, ‘Birmingham fans, you’re struggling in the Championship. Albion fans, you have no history and were a yo-yo club till’ a short while ago. The End.’
Truth be told, I’m relieved that we’re back in action so soon after the Chelsea match because the last thing I’d want is for this group of players to mull over such negativity. Today’s match against Spurs brings with it an opportunity to right the wrongs of Sunday.
If I could choose an opponent to play today however, it certainly wouldn’t have been Spurs. They are a team capable of running us ragged. The lads mustn’t question their ability for one moment, they need to go out there, show some character and do us proud.
As for the fans, they are tasked with creating a buzz about Villa Park as we don’t want any negative vibes about the place that the players may pick up on – especially if things aren’t going our way in the early stages.
It’ll be very interesting to see how we shape up today, and whether or not we’ll stick with the flat three at the back with Lichaj and Lowton operating at wing-back, or will we mix things up a little bit in the wake of Sunday’s events? I’m really not sure, Paul Lambert is as predictable as the British legal system, i.e. not very. My only request is to get Barry Bannan off of set-pieces.
I’d happily take a point tomorrow, my concerns lay more with the matches post-Spurs – the games that we ought to be winning. On Saturday we host Wigan in our final game of 2012, before a trip to the Liberty Stadium to face Swansea followed by two cup games, then Southampton at home and then West Bromwich Albion away – a run of fixtures that we should be looking to pick up some big points from. Those are the sort of matches that we should be judged upon, and will decide our destiny come what may.
Looking at the positives; we lost to Chelsea having gone five league games unbeaten and having also beat Norwich away to secure a dream cup semi-final draw against a League Two side. A showcase final at Wembley is just 180 minutes away. After today we’ll be at the halfway point and be on either 19, 21 – or 18 points still.
As I’ve said from the off, this year is going to be a low scoring year in the race to battle against relegation. I don’t wish to put a jinx on anything but I feel comfortable in saying that Villa will not go down.
Now for my score predictions. Seeing as there are three fixtures between now and next weeks article I may as well cover them all (with my head and not my heart): Villa 1 – 2 Spurs, Villa 2 – 0 Wigan & Swansea 1 – 1 Villa. Four points would be a respectable return, anything more is a bonus.
And that’s it from me until next year Lifers. I’ll see you all in 2013.
Happy New Year. Up The Villa.
The Author
