MattVillan has submitted the following.
Good post Matt and cheers;
I’ve just watched the end of the Chelsea-Palace match and saw Chelsea lifting their fourth Premier League title under Abramovich and couldn’t help feeling somewhat melancholy- as a Villan born after 1981 I’ve never seen such scenes at Villa Park.
Thinking on, I wondered if I’ll ever see that in my life and came to a troubling realisation: in its current format, I almost certainly wont.
What with FFP and the vast commercial empires that have been grown like colossal fortifications around the chances of the “big clubs”, the likes of United, Chelsea, Arsenal and City, there is no way Villa could ever rise up and compete at that level regularly.
One only has to look as far as Liverpool to see this. They haven’t won a title 25 years now, and the few pops they have at it are irregular and based around fortune with lucky signings and tend to burn out as the going gets tough. They’ve missed the bus and it’ll only get harder to catch it now.
We’ve seen the might of United this year- out of the champions league and yet they sanction north of £100 million in transfer fees to make up for it, sourced from their vast coffers topped up by their global brand. It’s truly a closed shop up there, a different world we can see but could never make that leap and ascend into.
For as much as Fox’s rhetoric is captivating that we can grow to be a top 6 club again – hurray! – that is very much the glass ceiling; even in the excess of the MON days there was no real danger of us ever being a squad that could challenge for the title no matter how much Randy had poured into the squad, and now with the draconian “keep everything as they are” financial fair play rules not even the slim chance of a multi-billionaire investor coming and ploughing money into the club and buying us titles is possible.
With these depressing thoughts in mind my thoughts wandered to the FA Cup final at the end of the month. How massive is that game for us? This is essentially the highest peak we can ascend unless something drastic is done to rebalance the league, bar perhaps a fortunate run in the Europa League after years and years of building (bearing in mind the true prize for that competition is qualification for the Champions League).
This means our date with Arsenal at Wembley could well be the defining match for a generation of Villans- please Tim, don’t let them bottle it like we did in 2010!
Up the Villa!
Good post Matt,I think to be talking about being a top 6 team maybe thinking a bit a head there but under Sherwood I do believe this is achievable.I think a few tweaks here & there with the squad we could look like a team challenging,benteke could be a major factor this summer I hope he stays but the financial & European silver could be too tempting imo.Mr Fox has a vision even if Randy doesn’t only time will tell onwards & upwards.
Great article, and something I’ve long debated with a west brom fan at work (we’re better than you because we’re 13th and you’re 14th is soul destroying banter – is that the best we can do?) The FA Cup or to a lesser extent the League Cup are the two things our clubs could win and represent success. Not sure we’ll ever lift the league trophy again in my lifetime.
While of course its the cup and anything can happen, the team bottling it is not a major concern for me as I reckon Sherwood will be telling them to just enjoy it.
It is a massive game though and I don’t think the enormity of it has quite sunk in yet for me personally.
The only person that bottled the 2010 League Cup final was Phil Dowd.
The BIG bottled final was 2000……
Good article. Because for me I am in the same position. My old man saw villa win the title and the champions league but for me this FA Cup is something I dream of.. seeing the villa take home some silverware.
I’ve been thinking about this a bit more and bearing in mind Matt’s proposal that winning a cup and achieving top 6 is as best as it can get, the way I see it, we have a few possible scenarios at the end of the season;
a) We win the cup and finish as high as is possible with another 3 wins.
b) We win the cup and just survive.
c) We win the cup and get relegated.
d) We lose the cup final and finish as high as is possible with another 3 wins.
e) We lose the cup final and just survive
f) We lose the cup final and get relegated.
An open question for anyone;
How many of these scenarios would you class as a decent season, if any at all?
And of course, why?
Ooah, I’ll pre-empt you;
“They’re all crap because we haven’t won the league or finished in the top 4 and the FA cup means nothing” 😉
For me if we win the cup and stay up that’s not a bad season considering. Lose the cup and stay up would be a shit season as this club should never be anywhere near relegation in the first place. Fans expectations are so low now that just staying up is seen as the holy grail. And what’s worse is it will be like this season after season while Lerner and FFP are still around.
Winning the Cup is enough for me, controversial I know, but I’ve posted before how much the F.A. Cup means to me. I’m 50, and it’s the only trophy I’ve not seen us win, if we win it in a few weeks time it will be one of the happiest days of my life, I mean it. Football at the highest level lost it’s soul years ago, all this scrambling for the Sky/BT pot of gold is sickening. I find it hard to care that much about the Premier League, look how exciting the Championship has been this year. Oh and by the way, Vaze is right, Phil Dowd was the only one who bottled it that day in 2010, disgraceful decision.
I know we’re playing the gooners in the final but for 90 odd mins tonight I’m fully behind em.
with the right manager i think top four is there for cracking.look at spain a madrid simone has produced miracles now for 3 years ,germany what klopp did it won t happen overnight but
if you can get core of 7/8 players, good keeper centre halves striker anything can happen
We can’t hold on to the very few decent players we get anyway. So no chance we will never be top 4 and we would get hammered in the group stage even if we did. Even man city are struggling
Hull 3- 0 DOWN,
Good post. I am old enough to have been at VP when the ducks quacking on the pond in Yarm kept Bobby Robson’s Ipswich players awake all night so they lost to Boro and Villa won the league. Oh forgive me – didn’t you know that ducks decided the title? Also I was on the terrace in Rotterdam when Withe shinned the winner. So – can it happen again?
You have to believe in a monumental slice of good luck. Not for us, for Arsenal, Chelsea, Citeh and Manure. We have already seen Manure landing in the Moyes, and Chelsea will one day replace Mourinho, and Arsenal will see Wenger retire. It is not so easy to make a seamless change and maintain the standard.
The other part of the problem is not rolling over to have your tummy tickled while the big four steal the players that threaten their top four places – even if they buy them to stick them in the reserves. Just say no and hold the stars to their contracts. But no, I almost despair at Swansea and Saints selling their strikers – and the end of my belief that it is possible to displace the big four team in transition will happen if Spurs sell Kane.
Great article. It sums up my own thoughts on the subject perfectly. Vast commercial empires and colossal fortifications is a great way to describe the dominance the top four or five teams have on the PL. As things stand there is no way that the other fifteen teams in the PL can compete at the same level. The seemingly bottomless pits of money, the love in with the media and the uncanny rub of the green means that the rest of the league doesnt have a chance.
OLL mentioned above the despair at Swansea and Saints selling their strikers. I read earlier today that Bony is unhappy with the amount of playing time he is getting at Citeh. Really? What did he think was going to happen; he was going to replace Augero? Everybody and their dog could of told him he was going to be a bench warmer. But this annoys me too. The big teams cream the talent from the rest of the league and then stick it on the sidelines. Look at Zaha at Palace, bought by Man Utd and dumped in the who knows where. Yes, he’s back at Palace now but what a waste of good playing time. Same with Sinclair at Citeh. For a large extent it was the same with Young; although he is now getting good playing time. The list just goes on and on. Players get their heads turned, get their big move, and then to various extents disappear off the radar.
Contrast the PL with the Championship. I actually followed this league this season and it was mental. There were about 10 teams fighting it out over the season to get promotion and it went right down to the last few games to establish the top two and the four play off teams. I would never have thought that Bournemouth would be the champions and score close on 100 goals in the process, or that Brentford would make a surge to get in the play off spots denying Derby, who had looked nailed on promotion candidates at one point, in the process.
In my opinion the Championship looked to be a real battle open to all the teams there. On the other hand the PL is a battle that is only played out between the top four or five and feels very much a closed shop. I mean what have things come to when the relegation battle at the bottom is far more interesting and competitive than the battle for the title at the top?
I wonder if the football bubble will burst? Will we ever see proper competition in the PL again? We won’t as things stand and it is very sad.
UTV.
Good post in some ways our season would be more exciting in championship. At least we would be one of 10 teams that could get promoted and no top 4 teams dominating every game. Downside is we might get promoted and suffer all over again.