As we approach what is the fourth season since Aston Villa achieved a position of real note, there’s a growing anger that the club are no longer challenging at the top, or at least away from the bottom 11 or so who make up the majority of those scrapping for survival.
In a sense, the frustration is understandable. Once you’ve tasted success, you want more of it and, when you manage to have three seasons in a row in sixth place, you get to the point where you start believing the future is bright, and that there is a lot to look forward to.
Instead, as we saw post Martin O’Neill, everything dried up. We’ve had to get by on scraps, and after a feast of anything we wanted (at least within the constraints of reality), eating scraps is never going to be as satisfying.
However, whatever we think about satisfaction, we’ve arrived at this juncture because of consequences. Some may argue strongly and rightly that Villa should never have funded O’Neill’s spending to the point that it was to become a financial issue for the club. After all, isn’t that the role of the board – to understand the finances and control the situation so we don’t end up in a mess?
Sadly for us as fans, that situation wasn’t controlled until too late, leaving the aftermath as it is now – a stark and somewhat harsh contrast from the “best” Randy Lerner years, even if those best years bore no resemblance to what Villa deserved in the first place – if your lifestyle is funded by money you can’t afford to spend, it isn’t your lifestyle, and it isn’t what you deserve, it is simply a crest of a wave that has to crash down.
With Villa, that was exactly what has happened, and we are arguably near the bottom of the trough, though still having not drowned. In that sense, depending on one’s perception, you can see our existence as either horrid for being where we are, or at least better than disappearing under the water forever, much like Nottingham Forest, Bradford City, or Portsmouth have done post-relegation.
Getting back to the games, I know the past few in particular have been bad. As a paying customer, I’ve had to spend hours of my weekend to go to, sit through, and come home from games. As a supporter, I know that’s my job, but it doesn’t mean I’ve enjoyed the process.
Things might get better, or they might not. We’ve heard that the finances are stable now so, in theory, a bit more can be spent, at least when we get rid of Shay Given, Darren Bent and Alan Hutton. It won’t be life-changing amounts that will send us shooting up the table, but it should make some difference, perhaps making survival a little bit easier than previously.
That might not sound like much, especially to a team who used to finish in the top six regularly – well at least for three seasons in a row in recent times – but it is an improvement, and any improvement I can take is something I will grab on to with both hands.
Of course, we could end up going down this season, though I still consider it highly unlikely, not because of our ability, but because of the fact that teams below us are fighting each other for survival and, in that sense, they can’t all win to pass us – we may even be safe on the points we have now, but I’d rather not risk it.
So as we face yet another week of disappointment, there has to be an understanding that Villa are no longer challenging as a big club in a big league. It might be upsetting, it might be frustrating, and it might cause massive amounts of anger but where we are – at the bottom – is about where we deserve to be.
Things could have been done differently, much like we could say about our own lives to a lesser or greater extent, but they didn’t go as we expected. All that we can hope for, as the season draws to a close, is to pray for survival and hope that the summer offers us a little more leverage to move forwards.
The Author
