Dave Woodhall looks back at a few days of lost opportunity, and looks forward to getting his bucket and spade out.
Villa’s march towards worldwide dominance took a bit of a setback last week. Losing to Manchester United on Tuesday night wasn’t entirely unexpected – I mean, anyone who beats United this season will surely be title challengers themselves, and Villa aren’t at that level yet.
Failing to get three points from Fulham at home on Saturday was a much bigger disappointment, Like Villa, Fulham had a bad start to the season and have started to put a run together lately. A win would have seen us safely into mid-table, a draw means we’re still looking warily at the sides below us.
Villa certainly had only themselves to blame, after having gone ahead twice only for Fulham to then look the better side on both occasions and gain deserved equalisers. On the positive side, Jean Makoun looks a good signing and let’s hope Michael Bradley fits in as well because Stilyan Petrov appears to be finished at this level as a 90 minute player.
One bit of good news came with the selection of five Villa men in the England squad for the (pointless) midweek game against Denmark, although this quickly became four with Gabriel Agbonlahor’s withdrawal. As everyone should know by now, Villa have had more England internationals than any other club, and with Fabio Capello having already stated his intention to give Darren Bent a game, we’ll go further into the lead. It’s interesting to see that there are also four ex-Villa players in the squad. I might take more than my usual cursory glance at the game, more to hope none of our players get injured than in any interest in what is little more than an attempt by the FA to repay some of the huge cost of re-building Wembley.
Returning to matters of some importance, Saturday sees a visit to the seaside. If were in La Liga we could travel to Barcelona, if we were in France it’d be Monaco. The most glamorous and self-important league in the world gives us Blackpool in February. The home side have got over their good start and seem to be this season’s Burnley. Their manager Ian Holloway has gone beyond ‘character’ and is now just ‘irritating,’ which is another reason to bring back three points from our holidays. A couple more wins and we can start planning for next season in earnest.
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