Carabao Cup: You can’t rule out Aston Villa adding to their fairytale

Would you take winning the cup and relegation? Or would you accept defeat if it meant staying up?

The only sensible answer, of course, is that Villa would want to both win the Carabao Cup and retain their Premier League status. In the mind of Dean Smith, the club’s board and players, it is never an either/or question.

Granted, when assessing Villa’s long-term prospects, avoiding the drop undoubtedly remains the biggest objective of the campaign. The finances make that obvious.

But football and sport is ultimately about winning trophies and the 24 years Villa have had to wait since last clinching a major competition is already far too long for a club of their size and stature.

That has been the message by a host of former players over the past week, including Stiliyan Petrov, captain the last time Villa played in a League Cup final a decade ago.

Under Martin O’Neill, Petrov was part of a Villa team which earned three consecutive top-six finishes, the club’s most consistent run of league form for several decades.

But a trophy eluded them, the 2010 final remembered for referee Phil Dowd’s failure to send off Nemanja Vidic after the Manchester United defender had hacked down Gabriel Agbonlahor in the second minute.

Though James Milner converted the resulting penalty to put Villa ahead, with 11 men on the pitch United hit back to win through goals from Michael Owen and Wayne Rooney.

Failure to win a trophy means O’Neill’s team, despite some memorable results, are not revered in the same way as Ron Atkinson’s 1994 outfit or Brian Little’s heroes of two years later.

The 2010 team was the strongest Villa had sent to a major final since their victory over Leeds in 1996. By contrast, the one Smith will lead out tomorrow is perhaps the weakest.

There is no question, meanwhile, Manchester City represent the strongest opposition Villa have faced in three failed trips over the past 24 years, though none could be described as being easy. In the 2000 FA Cup final they took on a Chelsea outfit who had finished above them in the Premier League, while the gulf between Villa and Arsenal in the 2015 FA Cup final was demonstrated by the final 4-0 scoreline.

No doubt several supporters heading to tomorrow’s match may be fearful of a similar-sized defeat, or perhaps worse.

It goes without saying Villa will have to perform significantly better than they did in last weekend’s 2-0 defeat at Southampton, a display which prompted Smith to issue his players a public tongue-lashing the like of which has rarely been seen before in his management career.

Yet just six days prior to the disaster on the south coast, Villa had come close to putting Tottenham away inside 30 minutes and those fans looking for optimism can find it in some of the displays against the so-called big six this season.

No team has come any closer to beating Liverpool since Smith’s men stood just two minutes plus stoppage time from doing so back in November.

Their first-half performance away at City back in October also suggested Villa are capable of causing problems for Pep Guardiola’s side, though admittedly the less said about the home fixture the better.

Regardless, the semi-final win over Leicester demonstrated how they are capable of beating top opposition. Granted, they will need fortune to favour them, but so does every other underdog.

The achievement of reaching a major final, as a promoted team, should not be downplayed.

Tomorrow will mark a year since Jack Grealish being handed the captaincy on his return from injury and inspiring Villa to a 4-0 win over Derby. They finished the weekend 11th in the Championship, still six points adrift of the top six and three places below Blues.

What has happened since has often felt like a fairytale.

The odds might be stacked against them, but don’t rule out Villa adding another, most glorious chapter tomorrow.