Option one: the only way is down now. We have sold – or are selling – most of our best players, which will exacerbate an already inescapable feeling of inevitable decline from the zenith of winning the Europa League final and ending the trophy drought.
Option two: we won a European final and things are only going to get better. Now begins a new age of Aston Villa, Unai Emery 2.0. The trophy drought has ended and left a sense of psychological freedom: everything now is a bonus because we’ve already completed everything we wanted.
This is how football support in the Premier League works now, a middle ground vacuum with fans either lurching towards rampant optimism and pessimism on a frighteningly regular loop. It’s also what you think everybody is like when you live too much of your life online, which is on me.
Aston Villa are the current Premier League exception to the rule and I think it makes them its most fascinating team this season. While the outside world is sucking air through their teeth at Villa’s outgoings, the breaking up of the team that climbed the mountain, every Villa supporter I know is far more pragmatic and accepting. They understand the assumed panic, but don’t share it. It’s all very unusual. Quite frankly, I’m jealous.
