It must have been a long fourteen minutes for those who had decided to leave on the 74th…
Protesting but not revolting..
The Villa faithful certainly made it a night to remember in a season of many nights to forget on Tuesday. The protests went far better than I ever imagined and the combination of those who chose to leave and those who chose to stay and sing, made for a well-balanced demonstration of loyalty to the club and contempt for the guilty men who turned Villa’s solvable difficulties into a disaster, the full cost of which only history will eventually reveal.
Although the participation in the Out-The-Door-On-74 walkout was significant but patchy, the guys who organised it need congratulating for the publicity it created, which alerted the media and culminated in the best moment of the night for TV audiences across the globe, which was the close-up of Tom ‘Wing-nut’ Fox, as the fans sang their anthems of scorn. Then just to pile irony upon irony, Villa got better, Everton got worse, the bullies got bullied, and big Rudy scored.
In terms of football the two Villa games since their debacle against Liverpool, just repeated Villa’s tendency to negate more cautious tactics with glaring individual errors. The game against Stoke, who were very, very ordinary, until the referee put them in front with a soft penalty, was a perfect demonstration of the barriers to those stuck on the bottom and trapped in a media narrative of inevitable relegation. Once that is the case, referees seem to do their best to reinforce it or at least refuse do anything which might challenge it. Fans of clubs in similar predicaments as Villa’s always complain that referees are against them and judging by the evidence, it is impossible to deny it has a strong ring of truth.
Against Stoke the referee booked Hutton for time-wasting but allowed two professional-fouls which halted his runs forward, to go unpunished. As Villa picked up bookings for niggles and Stoke suffered a finger-wagging for the same sort of thing, Stoke realised which way the wind was blowing and Arnautovic feigned a blow to the face in an effort to get a Villa player sent-off. But ultimately Villa lost the game because when Shaqiri produced one of his very few decent crosses of the game, Mark Bunn managed to throw himself into the back of his own net. The referee offered Villa a consolation late in the game when he allowed Bacuna’s goal, which followed a clear hand-ball by Gestede, but the damage had already been done and the narrative confirmed.
Looking at the Everton team-sheet on Tuesday night the comparisons with Villa were glaring, especially the appearance of their £28m signing Lukaku, an unavoidable reminder that Villa had sold their own £32m Belgian striker, and Gareth Barry who presumably Villa could have been re-signed had Villa not been on another economy drive. With Baines on the bench, a player Villa would have cashed in long ago, the contrasts and comparisons were too glaring to ignore. The names of Stones and Barkley were reminders of how young talents can flourish when played along side more experienced and seasoned professionals, and not expected to perform miracles while players who are strangers to the Premier League play catch-up.
Villa were pretty lively from the kick-off but were behind after five minutes, when for reasons unknown Richards changed his mind about tracking Mori the scorer and decided to do a bit of ball-watching instead, which left Mori unchallenged to head home. This left Le Gaffer’s decision to play three centre-backs in tatters and the belief completely drained from the Villa as another thrashing looked on the cards. Gladly, Everton failed to exploit Villa’s terrible patch which followed and Martinez’s men settled for a period of fancy stuff which allowed Villa to regroup and settle. Villa even produced a good chance for themselves when Cissokho whipped in a great cross onto Gabby’s head but Jagielka just barged him in the back and the effort went wide. Villa were starting to show a bit of ambition and were getting more men into the box but it was mostly a case of the right kind of service not being delivered or Villa’s attack being bullied by Everton’s defence. Gabby got the right ball once and came very close to scoring but never had a sniff for the rest of the game. The only reward Villa got for their ambition was that Villa players drifted out of position and Barkley broke through a deserted midfield which led to Lennon’s unchallenged tap-in for their second goal. This was seen as the cue for the Villa fans’ singing to start in earnest. Everton settled for a bit more fancy stuff and Villa gratefully made it to half-time without conceding further.
Villa huffed and puffed in the opening minutes of the second-half but were opened up easily by Everton and heroics by Guzan kept out a powerful header from Lukaku. Then on sixty minutes Everton broke down the left and put in a nothing cross which Guzan only cleared to Lennon, Mori was allowed to cross unchallenged for the unmarked and untracked Lukaku to make it three. The Villa singing began anew, as the fans indulged in their morose delectation, at the sheer depth of the low Villa’s guilty men had brought them to.
It must have been a long fourteen minutes for those who had decided to leave on the 74th, as Villa’s rout looked just about complete, but Le Gaffer rang the changes and replaced Gabby and Westwood with Gestede and Veretout respectively. Ironically enough, as the protesters hit the bricks, Villa started to play better and Hutton was profiting from some moves down the right wing and it was his lay-back which was crossed for big Rudy to score. Gestede produced another chance later when he headed down to set up Ayew, who sadly lacked the precision to put it away. Adding in the chance which Westwood had and the one Gabby almost converted from Bacuna’s pass, the game could have finished a lot closer and it definitely would have done so without the glaring errors which led to all of Everton’s goals. Everton were better but should they follow Villa’s example and cash in their best players, they will follow Villa’s fate. Whether their new co-ownership set-up will lead to such idiocy remains to be seen.
But having been shown wanting against ordinary teams like Stoke and mid-table teams like Everton, Villa now have to take on Man City, who despite unaccountably seeming to be doing their best not to win the title, are still capable of looking excellent when they are not distracted by the speculation about who their next manager will be. No doubt the stats men will put the odds of a home win at something like 80% and the chances of a Villa win at something below 10%, so no one will expect anything from Villa, except the hope that they can keep the score down and avoid too much of a humiliation. We can only hope that Lescott and Richards will be focused enough to avoid embarrassing themselves as they return to their old club. If Villa avoid an embarrassing thrashing, it will come as a relief but like most Villa fans, if they get hammered I’ll be just try and look on the bright side.
Keep the faith!
