Stan Collymore In Sense Shocker

Sometimes Stan comments on the Villa and you can't help but think it's a way to be remembered, or to get into the papers, however more and more of late he's making sense and you can't help but see the claret and blue blood bubbling through.

He's just conducted an interview on the official site in response to our on the trot league defeats against Newcastle and Boro, but he doesn't believe fans should get too disheartened, simply because he is adamant all teams have blips of form during a season, and as we have shown before under O'Neill a string of dodgy results is only the prelude to a return of form.

Collymore still believes that Villa are also the best place team to break into the Top 4, which actually makes the recent losses even more galling given the results of other teams.

'Even the best of teams suffer a blip at some point during the course of the season - whether it's down to lack of form or sheer fatigue.

'So I don't think we should get too downhearted by Villa's defeats to Newcastle and Middlesbrough.

'Martin O'Neill has maintained a pretty consistent starting line-up for his side's Barclays Premier League matches so far this season, with many of the lads also playing in the UEFA Cup games.

'The team has fared well too, climbing to fifth in the table, so the successive defeats came as a bit of a jolt.

'All the same, I'm convinced it will be no more than a temporary set-back and that Villa can get over it and come back as strong as ever.

'If any team can break the stranglehold of the top four, I reckon Martin's men have the most realistic chance of doing it.'

The 'we' word again, often overlooked when it comes to Collymore. After the disappointing end to his Villa career too many of his 'comments' seemed to come over as him telling fans how they should think and feel, but over the last few years he seems to just tell people what he thinks now. Hence the return of 'we', when being a pundit those inklings of bias towards the club and so on.

It's also nice to know he isn't jumping on the Villa bandwagon.

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