Another seven days too long.
There’s another report come out about everybody’s favourite three letters and the consensus is that we’re okay spending-wise but still can’t get carried away. Birmingham Live’s reaction is VILLA CERTAIN TO GET RELEGATED. Probably.
Tuesday sees the fifth anniversary of the day we signed the best keeper any of us have seen, or are ever likely to see. To celebrate, he got the night off when everybody else went to Brentford. The team Unai put out was a decent one, or at least it looked decent. Then, as often happens, they kicked off.
To be honest it was a bit better than what we’ve endured lately. A tiny bit, the sort of bit looked at by scientists with expensive microscopes. Some of the players we’ve been wanting to see get a game did, indeed, start and one of them, namely Harvey Elliott, scored a goal. And let’s have none of that “What does ‘scored a goal’ mean?” silliness – we’re not at home to Mr Predictable.
Well we are, at least on the pitch because no sooner do we score from a defensive cock-up just before half-time than we have one of our own just afterwards. To be absolutely, scrupulously fair to the team they did at least try to get a winner in the closing minutes but it wasn’t to be and the penalties went the way everyone in the crowd knew they would. Are we really incapable of beating a Brentford team made up of a load of kiss and reserves, or were we just not arsed? I don’t know which would be the most worrying.
Ayuob Khan, the MP for Villa Park and some other places, has said we shouldn’t play Maccabi. There’s an unconfirmed story that Uefa are about to vote on kicking out Israeli clubs. If only we’d been drawn against someone uncontroversial, like Rangers for example.
The latest TV schedule comes out. We’ve got four league games in November. They’ve all been moved.
Talking of moving, a good few thousand did, all the way to Sunderland on Sunday afternoon. How many of them wished they’d stayed at home is unknown, but every one of them probably wished the team had put in as much effort as they had. It was back to the defensive line-up and defensive approach that’s been so spectacularly unsuccessful so far this season, and a Sunderland player getting sent off for trying to castrate Matty Cash didn’t make any difference.
Then the fortunately still intact right-back hit a swerving twenty-five yarder and lo, we were in front. Against a team with ten men who were in the Championship last season while we were in the Champions League. You’d have expected us to make the most of it but no, let’s sit back and wait for the inevitable.
Then when it comes briefly start playing again and Ollie Watkins can miss an easier-to-score chance in stoppage time so another two points can vanish. Does anyone know what happened to that team who spent the last two years swaggering around Europe?
