VILLANZZZZ Written by: Moxcowhite • Daniel Chapman I’ve been tired of Aston Villa for a while, at least since Marcelo Bielsa gave them The Fairest Goal at Elland Road in 2019. We now seem doomed to perpetual, boring conflict. They should be a pleasure to play, with nice kits, decent players, Gary McAllister on the bench. Sometimes we beat them handily, other times they beat us (the 1996 League Cup final is still a sore point). Football as it should be, which is perhaps why our clubs were signed up together for an Australian tour. I took no pleasure seeing Villa’s name in our pre-season fixtures, though, nor Crystal Palace. The idea of a ‘friendly’ against teams from the same division sounds great in theory, as in, a marketing meeting. What better way to sell the Premier League around the world than to have its teams facing off right there? But there are problems in practice, as this match showed. How friendly can a friendly be, between two teams who were going full pelt against e