Dave’s Villa Blog

CRUISERWEIGHTS AIM TO MOVE UP IN CLASS

10-05-2008

Villa enter the final game of the season with European football a tantalising possibility. Who knows, success might just persuade Gareth Barry to stay, but either way, Dave Woodhall isn’t losing any sleep.

Sunday sees the last game of the season – and it seems about three weeks since the first one. That’s what creeping old age does to you.

The shambles against Wigan now means Villa have got little chance of finishing fifth and therefore getting a direct UEFA Cup place, so it’ll probably be sixth and the dubious pleasure of the Intertoto Cup.

The Wigan game showed that some of our players are knackered as the effects of a full season with the smallest squad in the league are taking their toll. It was Martin O’Neill’s decision not to invest in January and he’ll live or die by it.

The match was also notable for two other things. It was Olof Mellberg’s farewell to Villa Park, and the Swedish international received a fitting send-off. It might also prove to be Gareth Barry’s last home game.

Barry’s possible departure has been the subject of much debate this week. It’s noticeable that Martin himself was calling a £10 million bid from Liverpool as being too low, and when managers start talking figures rather than outright dismissal, it’s usually from then on a case of not ‘if’ but ‘when.’

I wouldn’t blame Barry for choosing to leave. He’s had ten years with the Villa, he owes us nothing and if he wants to test himself at the highest level then at the moment he will have to leave, as Villa are still behind Liverpool’s standard in the Champions League.

If things go to plan it will take us probably three seasons to get to the stage where we can compete into the knockout stages of the competition, and by that time Barry will be the wrong side of thirty.

Villa are, at the moment, a cruiserweight cub aiming to mix it with the heavyweights.

But if Gareth does leave, it won’t be the end of the world. Like many Villa supporters of my age, my first crashing disappointment in life came when Bruce Rioch was sold to Everton. Despite there seeming, to me at least, no hope for the Bruceless club, Villa were promoted the following season.

In the years that followed, Andy Gray, Alan McInally, David Platt and Dwight Yorke were also sold, supposedly to bigger and better clubs. Villa survived, and in most cases did better without them. I’m positive that with or without Barry, we’ll do the same again.

Dave edits Villa’s fanzine Heroes and Villains. Check out the online edition here http://www.heroesandvillains.info/discuss/portal.php