Why is it that any time a sentence starts like that, later in the day we are recovering from a lacklustre performance?
Aston Villa could go third!
Aston Villa could overtake Arsenal!
Aston Villa could go top of the league!
Aston Villa could be top at Christmas!
Aston Villa could confirm their place in the Champions League!
Aston Villa could book a place in the final!
Every time I see a sentence like that, my head drops. It never used to, but it really does seem like this era of Villa, while being the best we have seen in most of our lifetimes, also just doesn't seem to have the mindset to cross the line.
Is it mindset? Like yesterday's game I could imagine the players have their minds on Thursday's game... maybe? But other times there hasn't been a particularly important, or crucially MORE important game round the corner.
We don't have a reputation as bottlers/chokers. But I can't help but wonder, if we had more media attention over the last 3 years, maybe we would have that reputation. After all, we have choked at vital moments so damn often. All of the above listed ones as an example.
The question is, how does this get fixed? How do the players get themselves over that line? Are they over-confident and get punished? Under-confident and again get punished? To me it sometimes feels like the latter, like the team can't believe they can achieve a particular goal and then they don't do it.
On the flip-side, yesterday's game they didn't seem lacking confidence, honestly they lacked... desire. It just looked like they couldn't be bothered. They weren't outplayed, they just didn't really try. A moment that really kind of summed up the game happened at the end. Martinez got the ball with less than a minute of extra time left, held the ball for a few seconds then rolled it out to Konsa.
The game was in the dying seconds! Get that ball up the pitch to Abraham as quickly as possible. CHASE the game. Rogers loses a ball and throws his hands in the air. Fuck that, get the ball back! There just seems to be an overall lack of effort across the team with a couple of exceptions here and there (although different ones each game) McGinn was our rock against Sunderland, when he went off we relaxed. Yesterday he was kind of absent from the game.
I dunno, to sum up I guess I am just getting pretty frustrated with seeing a team that spends a lot of time in almost every game, not really trying, putting that effort in, showing some fucking passion! We see flashes of it and when those flashes happen, the team is amazing, world beaters.
How do Villa fix this?
UTFV!