Dave Woodhall on a damp Villa Park and a bright Villa result.
There was talk of mutiny in the air at Villa Park on Saturday, at the end of a week in which the club seemed to have finally accepted relegation, three months ahead of schedule.
No new signings were making their debuts, at least not on the pitch, although there was a new face in the directors box. In the absence of any better alternative there was a very familiar face leading the Villa attack, such as it was, in the shape of Gabriel Agbonlahor. The omens didn’t bode well for a scintillating victory to quell the growing unease, althoughincessant rain put paid to any idea of pre-match shows of protest. If a connection was ever made between Villa’s performances and climate the researchers might want to use this season as evidence. Has anyone got any idea what the weather was like from August 1980-May 1982?
Anyway, we had a first half that wasn’t great, brightened by a stoppage time goal from Joleon Lescott. The second half started off well enough with a second Villa goal from Agbonlahor, and that should have been it, but after Leandro Bacuna mised a chance to seal the game Norwich came back into the game and Villa well and truly rode their luck for a change.
Stll, it was a comfortable(ish) 2-0 win with an even rarer clean sheet. Other results weren’t brilliant but you can’t rely on everyone else to do your work for you. All Villa can do is to keep plugging away and hope that miracles can come true at the bottom as well as the top of the table. It’s ironic that if Villa are to stay up, it’ll probably be down to Agbonlahor more than anyone else. He’s done nothing of much note for years and deserves much of the criticism he’s received but as things stand he’s the only man at the club capable of scoring goals.
It was good to see Remi Garde get the backing of the supporters during the game. After a rough start he’s putting a together a team who can beat poor opposition – which might sound like damning with faint praise, but it’s an improvement on what’s gone before. Garde’s not a rabblerouser, certainly no populist in the Sherwood/Gregory mould, but he’s starting to exude a quiet confidence that says Villa’s long-term future is in good hands, provided they’re his.
Off the pitch the only real news has been the appointment of Sir Mervyn King as a director. I don’t know what his duties will be and how much of his time will be spent at Villa Park – as a presumably non-executive director I would imagine he won’t be around the place too often – but it won’t do any harm to have someone in the boardroom who might be able to point out that appointing a manager who’s just relegated his club again, or giving another one a new contract four games into the season, isn’t a bright idea. I’d much rather have had a new striker, and it can’t be stressed too loudly that not buying one last month was another in the list of Great Aston Villa Cock-ups 2006-2016, but I’d also rather have Sir Mervyn, his contacts and his air of authority around than not.
And so we move on to next week’s game. We haven’t beaten Liverpool at Villa Park for years, although a Sunday afternoon kick-off means everyone else has played the day before. If Saturday’s results go for Villa, and looking at the fixtures there’s no reason why they can’t, we could go into the match with the chance of a few clubs starting to look nervously over their shoulders. But that, of course, is just wishful thinking. There’s no point in getting too hopeful – it isn’t going to happen.
