WHATa superb game the local derby Aston Villa away to Wolverhampton Wanderers was.
Fantastic to see so many players fighting for the cause and realising that not only do the fans need repaying for their total and utter faith, but also Graham Taylor needed to be truly honoured.
What really delighted me throughout the match was how on-fire Gabby Agbonlahor and Ross McCormack were, they’ve developed such a great understanding, who`d have thought Gabby would have turned up at the start of this season so fit and so fired up?
Both players shot on sight throughout the game and blimey have we missed that sort of attitude over the last few seasons.
As for our midfield? One for all and all for one is the best way to describe how they fought against a Wolves team who were just devoid of any answer to our domination.
The defence? Hardly troubled because of how we defended from the front really were they? But when they were called on, they did not falter.
No. I’ve not been on the players favourite balloons and pipes. The above is genuinely how I SHOULD be writing about the local derby against Wolves yesterday.
Sadly, as you all know, with not one shot on target I can`t.
The fans played their part showing the great love we had for him.
The Villa players really didn’t play any part at all, other than once again disappointing.
Graham Taylor is much loved in these parts – most especially for his first spell at Villa – and the outpouring of grief for the awful news this week has been heartfelt and deserving.
He saved Aston Villa from an awful downward spiral. There is no doubt Villa were heading one way and that wasn’t upward when he chose to drop a division to take on this massive job.
I was lucky enough to cross paths a few times over the years and I always found he was more interested in talking with you, not at you.
A man of great humility, with time for the press (despite some reprehensible treatment when he moved on to the England job) and more importantly the fans.
I had a quick chat with him on his return, he simply said he had always had the ‘what if I hadn’t left’ feeling, but obviously the England job was the ultimate job in a managers career back then.
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Not sure it is so now. It became a poisoned chalice as Graham was to find out, largely fed by an ever increasingly aggressive press, in my humble opinion.
And yes, I’m afraid I am referring to the reprehensible front page treatment he got.
It wasn’t something I felt a man of his stature and dignity deserved.
In a very competitive media world, I’ve not been shy of using sensational headlines myself on my sites, but lampooning people?
The media set the tone. Or did they? Did the fans set the tone and the papers followed in order to sell their offerings? I don’t have the answer to that.
And this then brings me onto having to hold my hands up to a degree of hypocrisy.
Fans used to call Rafa Benitez the fat Spanish waiter. When he’d walk by me at Villa Park I’d ask him for the bill in Spanish (that makes me sound quite clever, don’t worry readers, it’s about the only phrase of Spanish I know).
I meant nothing by it, I don’t (often?!) swear at managers or join in the contorted faces of hatred towards the opposition like some fans. However, my action could be deemed racist couldn’t it? I also thought nothing of singing ‘sit down potato head’ to Steve Bruce before he came our manager (now he can stand up!) It was funny. Wasn’t it?
Well. Err. I guess the answer to that for Steve Bruce (who actually does seem like a water of a ducks back, I’ve yet to meet and ask him his thoughts!) or his family it wasn’t.
Maybe a time for us all to pause for thought.
I’ve paused for many a thought on Graham Taylor and I’m sure many country wide have, especially those lucky enough to have had him at their club as manager.
His second spell at Villa was a sadder affair, it was at the end of the Doug Ellis time when he’d really not been able to keep up with the ever changing game and Graham was let down funding wise.
It was sad to see a younger generation of fans see Graham in a different light, those of a certain age still remembered his first fantastic spell though and history would have him as one of our great managers in my ever so humble opinion. He’s a great loss to us and a great loss to football.
As for Villa? Well. The transfer window is looking a tricky thing again. We have a new keeper in, but we need midfielders and with us shooting blanks a striker.
It is hoped that Ayew might have a big money move to China and that maybe we’ve seen the back of him. Jonathan Kodjia though, the quicker he is back from the African Cup Of Nations the better, he’s the only one who seems likely to score.
Gabby has once again been picked by yet another manager, I would have hoped Bruce would have been a bit wiser than that.
I believe Gabby has more cards than goals over the last three seasons, he’s a spent force.
I still, every time I see his name on the teamsheet, hope he rams those words down my neck but he never does. He isn’t the only one.
Some like Alan Hutton put in the effort but aren’t good enough, others just seem to drift around on some sort of attitude that they just need to turn up to win.
Wake up, none of you are that good and this is the championship, it doesn’t like fancy Dans, it will eat you up and spit you out. And judging by our woeful league position, it has done exactly that, spat us out.
Play-offs? If we don’t get players in this week, they look extremely unlikely.
To be honest, they look unlikely anyway and I do think that we need to be able to boss this league before thinking about returning to the land of milk and honey (or hype and too much money!)
Five Things Aston Villa need to do now…
1) Buy some players
2) Buy some more players in order to be able to sell the remnants of the team that got us relegated
3) Look at radically changing their price structure for fans in order to not only keep us loyal mugs but persuade others to come back
4) Stop telling us things on twitter until we can see progress on the pitch
5) I still haven’t been given freedom of the corporate section, this surely must be done for all Villa fans to be happy? No? Oh right.
Until the next disaster fellow Villans… UTV
And RIP Graham Taylor, that bottle of wine you once bought me as a young man was most appreciated. Peace out. (We were in the local wine shop, we kept passing each other looking at what wine to buy, I was probably 20ish and had no clue what I was meant to be buying just that I quite liked getting tipsy!
I am not a great one for speaking with famous people as they deserve their private lives as well, but it was becoming funny how many times we were in each others way so I said ‘I don’t know how you go about picking an England team, I can’t even select a bottle of wine. He selected one for him and one for me and off we both went!)