I pointed out in the preview for the Rapid Vienna game that the Austrian side weren’t having the best of starts to their domestic season either. You’d never have known that from the quality of the support the team received from the home fans throughout the game.

I made a couple of comments on Twitter about the Villans facing such a hostile crowd and half-joked about them having to face another one for the second leg at Villa Park. Half-joked… is it possible to quarter-joke as that would probably be more accurate?

The Rapid fans might well feel confident that in their small league, over the course of the season, they’ll be at the right end of the table when all is said and done. Nevertheless, the way they cheered everything their team did and booed and whistled the Villans incessantly throughout the match was a demonstration in how to support your team. That little place was rocking and it wasn’t even full.

Contrast that to the sound of knives being sharpened to stick in the Manager’s, Owner’s and/or Players’ backs at Villa. The culture of apathy and negativity is infectious and the current strain doing the rounds is close to being elevated to pandemic levels.

How ironic that those of us who feel it’s important to stand strong and back the players and manager are labelled as ‘sheep’. I suppose the true fans must be the ones who join the flock herd crowd in voicing their incredibly considered dissent and I’m sure they’ll all be hugely satisfied when they’ve brought everything crashing down around them.

Walking upstream through a river of negativity can be difficult, but step forward Churchill (or Jerry, to use his real name) whose post on The Villa Blog echoes my perspective entirely. As a commenter, Churchill always exhibits a considered, intelligent position and I have to admit that he has far more patience than I can muster. Credit where it’s due to Damo for publishing alternate opinions such as this – it’s fair to say that it’s as far removed from his own style as can be imagined:-

I want to prepare you for something. I want to prepare you for the thrashing that might be coming our way on Monday at Anfield.

If we don’t get thrashed and we simply get beaten by a modest score line – the odd goal, say – I will take that as a result. A draw will be a win and a win will be monumental.

Are these words traitorous? Should I expect nothing less than victory? I believe I should expect reality.

The reality is that the team is desperately short of confidence at the moment and they know the fans are calling for a revolution. This makes them nervous and hesitant when they need to be bold and creative. They know that a mistake could easily start a round of booing from the terraces so they’ll play the easy ball and let someone else take responsibility for the creativity.

They’re not bad players, you understand – it’s human nature to be this way; it’s in our genes.

You can read the rest of the post at The Villa Blog .

I’ve never said that the club should ever be beyond criticism, but one of the purposes of creating this site was to act as a cheerleader (for the most part anyway) for the club that I support. I’ve probably been guilty of being a little on the negative side by my own standards of late, I hope understandably so, but each game I’m back behind the team. Even when, as Churchill says about the upcoming trip to Anfield, avoiding a thrashing similar to the last visit will be a result!!

UTV!!