Season Review - 2007/08 #
Ian Symes - May 27, 2008 @ 8:04 am
First things first, this was a great season. When things are going well, Villa fans tend to take it for granted. We’re a huge club, why shouldn’t we be at the top end of the table? But that simplistic view fails to take into account just how bad a state we were in before Martin O’Neill took us back to where we belong. The bad old days that stretched from the end of Gregory’s reign, through Graham Taylor’s return to David O’Fuckingleary had turned us into strugglers, with players queueing up to leave the club and European dreams a distant memory. We’ve gone from 16th in 2006 to 6th in 2008, and that’s a hell of an achievement.
Any season that sees us rise five places in the league, holding our own against the best teams in the country, scoring 71 league goals and still fighting for a UEFA Cup place on the last day of the season, has got to be regarded as a success. The Intertoto Cup is as valid a route into next season’s UEFA Cup as any other, and in any other season 6th place would have been enough to bypass this extra qualifier. This was a good season.