2) The Gabby ‘situation’
Last home game (not including the play-off second leg). Contract expiring. Adored by many, slated by many more: what should Steve Bruce do about Gabby? This could conceivably be the last opportunity for the one-club man to step out on the hallowed B6 surface (not that it’s looking especially ‘hallowed’ at the moment!) So, will Bruce give in to sentiment and put him on the bench, bring him on for a half an hour and give chance for us to say our goodbyes in our own special way?
Or does he go one ‘better’, and give him a start and maybe even the captain’s armband, leading the boys out to a full house for one last hurrah at the place he has called home for his entire career?
Well, I’m no fan of Gabby and as far as I am concerned, his reputation has been tarnished beyond repair by the past three or four seasons. But my heart is not entirely made from stone, and given the likely situation in which we find ourselves, where is the harm in giving him a decent send off? I’ve said in the forums I never want to see him in a Villa shirt again, but I must confess I no longer see much harm in giving him a farewell. As I said, Bruce has a reluctance to ‘throw in the kids’, so I wouldn’t have thought a one-off Villa Park cameo for our longest-serving player is hardly going to knock the confidence and desire of the likes of Callum O’Hare and Rushian Hepburn-Murphy, is it?
