Brentford are the next lucky visitors to Villa Park.
Right, all this nonsense ends here. We’re playing Brentford at home, in the Premier League, and that’s a strange concept in itself. They’re in the top half of the table while we could end the day bottom of it so let’s stop messing around and start putting things in their proper order.
Yes, Brentford are doing well. No, we do not like to see little clubs up there. They do that, they get ideas above their station and get in our way. The trouble is, we’ve not been all that good at getting them out of our way since we started coming across them again. What makes it even worse is that we’ve bankrolled most of their success by throwing money at them for players, a manager and I wouldn’t be surprised if we haven’t picked up a few of their programme sellers along the way.
We’re being linked with their manager and their players include the highly-desirable Ivan Toney, as well as the highly-loathsome Ben Mee. Ex-players include a couple still with us and one currently doing community service. There’s probably a bye-law stopping us from getting anyone else from them.
Aaron Danks will be in charge. When he was born Graham Turner was Villa manager, and if that doesn’t make you feel old you’re very lucky. There might be a chance for one or two of The Overlooked to get a game and perhaps even a sighting of Cameron Archer before the fourth official puts his board up. We can but hope.
Danksy, or Danko, or whatever his chummy Bodymoor nickname might be, has got nothing to lose. Chances are he’ll be out of work by the end of the month so send the team out to play football with a bit of flair. It’s not much to ask, however much it seemed beyond the last bloke.