Aston Villa Crisis? What Crisis?

Crisis? What crisis?

“We`re only a week away from a crisis at Aston Villa. Everything is a crisis if we don`t win.”

So proclaimed Steve Bruce (not for the first time) after our abysmal performance on Boxing Day at Brentford. To be fair to Steve, he qualified those remarks but suggesting the fans were within their rights to complain about poor performances.

“That`s why we`re a big club with a big history and big tradition. We`ve got a loyal support and they rightly vented their frustrations and feelings tonight. If I`d made the journey down here tonight on a horrible night I think I`d have done the same – well, I have done the same.”

Bruce clearly appreciates the size of the task facing him and his players. But to my mind, banding about words like “crisis” and suggesting there is “mass hysteria” from the fans when we aren`t in the best of form, or results aren`t going our way, is totally unhelpful and deflects attention and blame away from the many shortcomings of Bruce, his coaches, and indeed the players.

A ground-out win away against Middlesbrough and a New Year`s Day B6 thrashing of Bristol City and suddenly, the looming “crisis” has evaporated and the “mass hysteria” has died down. Or has it? Well, perhaps until the next dreary, insipid and uninspired 0-0 or the next 2-1 against a promotion rival.

Elsewhere on the site and in the Forums, I suggested Bruce was sounding like David O`Leary all over again, and that the sooner he went, the better. Perhaps I should rephrase that slightly. If Bruce wants to play the blame game, if Bruce wants to suggest the fans expect too much, then he should head for the door marked ‘Do One`.

Although we are Aston Villa, one of the most storied and decorated clubs in English football, of course we have no divine right to top flight status. But as proud and dedicated fans, we do have a right to expect better from our team. Better performances, better results, better attitude to the badge and the fans all round.

The performance against Bristol City showed everyone what we are capable of achieving when the players are allowed to do so and they step up to the plate. The ‘must-not-lose` approach and tedious, uninspired football of the past year needs to be trashed. Bruce has sorted out, for the most part, our defensive frailties but now we need to get out of that mind-set and get on the front foot.

The team was beautifully set up against Bristol City, especially considering they were (if Bruce is to be believed) the very bare bones of what was available in terms of team selection. It`s been said in football that you`d rather have a lucky manager than a good manager, a phrase particularly apt in the Championship, and perhaps a fitting way to describe how Bruce has happened upon the team he did on Monday.

The persistence this season with a clearly failing Glenn Whelan has definitely held us back in my view, although to be fair, we have had particularly poor luck with injuries, and it`s also fair to say that the return to fitness (and form) of Jack Grealish is no coincidence with our recent upturn in luck and the fine effort against Bristol City. Playing Conor Hourihane further forward is no bad thing either.

I get that managers and players get asked some ridiculous questions in the pressers and in the post-match interviews immediately after the game has finished. And I get that many of them are not that sharpest tools in the box, and their diplomatic skills are only slightly more advanced than those of Donald Trump or Boris Johnson.

But for a man of Steve Bruce`s experience (850 games and counting, isn`t it Steve?), he should know a lot better than to have a pop at the fans or the club, however thinly-veiled or ambiguous. He`d do much better to come out and say, “Yeah, that was shocking and we need to do better. The fans are bang on to expect better and we will deliver it for them.”

No one is “hysterical”, and there is no “crisis”, in the same way we weren`t “fickle” when O`Dreary was in town.

So please Steve, leave the shackles off, pick the form players and play them where they are best suited. Don`t be tempted to rely on the under-performing ‘names` and let Monday`s result be the start of something big, not just a flash in the pan, another false dawn, a strange quirk of the festive calendar.

That way, the only mass hysteria around Villa Park will be who we get on opening day of next year`s Premier League season when the fixtures are released next June.

UTV.