Author: Alex Othon

As everybody can see, the bottom has well and truly fallen out of Aston Villa Football Club. Another gutless performance and the inevitable defeat against Stoke left me with a real hankering for better days and, in particular, much better players. Indeed, there is a definite bewilderment from people that the club was finishing sixth in the Premier League as recently as 2010, which just shows how far we have fallen. Our consistent sixth-place finishes under Martin O’Neill seem so much further away and we would be eternally grateful to have another one of those seasons now. In fact, just a season without the threat…

Tales of turmoil at Villa Park seem to be emerging in the press and on social media sites on a daily basis, from accounts of even the administration staff beginning to abandon their positions after decades of service due to a poor working environment, to the ongoing Joleon Lescott debacle still racking up the column inches. Yesterday’s offering was from Sky Sports, where it was reported that Aston Villa had lost a behind closed doors friendly 3-0 against the Under 21 team last week. This story has had its intended effect and our much maligned club has been ridiculed even…

A Saint Valentine’s Day massacre saw the Villans succumb to their heaviest home defeat for eighty-one years at the hands of Liverpool. Although 0-6 was a complete demolition job, we were lucky the Reds didn’t go into overdrive and completely kill us off. With nineteen minutes still to go, after a decidedly porky looking Kolo Toure simply let the ball bounce off his head into the net for the sixth, we could easily have conceded two or three more had Liverpool not taken some mercy on us and eased off. After a fairly resilient few weeks where we seemed to…

Aston Villa’s win against Norwich City on Saturday has once again given us a glimmer of hope that we may actually be able to save ourselves. It was a rare win yet, in truth, performances and results have generally being picking up for the last six weeks or so. Whilst we haven’t capitalised completely on a decent run of winnable fixtures, we are no longer losing five or six games on the spin and are largely being competitive. It is no coincidence that a change in personnel on the field has contributed to this. Brad Guzan – dropped. Alan Hutton…

This January transfer window has been pretty lacklustre for many clubs. Whilst it is exciting for fans when their clubs sign players, we won’t be the only ones feeling underwhelmed by a lack of activity. Usually, I am exactly the same as everybody else and love to see Aston Villa Football Club linked with exciting players and eventually even sign a few of them. However, this transfer window was different. For Aston Villa, this transfer window was absolutely pointless. In our current situation, we had next to no chance of signing anybody decent. When Charlie Austin finally made his move from Queens…

The Aston Villa Supporters Trust annual general meeting was held last week and it provided a chance to gain some insight into what is happening behind the scenes at the club. Whilst not present at the meeting myself, the transcript provides interesting analysis and is certainly worth a read if you haven’t done so already. Our much maligned CEO Tom Fox was the main attraction. However, a hastily scheduled appearance by our new chairman, Steve Hollis, added an opportunity to discover more about the man and his plans. The first point I would like to make is that it was…

An unfamiliar wave of optimism has engulfed Villa Park over the last week thanks to a much needed return of four points from our last two games. The dreaded hope has flooded back into our hearts and, suddenly, there are signs that maybe, just maybe, the club could actually escape what seemed like certain doom just one week ago. However, the pessimist (or perhaps the realist) in me is still not convinced. Before last Tuesday’s heroics against Crystal Palace, we were eleven points from safety. Despite us picking up those four points, we are currently now nine points from seventeenth-placed Newcastle United. Effectively, with…

The weekend’s FA Cup third round delivered yet another disappointing result to add to our collection for the season. A 1-1 draw against League 2 side Wycombe Wanderers led to frayed tempers and increased the talk amongst the beleaguered Villa faithful of planning protests, demonstrations and stay-aways for upcoming games. The hashtag #RelegateRandy, which gained momentum over the dire festive period, is still out in force and vitriol is spewing uncontrollably right, aimed at the players, the manager and, of course, Randolph Lerner. In jest, I said that I blamed Doug Ellis for not foreseeing this when he sold the…