A point would have been a big morale booster and kept Villa out of the bottom three, but we all knew what was going to happen at 1-1 in the final 10 minutes at the Emirates…that’s one thing all Villa fans have learnt this season (and last). So what else did we learn?
1 – Apathy X 1,000,000
One million ‘likes’ on Facebook is pretty impressive, sure, but nothing screams of a big club with a small time mentality than creating a song and dance about it. Sometimes I do wonder about the club’s PR team.
2 – Hydrochloric Ron
Hydrochloric acid dissolves concrete, and with the amount of injuries wracked up by ‘Concrete’ Ron this season it would appear that this new moniker is much more apt. Two weeks off and our one key player in a dangerously fragile position picks up a knock (that’s assuming it is a knock, no time frame was given for his absence.) We could have really used him yesterday too, Arsenal’s goals were soft, Clark and Baker were too static, and we really needed a leader out there.
3 – Failed to take advantage (Arsenal’s poor form)
Now, whilst there’s no shame in losing to Arsenal at their place, there’s no denying that they were there for the taking given their recent form. And despite the post game stats, when we actually had the ball we looked threatening when going forward. Before the game, Arsenal were either going to come out swinging or lie down and continue their all-encompassing passivity. They did neither, but an early goal gave them a start that we were never really going to recover from. When Weimann scored a point seemed plausible, but we never really got into them and we threw that away because our current style of play is, well, terrible. That’s why…
4 – A new game plan is needed
There really must be something we can do about the way we play. We have players good enough to hit on the counter, but that’s not enough. We concede so many late goals because we invite teams onto us and can’t cope with the pressure, and furthermore this balls to the wall style give us fans heart attacks. We fell victim to this practice again, which is inevitable against the better sides, surely a manager would fix this, come up with a solution to stop leaking so many late goals, so why hasn’t he?
5 – That’s how you beat Bradford
There really wasn’t going to be an outcome of the League Cup Final that would have made me feel okay about not being there, and Swansea certainly taught us a lesson in how you dispose of a League Two side. Of course, there are mitigating factors, a final at Wembley is a lot different to a two-legged semi final, and Swansea’s season hasn’t been a complete shambles and congratulations to them. During those awful nights over the Christmas period the only thing getting me through was the thought of Stan lifting the cup, giving us all a reason to cheer and take something away from this awful campaign. UTV
Steven Green is one of the hosts of AVFC Review podcast and writer for Shoot Magazine. Follow him on Twitter – here
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