Aston Villa & The Pursuit Of Mediocrity

Editorial | Article posted on January 8th, 2025

Aston Villa & The Pursuit Of Mediocrity
By Ian on Jan 6, 2025 in Latest, Opinion | 1 comment

Upon the tootling of the full time whistle at Villa Park on Saturday afternoon, a somewhat familiar chorus of booing rang around one of the few remaining historical homes of English football. A home defeat at the hands of a Sheffield United team that is currently struggling to keep its head above water two divisions below them isn't a result that it's possible to put a positive spin upon especially when the manager of your club has chucked his eggs into the basket of stating boldly that the FA Cup doesn't matter any more, especially in comparison with the relentlessly perpetual battle to hang onto that financially important – but frequently boring – mid-table place in the Premier League.
Paul Lambert's comments regarding Saturday's match were stupid, but not necessarily for the reasons that you might expect us to say. Quite frankly, we're quite a long way beyond the point of caring about this tedious annual debate. We know. We see it in the attendance figures. We see see it in the annual caterwauling of supporters with a sense of the sort of sense of entitlement that is a inevitable by-product of the sort of gentrification that the game has been subjected to over the last couple of decades. We know. We've had this conversation before. And every year, we say that other sports are available to those for whom English football – of which the FA Cup has been a part since before players were even paid to perform – isn't good enough, but still they walk amongst us. And for the likes of Lambert, the ultimate truth of the matter is that he will be judged on his performance in the Premier League, and not the FA Cup.
To make such statements when things aren't going brilliantly in the Premier League, however, sounds like an example of yet another football professional opening the mouth before properly engaging the brain. Paul Lambert set himself up for the derision that he has received I'm no small part because he is not in a comfortable enough position to be able to be as free with his words as he seems to think that he is. All his talk of projects, as if there is some sort of corehent masterplan that will eventually bear fruit for the overall good of Aston Villa Football Club, sounds particularly hollow when it's followed by a home defeat at the hands of a team that your reserves should be able to beat. So it is that ympathy for him is in particularly short supply to the point that it may even

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