Aston Villa Not Ready for Spurs as Fan’s Enthusiasm for FA Cup is Luke Warm

White Flag Lane

It seems that some Aston Villa supporters would rather forget we have an FA Cup game coming up against Spurs at the weekend. Normally, it would be a quick sell out, but only 2,531 / 2,900 of the tickets have been sold, so supporters won’t exactly need to check out Football TicketPad to buy any.

Meanwhile, non-league Lincoln City, a team MOMS likes to keep an eye on, has sold almost twice the allocation of Villa for their trip to Ipswich. With the Imps taking close to 5000 (they’d take more if the police let them); that’s actually more than the Imps get at most home games!

Yes, obviously Lincoln’s game is an event as it’s not every season they make the FA Cup 3rd round and because they are currently top of the National League fan’s are experiencing a feel good factor.

Practical Cost

Of course, there’s also the practical matter of cost of away days around the Christmas period. There were trips to QPR and Cardiff City either side of Christmas Day for Villa fans and those Christmas presents cost money to buy.

What what does the slow sales of cup tickets indicate? After all Villa’s run to the FA Cup final in 2015 was probably the best experience for Villa supporters amidst the darkness of the last five seasons.

If you’re going to sit a game out, then a game against one of the best teams in the Premier League might be the one to underline on the fixture list. Especially when you factor in that Villa are suddenly three strikers short. Rudy Gestede has been sold to Middlesbrough, while Jonathan Kodjia and Jordan Ayew have left for the ACON.

I’m not surprised fans aren’t exactly thrilled at the prospect of seeing Agbonlahor huff and puff his way around White Hart Lane in what could be a hiding.

All About Wolves

The Villa fan social media reaction to being three men down in January and the current transfer window is interesting as nobody mentions the Spurs game. In terms of getting bodies in, it’s all about getting them in before the next league game against Wolves.

 

 

 

Getting any player in for the Spurs game though might be a good option, since it’ll give them a proper game to bed down into the team.

Concentrate on the League Cliche

MOMS is from a generation where supporting Villa was about winning and trying to win silverware. Yes, it’s very unlikely with this current team, but if Spurs show up resting a few players, having the chance to pull off a shock is something we could wind them up about for a few years, but more importantly could trigger a much-needed confidence surge in this team for the second-half of the league campaign.

Also, resting players (aka ‘losing on purpose’) in the cup for the league has hardly ever panned out well for Villa in the past.

The CSKA Moscow fiasco example being the best example. In the following league game against Stoke, Villa were 2-0 before conceding two goals in the final minutes. If the players had played in the CSKA game, the excuse would have been they tired because of the European game. At least there would have been an excuse!

Curb Your Enthusiasm

While most supporters like the bookies won’t expect Villa to beat Spurs, if Villa had a team currently in at least the play-off spots, I think Villa’s away allocation would have probably have sold out before the new year, with supporters looking for their team to have a real crack at the Premier League outfit.

Hopefully, the club will act swiftly and smartly in the January transfer window, because early signs of supporter apathy need curbing before it spreads, if the chance of promotion begins to fade away.

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3 COMMENTS

  1. Hopefully Spurs will put out a much weakened side for the FA Cup and it won’t be too embarrassing. I seem to remember not too long ago Tim Sherwood’s Aston Villa getting a good result against them.

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