The perception of Villa

[TimTheVillain]

I agreed with Savage that we need to sign Bellamy, Chris.

I am optimistic by nature, but do find it hard to get really positive about the coming season and the way the club is progessing.

We are 3 players and one playing in the wrong position short of being a very good team.

A team that would excite and challenge for a top 5 position all the way bar injury.

We are not pushing on like I thought we would.

If you're happy, that's great.

[Risso]

I think you're right.

We are seen as a 'homely' club with an eccentric Manager and a quiet, wealthy owner who wants 'tradition' as the cllub's mantra more importantky than 'winners'.

We just aren't seen as a team of winners, a club to be feared with a fortess of a home ground.

If we accept where we are we can move forward ( brightly).

If we continue to look at our club through rose tinted glasses, you could change our club motto to 'Proud to be mediocre' and it would be more appropriate.

I think that's a load of crap, if you don't mind me saying, you're confusing us with Ipswich.

I think it's all in your own head. On another thread you were saying how you agreed with Savage who, amongst other things, said "Martin has proved he can deliver success and I wouldn’t bet against Villa having another good season" now you're saying that you think that really we're not bothered.

O'Neill has delivered success at Leicester, who are about the same size as Ipswich.

[Chris Smith]

I agreed with Savage that we need to sign Bellamy, Chris.

I am optimistic by nature, but do find it hard to get really positive about the coming season and the way the club is progessing.

We are 3 players and one playing in the wrong position short of being a very good team.

A team that would excite and challenge for a top 5 position all the way bar injury.

We are not pushing on like I thought we would.

If you're happy, that's great.

The season hasn't started, there's still a month left of the window so talk of "pushing on" is at best premature. I'm relaxed because i'ts like this every summer with a few people getting their knickers in a twist over every twist and turn of the tabloid rumour mill.

[Chris Smith]

I think you're right.

We are seen as a 'homely' club with an eccentric Manager and a quiet, wealthy owner who wants 'tradition' as the cllub's mantra more importantky than 'winners'.

We just aren't seen as a team of winners, a club to be feared with a fortess of a home ground.

If we accept where we are we can move forward ( brightly).

If we continue to look at our club through rose tinted glasses, you could change our club motto to 'Proud to be mediocre' and it would be more appropriate.

I think that's a load of crap, if you don't mind me saying, you're confusing us with Ipswich.

I think it's all in your own head. On another thread you were saying how you agreed with Savage who, amongst other things, said "Martin has proved he can deliver success and I wouldn’t bet against Villa having another good season" now you're saying that you think that really we're not bothered.

O'Neill has delivered success at Leicester, who are about the same size as Ipswich.

It was the "homely" line that caused the Ipswich comparison so that's irrelevant.

[paul_e]

Most of the none Villa fans I know who are real football fans (not the dickheads who 'support' chelsea/man u/arsenal because the newspapers tell them to) think we're very close to being a really good side.

It's strange that they think that as it clearly reflects my opinion.  It's also strange that all the other people who've posted seem to have friends who share their opinions.  I wonder if it could, just possibly, be because the majority of their opinion on Villa is based on what we're telling them.

The reality is we seem to have a much higher percentage of negative fans than other clubs which leads to a generally negative opinion of the club.  If this translates to players at other clubs (which it clearly will do) it's fairly obvious that they'll not be as eager to sign for us as they would for say a tottenham where all the fans have a very positive opinion of the club, etc.

[MadJohnnyC]

What my concern is not how other fans perceive us, but how football players and agents perceive us. It seems to me that we are seen as a stepping stone to bigger and better things. Players are only too happy to mention their delight at signing for a big club when they come to us, but the moment a "Big 4" club, or Man City come calling (And probably Tottenham although i have no proof) then they waste no time in expressing their desire to leave. This leaves us never being able to really kick on. Its starting to get so very frustrating.

[Greg N'Ash]

What worries me is how does that perception explain the wage bill. If we were signing top players from clubs above us, the need to pay them over the odds would make sense, but the majority of signings we've made have been from smaller clubs. Are we really that unattractive that we have to bribe them to join us from the likes of West Ham and WBA?

[phantom limb]

Fans of other clubs that I know are usually complimentary about us, especially the whole "generally buying British" policy that MON has adopted. The only time they slag us off is when we beat their team. I know an Arsenal fan who (despite laughing at Heskey) was very impressed with our team in general, even suggesting that Gareth Barry's move to Man City had caused him to stagnate and that he should have stayed with us.

In additon, almost every single person that I know in the entire world wanted us to beat Man U in the League Cup last season.

[diand]

I don't think we're perceived as boring, but rather aged giants who in recent years never reach their potential or promise, given the passion of support. As a season ticket holder working in Merseyside and living in Cheshire, Villa seem to be viewed with admiration and respect, although not too much threat (even finishing 6th). The owner's apparent willingness to sell Milner and lack of transfer activity (again) might (sadly) support that view?

Villa till I die (which hopefully is a while yet)

[Rudy Can't Fail]

For some strange reason, telling people who I support tends to be a conversation killer. The foreigners normally follow it it with where in England are Aston Villa from, whilst the Brits will just stare blankly and mumble "Oh, right".

We're not really on the football radar.

Edit: I'm just watching the build up to the game on Benfica TV and when conversation turned to us, apart from saying we finished 6th, a slide show of the players,MON was our manager, they really didn't have anything to say about us except we have some of the most fanatical supporters in England.

[Ads]

You need to find yourself some better foreigners then.

I was 5,000 miles from Birmingham the other week, on a tiny spec of an island in the sea of Thailand, about to go elephant trekking. The Thai that was running the show was telling me how he wanted to BBQ that squid as he kept losing him money with his bets. He asked me who I followed in England. I told him the Villa, he then told me how he thought Gabby and Young were brilliant.

I’ve never found us to be unheard of or conversation killers anywhere in the world.

[miss villa]

I cant bear to read any more of these posts cos Id feel like slitting my wrists (after) shredding my season ticket.

Of course Id like to have some great new young talent in our line up, the kind thats going to score big and often...

.........realistically its unlikely the above would be released by any club
... so I shall continue to cross my fingers, toes, knees etc and hope that our home-grown talent makes the grade - after all Im a Villa fan and always have been...

[peter w]

No, they don't fear us. More, they know how nullify us.

That's just semantics.

They fear that if they allow us to play they will lose. Therefore their game plan is based on fear of losing rather than trying to win.

No, they know that if they set their team up a certain way they can look to cut out the space to us, don't defend high, suck us in and then hit us on the break. Also, pressure us in the middle and you'll get the ball off us.

Its called tactics not fear.

[Ads]

No, they don't fear us. More, they know how nullify us.

That's just semantics.

They fear that if they allow us to play they will lose. Therefore their game plan is based on fear of losing rather than trying to win.

No, they know that if they set their team up a certain way they can look to cut out the space to us, don't defend high, suck us in and then hit us on the break. Also, pressure us in the middle and you'll get the ball off us.

Its called tactics not fear.

Its a plan developed to nullify our strengths, because they’re fearful that should we be allowed carte blanche to use our pace, then we’d muller them. Like we do to Bolton, every season.

Christ the internet can be depressing.

[peter w]

That's the thing - as Irish villain said - we do see ourselves bigger than what we are. We scoff at those pundits that say we think we have a divine right to win anything and everything. We attack those pundits who say that 6th is a great achievement for us. We pour scorn at Newcastle for pundits going on about them being a big club when all they do is fill a ground to capacity every week despite winning nothing for 50 odd years.

But in reality we are big in our own minds. We're there or thereabouts when we have a good season but have only won something like 10 trophies in a hundred years or so and no matter how many excuses we can come up with we can only sell out the ground when the opposition are big.

Maybe its not us that's right and everyone else that is wrong. Maybe we are doing well to be where we are. maybe we're not a big club despite thinking that we are - yes we have the potential to be but so do many.

We are, like most clubs, possibly just big in our own minds.

The counter to that is:

- There has barely been a decade since formation when we haven't won a major trophy.

Accepted

- We're still the fourth most successful side in English football history

True, but thanks to the first 30 years or so of our existence.

-For most of the individual domestic honours won in the English game, we're up near the top of the list in each

See above
- We've supplied more England internationals than any other club

Nice stat but overall that's meaningless in ateam game. Our best pl,ayers that have become England internationals have ended up leaving of late.

-We're one of only four English sides to pot the EC

So are Nottingham Forest. Nice for us and the record books but what does it mean today? Apart from being able to wind up Arsenal and Chelsea fans?

That sounds plenty big enough to me, and if Tottenham, Citeh or any other side outside of the very elite had that kind of record their spin dept would never let the media forget it. Whilst our own fans are so keen to do us down others will be more than happy to do the same.

I don't think we are keen to do us down as you say. Its us Villa fans that perpetrate the idea of us being big even though its not reciprocated too often when you speak to fans of other clubs.

You'll hear them talking about Acorns, Gabby, Randy Lerner, and when they went to Villa PArk for the semi in some year, or against their club in whatever season and that the grounds big.

But that's it. For a while they were waxing lyrical about our team and how exciting we were with our young English players. That being what got us into the public eye. and kept us there (allied with the Acorns thing). Remember here we were talking about us being a secret and that we were bubbling over? Whatever happened to that? The fizz went flat and MON hasn't done a great deal to help IMO.

That said, I'm still hoping for a good transfer window.