I should open this article and apologise for my absence from the site over the past few days – life has gotten busy all of a sudden in terms of getting things moving forward for me financially so I’ve not been as visible as I’d liked. However, I’m always around and wanted to say thank you to everyone for keeping the spirit of Aston Villa Life going regardless of my presence or not.
As we approach the last home game of the season, it would seem that Aston Villa are going to survive. Despite many of us having our hearts in our mouths for large parts of this campaign, it looks like we are going to stay up.
Now I appreciate that staying up isn’t the loftiest of ambitions for a football club, especially one that has a European cup win under their belt, even if it was back in the early 1980s.
With all that said, there’s a strong argument that this season – frustrating as it may well have been at times – was a necessary step, a move forwards that had to be done sooner or later.
After all, when we look back at some of the major issues at the club, most of them financially based, something had to give. Whether your view of the situation lays the blame at former managers, the owner, or any other person involved in decision making at the club, the fact remains that for at least a few seasons the club have had massive issues, and ones that wouldn’t go away overnight.
So, with that in mind, it strikes me as less than surprising that this season has been somewhat flat. As a fan, I know it has been very difficult to see the club at the wrong end of the table again though, if we’re honest, the majority of the support were glad to see anyone other than Alex McLeish in charge this time around.
Sure, Paul Lambert isn’t perfect and, sure, there are fans who don’t necessarily think he is the best fit for the club. However, when we look at the context of the club and the issues we have faced this season, survival may well be nothing short of a miracle.
I know that sounds ridiculous, that simply surviving has turned into an achievement just a few short years after we finished in 6th place under Martin O’Neill.
The reality is what it is though and few can doubt that the purchases Lambert has made have, on the whole, been good for the club. We can take apart individuals and criticise them for their work ethic, talent, or any other attribute that we think lacking, but that wouldn’t be a fair deal for one major reason – the ethos that Lambert is building this club on.
For Lambert, the team is the key part of success. Some can argue that Lambert is hardly well placed to qualify his time at Villa as successful but, as with many matters related to football, it is all subjective – after all, Villa haven’t exactly been competing at the right end of the table in the past two seasons.
The key difference, for me at least, is that this season there is a strong team focus. Some of this has come from the natural desire of younger players keen to prove their worthiness at this level – Christian Benteke being a key example – but the overarching team ethos has been central to Villa’s recent revival.
Whether one wants to attribute the recent form Villa have had over the last ten games as the result of luck, planning, or sheer desperation, the fact remains that the club have hit form at just the right time. Wigan Athletic, forever seen as the Houdini act of the Premier League, appear to be faltering though they are not the only ones close to the edge.
Villa themselves are not mathematically safe as we speak, but they are closer to survival than Newcastle United, a team that many Villa fans looked jealously at during January as they bought up key players that could have played a role at Villa Park.
One thing this swing of fortune does illustrate, especially when analysed in the context of Queens Park Rangers’ season, is that money alone wins nothing. Sure, if you’re Manchester City and you can buy the very best players on the planet, you’re going to get it right more than wrong. At the other end of the table though, spending isn’t always the solution.
If it was, QPR wouldn’t already have been relegated and Newcastle wouldn’t be sitting close to dropping down with them. Conversely, we would be rock bottom if monetary spend in January counted for anything. As it happens, it isn’t the case.
Should Villa survive this year, I think it will be a massive achievement because most of the overpaid players brought in by O’Neill will be finally off the books, though the post-O’Neill era spending in Darren Bent and Stephen Ireland still weigh heavily on the Villa coffers.
Survive and Villa can build on a new platform. It may not be Manchester City level players with a title tilt next season but it should, in theory at least, be a lot more solid than this time around. It’s been a rocky ride this season for sure, but we look like we’re going to make it – fingers crossed for a point at the weekend to make survival a certainty.
The Author
