Martin O'Neill treading a well-worn path at Villa

I don't like writing about Aston Villa. I find it impossible to be impartial, and my opinions tend not to jive with those of the supporters around me. In recent years I've become jaded by top flight football and become more concerned with things like supporters' rights, grassroots football, any semblance of reality I can squeeze from a game whose upper reaches have no interest in the views of the common man.

For most Villa supporters, it's enough for the team to be fighting for fourth - fourth, for Christ's sake! - in the league. That's fair enough, that's what football is coming to and supporters will always adjust their expectations to match the prospects of their club. My expectations for Villa were different this season because I am a traditionalist and, from next season, I am turning my back on the Premier League. For me, a visit to Wembley, let alone two or three, would have been my number one wish. By reaching the League Cup final, the FA Cup semis and the last ten games with fourth unexpectedly within reach, Martin O'Neill has ticked all the boxes.

But if you've been paying attention, you might have noticed that all is not harmonious at Villa Park. The majority of supporters are happy, as you would expect from a club run along sensible business lines by a foreign owner who just seems to 'get' the culture of the place, and has a manager who has, so far, been reaching his goals. Some, though, share my view that O'Neill is starting to alienate supporters.

When the team's doing well, it doesn't really matter to most fans what the manager says or does. A handful will see the behaviour of the manager in isolation, and it's those supporters O'Neill is beginning to lose. I count myself in that number. O'Neill is getting on my nerves and it's more about his contempt for supporters than anything that happens on the pitch, although clearly it begins with frustrating decisions like the continued selection of a centre back ahead of a very fine full back on the right, and the ongoing refusal to change his team or give the likes of Fabian Delph and Nathan Delfouneso the chance to prove themselves.

I'm talking, of course, about booing. Martin O'Neill needs to learn how to deal with booing - let's pretend for a moment that he's talking about genuine booing and not the kind he's invented in his mind - and treat supporters with more respect and consideration. I don't boo. It's not constructive or helpful, and it makes the whole experience of attending football matches less enjoyable. I don't agree with it, even when I am as irritated by O'Neill as his most vocal critic. But that's not the point.

You'll have noticed that Villa supporters have a reputation for booing, and we're generally seen as one of the worst for it. That simply isn't true, and has been cultivated by O'Neill's pathetic obsession with deflecting legitimate criticism. An abject defeat to Wigan on the first day of this season was the nadir. The performance was so limp, so appalling, that supporters were annoyed that nothing had changed since Villa's frankly unacceptable form during the second half of the previous campaign.

They booed. It's not clever or pleasant, but they booed. O'Neill, instead of brushing it off like every other manager, kept it front-and-centre of several of his media appearances for the next two weeks. During that time, Villa won at Anfield and a line should have been drawn. Instead, the manager used his post-match interview to take another potshot at the Villa support. He kept the story alive when it wasn't necessary, and that grates with me.

With that, our reputation was sealed. On Saturday, there was a repeat not of the booing, but of another unsavoury incident from last season. Back then, Gabriel Agbonlahor was struggling a bit over a long period. He'd been subjected to almost no audible criticism while his manager continued to play him regardless of form, but when he was finally substituted there was some ironic cheering. It was - unmistakably - aimed at manager, not player. And yet when O'Neill was interviewed afterwards the noises had suddenly become "boos" and were aimed at Agbonlahor. Again, it simply wasn't the case. For O'Neill to deflect criticism of his own foibles onto a young player set alarm bells ringing.

Against Wolverhampton Wanderers on Sunday, the main outburst from the supporters was another bout of ironic cheering, this time when two players emerged from the bench to warm up during the second half. The first, Luke Young, should be in the starting eleven. He's one of the best English right backs around and is being kept out of the team by a very good centre back, Carlos Cuellar, who's playing horrifically in the wrong position. The second was Delfouneso. He's far from proven, but he looks like a decent enough prospect and the forward line of Emile Heskey and John Carew clearly needed livening up. Any booing during the game, or indeed afterwards, was minimal and no worse than at any other ground in the country where a turgid performance has been turned in.

Once again, O'Neill has turned this into a booing row in the press, deflecting attention away from the real target of the criticism - himself - and onto the players. More importantly, he fuelled Villa's reputation for having booing supporters by bleating to the media about it again. He was probably asked about it, of course, but he eschewed a better reaction ("They're entitled to voice their criticism but I'd rather they put their energy into supporting them team.") in order to have another dig.

Yes, we should be grateful for much of what has been achieved by O'Neill at the club and I don't approve of "booing". But it wasn't booing, and even if it was I think it's better for the club that we all pull together rather than having to adopt an adversarial stance. O'Neill's style of play and lack of rotation are not endearing and he is as entitled to snipe back at the fans as they are to have a pop at him in the first place. But it takes on the characteristics of a vendetta and he needs to accept that if he continues to isolate sections of the Villa support by systematically putting us down through the media he will soon find that the number of fans who blithely hang on his every word will decline.

As with so many of my complaints about football, this hinges on one thing: the supporters are absolutely the least important thing to most people in the game. O'Neill's willingness to throw us under the bus is hugely annoying and extremely disappointing. It will surprise supporters at other clubs, but for a handful of Villa fans finishing in the top six or seven on the pitch isn't enough when the manager entertains himself by bitching about us to the press.

Now, where have I heard that before?

(Pic via Direct News)