Nottingham Forest are bringing in the new year with us.
The new year will begin much as the old one ended – we’re on TV. This time it’s at home early on a Saturday. And for a change it’s against a team at the other end of the table, which means we’ll spend from now until the final whistle expecting to lose. It’s the Villa way.
Saturday’s sacrificial offerings are Nottingham Forest. They were good a long time ago, then they were not good at all despite such managerial legends as David Platt, Alex McLeish and Martin O’Neill. They eventually got promoted again and they’ve done okayish, getting into Europe for this season. They even managed to get into a competition they didn’t qualify for, which might not sound fair until you realise whose place they took.
This season they’re battling relegation, although as one of the teams below them is funny, another were always going down and the third are on course to becoming the worst top division team since 1888, it isn’t much of a battle. They’ve still got Europe on their mind as well. Their owner has got a ‘colourful’ past in football and naturally they’re on their third manager this season.
This month’s incumbent is Sean Dyche, a man who looks like he spends his recreational time painting roundabouts and sends his teams out to play like it. One of his coaches is Steve Stone, who cost us £5.5 Million in 1999 and despite rampant hyperinflation since then, that would still be too much now. This week’s ridiculously title backroom staff member is Dan Kelly, Head of PDP and emerging talent recruitment. That probably means chief scout.
They’ve got Douglas Luiz on loan from Juventus, which is of course where the players we swapped him for have spent their time. Don’t you just love modern football? We’ve starting picking up our usual collection of injuries and we might have our new Brazilian in the squad but don’t bet on it, either this week or any other. One winning run ended last match, the next one starts now.
