Desperately failing to make sense of it all.
It was Brian Little’s birthday last Monday, and also the fourth anniversary of Maradona’s death. Just think, the greatest footballer of all time – and Maradona died on his birthday.
Then a couple of days later there’s a reminder of glories past when we take on Juventus in the Champions League. There might not have been the big names on show from back then but there was a lot more hype and a very dramatic big banner. The match wasn’t as good as in 1983 either, but it had its moments. We had a few good chances and so did they. Emiliano Martinez brought his trophies out before the match and showed why he’d won them during it. It might seem like heresy but I think he’s now one player who would definitely have got into that team. The match was petering out to a goalless draw when with almost the last kick of the match Morgan Rogers got a dramatic winner.
Or not; Juve’s keeper went down like he’d been shot even though Diego Carlos’ challenge had had all the impact of a butterfly’s wing brushing against an elephant and the goal was duly disallowed. You have to wonder what would have happened if Rogers and half the team had jumped into the Holte to celebrate and the other half had dragged the keeper to his feet then surrounded the ref to prevent the Juve players doing just that. One of the things Villa have been guilty of for years is being too downright nice. Maybe we should bring back John Terry as our intimidating the officials coach.
In other news will somebody please come clean about what’s going on with the governance of what we still laughingly call our football club? After last week’s new shares comes the (not very well-publicised) news that we’ve taken out a loan for an unspecified amount with some company named Kroll Trustee Services, secured against just about everything we own. At lest when Doug was around we could stick our head round the door once a year and ask what he was up to, even if he didn’t have much of a clue himself.
Gary Shaw’s medals are up for auction and expected to go for at least £50,000. Should we buy them? Maybe we will…
Never being ones to ignore an Americanism, Villa have a Black Friday sale, doing BOGOF deals for the posh seats against Brentford and Southampton. It’s a good idea to get rid of seats that wouldn’t be sold otherwise, but why aren’t they selling, eh? In news that might well be connected, the money’s being taken for Celtic, in two months time.
The week ends with a visit to Stamford Bridge, where screwing every last penny out of supporters has been an artform for years. There wasn’t much to say about it; we were crap, thoroughly deserved to lose 3-0 and Martinez got injured. It was a disappointing end to a downbeat week, which might sound strange when we continued with a Champions League campaign where we’ve conceded one goal in five games, and that was an unrepeatable brainstorm. These things are sent to try us.
