Going down would be humiliating for a club who has played in every Premier League season, but trust Aston Villa to miss out on the new TV money

Aston Villa have become the laughing stock of the Premier League this season. They are rock bottom, with just two wins from 23 league games. The transfer window was an embarrassing farce of failed negotiations and rejections from players. The mere thought of interest from the club forced Nemanja Vidic into retirement. But who is really losing out here? Is it the players, whose reputations are being damaged by the minute, or the fans, who shell out a large portion of their wages to watch players run about with little passion for the famous colours of claret and blue? It’s the fans, of course.

For us Villa fans, it has become an embarrassingly desperate campaign. I find myself getting excited when we score a single goal. We may be two, three or even four down by the time we manage it, but the mere achievement of putting the ball in the net has me giddy with joy. It’s a sad state of affairs; this club won the European Cup in 1982. We were the greatest team in Europe and have been members of the Premier League since its inception. But now, after five years of fighting relegation, we are finally going to drop a division.

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For anyone who follows the Villa, it is no surprise that we have chosen this year of all years to finally give up. With the new TV deal coming into force next season, financially speaking, this is the worst season in the history of the Premier League to be relegated.

It is a scary proposition. Some fans think Villa will be well equipped to bounce straight back up from the Championship next season, but I’m not so sure. Uninspiring displays against lower league opponents in the cup competitions over the past few years suggest Villa could go down and stay down for a while. Leeds United, Blackburn Rovers, Nottingham Forest, Coventry City and Birmingham City were all Premier League regulars, but they now serve as proof that no club is too big to suffer. It is possible to fall from grace and become stuck in the lower leagues. This is the fate that could lie ahead for Villa.

Many observers will say that this misery stems from losing Martin O’Neill as manager and that the club has never been the same since. To a point that is true but I think O’Neill left because he saw this coming. The hierarchy at the club had begun to sell the players with most potential and we were becoming a feeder club for those in higher positions in the league. O’Neill spotted this, disagreed with it and left. And he was right.

Since his departure, Villa have been either unable or unwilling to hold on to their best players. The sales of Fabian Delph and Christian Benteke last summer are just the most recent examples. Randy Lerner’s reign as owner has been a long line of mismanagement and disappointment. He may have invested heavily in the infrastructure, but Villa have been run as a business and not a football club, even with the threat of relegation looming.

A new chairman, Steve Hollis, has been appointed. To most clubs this would be a great thing, but for Villa it was another opportunity to hire a man with no football experience. The new chairman is a local businessman, brought in to make the club a more financially lucrative operation. What doesn’t seem to have been considered, however, is that a successful team is a lot more attractive to everybody, including sponsors and business partners.

So, how does it feel to be a Villa fan? Depressing. We have become so used to underachievement that missing out on the bumper TV deal comes as no surprise. We had accepted relegation by Christmas and are even accepting that our club has become the butt of the jokes - some of them are even quite funny now. The only hope is that Villa will bounce back and live up to the memories we have of a big club with one of the best and most traditional stadiums in the country.

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