Aston Villa Fan View: Villa poor form a play-off concern

It’s been quite the rollercoaster season for Aston Villa, with many tipping the club at the start of the season to be promoted back to the Premier League.

With marquee signing John Terry being made captain, and astute loan signings such as Robert Snodgrass dropping down a division, Villa looked set.

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With Aston Villa’s resources and squad, not many would have bet that a Cardiff side managed by Neil Warnock would finish ahead of the team from Birmingham in this season’s Championship campaign.

In truth, the table never lies, and even though we have seen some fantastic team performances including 5-0 against Bristol City and 4-1 against Wolves, Villa simply haven’t been consistent enough, and deserve just a playoff spot. It will go down to the last day of the season for automatic promotion, with Cardiff being in the drivers seat ahead of Fulham, which sets up a very tough playoff route for all involved.

With Fulham not losing in 2018, and Cardiff having the staying power that has surprised many, Villa have come undone and the crux of it comes from not being able to have just one bad result. Bruce’s team over the past 18 months have had bad spells, and good teams can’t often afford ‘bad spells’. Villa’s slow start has caught up with Villa later down the line, and it really does show that not winning any of our first 4 games has let us down 40 games later.

With two further big blips in the season, Villa had always left themselves too much to do to secure automatic promotion. The inability for such a experienced Villa squad to bounce back from one defeat will always be a head scratcher for me.

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Defeats really seem to affect this team, but with so many veterans in the team, its really disappointing to be in the so called ‘lottery’ of the playoffs. Of course, the best team will win them but with the likes of Middlesborough and Fulham (highly likely) to contend with, there is a reason that Villa are odds on to be playing Championship football yet again next season.

Last weekend, Villa announce that officially we are the most supported club through gate receipts this season in the Championship, with attendances often above 30,000 on a saturday, and sell outs for nearly every away game.

Fan base is always a great indicator of how big a club is, and whilst Villa deserve to be in the Championship, the fan base deserve the top tier. Over to you, Steve.