Things are not good at the moment. At the weekend I placed a bet on a big outsider. The favourites were 1/7 and the team I put my fiver on was 12/1 - they didn't win and I lost my beer money.
The thing is, deep down I knew my bet wasn't going to come in, so five minutes before kick off I looked at my options, created another slip and made sure I had a fighting chance. Like all things, it was a gamble but I picked a bet that gave me real hope and it turns out at the end of the day with the two bets I was up.
I didn't win enough to retire, but I gave myself a fighting chance and I managed to get a few pints for nothing and a potted plant for the wife.
It's as if they don't care
The thing about Aston Villa at the moment isn't that many are that surprised with what is going on - this was predicted - it is that the club are doing nothing about it.
It's almost as if they don't care about what the supporters think. Quite a large number protested before he was made manager. Quite a large number are not turning up each week and there are several petitions and one or two Facebook pages demanding he go.
#mcleishout was also trending on twitter on December 3rd - yet the local press say nothing, yet they will jump all over something else that trends and happily promote all things Aston Villa. Do the local media not see it or are they just puppets of the club too scared that they'll have access revoked if they write something negative?
I'm starting to not care. Sorry
The really horrible feeling I have at the moment is where this is all going to end. There was massive fanfare when Lerner took over. I was part of that and made the trip to the Charlton match, but I soon saw through the PR and blarney and the accounts filed at Companies House have since confirmed my suspicions.
My suspicions are not bad things. Lerner isn't evil. He is here for what he can get out of Aston Villa though and he isn't here to make Aston Villa great again. There was no roots and branch change either. Aren't these the two things we wanted when we wanted rid of Ellis?
What has really changed?
Can someone tell me what has changed since Lerner took over? And when telling me, forget about the training facility - Ellis had already started the project and what we've ended up with is on a par with the likes of Blackburn and Bolton.
Also, don't tell me about the pub or the money spent - the club is in more debt today than it ever has been. Take away the debt and money lent to the club for new players and what you actually see is an owner that took out in management fees in one year than the previous major shareholder took out ... ever.
Where is everyone now then?
This isn't me asking if you think nothing has really changed - I've long thought this and it pops up every now and then in the media, in some form or another.
The Guardian ran a story two and a half years ago suggesting Lerner was the new Doug Ellis and like I said, when you take away all the debt, look at the manager we have and the fact that the club don't seem to be listening, I'm fairly convinced.
My point is, these people can not hide for ever and they wont. They wont because they haven't stopped caring for the club and all that is going to happen, when they are pushed over the edge of not caring, is they are going to get angry.
When they get pushed over the edge of not caring, it isn't the club they stop caring about, it is the people at the club. Roots and branch change - there has been no change.
Sorry again
So I have to apologise again. You are not going to see rumour and speculation - we stopped that a long time ago. You are not going to see comments of 'putting it right' from the manager or the players - to me it is clear that they are not playing for him.
We are entering the dark period of Aston Villa that was always going to come on the day Alex McLeish was appointed manager and the worrying thing is, our owner and CEO are blind to it - which suggests they don't care too and when that happens at a club, things can turn sour very quickly.