Glorious and annoying in almost equal measure.
The week begins with some familiar news – we’ve got another injury, and it’s Alysson again who’s got an adductor problem, which sounds like something’s gone wrong with his vacuum cleaner.
NSWE UK Ltd, who own everything, report a £96.7 million loss, but apparently in the wonderful world of modern football finance, it’s nothing to worry about. In other financial news Donyell Malen will be sold to Roma, who will sell him for a handy profit. Football, ain’t it great?
Monchi (remember him?) is talking to Espanyol about joining them. A few players’ agents will no doubt be happy if he’s back in circulation.
Unai’s final words before the date with destiny and John McGinn’s likely to be fit but Amadou Onana isn’t.
And so it finally happens. Fireworks, flares, anthems, all the usual stuff and a good few nerves mixed with the usual pessimism. This is the Villa, after all. But it didn’t take long to realise that this was, just possibly, the Greatest European Night. As kick-off approached we were roaring while Forest were overawed. Once the match started we were totally, utterly in control. First to every loose ball, winning every second one and looking dangerous all the time.
Ollie Watkins got a bang to the head, shrugged it off and not long after that some magic from Emiliano Buendia helped him get our equaliser. Early in the second half we got the right side of a VAR decision for a penalty that Buendia scored and suddenly it was party time. John McGinn scored twice in quick succession and from then on the only distraction was the regular announcements telling us not to go on the pitch at the end. Nobody did.
The last few minutes were as low-key as a European semi-final ever could be and although the celebrations were long, loud and enjoyable, there was no great emotional outpouring. It had all been too easy. What a night. We’ll be playing Freiburg in the final.
The morning after the night before and we get the usual coverage of one of our supporters celebrating. We should be using his image rights. We also get Unai being told he deserves a ‘big’ job.
Back to reality and we should have beaten Burnley. Just a fraction of what we saw on Thuesday night would have been enough but instead we let them get an early goal before we got back into the game thanks to the unlikely figure of Ross Barkley. When Ollie Watkins scored in the second half that should have been enough but two minutes later another defensive cock-up led to an equaliser.
Emiliano Buendia had his boot ripped off but that wasn’t enough for a penalty. The results went against us so we’ll have a few anxious moments that we shouldn’t have before it’s all over.
And an inconsistent week ends in a strange fashion with the news that a woman’s been charged with trying to extort money from Wes Edens. After their ‘business relationship’ ended he offered her $6.5 million, she wanted $1.2 billion. It happens to the best of us.
