No lurking – we’re at home to Fulham on Sunday.
It’s Sunday afternoon and that can only mean one thing – the Villa are at home. This time it’s Fulham. Some teams you look forward to playing, some you dread. With Fulham you expect nothing and that’s what you usually get. There might be a more anonymous team and set of supporters in the league, but if there is that’s only when Crystal Palace aren’t there. With it being a weekend game they might have sold a couple of hundred tickets, although their ranks might have been swelled by a load of Chelsea no more gloryhunters who don’t want to go to the freak show anymore.
This is the regular reminder of how much we owe what is, after all, the oldest professional club in London. Had a couple of results gone the other way we might have been lumbered with Tony Xia and then Steven Gerrard, although the money would have gone by now so I doubt either of them would have stayed around much after that. They’ve got Adama Traore, who spent all his time at Wolves about to be transferred to an even bigger club, if that’s possible, for massive amounts. Last summer he went to Fulham on a free. Stuart Gray is still there, doing the sitting in the background and being caretaker manager whenever there’s a chance job that every club used to have someone doing.
Last week we’d have gone third if we hadn’t been a shadow of the team we can be. Back at Villa Park we’ll be going for our thirteenth straight league win at home and I don’t need to tell her that if we don’t get it there’ll be lots of tediously unoriginal “Unlucky” headlines. Why do they bother? Ain’t got a clue. Win this one, give it a few more weeks and we’ll be thinking that Fulham was just thirteen in a never-ending run.
