Relegation?

[PeterWithesShin]

I'll have a tenner on myself feeling used and dirty five seconds after the season ends.

I'm pretty much at the stage where I don't give a toss. Stay up or go down, keep Lambert or sack him, Lerner or new owner, £10m or £100m to spend - so fucking what? I'll keep going because I enjoy the company and get a buzz out of the odd win but it's just Monopoly with a ball and I refuse to let it get in the way of real life.

When someone like Chris is saying this and Frank over on the match thread is saying he might not renew his season ticket, then I know things have really hit rock bottom

He's posted about 28,000 times on here so I don't for one minute believe he's "not that bothered". He's probably hurting as much as the rest of us.

Apologies to Chris for speaking on his behalf, i'm sure he cares about the Villa and would prefer us to be in the top flight and winning etc, but after what he's been through I doubt he sees what division Villa are in as that big a deal in the big scheme of life. And I doubt he's not the only one that applies to.

[Bully2345]

We'll be fine and then there will be a bright new dawn and we shall do this all again

[Archbishop Herbert Cockthrottle]

I'll have a tenner on myself feeling used and dirty five seconds after the season ends.

I'm pretty much at the stage where I don't give a toss. Stay up or go down, keep Lambert or sack him, Lerner or new owner, £10m or £100m to spend - so fucking what? I'll keep going because I enjoy the company and get a buzz out of the odd win but it's just Monopoly with a ball and I refuse to let it get in the way of real life.

When someone like Chris is saying this and Frank over on the match thread is saying he might not renew his season ticket, then I know things have really hit rock bottom

I always rely on you Chris to turn some shit around to be positive.

[Archbishop Herbert Cockthrottle]

We'll be fine and then there will be a bright new dawn and we shall do this all again

That is true. Mind you, I have drunk most of a bottle of Merlot so would agree with anything right now.

[Bully2345]

Merlot? At least I am onside with the policy of cheap and cheerful. Strongbow it is

[PeterWithesShin]

I'm outside Tesco trying to scrounge a can of Tesco lager, desperate times!

[john2710]

We need a win next week, a cup final to save our club. Hull have nothing to play for.  The players & management need to realise they are playing for their futures too.

Hopefully we'll get what we need & never see some of the fuckers near our club again.

[ciggiesnbeer]

The sad thing for me is, I am actually becoming ambivalent about it. I know nothing good will come from relegation but the past few years have beat the enjoyment of football out of me anyway. The first few years of having most weekends ruined by disappointment hurt, but now? I am beginning to question the point of even paying attention to be honest. We are not going to win anything (except possibly promotion) in the next decade at least it seems . Watching a great club just decline is not much fun after so many years of it.

[Villafirst]

Can we still recall Bent? We need every advantage - it'd be ironic if Bent scored to keep Fulham up! Shocking that nobody seems to have any confidence that we'll pick up any more points this season. Lerner has gambled big time by trying to do things on the cheap. He's wrecked the club.

[brian green]

And there you have it on the last few posts of this thread.   I genuinely believe that, following the departure of Martin O'Neill a decision was taken, albeit by by insinuation, drift and cleverdickness, but made one way or the other by the board to lower the expectations of the club supporters.   Marketing gimmickry would be used as a substitute for spontaneous enthusiasm to keep up ticket sales and the club would be decked about with a cake frill of carbon neutrality, community awareness, healthy eating options, charitable donations and similar non football guff.   If the expectations of the supporters could be moderated so could the costs of running the club.   As has been said by someone very pithily, it was not a plan it was an experiment to see if we could stay in the premiership on the cheap.   One of the essential parts of that experiment was to reduce expectations.   It is like a pork sausage manufacturer convincing his customers that rusk is nice, fibrous and nutritious food so that he can eliminate pork from his pork sausages.
We have gone along with this, I as much as anybody else, contracting what I get from Villa in my life to a hope that we can win the odd match now and again and maybe have another cup run in my lifetime.
Make no mistake about it Alex McLeish and Paul Lambert both bought into the reduced expectations without demur or reluctance. They were excellent at driving out the football from our football club.   If Paul Lambert had an ounce of pride in his work or his reputation, last January instead of toadying around the owner and gambling on the future of the club with the miserable strengthening of one  old, overweight washed up mate, he should have been banging on Faulkner's table demanding to sign at least one centre back and two midfield players.   That is what any manager worthy of the name would have done.   He did nothing effectively now hides behind mumbled cliches and off the cuff blather. 
Now here we are, each and every loyal supporter reduced to trying to cope in our own ways with what we have allowed to happen to the club.   I was so angry and depressed after the game I tried to get some equilibrium into myself by going for a ride from Cambridge to Newmarket but like a moth to a flame I parked up and went in the White Hart pub in Newmarket High Street to will on that foul and bloated self obsessed monster of a club Manchester United to crush little Norwich City.   I will find it hard in the coming years to forgive myself for doing that.

[Matt Collins]

I think we want a draw in the Sunderland game today ideally? Or a Sunderland win if not? With either of those results Cardiff will have to win their final two games. But with a draw Sunderland would still have to swing around 5 pts plus GD

Cardiff win and I'm bricking it. They could easily catch us then, but Sunderland could too if they win two of  their last three and get a GD swing

[mike]

Absolutely spot on, bar the fact that I wouldn't describe giving a seven figure sum to a children's hospice as non football guff, but then my seven month old was in hospital yesterday so maybe I'm a bit touchy (she's fine now).

The failure to strengthen in the transfer window made absolutely no football or even financial sense. It was utter madness and showed the staggering lack of common sense that has characterised this 'project'.

[ozzjim]

Fair point Mike. I know how much funding from local authorities places like acorns have lost so in all the football gloom our support of them should be seen as a very good thing.

[Mister E]

I'm resigned to the drop after 3-4 truly awful seasons, although if there is a draw today at the Stadium of Shite and we somehow get something out of Hull we may well survive.

However, the glimmer of optimism for me is that in the lower division I'd be looking forward to half the away games being in the north and getting to more of them.

I fear for the club, in the sense that we have become characterised externally as an old club in terminal decline. The media reinforce this almost every week when I read match reports - not directly, but insinuated.

Lerner clearly has lost his interest and verve and needs to get out, but further fundamental transition is not going to be clean and will put us through lots more pain.

[brian green]

To make it clear, I do not regard the giving of money to charity as guff.   It is an admirable thing to do, it is the suspicion that the club is backing into the limelight which I find difficult not to regard as essentially a charm offensive on the part of the club.   The hospice got the money which is the most important thing.