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Your week in Aston Villa is semi-serious look at all things Villa.
Hull
One of the worst things in football is when a team who are underachieving decide to balance things out with a ‘correct’ performance against your side. Hull aren’t as bad as their table position suggests, and they proved that against Villa. Bastards.
Reading
On the other hand, Reading performed exactly as their position (19th) in the table would suggest. Villa routed them by three goals to nil in a dominant performance that looked too often like a training game. The match was so one-sided that Villa found it difficult to break forward with any speed at all.
One of the strangest things about the Reading match, was walking to the concourse at half-time to hear a number of fans bemoaning the football with a few choice words. You can’t make them all happy, can you? It begs the question though - why do we turn up at all when we are witness to perhaps one of the better footballing displays of the season at Villa Park and it is still, in some form, lacking?
Ray Wilkins
A legend of the English game is no longer with us. Ray Wilkins passed away on Wednesday at age 61. We won’t examine the where and why of it all, but will simply remember a kind and gentle soul, of which there are little in this world. We could all be a little bit more Ray.
Season Tickets
An early-bird deadline is approaching for season ticket renewals and purchases. I’m a ST holder myself, and it’s been an enjoyable experience so far, despite a crushing 2016.
There’s nothing like being at Villa Park, for each and every home game. I’m not going to sell it to you, but it’s just a damned good place to be. Sometimes.
If you’re still in two minds about heading down to the Villa, ask yourself - why not?
Birkir Bjarnason
Steve Bruce admitted that Birkir Bjarnason wanted to ‘tear his head off’ after the Icelandic midfielder learned that he was being dropped due to his intense international break.
While I’d pay good money to watch Birkir Bjarnason’s fingers struggle against Steve Bruce’s jugular vein, I’m positive that the Icelandic nomad will have reacted according to his status: professional.
Norwich
My crystal ball for this match is nothing if not cloudy, and I’m finding it difficult to envisage anything of note, right now. Aston Villa have been out-of-sorts as of late, and Norwich have found themselves engulfed in a sea of anything but tranquility. I guess we’ll only be wiser to the result when the game is unfolding before us.