Villa start their Premier League campaign on Saturday. Dave Woodhall looks forward.
It’s definitely an age thing. Close-seasons seem shorter than they used to be. Actually, it’s not just age. There was a time when pre-season friendlies used to be three games, usually down the M5 – two against Exeter and Plymouth and one to open the floodlights/dressing rooms/new stand of a non-league club. It all happened over the course of about six days and everyone went home happy, for reasons not altogether concerned with football.
Now you have to have a month of pre-season games featuring at least one Continental tour, a hike around some new grounds and a home game against a reasonably well-known European side. If you’re in the Champions League or were once you can also play each other on the other side of the world.
Villa’s pre-season finished on Saturday with a game at home to Malaga. Decent weather and reasonable prices saw a gate of 22,150, which is the biggest crowd any match in the West Midlands has attracted so far, even the proper ones, and more than four times the number Albion got for their friendly at the same time.
Villa went three up in half an hour against a side who had got to last year’s Champions League quarter-finals. That means we’re going to do well this year. Then they let in a couple of soft goals either side of half-time, which means we’re going to be relegated. The worryingly familiar defensive problems were still there as Malaga took control of the second half but Villa seemed a lot more solid following a raft of substitutions on 75 minutes, particularly with Ashley Westwood shoring up midfield, and the game was closed out effectively.
And so on to the opening of the new season. Arsenal away is usually a game to fear but they’ve not so much had a poor pre-season as a non-existent one and maybe, possibly, the decline they’ve been promising for years will finally happen. It’s odd to think that we might be going into this match with, if anything, a bit too much confidence because it’s still going to be a hard one but the one thing I’ve realised about this Villa team is that they’re capable of anything. I’d be a lot happier with a couple more signings, but if I’d had my way we wouldn’t have looked at the French second division in January and that worked out fine.
And a couple of other points – well done to Villa on seeing the error of extending booking fees to include cash payments, and scrapping that particular rip-off quickly and before it could do too much damage. What a pity such things exist in the first place. And the Stan 19th minute applause. Paul Lambert mentioned at the manager’s forum last Monday that a statement would be forthcoming, although nothing has been said so far. My own view is that it was a magnificent show of support but it’s time to look forward now and better to stop it completely than let it fade away. But my view, and that of everyone except one man, is irrelevant.