The five stages of grief - Hazzetta dello Sport 2025: Aston Villa (A)
Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance. The five stages of grief.
It probably went unnoticed that the Hazzetta took a hiatus for the visit of Manchester City. Largely down to Christmas’ busy travelling, schedule and consuming excess made it difficult to afford the time required. However, there’s part of it that relates to the first words of this article. The jump from grief to relegation is gigantic. Never should the emotions conflate with the results part of football. However, relegation does follow a similar path.
There can be intervals of hope. Certainly at the start and on occasion in the middle but eventually we fall towards those five stages. It has been over these last three fixtures of Wolves, Liverpool and Manchester City that the hope has evaporated. Throw in a side portion of a rumoured points deduction. We have the ingredients which have already seen my eye towards the bottom of the Championship and the top of League 1 for potential opposition next season.
The season hardly started full of genuine belief that we were going to be anything other than not good enough. However, the efforts of Abdul Fatawu and Facundo Buonanotte with a forever active Jamie Vardy at least gave some shining light. That said, the visit of Nottingham Forest and Steve Cooper’s management with a handbrake on has meant that ‘Denial’ has never taken place.
Rather it’s anger which came along. I didn’t bother with a post-match drink after Forest. I was a fire hazard with the smoke coming out of my ears. You could argue there was some bargaining after Ruud van Nistelrooy’s good start. The calculator was back out, the prediction of results, and a quiet look at Opta’s supercomputer. The whole ninety minutes against Wolves were a depressive episode that not even Prozac could lift, albeit it might make Danny Ward do something other than lay on the floor as the second goal rolled in.
Therefore the Christmas double of Liverpool and Manchester City represented acceptance. The performance on Boxing Day represented the limit of the existing squad in such a situation but I can understand the frustration of some support that City didn’t go for it a bit more at 2-1 down. Manchester City saw one of our better performances but I was largely unmoved, it felt like I’d watched this story before. I’d accepted the result and the fate has been accepted.
The horrible side effect of acceptance is that it brings apathy which in turn leads to very little productivity amongst a fanbase who at times get correctly angered, but it simmers down to a ripple. The chants go away, the in-fight between supporters continues and the club celebrate being challenged about their plight. It can be put down as another story of toxicity or those fans over there causing a problem.
Occasionally there are times where may be a relegation and a harsh word or two might be the best medicine. We’ve seen the likes of Everton hang around the Premier League without much ambition and we ourselves learned sharp lessons when being put down to League 1. There’s a reality next season where we line up on minus points but have a collection of younger prospects with room to develop and improve.
Stolarczyk takes the reins in goal with an eye for a full season. Ben Nelson becomes the ever-present in central defence. You might get Bilal El Khannouss for a period before he’s sold. Abdul Fatawu will need six months post-injury to allay fears about his ACL. While there’s a few loanees doing the rounds such as Brandon Cover who might literally become his namesake. Then all of a sudden, you have a different dimension to watching us play rather than the same mundane acceptance we currently have. We have hope.
After all it’s that emotion which is incredibly valuable in a relegation when you take away the obvious requirement for better players, the great escape of 2014/15 possessed that. That season is often subject to a revisionist view that we were never out of games and we never got hammered. They were plenty of occasions where we were utterly rotten and devoid of ideas; a goalless draw against Hull and a loss away at Palace spring to mind. However, the season’s tone is revised because there was always hope. There was enough personality within the squad and a manager with enough charisma to keep that hope ticking over.
The similarity of this season to the last relegation is that those same accepted emotions are here again. A desperate lifeline for that is needed above all the signings we could make. Villa Park has been one of those grounds where we pick up the occasional form-defying win. Rather ominously, two of those in 2001 and 2023 would lead to relegations. We will see if that fate awaits us again.
