Walsall were for the third successive year heavily beaten by a strong Aston Villa side at the Banks’s Stadium last night.
A brace from new signings Jota, Wesley and a goal from Jack Grealish saw the Lions run rampant.
The only positive last night was that finish by Stuart Sinclair. If he does more of that this season we will be happy!
Whilst the opportunity to face Premier League opposition is always inviting there comes a point when you say we need to look at alternatives to help our upcoming campaign. Do we offer to play Aston Villa earlier on in pre-season and have a more winnable home friendly later on or do we abolish the friendly all together because let’s be honest it does more harm than good.
It cannot be productive for morale and planning if your only home game of pre-season is always a tonking against Aston Villa.
We have struggled to get points at the Banks’s for the last three seasons and another hammering in our back yard certainly doesn’t help quash the worries or entice the fans back that have had enough of watching the side at home.
The fact of the matter it is as always about the money. Last night we would have earned around £70,000 from our annual friendly with our near neighbours but will that be invested back into the squad? Probably not. Also if we didn’t pay our owner £440,000 per annum to use our own stadium then we probably wouldn’t need the £70,000 desperately.
Oh well just one pre-season game remaining before we can start facing sides at our level.
