Vernal Villan: Week 18 - Winning's a Heck of a Drug

Take a moment and consider your feelings about the current Villa team. Then please answer the question below. I'll have a bit of a say on it after the jump, but answer before you read. I am really curious to get a read on what fans are thinking.

I imagine if I'd asked this question four days ago, we'd see considerably more negative answers. We were teetering at the lower end of the table, had just gotten massacred by a team that really doesn't look all that great this season, and our manager had said some stupid things (even if most of us thought they weren't that big of a deal). Additionally, we hadn't had a league win in almost a month and goals had become more scarce than well-reported soccer journalism. In short: things looked bad, even to an optimistic eye. I bet I would have taken the second option.

But today? I'm voting for option three or four. It's funny how soccer can do that to us. Imagine if Villa had lost on Saturday. We'd be one point clear of the drop zone, and in a total shambles. Now? We're four points up, and riding a one game winning streak. We're as close to 7th place as we are to 18th. Things don't seem so dire.

Soccer is a game that lends itself to heightened emotion. In a typical baseball season, it's pretty hard to get too worked up over a normal game; there are 162 of them, after all. But in soccer, we only get 38 chances to watch our team attempt to make something of itself. That means each game is ~4.2 times as important as its equivalent in baseball. With that comes quicker moves in the standings, and an easier ability to have a short memory. We know that a few wins in a row could totally turn Aston Villa's season around. If we had healthy players (note: ALL AT ONCE, PLEASE) and we could have a run of good form, we'd see what Aaron talked about with luck tending to even out over a season.

So think about how much (if at all) your answer to the poll has changed since a few minutes before kickoff on Saturday. I'd imagine you've shifted upwards, if only by a little. It should serve as a reminder that, as bad as things have been, we're still 100% in this race.