How Far The Villa Have Come

Today we got the same result at the Emirates as we got 18 months ago in Martin O'Neills first game in charge.

The result was the same, but the mentality going towards the game, the expectation and the performance were much different, but I'm stating the obvious.

The result in the end was harsh on us, we were robbed really.

But 18 months ago we went into the game praying for anything...we probably would have taken a narrow defeat..after all we had gone to Highbury 4 months before that and been brushed aside 5-0. So a draw back then was a very good result on the back of a very resilient performance.

I say resilient, because that's what it was....in that game we never really carried any threat from open play, Arsenal were pretty comfortable and it was really just a matter of them breaking us down, something we made hard for them with alot of hard work. We didn't have any guile or creativeness going forward, no power to push ourselves through them either.

This time however we went into the game EXPECTING something and we gave them a proper game...really we could have hammered them, on another day we might have done..Maloney, Young and Harewood all went very close, we ran what has been the best side in the country this season right to the wire...literally...and we did it whilst taking casualties to important players.

And the fact that after the game we are all pretty much devastated to loose this game shows how far we've come and what a job MON has done so far.

I can't wait for the remaining last 10 games of the season. There are some tough games, but if we show the same kind of mentality, determination and genuine ability we showed today, we will be more than a match for anyone.

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