We’ve been in the news again. We also played some football.
And as a new week begins Maccabi say they won’t be taking tickets for That Match, because they believe their supporters won’t be safe. The government says they are “deeply saddened” by the news. Somehow, I doubt West Midlands’ finest think the same. Friend of the fans Ian Duncan Smith said Maccabi played in Istanbul with no trouble. Another MP pointed out that the match was played in Hungary, behind closed doors.
For their part, Villa say that the away section will be empty, nobody will be allowed to pass on tickets to anyone else and political slogans of any sort won’t be allowed.
To make matters more complicated, some unnamed pro-Palestine group are calling for a masked protest outside the Holte two hours before kick-off. That’ll go down well.
Former Villa keeper Scott Carson, who played four games for Liverpool and Manchester United, winning two Champions Leagues in the process, has retired. You do wonder if he’ll notice the difference.
Off to the Netherlands and the next step on the road to European domination. After beating what look liked the two strongest teams in our group with no fuss and no goals against, Go Ahead Eagles should be no problem. Unai picked a reasonably strong team with plenty more on the bench so there shouldn’t be a problem there. And to prove it, we took the lead after four minutes when Evann Guessand mis-hit a shot that ended up nicely placed.
It should have been the first of many but the team took it in turns to waste them and with half-time approaching the home side didn’t waste their first chance of the match. They didn’t waste their second one either, and we somehow found ourselves behind. We had a few more opportunities, Emiliano Buendia missed a late penalty and they were dancing on the streets of Go Ahead late into the night.
It’s the third anniversary of Unai becoming Villa manager. He hasn’t done a bad job, has he?
On the day we play one of the Six, Ezri Konsa is linked to another of them, or to be more accurate, all of them. If it wasn’t just a coincidence you’d think they do it deliberately.
Not that it was needed. When Manchester City were shite they used to transform themselves into Brazil ’70 every time they arrived at Villa Park. Now we’re their bogey team. After nineteen minutes another of our corner kick masterpieces arrived at the feet of Matty Cash, who as the cliche goes made no mistake. We could have got a second, they could have got a first, but neither team got any.
Emiliano Buendia was up to his usual standards of this season until he got injured because some things never change, Pau Torres and Ezri Konsa are looking solid. John McGinn was John McGinn, Cash seems to be playing better than ever. All in all it was a successful afternoon, tempered only by the after-match sight of Buendia limping across the car park on crutches.
