The boos around Villa Park at the end were an evocative echo of the despair. Aston Villa have played eight hours and 42 minutes of Barclays Premier League football and failed to score. It's hard not to sympathise with their supporters. Football without goals ultimately becomes meaningless.
And though the attempt by some fans to demonstrate their discontent by boycotting the first eight minutes of the game had fallen flat, a more spontaneous protest – that of missing the last eight minutes of the match when the game was up - was much better supported, a steady stream of fans heading for the exits.
Those that stayed chanted: 'We want Lerner out' in reference to the owner, Randy. But he has put the club up for sale and there is no queue forming along the Trinity Road to buy so Villa must continue as they are, seemingly always fighting relegation. At Villa Park, it's always winter and never Christmas.
'It's been like that for three years, four years, five years, the same,' said Paul Lambert of another season immersed in the mire of relegation worries. 'There's no rest bite whatsoever. You meet it head on. You keep going. Come the end of the season you make sure you're out if it.'
That said, Lambert objected when it was suggested that might be the best Villa can expect. 'Absolutely no way,' he said. 'A club of this size should not be in the position it is. It's got to get up there. Certainly nobody likes it at the club. I don't like it, the chairman doesn't like it, the chief executive doesn't like it, the players don't like it, the fans don't like it.'
Putting it right is a harder task. Amidst the depression though, there was a team rediscovering itself. Not Villa of course; it's hard to fathom what they stand for at present. Liverpool though are quietly rebuilding a little of swagger of last season.
They are of course a long way from those heights at present. Perhaps the return of Daniel Sturridge will nudge them a little further in that direction. But at times they give glimpses of the free-spirited side that captivated the nation last season. It's now eight games undefeated since they lost to Manchester United, the game in which Brendan Rodger's completely changed to a back three.
'We re-gained our identity in how the team has played for two years,' said Rodgers. 'It was fair to say that the opening four months or so of the season we were just nowhere near what we had been so we needed to find a solution to that. Even though we lost the Man United game I saw enough in the dynamic of the team to know that could be a way forward for us.'
(dailymail.co.uk)
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