Express & Star

Blog: We should be proud of Aston Villa's history but have to face up to current reality

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Unexpected wins. Unexpected losses. As Aston Villa's season moves one step closer to the finish line, Matt Turvey asks just where the Villans deserve to be.

Oh Aston Villa. As the Villans face a trip to Old Trafford at the weekend, fans will - as ever - be wondering which team is going to turn up. Will it be the team that took all three points against Chelsea? Or the one that rolled over against Stoke City?

Looing ahead to Old Trafford, Manchester United, it would be fair to say, haven't had a great season - in the context of their usual expectations at least. Villa, by the same token, are actually doing better than many expected. Sure the Midlands club aren't in the hunt for European places, but being just a little bit further from the bottom three is good enough, at least for now.

So with all that understood, the question becomes this - what are Villa going to do at the weekend? Is there a chance for a win?

Despite all the change around both Villa and United, Old Trafford has historically been a hard place to go. Yes, many teams have exploited the shakiness of the David Moyes era and taken three points, but it would be pretty foolish to consider a win some kind of foregone conclusion.

On Saturday, Villa will have the chance to go one game from safety - at least in standard terms. The reality this season is that it may not take 40 points to be safe simply because there is such a scrap going on at the bottom, although there's a growing consensus that the bottom three may be the same trio that go down come the end of the season.

As a Villa fan, I'm not hanging my hopes on safety being a step closer come the end of the game. Sure, I'll be hoping for a win, but nothing more than that - perhaps I can be pleasantly surprised, much like I was at home against Manchester City and Chelsea.

That attitude - one of no real expectation - is probably the starkest illustration of how things have changed at Villa Park in recent year. The era of finishing sixth - and the associated spending levels that went with it - are a distant memory, with more recent times spent bobbing around at the wrong end of the table.

Yes, problems needed to be fixed - and Villa's financial worries have been well documented - but how long can this go on for? More to the point, when do Villa cease to become a team who are underachieving, and start becoming a team who are just a bottom half side?

I'm sure by just saying that, there will be supporters who are angered, fervently stating that Villa aren't - and never should be - considered to be making up the numbers.

However, at least over a period of time, trends start to appear. A season after Martin O'Neill left, the following ninth placed finish could have been seen as a blip on the way back to the top six, but the reality showed that it was more of a sign to come - of a side that would struggle to get into the top half rather than one that would be chasing Europe.

For Villa fans, there is a cold and harsh reality that exists now - Villa are no longer a big club. That isn't an easy thing to say, but as time goes by, there are less and less signs that they are - the don't spend lots of money, they don't attract the best players, and they don't show any kind of (positive) consistency.

Yes, the history of Villa is one we should be proud of - even though the vast majority of it came in a time before even my grandparents were alive - but we have to face up to the current reality. That doesn't mean accepting mediocrity, or that we should assume relegation is a guarantee in the future, but it does mean that we have to start realising that where we are isn't bad luck, it is where we currently deserve to be.

Such a statement may anger some, but the truth is we don't deserve to be any higher than we are at present. Sometimes you'll win games you don't expect, and the same goes with losing but, over time, thing eventually even themselves out.

So until some changes happen - most likely at board level and in terms of spending - Villa are likely to be where they are at present, and who they are at present.

What's that I hear you ask? A team that survives.

You can follow Matt Turvey's regular opinions at his own site, Aston Villa Life at http://www.astonvillalife.com, via the site's Twitter account @astonvillalife, or via his own Twitter account @mturvey_star.