It’s revving up, and we know all too well how this works. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll be on the edge of your seat. You’ll see some transfers coming on like a very, very slow train in the distance. Others will just pop up out of bushes. But while every window is important, this one is every bit as crucial as last summer’s.
Football’s been just about the last thing on my mind, and it feels very strange to be coming back to the keyboard to write about a resumption of sporting hostilities when so much else has been going on. But here we are, and Villa will start fighting for their Premier League lives again in a week. God only knows what’ll we get. Regardless, it’s time to shake off the rust and get our game faces on.
Wembley again, Manchester City again. You’d like to think that on any given day, anything is possible. You’d like to think that on any given day, anything is possible. On paper, Villa have no chance. Today comes down to whether Villa are going to read that sheet of paper and believe it, or decide to write down something else.
It’s taken me a while to get over the Spurs match, but what I take from it is that we can claw out the results we need if we can just show a bit more composure and cut down on the mistakes.
In recent years, I’ve dismissed cup competitions for Villa because we’ve been up against it, and the extra games don’t seem to help survival or promotion. They’re a distraction: fatigue, injury, possible demoralization. The only value has seemed to be in getting minutes in match conditions for players and combinations that don’t start regularly. But tonight’s game is a little different.
