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10 years ago today :(


sir_gary_cahill

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That Stoke game where we were 2-0 up with 5 minutes to go, Ryan Shawcross and our very own Glenn Whelan scored for them. It ultimately killed us as a football club at the time, we never really recovered from it. What could have been? Champions League football? Who knows? It’s a distant memory now, makes me sad :( what are you memories of that day?

Edited by sir_gary_cahill
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The catalyst for our downfall right here. 

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Aston Villa were thrown into turmoil last night after Martin O'Neill resigned as manager just five days before the new season starts. Villa have refused to disclose any reasons behind the decision, which was confirmed in a statement yesterday afternoon, but the tipping point for O'Neill was when he learned he would not be able to reinvest the majority of the money generated from James Milner's move to Manchester City.

 

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Before my time. I started watching Villa every week in 2010, under Houllier.

Had he not got sick, we might've come along okay. Supporters were moaning their eye balls out about relegation.

We finished 9th though. I was watching like 5-6 games of football per week back then.

While I knew nothing of the Villa that had come before me, I had much to make comparison to, and it wasn't as bad as most were making out.

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7 hours ago, sir_gary_cahill said:

That Stoke game where we were 2-0 up with 5 minutes to go, Ryan Shawcross and our very own Glenn Whelan scored for them. It ultimately killed us as a football club at the time, we never really recovered from it. What could have been? Champions League football? Who knows? It’s a distant memory now, makes me sad :( what are you memories of that day?

I was so full of rage and despair that I couldn’t think or talk about the match for days. 

Amazing to think that we were fourth in the premier league at the time, 5 points clear of Arsenal! And two weeks earlier we had been 3rd, sitting above Chelsea.

We probably all saw that game as really significant at the time but looking back, it was part of a run where we were effectively “found out” as not as good as we thought we were. Starting where a strong squad lost to Everton in the FA Cup, we faced Chelsea, Man C, Spurs, Liverpool and Man U and were beaten by them all.

The fact the we had only bought Heskey in the January window for a modest amount was also perhaps a hint that Lerner had run out of the money he needed to match his ambition.

It’s all been downhill since then and it’s hard not to feel gloomy after 10 years of consistently downwards spiral. 😥

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14 minutes ago, briny_ear said:

I was so full of rage and despair that I couldn’t think or talk about the match for days. 

Amazing to think that we were fourth in the premier league at the time, 5 points clear of Arsenal! And two weeks earlier we had been 3rd, sitting above Chelsea.

We probably all saw that game as really significant at the time but looking back, it was part of a run where we were effectively “found out” as not as good as we thought we were. Starting where a strong squad lost to Everton in the FA Cup, we faced Chelsea, Man C, Spurs, Liverpool and Man U and were beaten by them all.

The fact the we had only bought Heskey in the January window for a modest amount was also perhaps a hint that Lerner had run out of the money he needed to match his ambition.

It’s all been downhill since then and it’s hard not to feel gloomy after 10 years of consistently downwards spiral. 😥

I thought we got to the semi final of the fa cup that season? Or was that the season before?

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Said in a different thread that that game was the start of a downhill slope that we've never got off. There has been the odd rise and false dawn here and there, but ultimately it's been downhill from that very point.

 

Seems I may have remembered it slightly wrongly, but in my head the game before the Stoke game was the win away at blackburn that put us 3rd (I think) only a few points off the top. To me that was the absolute peak of the mountain. Or at least the highest point of the mountain we reached.

The Glenn Whelan goal was the start of our slide. You could say we're still sliding.

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For me it was when he decided to throw the game away against CSKA in the cup.

That was the beginning of the end. I'm certain that's when some of our players lost the passion to play and stay here.

UEFA cup might not have a big reputation in England, but players want to win stuff and we had a real opportunity at European glory there and he treated it worse than Man C would a first round trip to Doncaster in the League Cup.

Everything that happened after that game was highly predictable, even though Whelan scoring a goal was not :D 

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1 hour ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

I thought we got to the semi final of the fa cup that season? Or was that the season before?

We went out to Everton in the 5th round that season. Got to the semi-final next season (2009-10) but lost to Chelsea.

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yeah CSKA away was where we threw in the towel.  Rest players for the Stoke game only to concede 2 in the last 5 mins.   

If we had seen the game out maybe MON would have been justified in his decision but as we did not it all unravelled from there.

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There were actually 4 games between the blackburn game and the Stoke game.

Lost 3-1 to Everton

Drew 1-1 with CSKA

Lost 1-0 to Chelsea

Lost 3-1 to CSKA 

then drew 2-2 with Stoke.

 

It was a remarkable slide. After that Blackburn game, in all competitions:

P: 16
W: 2
D : 6
L: 8

After the win vs Blackburn away on 7th Feb, we didn't win another game until 2nd May vs Hull. And our only other win was the last day vs Newcastle.

 

No wonder 6th place didn't feel like much of an achievement that year.

Edited by Stevo985
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O'Neill was the greatest manager of recent times.  A true Aston Villa manager who ticked all the boxes. Won trophies elsewhere, massive charisma, brilliant interveiws great motivator, massive ego, players loved him but also shit scared of him.

I used to  love the match day experience in those days. Always linked with the big names, always signing exciting young english players like Young and Milner.

It's depressing to see how good we were and how hard we've fallen. No blame lies with O'neill. He turned us into challengers. The next stage was winners. but Lerner shit the bed

 

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26 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

Lost me at "Massive Charisma".

For all his flaws, MON was a very, very charismatic manager. 

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Our highest spot in the 21st century

Premier League table after close of play on 14 February 2009

Pos Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts
1 Manchester United 24 17 5 2 41 10 31 56
2 Liverpool 25 15 9 1 42 17 25 54
3 Aston Villa 25 15 6 4 40 24 16 51
4 Chelsea 25 14 7 4 44 15 29 49
5 Arsenal 25 12 8 5 38 25 13 44
6 Everton 25 11 7 7 34 28 6 40
7 Wigan Athletic 25 9 7 9 26 24 2 34
8 West Ham United 25 9 6 10 31 32 -1 33
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