The one that broke my heart was the stupid defeat by Bournemouth at home. Full house, VP rocking, back in the Premiership still euphoric from the Wembley play off final. An exprienced, mature England international goalkeeper gives away a needless penalty in front of the Holte in the first minute. Suddenly the old, insecure, inferiority riddled Villa were back. This has been the season from hell. I have done several relegations, including down to the third division but the sheer endless agony of uncertainty makes this the worst.
Yes, that result was hard to take. I was in a foul humour after that one and knew this would be a slog. The Arsenal game, Palace, Liverpool and Spurs at home. We should have 4 points from those.
This has been a really horrible season.
Something else that makes this season even harder to bear is all the smoke and mirrors of responsibility around its awfulness. Back in the day our pain could be eased a little by having bogeymen we could blame for us being so shit. Doug Ellis, Tommy Docherty, Vic Crowe, Bingo Billy, O'Leary, Graham Turner, Eric Black, Kevin McDonald, Lambert's brother in law. We knew they were not individually and personally responsible but they acted as lightning conductors for our pain and anger.
Fast forward to the present day. Who is to blame for all this? Who actually said Wesley Moraes was worth £22.5 million? Who actually decided that Danny Drinkwater should be shoehorned into a failing side? Who actially thought we could survive in the Premiership without a proven goal scorer? Who failed to pick up on Nyland's neurosis? Who actually decided that RHM, Green and O'Hare should be got rid of while equally bad players on massive wages keep getting get out of jail cards? We shall never know and that is the way those responsible like it to be.
The one that broke my heart was the stupid defeat by Bournemouth at home. Full house, VP rocking, back in the Premiership still euphoric from the Wembley play off final. An exprienced, mature England international goalkeeper gives away a needless penalty in front of the Holte in the first minute. Suddenly the old, insecure, inferiority riddled Villa were back. This has been the season from hell. I have done several relegations, including down to the third division but the sheer endless agony of uncertainty makes this the worst.
I'd forgotten about all the excitement at the start of the season. Seems a long time ago now.
Didn't Luiz do a stepover for the second that just went to a Bournemouth player who fired it in from 20 yards? He obviously didn't know what "man on" meant back then.
We threw away so many points in August and September with sloppy errors and that is looking very costly now.
Agree SHQ but it looked very costly when it happened. One thing Villa fans know is what happens next.
The one that broke my heart was the stupid defeat by Bournemouth at home. Full house, VP rocking, back in the Premiership still euphoric from the Wembley play off final. An exprienced, mature England international goalkeeper gives away a needless penalty in front of the Holte in the first minute. Suddenly the old, insecure, inferiority riddled Villa were back. This has been the season from hell. I have done several relegations, including down to the third division but the sheer endless agony of uncertainty makes this the worst.
I'd forgotten about all the excitement at the start of the season. Seems a long time ago now.
Everton at home was epic.
January transfer window. Linked with names and ended up with shite. If we'd signed no one then we would be no worse off. Opportunity lost in what has turned out to be a shit division that we could've easily stayed up in.
We still easily could. We still might just miss out, we still might just squeeze by.
Something else that makes this season even harder to bear is all the smoke and mirrors of responsibility around its awfulness. Back in the day our pain could be eased a little by having bogeymen we could blame for us being so shit. Doug Ellis, Tommy Docherty, Vic Crowe, Bingo Billy, O'Leary, Graham Turner, Eric Black, Kevin McDonald, Lambert's brother in law. We knew they were not individually and personally responsible but they acted as lightning conductors for our pain and anger.
Fast forward to the present day. Who is to blame for all this? Who actually said Wesley Moraes was worth £22.5 million? Who actually decided that Danny Drinkwater should be shoehorned into a failing side? Who actially thought we could survive in the Premiership without a proven goal scorer? Who failed to pick up on Nyland's neurosis? Who actually decided that RHM, Green and O'Hare should be got rid of while equally bad players on massive wages keep getting get out of jail cards? We shall never know and that is the way those responsible like it to be.
I think Dean Smith will carry the can and get the bullet. I think Pitarch and Purslow will remain in place. They will stick with the 'business model' under a new head coach.
we got January wrong. Again.
We did not get January simply wrong, we messed up so badly we would have been better off doing nothing.
Pitarch can't remain after the success rate of last summer's dealings.
The one that broke my heart was the stupid defeat by Bournemouth at home. Full house, VP rocking, back in the Premiership still euphoric from the Wembley play off final. An exprienced, mature England international goalkeeper gives away a needless penalty in front of the Holte in the first minute. Suddenly the old, insecure, inferiority riddled Villa were back.
This, this and thrice this.
After a promising performance at Spurs, a win against Bournemouth would have been a massive boost and given us the momentum a promoted side needs, boosting the confidence of players in their ability to play at this level. That stupid error by Heaton, compounded by Luiz’s mad dummy had me despairing after the vibrant build up.
That game, followed by a ridiculous refereeing decision at Palace and shite decision making at Arsenal meant we were 3-5 points down on where we could have been, with a completely different platform for the season. Since then I have been nervous for every Villa match as they have all been so crucial.
The Everton home game on a sunny Friday night in August though gave me one of my favourite nights at Villa Park. The atmosphere was spine tingling.
The one that broke my heart was the stupid defeat by Bournemouth at home. Full house, VP rocking, back in the Premiership still euphoric from the Wembley play off final. An exprienced, mature England international goalkeeper gives away a needless penalty in front of the Holte in the first minute. Suddenly the old, insecure, inferiority riddled Villa were back.
This, this and thrice this.
After a promising performance at Spurs, a win against Bournemouth would have been a massive boost and given us the momentum a promoted side needs, boosting the confidence of players in their ability to play at this level. That stupid error by Heaton, compounded by Luiz’s mad dummy had me despairing after the vibrant build up.
That game, followed by a ridiculous refereeing decision at Palace and shite decision making at Arsenal meant we were 3-5 points down on where we could have been, with a completely different platform for the season. Since then I have been nervous for every Villa match as they have all been so crucial.
The Everton home game on a sunny Friday night in August though gave me one of my favourite nights at Villa Park. The atmosphere was spine tingling.
The Leicester game at home in the league was the first time I came away thinking we could be in trouble. We had been pretty competitive in most games up until then, but we capitulated in the second half and it looked a bit ominous.