It was an all too familiar tale on Sunday when Villa inexplicably threw away a two goal lead in the space of five minutes at the Etihad. Whilst a victory against the Champions elect wouldn’t have papered over the cracks (or maybe it would have?!) of an underwhelming season for Steve Gerrard’s side, the missed opportunity of having a direct influence on the closest EPL title race since the 2011/12 ‘Agueroo’ season only added to the bitter disappointment.
And if Mohammed Salah somewhat masochistically wanted to know what it was like to be an Aston Villa fan, then the Premier League’s final day of toing and froing was the perfect microcosm of what exactly he’d be in for should he decide to move to Erdington and buy a season ticket in the Holte End Upper.
After taking the lead early in the 2nd half thanks to a well-worked Matty Cash goal, on the 69th minute Philippe Coutinho doubled Villa’s lead to put the visitors 2-0 up, meaning Liverpool only required a solitary goal that would give them the lead in their match against Wolves and put them top of the Premier League.
Mohammed Salah, who’d started another game on the bench in preparation for Saturday’s UCL final came on with 30 minutes to go and duly delivered that much-needed salvation minutes later. Salah, visibly ecstatic after scoring what he thought was the deciding goal, ran over the to Kop to celebrate, only to find out that City had already overturned their two goal deficit and now were 3-2 up.
From ecstasy to sheer disbelief in little over five minutes, the EPL Golden Boot winner got to know exactly how all Villa fans feel most Saturdays at 4.45pm. Of course it’s also a slightly depressing indictment of where Villa are right now that the prospect of being a supporting cast member in two other teams’ title race drama was to be the highlight of our season.
Nevertheless, Villa fans swallowed their sadness (of which is customary these days) and instead turned their attention to a breaking story that French midfield-ace Boubacar Kamara was set to join the club from Marseille.
Supporters were of course incredulous that a deal had finally been done for a seemingly out-of-reach player, but there had been strong rumours reporting exactly that, moments after Villa’s season was over, namely from Twitter’s much-maligned ‘exclusive-thief’ Fabrizio ‘hErE wE gO’ Romano.
The following day, the news was confirmed by the club’s official social media channels and out of thin air, Villa had just signed the most promising youngster in Europe on a free.
Whilst Sunday’s capitulation stung a fair bit, Villa finally addressing their defensive midfield woes with a potential World Class number 6 was the soothing balm they so desperately needed. The lad seemingly has everything (except a dinosaur); quick, strong, a ‘ball-winner in multiple forms’ and perhaps most importantly, he’s extremely comfortable in possession; a trait that has been sorely missed in Villa’s midfield, perhaps ever since Gareth Barry left the club many moons ago.
With the likes of Atletico Madrid who unarguably have much higher stock than Villa right now also chasing his signature, it doesn’t take a genius to work out what or who swayed him in his final decision of what club to play his football at next.
Manager, Steven Gerrard, who has now presided over three quarters of a tough campaign at Villa, has already leveraged the pedigree of his career in football to attract big names to the club such as Digne and Coutinho and the snowball effect of landing players of this ilk makes it much easier for rising stars such as Kamara to also want to come to Villa Park and buy into Stevie’s project.
And now as the aptly named ‘silly season’ gets under way, the foundations of what looks set to be a Villa side with hopefully more grit and quality that was on display on Sunday are already being enhanced. More rumours adorn the front pages of Twitter this week, the most notable of which include highly coveted Dutch centreback Sven Botman. With centre back being another ‘problem-area’ Villa need to address on the field, the signs are there that the club are making all the right moves in all the right places.
