Dave Woodhall wonders if Villa Park is on a continuous loop.
You’re probably as bored with the whole thing as I am. Shall I just give a link to last week’s column, and the one before that, and…?
Liverpool arrived in town accompanied by the usual display of gloryhunters, day-trippers and everyone’s favourite fab footie fashion round their collective neck. They were also in a decent run of form. A highlight of the season was not expected.
The tone for the afternoon’s entertainment was set with the grand unveiling of the team. Delph, Westwood, Sanchez and (even) Cleverly are not bad midfielders. With the right players around them they could all take their place in a side much higher in the table. Yes Tom, that means you as well. But put them all together and you have no balance, even less width, not much shape and very little invention. Add this to a misfiring forward line and you’re left with a team where the only danger comes from Nathan Baker, and then only to himself.
Once the team was announced then from then on everything, from the thinly-supported protest to the final score was utterly predictable. Villa let in a goal, got a bit better with the introduction of debutant Carles Gil then let in a second to finally extinguish any hope that might have been lingering. Had the protestors thought about the matter a bit more logically they should have called for supporters to leave the ground eight minutes before the end rather than asking them to arrive so long after kick-off. That way they would have claimed most of the crowd was behind them.
If you feel like clutching a straw, Gil’s debut provided the one hope that there might be an end to this torment. He has, though, only been with Villa for a couple of days and we should have trained any fancy dan ideas he has about passing forward and running with the ball out of him by the time the next Premier League game comes round. It’s at the Emirates, which is, incredibly, one of our favourite places to play.
Before then we’ve got an FA Cup tie at home to Bournemouth. A half-empty ground with supporters on the verge of open revolt, opposition flying at the top of the Championship, a manager who should go and an owner who wants to, in a competition where our record veers between appalling and embarrassing. What could possibly go wrong?