Or as far as Villa are concerned, blank weekend. Dave Woodhall tries to find something to write about.
There’s not much you can say after a blank weekend. I couldn’t even get to a non-league game – I’d like to say I was at Alvechurch v Rocester in the Midland Football Alliance, but I’d be lying. It finished Alvechurch 7 Rocester 10. That’s not goals, it’s how many players each team had left at the final whistle.
England drew with Montenegro (approx. pop: Wolverhampton and Walsall combined, if you add half of Dudley) on Friday night, with Darren Bent scoring and, more importantly, not getting injured. Scotland beat the might of Lichtenstein and Barry Bannan got a gashed foot but should be fit for Saturday. I wish Barry would stop looking so good; it’ll only get the rumours going.
Talking of which, there are yet more positive, definite, “I know a bloke who” tales that Randy’s looking to sell the Villa/selling this afternoon/gone already. Randy’s good deeds far outweigh his bad, but I do wish he would go public and say something, anything. The continual silence allows the internet drama queens and conspiracy theorists to let their imaginations run away with them, and such places are not pleasant to contemplate.
Saturday sees the biggest challenge so far to our unbeaten run, in the shape of Manchester City away. We used to have a good record at whatever their ground’s called now, although the good results unsurprisingly ended at around the same time as £500 million or so arrived there. A point’s probably too much to hope for, even if hope does spring eternal, but surely we can’t do any worse than we did in the spineless four-nil and lucky to get nil debacle of last year, or the team Gerard Houllier put out in the subsequent FA Cup tie. A moral victory is – just about – better than no victory at all. But hope springs eternal…