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Just when the Aston Villa players needed a siege mentality, they continued with a sieve mentality.

Shuffle them from side to side a bit and holes appear all over the place.

We know this Villa squad lack Premier League quality, but when the rest of the football world is laughing, surely they must possess the character, the pride, the commitment to fight back?

Evidently not.

In terms of ability it is like watching a lower league team lining up against top flight opposition every week.

But the chances of a ‘cup upset’ are as remote as Randy Lerner.

Where is the underdog spirit?

Where is the determination to upset the formbook?

To prove the critics wrong?

To pull off a shock?

To actually look like you give a damn?

Missing.

Like so much about this club this season, it is missing.

Like the absent owner, like Premier League points, like the respect of certain players towards Villa’s plight, it is missing.

Players who are not fit to lace the drinks, let alone the boots of their claret and blue predecessors.

It says it all that the most enthusiastic cheers against Chelsea were reserved for the aerial display of paper airplanes swooping down from the Holte End.

Especially the ones that made it onto the pitch - at last there was something on the Villa Park playing surface a little less flimsy than these Villa players.

Just a handful of those recycled ‘Proud History, What Future?’ banners found their way onto the area of play as another opponent turned a match against the relegation no-hopers into a procession.

But when it came to hitting the target there was something hurled much more accurately from upon high than those paper missiles.

Loud taunts of ‘You’re not fit to wear the shirt’ aimed at Tim Sherwood’s (no scrub that, Remi Garde’s, no scrub that, Eric Black’s) players were the most damning assessment of a Villa team the Villa Park faithful have delivered for a generation.

And the chants were bang on.

Collectively, and in too many cases individually as well, this set of players do not even give the pretence that they care enough.

With villains of the piece Tom Fox and Hendrik Almstadt exiting stage left and peaceful Villan Remi Garde following them ‘Out The Door with Severance For’ the players have run out of scapegoats to blame (with the obvious exception of you, Randolph).

There is now no place to hide for a group who have passed the buck, and been content to do so, much better than they have passed the ball this season.

There is no siege mentality, just a sieve mentality from a bunch of sieves.

It’s just a shame those holes aren’t big enough to swallow them up before relegation is almost certainly confirmed next weekend.

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