For Villa fans this won’t be new or shocking, but I thought I’d share nonetheless. Last Wednesday, after our amazing 6-4 victory over Blackburn in the Carling Cup Semi-Final, I was browsing around the interwebz and I ended up on the The Sun’s website.  Don’t judge me.

Sure I’m biased, but I thought that Villa coming back from 2 goals down at home to win the game in a ten goal thriller was quite a story. Surely the fact that this would be our first domestic cup final in a decade would make this the major story of the night? Well no. Apparently Arsenal also coming back from a two goal deficit to win at home against the mighty Bolton was the night’s highlight for The Sun and I took a screen shot to prove it:-

Yes, we’re the number 3 story, behind ‘Arsenal beat Bolton at home shocker’ and ‘Liverpool finally win a game’.

So I posted this picture on Facebook for a giggle and eventually some non-Villa fan decided to chirp into the conversation and informed us Villa fans that we needed to “get some perspective”. Clearly we were getting carried away with ourselves. He went on to drop the bombshell that “the League will always be more important than the League Cup, Arsenal have also just gone to the top of the pile, hence the lead story.”

Oh really?

Testing that little hypothesis would be very easy indeed. With the other Carling Cup Semi-Final, which would decide our Wembley opponents, tonight coinciding with no less than 4 Premiership fixtures, all I had to do was swing by The Sun’s website around the same time and take another screen shot. I had a pretty decent idea that Man Utd would occupy the top story, but I didn’t anticipate they’d actually have the top three stories!

Wow.

And when they finally get to the Aston Villa vs Arsenal game, the excerpt is all about Sol Campbell. Apparently “Sol Campbell kept a clean sheet”. Impressive.

Look, this isn’t a serious post. It’s The Sun, they’re not exactly bastions of journalism, although the fact that they’re the country’s best selling paper means they shouldn’t be dismissed. They’re also part of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation empire along with Sky TV who hand the Premier League an awful lot of greenbacks to televise the football. I perfectly understand that they need to promote their product in the best way to get the maximum return on their investment.

One thing I find amusing is that fans of the “sky four” are frequently oblivious to this and take great offense at even the mere suggestion that they receive a greater share of media attention – admittedly, not all of it flattering, but hey, there’s no such thing as bad publicity, right? Just check out the mast graphic used on The Sun’s football page which I’ve annotated for the benefit of people who can’t see the bloody obvious:-

See what I’m saying?

You want to know what’s funny though? Rewind to the beginning of the season, before a ball had been kicked, and check out a little promotional graphic spotted by Two Footed Tackle that Sky Sports were using to promote the upcoming season:-

Ooops. I guess the season isn’t quite matching the narrative as some executive saw it back in August. Don’t worry, there’s still a long way to go and Gareth and his chums in Manchester might still challenge for something.

One thing I’m curious about though is what exactly it is that drives the narrative used to sell the TV product. What comes first, the chicken or the egg?

I mean, let’s suppose that Aston Villa made the top four a couple of seasons running, just imagine that for a moment. Would our players get splashed all over anything and everything used to promote the Premier League, or are we not sexy enough for that? Would we suddenly find our games higher up the running order on Match of the Day, even when we’re not playing Man Utd, Arsenal, Liverpool or Chelsea?

There may only be one way to find out, but be careful what you wish for. With the good, comes a lot of bad and that’s one more reason why it’s important to re-build Aston Villa in a steady manner. We’ve all seen some no-mark trying to enjoy their 15 minutes of fame, but completely unable to handle the media shitstorm which ends up destroying them.

So maybe it’s better to remain under the media radar for a while. The main thing is to recognise this type of “news” for what it is – Promotion. Advertising. Nothing more. Obvious bias is obvious.