Blog written by chripswich
Published: 19th February 2025 15:21
I was a little bit ‘glass half full, glass half empty’ on a beautiful Sunday morning in North East Thailand. A little hungover but still smiling from the night before
What a battling performance at Villa Park! A mindset we maybe haven’t seen for the last few games - outstanding 100% gutsy contributions all over the pitch.
What we lacked in technical quality we made up for in heart, spirit and fight. Something that was always going to be the thing that keeps us in the league until we can compete in terms of quality individuals with the other teams.
My thai friends were watching the game live with me. As we do every week, other than evening games. We’re seven hours ahead so that makes a 3am KO impossible.
The Premier League is a religion in Thailand. The boys here know their football, so to see them nodding in approval through the game, gasping at Alex Palmer's efforts and leaping out of their chairs when Liam Delap scored and on the final whistle warmed the heart.
Yep! Theres a new gang of Tractor Boys in my village!
My small half empty glass, however, is that everyone knows just how important it is that a goalkeeper is trusted by his team.
Palmer was solid at Coventry and outstanding on Saturday with a cool head on the ball and one or two saves that took your breath away, especially the last one in injury time. Also and equally importantly you can clearly see his teammates now have confidence in their glovesman (sorry Phil 😂).
Defence were resilient, tough to get through and when Villa did penetrate? Palmer was there!
My half empty glass therefore is... why oh why did we stick with a keeper for so long who was clearly so inept (strong word but unfortunately true) at this level.
I truly believe we would be at least six or seven points better off with a quicker decision being made about Aro Muric. And if we do find ourselves in the Championship again people at the club need to think about Muric and never let that situation happen again - especially in such an important position on the pitch.
People might say hindsight is a great thing but our keeper problem wasn’t hindsight IMO and many others have voiced the same thing.
Muric was clearly not fit for purpose after about three games. We the fans knew it, pundits knew it, audiences around the world knew it. My Thai friends, for example, holding their breath and head in hands every time he received the ball. They would look incredulously at me - as if I had some influence. All I could do was shrug my shoulders and use the thai words ใช่ เขาเป็นตัตลก - loosely translated. yep! He’s a clown.
McKenna is a hero to us all but there’s a lesson there. Sometimes you’ll make a mistake with a player. That’s OK. But it’s not OK to not resolve it quickly - change it!
Back to half full glass…
I’ve given up my seat in the Sir Bobby for a seat in the countryside sun and a prem league TV pass 6,000 miles away. So the message from the Nakhon Phanom Tractors (that’s me and half a dozen Thais) is: Now we can trust every player on the pitch. Bring on Spurs, Man U and the rest. F*$¥ the nay sayers.
Let’s do this!!!!