It’s Chrrrriiiiiiiiiisssstmaaaaaaaaaaaass.
The fall-out from beating Manchester City continues, with Emi Martinez accused of saying something nasty to Jack Grealish in the tunnel after the match. Not that our ex-employee, or his team, are worth bothering about these days. Midfielders worth bothering about include Jacob Ramsey, now back in full training again.
‘Twas the night before the night before Christmas, and all through wherever season tickets might be held, an email arrives from the Villa saying that a special anniversary surprise will be sent out by the end of January, shortly after we play West Ham in the cup. Well, they couldn’t do two things at once could they?
And on the night before Christmas we get a story on The Athletic about how the ghost of Christmas Past once tried to sell Villa to the American ‘soccer’ club Atlanta Chiefs. As with every Doug story there’s a scintilla of truth, namely that their owners were interested at one time, but as that time was when Doug was on the board of another Birmingham-based football club, a scintilla is all there was.
Away to Newcastle on the day after Christmas and as usual up there and on this date we needn’t have bothered. They got an early goal and a traditional Boxing Day stuffing (sorry) was on the cards. Then we started to play reasonably well and might even have got back into the game until a rash tackle led to a straight red. Unfortunately the rash tackle was by one of them and the straight red was for Jhon Duran, and that was it.
In the second-half we’d have struggled to finish second if the ref hadn’t been so bad. They’d already had two disallowed by the time they scored a proper one then got a third in stoppage time. Yet again we follow up a good performance with a poor one and yet again we fold under a bit of pressure. Never mind which positions we need strengthening during the imminent transfer window, whoever we sign needs to have a bit of leadership about them.
To the total amazement of no-one Jhon Duran’s appeal against his blatant injustice is rejected so he’ll miss three matches. By the time he comes back he won’t be here, according to the national media and our ever-supportive local press, who’ve got him ready to be sold to just about everyone with a few quid going spare. Him and Martinez, and probably Morgan Rogers.
It’s Saturday, so Louie Barry scored for Stockport. We’re also apparently bringing Samuel Iling Junior back from Bologna, and I’m sure he’ll be very happy to return from Italy to Birmingham in January.
And Bodymoor’s going to have a new hotel for the players, as well as new player facilities and offices, which will come in handy for all those January arrivals.
