When Tim Sherwood took over from Paul Lambert, few would have expected that a cup final would be on the agenda.
It was more than just a cup final, though. Villa stayed up reasonably comfortably, but the biggest change Sherwood was able to make was to instil some confidence in his ailing team. A team which had gone over 11 excruciating hours of Premier League football without a goal started to bang them in with the regularity needed not only to stay in the division, but to reach an FA Cup final too.
Truly is was a good season from January onwards.
The cup final – despite defeat – was the icing on the cake, but it’s onwards and upwards from here. Villa, under Sherwood and possibly under new owners, can not afford another season as close to the drop zone as the last few.
And on that score, perhaps defeat in the Cup final is a blessing in disguise.
Winning the trophy would have been better. There’s no argument against that really. Why would you want to be involved in football if you think losing a Cup final is better than winning one?
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The obvious reason for that is no European football next season. It’s a thoroughly modern phenomenon that clubs should prefer not to play in Europe rather than test themselves against the best on the continent, but that’s the world we live in. Still, for a team that has fought relegation battles in the last few seasons it makes sense that they wouldn’t want extra games.
But Villa need to look up. They’re a big club with a big history and a big fan base. They should be looking for European football, not fending off relegation. But in football you have to build towards these things. If you don’t build towards is, you won’t be able to sustain it when it arrives.
Manchester City are an interesting case study. They’ve had success and they are still one of the strongest teams in the country, but they know that the kind of sustained success doesn’t simply come with money. You need to be able to sustain it and keep going. That’s why City have spent millions of pounds investing in a youth academy, a new training ground, a place where the youth teams can play alongside the elite men and women’s teams. City’s long-term aim is to emulate European nemesis’s Barcelona who have knocked them out of the Champions League for the last two seasons.
Villa need to build, not achieve overnight success. And winning the FA Cup would certainly have been a rags to riches story. Under Sherwood, Villa have the potential to achieve something like that, but they need to grow. The young players will have to develop further, they’ll have to add some new quality to the team. In short, Villa need a few more seasons climbing up the Premier League ladder before they’ll be equipped for the success of winning trophies and qualifying for Europe.
It’s not wrong to want success, what’s the point in playing football if you aren’t going to try to win things? But Villa still have some growing to do before they’re a team who can realistically expect to challenge for Europe through their league position.
And that’s why losing the final might be a blessing in disguise. Because it will show Villa and their fans how close success, trophies and Europe really are, and how attainable it can be if they progress as a team. Losing is never as good as winning, but sometimes there are bigger bright sides to losing than there usually are. And this one of those times. Villa can now build for the future with a goal in mind, and work towards erasing the bitter memory of defeat at Wembley.
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