Hendrie Understands The Fans

Lee Hendrie proves yet again he is a Villa fan!

He says he understands where the fans are coming from:

‘It is a frustrating time at the moment. We are not where we want to be in the league – we are as frustrated as the rest of the fans. You can understand their point of view, because we want to be in the top half of the league and pushing for Europe. The majority of them see us play at Villa Park, and I think our home form this season has been pretty dismal.’

Nice to see some plain talking, as ‘pretty dismal’ does sum it up. That is what the manager should be saying.

Hendrie continued: ‘Clubs came to Aston Villa in the past and didn’t like it – but it seems a little bit different now. We need to get back to the old days of winning our home games. That’s where we’ve had a lot of success down the years, and you can build on good home form.’

He also re-affirms that he doesn’t want to leave Villa but now he is even behind rookie Craig Gardner he accepts that he might have to go to get first team football.

‘I don’t want to leave the club. It’s where I’ve been brought up and it’s where I have come through the ranks and I’d love to see out my career here. It would be an honour to be here for that many years. But I look at my appearances this season, and it’s only five or six starts. As a 28-year-old footballer, who had one of the highest appearance tallies last season, it is not good enough for me.’

Adding:

‘I need to be playing football. I’m not getting any younger. I don’t want to leave the club – but there are times in your life when you have to think ‘I can’t be sitting on the bench and coming on for 20 minutes’. I could tell how things were going when Luke Moore, a centre-forward, and Craig Gardner, a defensive midfielder, were played in front of me on the right. It is frustrating and disappointing, and last week (v Everton) was probably the biggest kick in the teeth I’ve had.’

Hendrie came off in a rare start for Villa v Fulham due to dizziness. As he passed by where I sit in the Trinity he certainly looked distressed and close to tears.

He said: ‘I don’t know what happened. I was running one minute and I just felt dizzy. I suppose it is lack of playing really. I thought I was going to faint. It was a bit scary really – and before I knew it, I was walking back into the changing rooms. The doctor said it was down to not playing that many games, and my blood pressure went up a little bit. The doctor said it might have been the effect of the virus I had. I said to the doctor ‘It just tops off the season for me’.’