How are we perceived?

[Pete]

Most of my mates who aren't Villa have stopped taking the piss.  It's gone beyond that, to pity.  They can't quite figure out how it's all fallen apart so badly.

Same here. A mixture of bewilderment and pity. It's come to something when I'm getting pity from Huddersfield Town fans.

[rob_bridge]

I remember being pitied by a former work colleague - a Man Ure fan (from Gt Manchester who works there as a steward on match days) - when we hired McLeish.

The comments on his part , not conversation, included Villa-McLeish-thought still a big club-try. hostorically try to play good football. McLeish??.

That was as insulting as it could get. It has got no better.

4.5 years of an omnishambles. At least after the gathering cloud dark days of Turner and the McNeill nightmare that followed there was a Pillar of Light in the form of Graham Taylor. What is there now? What?

[pauliewalnuts]

As a bigger, flashier Wigan.

Year after year circling the plug hole, desperately trying not to go down it.

Devoid of ambition, we don't even pretend to try any more.

If I didn't support us, I would definitely want us to go down.

[Des Little]

The butt of just about every football related joke. And rightly so. Shame on Lerner...like he gives a fuck.

[Cliftonville Villain]

A cert 3 points for whoever plays us...Christ Almighty how did it come to this? Have been a supporter for 40 years and have never felt so low...even in the third division we were still The Villa and relegation in 86 brought SGT to save us but this? Lack of funds,a clueless manager completely out of his depth, an absent owner and the best fans in the country bored senseless into apathy by a squad not fit for purpose.  We're in freefall towards the Championship and no-one on high seems to give a shit. These are the darkest of days, with our great club now being reduced to joke status among other fans, but I STILL have the hope that someone, somewhere will want to own the marquee name of historical football clubs. Sorry for the rant guys but four years of Villa taking hammerings says that enough is enough.

[Tom_Mc9?]

Boring and shit.

[Tom_Mc9?]

Oh, and "Martin O'Neill was great for you."

[curiousorange]

Oh, and "Martin O'Neill was great for you."

There's still a strong whiff of "look what you did to poor Martin - you get what you deserve" about this attitude, even though it's fundamentally bollocks.

[saunders_heroes]

A cert 3 points for whoever plays us...Christ Almighty how did it come to this? Have been a supporter for 40 years and have never felt so low...even in the third division we were still The Villa and relegation in 86 brought SGT to save us but this? Lack of funds,a clueless manager completely out of his depth, an absent owner and the best fans in the country bored senseless into apathy by a squad not fit for purpose.  We're in freefall towards the Championship and no-one on high seems to give a shit. These are the darkest of days, with our great club now being reduced to joke status among other fans, but I STILL have the hope that someone, somewhere will want to own the marquee name of historical football clubs. Sorry for the rant guys but four years of Villa taking hammerings says that enough is enough.

Hear hear!

[olaftab]

I can stand the piss taking and we deserve it. It's the pity I hate.
!

[Damo70]

As a bigger, flashier Wigan.

Year after year circling the plug hole, desperately trying not to go down it.

Devoid of ambition, we don't even pretend to try any more.

If I didn't support us, I would definitely want us to go down.

Presuming you didn't support us but supported another PL side you definitely wouldn't want us to go down. Four to six points and a nice away trip.

[pbavfckuwait]

I think a large part of our problem is have we percieve ourselves, what are we at the moment, what do we do well.
When we were crap in the mid to late 60's, I was only a kid and could still get no better thrill than standing on the Holte, being gobsmacked by the people around me, when it was over, regardless of the result, as it was, what we did then, I would be out on a bit of concrete or grass, scoring the chances we had missed, making the tackle that stopped the goal, but I also remember we were still a big club, even in the third.
Again in the 80's after the dismantling of the Champions of Europe for one persons egotistical reasons, you just knew we would bounce back and again we were still big fry.
Now with the Sky wank fest, we go out of this league and as I stated before from one who depends on TV to watch my football here in the Middle East, you drop of the map and become a non-entity and I just know in my guts, under this regime and their normal impeccable choice of leadership that there is no guarantee that we would bounce back, so I am not sure what the club is, so how can others precieve us in any way but with disdain for our total lack of a contribution to what has become an entertainment business.

[LTA]

A figure to laugh at. That's even worse than being disliked if you ask me.

When someone who knows nothing about football (has never even watched a game on TV) walks into my office and starts gleefully singing SOTV, you know you've become a national laughing stock.

Sadly, I find myself agreeing with the post above. Drop out of the premier league, and we could be down there for a long time.

[Walmley_Villa]

I overheard a couple of Arsenal fans in the pub after say we were the worst Villa team they can remember. They have some competition but they are heading in the right direction.

[PaulWinch again]

I think most people want us to be relegated, because we're pretty horrid to watch.