Oh gawd, these columns get harder and harder to do. It’s a miracle this column has run for around four years considering how useless Villa have tended to be. How can you spin anything positive from an inept 4-0 defeat at the Etihad? Well, the fact of the matter is you can’t.

Manchester City paraded the League Cup around the stadium as if reminding Aston Villa fans what their club used to be about. Just when you thought failing to beat a second division Bradford City in a League Cup semi-final over two legs in the competition was as low as you could go as a Villa fan, this season has reached a whole new other level.

While we wait for the relegation axe to drop, here’s five reasons to be cheerful (kind of…not really) as an Aston Villa supporter…

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5. Garde’s Greatest Villa Achievement

Until Yaya Toure scored Manchester City’s first at the start of the second-half, Rémi Garde had seen his Villa team go 138 minutes without conceding to Manchester City in the league. That’s comfortably over two hours. Unfortunately though they went on to concede four goals in less then 20 minutes. To add to the four goals they shipped a home to City in the FA Cup tie.

 

It pretty much sums up Garde’s reign as Villa manager, anything good he’s done has in the scheme of things made very little impact.

Regardless of the talent of the squad, if you can’t marshall your troops in such a situation to have any fight and heart, then as a manager you’re ultimately not doing your job.

The only resistance that Garde and his team are showing is in the pointless pre-game interviews where they say things like ‘we will fight to the end’. These words are never backed up on the pitch. If there’s one thing that is consistant at Villa and that is talk is cheap.

 

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