By Dave Woodhall.
Outside Villa Park about an hour before kick-off on Saturday, something stirred. Or rather it didn’t stir. It just stood there.
‘It’ was a suitcase, propped against the railings on Witton Lane. The police were called, a quick search of the area revealed a foreign owner unaware of the problems that might be caused by an unattended package in a crowded area, and the drama was soon over. Hardly anyone even noticed and the only reason that I mention the incident now was because it was far and away the most interesting thing to happen all afternoon.
Villa have never beaten Wigan at home in a league game and this Lancastrian superiority was rarely threatened on a day when Villa took another step towards Premier League safety with all the grace and assurance of an elderly tortoise with arthritis walking across a minefield.
N’Zogbia put the visitors ahead, which means he’s now favourite to be the next candidate for Villa’s tried and trusted transfer strategy of signing players who did well against us for teams who subsequently got relegated. Ashley Young equalised with what looked suspiciously like a well-worked tactic from a free-kick and must therefore have been thought up with no input from our acting, fourth of the season, manager. Emile Heskey did his best to get sent off before being substituted, while Darren Bent missed a one on one that would have wrapped up the game and mathematically ensured safety. As it is, we have to wait until playing Arsenal on Sunday or more accurately, until other clubs drop points at the same time, before we know for definite what division 2011-12 will bring.
Gary McAllister gave more evidence that he won’t be getting the manager’s job (Let’s be honest, it will be a major surprise if we see Gerard Houllier in anything other than a cameo role again) and once more the best part of the afternoon was finding out the Blues score and the post-match post-mortem
There’s only one more game at Villa Park to endure before next August, namely the season’s finale against Liverpool. More on that next week, but in the meantime the prices we’ll be paying for the privilege have been announced. I know these things are relative, and the Premier League is up there with London pubs when it comes to overcharging, but we’re still lucky in terms of what we have to pay to get into Villa Park. Sitting in my usual North Stand seat on Saturday I reflected that there can’t be many Premier League grounds with such a good view for £405. The club have come in for a lot of criticism this season, some of it warranted and much of it far from justified, but anyone who says that in the context of elsewhere Villa supporters don’t get a good deal really is going out of their way to find fault. In the same way, anyone blames Randy Lerner for the fiascos that we’ve endured since August should ask themselves what they can realistically expect from an owner without the backing of a consortium of billionaires.
