In life there are moments that have unforeseen consequences.  In sport when your team loses the impact isn't always felt right away.  Often times there is a delayed reaction.  When that reaction occurs and you start to finally feel anger and disappointment. The realization that opportunity is lost forever that unforeseen consequences can rear their head.

When my beloved New England Patriots lost Super Bowl XLII to the New York Giants I was completely numb.  As the game unfolded I never felt safe, even when the Patriots took the lead late in the fourth quarter.  In the days and weeks that followed I just wanted to avoid anything and everything NFL related.  Given that the majority of what I watched on TV was sports related and that I listened to more sports radio than music at the time this was difficult.  As I struggled to avoid our nation's most popular sport anger bubbled to the surface.  

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I actually like Alex McLeish.  He did well to bring Birmingham City back to the Premier League at the first time of asking after his first relegation.  He also lead them to their highest top flight finish in their history and ended thier 50 drought by defeating Arsenal in the Carling Cup final.  Blues were out of the bottom three most of the season, but key injuries late in the year  lead to a complete and total collapse at the end of the season.  A pathetic haul of one point out of 18 combined with a late resurgence by Wigan Athletic lead to Blues being relegated on the last day of the season with 39 points.  A points total which would have kept them up each of the last nine seasons.  Looking at his tenure at Birmingham City as a whole he did to a decent job.  He brought silverware to St. Andrews' barren trophy cabinet, and one could argue was unlucky to have his Blues side relegated this season.

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Many members of the media and fans would have you believe that Aston Villa's managerial search is in chaos.  Every day this week a new favorite, or several new favorites emerge.   All the while the club has been decidedly silent.  Sadly this is a result of the club conducting business the right way and above board.

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At the Aston Villa awards dinner Stewart Downing cleaned up winning three awards including Player of the Year.  His comments stood in stark contrast to that of Ashley Young when he said

"I’m enjoying my stay here. I’ve enjoyed it since the first day I came. It’s a terrific football club. It’s fantastic they want me.

"There’s terrific players. I’m confident, despite this season, we’re going in the right direction and if we get the right players in then I’m happy.

"The important thing in football is, if you’re happy, then why change it?

"I know it’s been a disappointing season, but I can see the bigger picture."

But now just a couple of weeks later he is quoted as saying,

via www.expressandstar.com

"I want to keep playing and enjoying my football," said Downing.

"When I was injured that made me realise what it can be like to be out for such a long time. It hurt. The most important thing is to play football, but I do want to play in the Champions League at some point.

"The most important thing for me, though, is to stay fit and then the rewards will come with that, hopefully. I have got back into the England squad, I have to make sure I stay there."

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I came here to bury the Player in My Pocket Michael Bradley, not to praise him.  No the United States midfielder is not deceased, but by all accounts and by looking at the evidence his career at Aston Villa is.  Bradley has not even made the bench for Aston Villa's last two matches.  Villa beat writer Mat Kendrick has indicated on twitter feed that there is mutual disappointment between player and club. Fellow beat writer Timothy Abraham was similarly down on Bradley's chances of his loan being made permanent in the summer in this interview with The Shin Guardian.

via www.free-football.tv

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In many circles the 4-4-2 is seen as this vestige of soccer's primeval past.  An English anachronism that emphasizes speed and braun over skill.  There is a perception that any side that employs a 4-4-2 is tactically naive, and can't possibly compete at the highest level. 

However for the first time I can remember in Houllier's reign, Aston Villa reverted back to the 4-4-2 in last week's draw against Everton.  While it was not an outstanding performance and we were all hoping that Villa could leave Goodison with all three points, a draw was a decent result and was probably a fair representation of the run of play.  It appears this week we can expect Villa to return to the 4-2-3-1 they have employed the majority of the season.

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I have just started my own baseball blog.  I just authored my fist post and the blog has been live for about 18 minutes.  The idea came about because I have been making lots of breakthroughs in my personal life in the past few weeks.  For more details I encourage you all to click the link to my blog.  My first post is not about baseball at all, but it touches on why I started the blog and the transformations I have been making

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In news that should surprise no Aston Villa supporter, the Villa hemorrhaged even more cash in the latest financial reporting of Reform Acquisitions, Aston Villa's holding company.  Thanks to decreased spending in the summer transfer market from 2008 to 2009, Villa's losses were from £46.1m in 2009 to £37.5m.  Thanks to the continued investment, or some might say benevolence of Randy Lerner the club is in no danger, but in the medium term Villa will have to stop the bleeding to comply with the new Financial Fair Play rules.

Despite the continued losses, the clubs financial picture is not all that bad.  When Randy Lerner took over the club was in a somewhat similar financial situation that Everton finds itself in now.  They were ran by Chairman Doug Ellis, who like Bill Kenwright was not independently wealthy on the scale of an Arab Sheik or Oligarch, and did not have a vast personal fortune to underwrite a football club.  The analogy falls apart in that Everton has David Moyes as manager and Villa had George O'Leary and Villa finished the 2005-2006 season in 16 th place.

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I had a lot of things on my mind after this match.  Aaron does a great job with the match previews and summaries, and I usually agree with most of what he says.    That said there was so much that went on in this match I had to post my own summary.  This match encapsulated exactly where this club is at and where it needs to go.

An optimist might be willing to accept a draw on the road as a decent result, especially after going down to 10 men.  I could not disagree with this more.  This match was two points dropped my friends.  Blackpool had lost five matches in a row.  They shipped five goals to Everton last week.  FIVE!  Yet the Villa only managed one.

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Today is the ancient holiday of Festivus.  For the uninformed Festivus is the holiday that has arisen in protest to the crass commercialism of Christmas.  A typical Festivus celebration consists of three integral parts:  the Festivus Dinner, the Airing of Grievances, and the Feats of Strength.  It's a little late for me to invite the disparate readers of this blog for the Festivus Dinner, and if anybody on the squad tried any of the Feats of Strength, the way this season has progressed it would inevitably lead to more injuries.  That leaves us with the Airing of Grievances.  Let's face it, the way things are going there are not another more aggrieved group of fans in the Premier League this year.

via www.festivusweb.com

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Before the Burnley match, which I listened to at work via AVTV on my iPhone I tweeted the following:  "Jack Woodward must walk around Villa Park with a massive erection like Ron Burgundy."  This was retweeted by a few people, got a few replies, and I picked up a few followers in the West Midlands

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Edit: Sorry guys, alarm issues. Thanks to Jason for putting this up. Thoughts on the Clarets?

Great Carling Cup Draw for Aston Villa.  The Villains drew Burnley at home.  Given their awful away form last year, and the fact the squad has been weakened somewhat after being relegated this should be straightforward.  I'd like to see a similar side in the match as we saw against Blackburn.

Elsewhere Arsenal has a very tricky trip up to the Northeast against Newcastle.  Will Wenger send out a bunch of teens in front of 40,000+ crazy Geordies?  The Scum should have an easy time against Brentford, Wolves are away to United and will get thrashed, and the only other all Premier League tie is West Ham hosting Stoke.

With an international break coming word out of Villa Park is that the club will be stepping up their search to fill the managerial vacancy after longtime boss Martin O'Neil quit five days before the start of the season.  What Villa needs in their next manager is somebody who can build on the successes of the O'Neil regime while doing a better job than Martin in other areas.

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I downloaded the new Official AVFC iPhone Application today.   It is basically features all of the content on the official AVFC site, in an easier to read/navigate package for your iPhone/iPod Touch.  It seems easy enough to use and if you are an AVTV subscriber you can stream all AVTV content and live audio with the App, in addition to live match commentary, news, some wallpapers, and the official AVFC Podcast..

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Tomorrow Aston Villa will find out the identity of it's opponent in the Europa League Playoff Round  Fortunately for the Villains they are seeded in tomorrow's draw.  Unfortunately included in the unseeded pot is Rapid Vienna who dispatched Villa at this stage last year on away goals.  Notwithstanding Aston Villa should have little trouble with most of the clubs in the unseeded pot.

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Much has been made of the erosion of the Red Sox TV ratings, and seeming erosion of interest.  There have been many theories suggested:  the team lacks superstars, fans never bought into "run prevention" and "bridge years," the playoff runs of the Celtics and Bruins have stolen some of the spotlight, "Pink Hats" have taken over Fenway, tickets are too expensive, baseball itself is in decline.  The reality is that the heightened levels of interest over the naughties were never sustainable.

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This headline might sound curious, preposterous, or downright delusional.  Generally speaking a football club with any semblance of ambition does not get better by selling it's best player.  However when a rival club is willing to pay above and beyond the player's actual value and throw in a younger player who two years ago was considered better, a club of Villa's means has to do that. 

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