It's time for Villa to walk the walk

“I need a saga, what's the saga? It's songs for the deaf, you can't even hear it.” - Queens of the Stone Age

Remember when they rocked up to Chernobyl in the show with a proper measuring tool? Previously it had been that Dyatlov - the bloke in charge - gathered a recording of 3.6 roentgen and proclaimed that this pretty gratuitous radiation leak was in fact “not great, not terrible.”

Then, when the state turned up to fix/cover-up/do whatever it can, it ended up measuring with proper equipment at 15,000 roentgen, which is about twice the radiation of the Hiroshima atomic bomb, released hourly.

The real Chernobyl is devastating. The TV show Chernobyl is horrific, but it's just a show. The latter is actually pretty darkly funny as well.

So yeah, Villa?

It's a bit like turning up at the gaff with the old "this is fine," before you actually realise exposure to it will melt your face off and there's little you can do.

Oh, and they raised prices for the privilege.

What on earth is wrong with this club?

"Not great, not terrible."

That's the line you can take with every single game this season so far. There's been some dire performances, but stand-alone they have always given some room for optimism in their wake. How could a team not reverse fortunes after gathering so much footage and experience of quite literally what not to do?

That's the thing with these shite games. There's analysis to be done and tweaks to be made. Only little tweaks mind.

When you put them all together, you've got a scenario which seems to be either something which might turn out to be good, or might turn out to be a disaster. There's no middle ground and I think in football, that's bad.

You need your middle ground to be an off-season. One where you let things slip away in a somewhat acceptable fashion. It's ok. The performance of football teams can cycle. One year it's good, one year it isn't. Our sport is extremely fluid in that way.

However, I don't think Villa have that middle ground because it would've meant drawing with West Ham, Bournemouth and Palace. Instead, they lost those three games in really unacceptable fashion.

Part of me doesn't even want to speak about West Ham. The game just happened at me.

Listen, I think magic is real. Not magic in twats pulling rabbits out of hats or starving themselves in boxes in the air or rocking around the outside of a Primark doing card tricks, but a magic in the build-up of the world. I don't think you can drop some blood in a mortar and guarantee Villa score a goal, but I feel there's a connection and force that's deeper than simply 'going down the Villa'.

I mean, how can you see what Robert Snodgrass did against Sheffield United, what Hutton did against Blues, the general existence of Jack Grealish, and not believe in magic? Come on.

I've got a theory, which I'll write up down the line, but it's based on the work and reading of real-life wizard and best comic book writer of all time; Alan Moore. He's heavy, and I think he's spot on about nearly everything he says. But it's a lot and I'm reading a lot. It's a lot.

So yeah, I was at Villa Park and for the the first time ever, I could genuinely feel that magic slipping away. That hurts me to the bone.

There's just so many factors building up right now that are killing it for me.

• The football is shocking.
• I don't feel a connection with the coaches or leadership.
• I don't even know what they are trying to do.
• Villa signed a deal with a company that allegedly paid streamers to broadcast gambling to a massive audience, perhaps built up of kids.
• Prices have risen.
• They then signed a deal for a company with reported links to the underworld. It's their sleeve sponsor.
• The service at Villa Park is dire.
• Getting there sucks and is a misery.

Seriously. What gives?

The first three points are clear, but the active decisions made by Villa's leadership currently sucks.

I wanted to write about Villa's sleeve sponsor, but what's the point? I thought the reaction to Duelbits (displayed at the ground every 2 minutes on the boards) would maybe do something, but it was never going to happen. The sleeve sponsor genuinely disgusts me.

If you think there's nothing wrong with these two things, you need to pull your head out of your arse. They are nebulous companies that operate on the edge of the law and are built up in ways that make it seriously difficult to track.

But even typing the name in Google brings up the worst stuff about them. What does it matter? The club genuinely don't care what they sell you, because the revenue they 'rake in' makes it look good on LinkedIn 👍.

As if there's not sponsor lining up to be plastered on your kit anyway? Tell me how Duelbits will provide Villa with the cash to make a top-ten challenge possible. I'm waiting, and I'll be waiting until my bones are bleached with nuclear fire, I'm sure.

Villa's sponsor next season may as well be the fucking car wash from Breaking Bad.

All that, and you get to watch a manager take off Douglas Luiz and watch a hole open up that West Ham can't stop finding themselves in.

What was the point of that ordeal? Villa lacked cutting edge, committed to crossing the ball into No-Man's-Land and slumped to the floor after the fact. That was the game. That's all there was to it.

I don't actually blame Gerrard too much. The make-up of the team is off, it's probably a job too soon. He'll now fix it, or he'll be gone. I point the finger above.

If Gerrard walks, Purslow needs to be questioned. He's signed off on the decisions that got us here, and while plenty have been good - some stink.

I feel like his aim was to make us a Chelsea, or a Liverpool, but the self-proclaimed 'Fernando Torres of Financing' has built us to be a (with all due respect) Wolves or Newcastle.

Fair play to Wolves and Newcastle, but Liverpool and Chelsea they ain't.

It's not about being negative, but we live in a Britain that is becoming adversarial to the very prospect of actually enjoying yourself. The rivers and beaches are being pumped full of shit, you need to take out a mortgage to buy a salad, you can't buy a home, or rent one. Football needs to be an escape. It has a very basic, important, and yet simple role in society. Instead, it's falling in with the worst of it.

So when Villa talk the talk and raise prices, they need to walk the walk.

Peace and love and UTFV.