Because seven days is never too long.
The week began with one door closing, even though it hadn’t seemed all that open in the first place. Joao Felix has signed for Chelsea, because some clubs can sign players by the dozen and others have to sell. Them’s the rules, apparently.
Ollie Watkins, nominated for the PFA Player of the Year, doesn’t win it although he’s in the Team of the Season. It’s the first time any of our players has got in since 2010; James Milner and Richard Dunne, to save you looking it up. Emi Martinez, who wins every best goalkeeper award in every tournament he plays, doesn’t get in this one.
Another player moving out temporarily is Alex Moreno, who’s gone to Forest on loan for the season. He’s 31, they’ve got an option to buy so we’ve very likely seen the last of him.
And another one’s gone. Samuel Iling Junior has gone back to Italy, signing for Bologna on loan. You’d hope he’ll be back better for the experience.
Jermaine Jenas has been sacked by the BBC. The Sunday Mercury will probably call him a former Villa star on their front page.
They’ve known about it for two months, but two days before the first match at Villa Park the all-new digital season cards are still being sent out. What could possibly go wrong? For a start, the Barton’s won’t be re-opened for Saturday.
And when Saturday comes, it brings with it the sadly predictable scenes. Not only do we have to cope with the biggest upheaval to the ground’s infrastructure in decades but there’s also late opening turnstiles because not enough security have turned up. Add readers that aren’t reading and supporters who don’t always know how to use them and you know what’s coming next.
Then when you finally did get into the ground you found overflowing toilets, wet paint, more queues to get served and tickets being sold for seats that didn’t exist. It’s not good enough. Villa Park will never be the biggest ground in the country again and given its age and confines we’d struggle to make it the best. But what supporters are being offered isn’t good enough. Wanting the team to emulate the best is one thing but there’s no reason to go the whole way and offer the full 1982 experience.
These things didn’t of course, apply to the posh seats. We can deck out entire lounges but not fix an overflowing toilet. That’s the priority these days and if there’s a few empty seats in there then the rest are paying enough to make up for it. It seems as though Villa would rather have one seat filled at £500 and nine empty ones rather than ten filed at £50 a time.
As for the match, they took their chances and we didn’t. They’re the second best team in the country and on that showing we aren’t far off. Looking round the rest of the results at the weekend we’re certainly capable of equalling last season although it’s still a novelty to want Manchester United and Chelsea to lose because they’re rivals rather than just because.
