We all know Aston Villa’s recent history. I don’t need to overly repeat it, suffice to say that when one of our own, Dean Smith, hit the wall after all the progress he had made, many of us were again left wondering if we had misplaced our trust in owners who had yet to put a real foot wrong.
Even the greatest doubters amongst us welcomed Stevie Gee. We hoped the inevitable media love in, and his name, would prove to be a precursor to success, and not idiotic folly wherein the former England man ultimately proved he was incapable of managing a proper football club, in a very competitive league.
He did well at Rangers after all…..but so did a former managerial (cough) success, Alex McLeish.
Ultimately, despite the inane, low IQ, unintelligible ramblings of Stevie’s friends in the media, and those pundits who could barely produce an individual thought movement of their own whilst sat on the toilet, Villa didn’t do well and we bombed down the league quicker than Boris Johnson’s credibility.
Having managed to seemingly only not pick a fight with former teammate Phillipe Coutinho and A.Trialist in our Under 8’s squad (who really couldn’t look him in the eye, because he’s eight!), our Chief Executive had to eat a little humble pie and search for a manager, with Nassef Sawiris making sure it was somebody who didn’t need a small City of coaches around them whilst they still failed at their job.
Enter Unai Emery.
The media continued telling the world it was all Villa’s fault. Their Golden Child hadn’t been backed, he hadn’t been given long enough, banning sauces and puddings hadn’t yet had the philosophically desired effect and for a long time, I’m pretty sure the media were convinced that even the Dalai Lama was tutting when he thought about our nasty treatment of Mr No Tactics But Master Of The Folded Arms, and of course, Emery hadn’t improved us.
There was, of course, an obvious problem with their biased, illogical, clueless and childish ‘but he’s my mate’ approach to what should be an ethical reporting of facts and not 13 year old opinion.
Emery had improved us. Massively. Performances turned first, and results followed. Players were clearly looking him in the eye as individual performances improved. Game management – who remembered game management existed – improved. We don’t see folded arms often anymore, and when we do, it’s a discussion – not solitary resignation and an admittance of a total inability to know how to change a game. Fans were happy but look at the BBC’s Villa feed right now as I publish this following the Liverpool game.
Seven of the stories are still Liverpool led in headlining, and this is apparently from an unbiased taxpayer funded outlet. And even I concede they are better than others on bias – but better doesn’t mean not clickbait jokers playing to a more spiky and volatile crowd who provide internet hits (the BBC should be focused on things that matter, not Jurgen Klopp’s inane ramblings) – as opposed to you know, real fans? Okay, travelling fans told the Anfield crowd where they could stick our former manager but we saw his managerial talent suit the hole suggested.
Still, we quietly, and slowly, moved from a Stevie Gee induced relegation battle and pushed up the table into what could’ve been a guaranteed European adventure next season had one or two results gone our way.
Slowly, but surely, the idiots who are supposed to know about football caught on and started to realise this and noticed that a proper manager with brains had overseen changes and improvements that a media personality was incapable of achieving. Under the radar served in our favour though, and having embarrassed Liverpool last weekend – and led Jurgen Klopp into yet another conspiracy meltdown about VAR (even though it’s in their name) – we go into the final curtain clash against Brighton and Hove Albion with an entirely unexpected adventure potentially ahead of us.
Funny how fortunes can change when you have someone in charge who actually knows what they are doing eh.
Thank you Mr Purslow, everyone makes a mistake on occasions.
Someone once said the future was bright…the media might need another 12 months to realise we’re already there.
It has been a while since the last article on this home page. Good to have you back, I hope you are all in good health.
As soon as Unai Emery arrived I returned to putting my customary fiver on Villa to win, something that I haven’t done for some time. Our dramatic but largely unrecognised improvement led to some incredible odds for my little bets. Five to one at Chelsea! What a difference he has made to our club.
Phenomenal season when you consider the wasted games at the start. Appreciated though Andy, just a well earned break but I should pop up a bit more often again now and hopefully joined by others in time.