After a weekend where Aston Villa lose, it can be hard to feel good about the situation. Against Tottenham Hotspur, there was a sense of disappointment amongst many, that this wasn’t a game that wasn’t going to be won once it started.
Obviously, for any fan, that can be frustrating, as can losing. It also can be hard to suggest that losing is somehow “good” – it isn’t – but it happens to every team at some point, no matter how good they are.
The problem with losing for us as fans is that is hurts. Nobody, not one person, wants to feel bad. Even those people who seem to wallow in negative thoughts don’t actually want to feel bad – after all, that wallowing itself is just a subjective view the person watching made up.
Again, because it hurts we, like any creature, are likely to respond in our own way. Whether that means calling out our own team as awful, or blaming all the faults on the opposition, defence mechanisms are hard wired into us all – after all, we’ve got to rationalise what happened.
At times like these, it is hard to step back and put some distance on things, especially if the bad feeling from a loss makes us feel angry, upset, or sad. However, in order to try and focus things, I thought I’d bring a wholly objective angle – comparing this season directly to the last one.
Maybe All That Is Needed Is Some Objectivity
If we look at the results so far this season in the league, we’ve had the following (last season’s exact results are in brackets followed by the difference in points this season versus last season’s results):
Arsenal away – 3-1 win (1-2 loss / +3 points)
Chelsea away – 0-1 loss (0-8 loss / +0 points)
Liverpool home – 0-1 loss (1-2 loss / +0 points)
Newcastle United home – 1-2 loss (1-2 loss / +0 points)
Norwich City away – 1-0 win (2-1 win / +0 points)
Manchester City home – 3-2 win (0-1 loss / +3 points)
Tottenham Hotspur home – 0-2 loss (0-4 loss / +0 points)
So, in brief, we’ve got six more points than we had last season. Whilst many could argue that beating last season’s total may not be a massive achievement given where we placed, the fact remains that we have progressed in comparative terms.
Is it a massive step forwards? No, not in the sense that we are not in the top four, but we are certainly better than we were last season – we’ve only equalled or bettered our results compared to the last campaign.
Which is why, in all honesty, I sometimes find the social media comments that spring up a little hot-headed. As I said before, emotions can, and do, run high after games. Nobody likes to lose but, and this is key, Villa have limited options going forwards.
Some have suggested that the manager much change, or that new signings from this season such as Libor Kozak or Alexsandr Tonev are not good enough to play for our club, but change isn’t feasible, nor is it even fair in the case of the new players mentioned.
Such a brooding, almost self-harming feeling is something that needs to be acknowledged and addressed. Again, I’m totally understanding of why things are said, and the emotional circumstances that prompt these feelings, but I can’t help but feel that the club has become something of an unreality to some of the fans.
Reading on Twitter on Sunday night, I saw calls that the manager should be sacked, and that he should be replaced with someone who could “do a better job”.
Firstly, why? As I’ve illustrated above, our results are getting better, not worse, so where is the logic for him being sacked? If it comes down to the emotion we feel then, like any emotionally motivated choice, it is likely to be made without calm, sensible rationale.
Secondly, who is this saviour of Villa who would come? Sad as it is to say, we’ve seen a lot of change at our club. Some of it has been merited, some of it has been unavoidable, but shifting sands do not equal progress, not unless you have oligarch-level money to spend on the world’s best players, and we don’t have that.
What we do have is a slowly improving team that has been restructured financially from a point of meltdown to a point of sensibility. That this has been achieved and that the team is getting more points than last season is a sign of progress, a sign of hope, a sign that the future can, and will, be better.
So on a Monday morning, as we reflect on a loss against a team that has just spent £90m on their squad, remember this – change takes time. It may not be fun to hear, it may not be a perfect solution, but it is the only one – further change will only serve to set the club back yet again, leaving a once proud team facing real trouble.
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