Seven days, two wins. A normal week at Villa Park.
Another week begins and at this time of the year an age-old tradition used to take place. At 12.32 pm on Monday afternoon Radio 2 would go over to the FA headquarters for “the next item on the agenda, the draw for the third round of the Football Association Challenge Cup.” The balls would rattle and a minute or two later came the phrase “…will play Aston Villa” . This was then followed by the sound of Bert Millichip sticking his hanky in his mouth while trying not to be heard laughing.
Those days are long gone – the draw is on Monday evening on satellite TV, it’s done by former players and celebrities, Bert has gone to thats cd great Lancaster Gate in the sky. The only thing left is “will play Aston Villa.” This year it’s Spurs.
The rumours about that Brazilian lad Allyson are gathering pace and we’re moving towards the stage where it becomes ‘terms are being discussed’.
The next Uefa Cup game sees us travelling to Basel with a heavily-rotated team that looks as though it might be a bit light against opponents with a good home record in Europe. But Evann Guessand does well to turn and score an early goal so it look as though we’ll have a quiet night. Unfortunately, that’s what the team think as well and as they switch off Basel ha be a goal disallowed then get an equaliser.
Still, no problem. Youri Tielemans comes and scores, we defend well enough to stop them getting another equaliser and we can go home with another three points and another lesson learned. We also come home with Pau Torres injured, which is annoying.
For a couple of weeks according to Unai, with Emiiano Martinez a doubt for the weekend,
If you ever have any doubts about just what a special club this is, there’s a story in the Sunday Times about Unai, which features this quote from a former manager, “If they’re still there with ten games left. I’ll definitely be flying back.” You can guess his name.
And we go a game nearer to Deano getting more air miles with a win at West Ham, despite conceding the quickest Premier League goal of the season. We equalised not long afterwards – in normal times it would have been given to Ollie Watkins but the gods of TV insist it was an own goal for some unfathomable reason. They score again before half-time while we aren’t looking too clever.
Fortunately Morgan Rogers goes from good to unstoppable after the break, scores twice and with our defence holding firm that’s another three points. It wasn’t a vintage performance but it was a win. We do keep getting them. And of course that’s another chairman we keep pissing off. Whether he’ll bear a grudge to the grave only time will tell.
“What a team we have!!! What group of players and coaches. What a manager we have!” – this week’s words of wisdom according to Damian Vidagany. He ain’t wrong.
