The Good Bad and Ugly – Champions League Season Preview
With Aston Villa about to embark on their maiden UEFA Champions League Season, everything around the club has hit fever pitch except maybe where it counts. It’s time for the Good, Bad and Ugly preview.
The Good
Seeing Aston Villa in more places is doing its part to get fans excited for the season. Times Square, JD Sports in multiple cities, and the excellent Kit launch video with Black Sabbath, were all high points in a post-European Championships summer.
It’s genuinely unknown territory for modern Villa fans, after years of monotony and turgid times since the end of the Randy Lerner and Martin O’Neill era.
Getting the next generation of fans enthused and giving them some bragging rights in the playgrounds and youth pitches across the country has been a long time coming, so hopefully Villa fans have made the most of it.
Whatever the season brings, having fourth place in the bag over the summer has been like a honeymoon period, but of course, all good things come to an end.
Villan of the Summer – Ollie Watkins
Like a coiled spring, Ollie Watkins sat on the England bench for most of the Euros while Harry Kane moved about the pitch with the dynamism of a tugboat.
When the moment came Watkins took his chance in the last seconds of the semi-final against the Netherlands with a goal that will never get the credit it deserves.
One touch to get the ball out of his feet, another to arrow it into the far corner, with no bounce until it was past the keeper’s glove.
While it didn’t ultimately end in tournament success, Watkins’ goal was the highlight of the summer and if there is any justice, will be remembered like David Platt’s in Italia 90 against Belgium.
The Bad
While it’s been good to see Villa in more places, there’s always a yang to the yin. The Yang has surprisingly come from the on-pitch performances in pre-season.
While pre-season means nothing in the grand scheme of things, it can be an indicator of trends and vulnerabilities in a side.
The winless tour of the US was a missed opportunity to grow the brand in the States on the back of entertaining performances rather than slick marketing, but Villa stank the place out on the pitch.
Improved showings against Athletic Bilbao, and to an extent, Borussia Dortmund, were also not without the underlying problem that is a defence that has not improved in a year.
While Villa’s strong attacking displays at the start of last season were enough to propel them to fourth place, there was always a defensive fragility that led to goals being conceded in clusters or due to lapses in concentration.
Even the most positive Villa fan cannot say that anything has changed at the back based on the pre-season games. The first game of last season was a chastening experience, and it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that the same kind of result could happen in any game this season against any side that cracks the Villa formula
Although there’s much to look forward to this season, it’s hard to shake the nagging feeling that Aston Villa haven’t adequately addressed their defensive vulnerabilities.
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The Ugly
It’s going to be a long season filled with a full range of emotions, with online opinions spanning the full spectrum of positivity.
While everyone loves a positive outlook, it’s important to remember that without darkness, there can be no light. Sometimes, we can view Villa matters through overly claret-and-blue-tinted glasses.
One week, a new signing is seen as a masterstroke; the next, they’re out on loan to West Bromwich Albion, like Lewis Dobbin.
Some will say Aston Villa will never recover from selling Douglas Luiz, while others believe the team has only gotten stronger in his absence.
Monchi is either hailed as a genius or criticised as someone who couldn’t sell water in the desert. The new kit is either awesome and worth a hefty three-figure price tag, or it’s a basic template that’ll be on sale at an Adidas outlet for £20 in a few months.
The truth is, there’s some validity to all of these opinions. But as the season unfolds, it’s not just the players who need to keep a cool head.
Toxic positivity can be just as harmful as toxic negativity. A simple way to gauge this is to reflect on your opinions from a year or two ago, scrolling through online memories.
Was Ross McCormack really the missing link who was going to propel Aston Villa to promotion? Did you believe someone who made a video declaring “My City, My Club, My Home” would never leave?
There are countless examples like these at the start of every season.
Above all, enjoy the season, but try to be careful when picking your hill to die on. Don’t be like Spurs and be Champions in September.
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