Real football will soon be back on the agenda for Aston Villa as we head towards this weekend’s clash with Hull City.
You would think that back to back defeats against Bolton Wanderers and Queens Park Rangers have all but ended automatic promotion hopes with Fulham having overtaken us in third spot and a seven point gap to second placed Cardiff City.
But that isn’t insurmountable if we can get ourselves back on track as there will be the proverbial ‘twists and turns’ left for a number of sides as the remaining eight games tick by. The important point now is bouncing back from those defeats and picking up a win this weekend as we’d go into April’s fixtures with renewed faith and renewed confidence.
Whether automatic promotion is now a step too far, it’s all eyes to the Play Offs and ensuring we go into the season extension in good form so we give ourselves the best chance possible of a trip to Wembley and promotion back to the top flight.
With Cardiff having a game in hand, that does now complicate matters somewhat but we are still to face them in the run in on April 10th and that match could be key to finalising the top two, especially with others in the Play Off run still to face off against each other as well.
One thing is for sure though, April defines how we’ll look back on the 2017/18 campaign and with the Play Off and promotion spread of points from Wolves down to Millwall things will quickly firm themselves up as the games tick by from here on in and I’d be surprised if we weren’t seeing a mathematical guarantees come into play by even the time our trip to Carrow Road to face Norwich City comes around.
Other sides will be hoping the curse of the international break doesn’t bite for them over the Easter Weekend, our only focus has to be back to back victories.
Steve Bruce said last week that he believed we needed ‘six of our last eight’ and many believed that wouldn’t be enough for the top two but that has to be the minimum we aim for to tick the preferred Play Off route.
The fans will do what Villa fans do – over to the players to show what we know they are capable of once again.
