Season ending Q&A

It's been a rough few months at The Short Fuse; Arsenal hasn't done what we wanted, and we're all just ready for this season to wrap up ASAP. But before it does, we sat down with our blogging opposition, to get some perspective on Sunday's match. To help shed some light on Aston Villa, I talked with team blogger Robert Lintott of 7500 to Holte. He graciously agreed to answer the questions that Short Fuse staff had about this weekend's opponent, so without further ado, here are my questions for Robert and his answers!

TSF: So, this season didn't turn out quite as you thought it would, did it?

RL: You can say that again. Here I was thinking that we'd nab a top-ten place for certain, and no we're in a position where we have to beat you lot at the Emirates to even get to 20 points. It was... well, it wasn't great.

I mean, it really says a lot that the high points of our season came with firings or suspensions, right? Heh heh. Hoo boy.

TSF: You've seen a dramatic change in your team's points total from last year to this. To what do you attribute that change?

RL: Mostly the fact that we were terrible. But even beyond that, it was just junk leadership. Tom Fox, formerly of Arsenal, took the idea of a Sword of Damocles that you might expect from a season like this, climbed the wall, grabbed the sword from its thread, and stabbed all of our hopes and dreams. Take, for instance, the January transfer window. We were well adrift, but given how absolutely horrifically bad the bottom of the Premier League has been this year, a few signings might have saved things.

Instead? Nothing. Rémi Garde, formerly of Arsenal, was hoping to have new blood to work with and instead he got to keep using Joleon f****** Lescott.

And if you're wondering what ONE THING I would attribute the change to, it's Joleon Lescott. Is that fair? Rational? Logical? Smart and analytical? No. But I freaking hate that guy.

TSF: That points total is almost assuredly enough to see your team cement a European place. Joining the European competition club's gotta feel good as a fan, right?

RL: Ha, that's an easy mistake to make there. See the Champions League is how you're familiar with Europe. We're going to the Champions-hip. Replace League with hip and you've got where we will be. Hell, seems fitting given that this team plays like it could use a hip replacement, amirite?

Guys?

That was a good joke.

TSF: Do you see the team having to do a lot of buying to strengthen the squad prior to their European adventures?

RL: Wait a minute. Do you think I'm writing about West Ham again? Goddammit, we went over this in August. I'm Robert Lintott. I write for 7500 to Holte. We are an Aston Villa blog. Aston Villa are the team from Birmingham. We're bad. We're not going to Europe. We're getting relegated. We're a bad team. West Ham are just bad people.

TSF: Are you excited about the new stadium and the move?

RL: Okay. Listen up. YES. We are both claret and blue. But you see, we're not. the same. team.

West Ham: throw bottles and rocks at Manchester United buses, harm people, make football descend into the dark ages, play decent football.

Aston Villa: try to score goals but miss wildly, harm people, make the aesthetics of football descend into the dark ages, play terrible football.

And really, the colors aren't even the same. Villa's claret is 7A003C and their blue is 94BEE5. For West Ham, it's 60223B and 5299C9. THOSE AREN'T EVEN THE SAME HEX CODES.

CHRIST.

TSF: Okay, I see I was confused. I'm with you now. I'm so sorry for the confusion! I'll get back on track.

Thank god. You've figured it out.

TSF: Your team got promoted at the first opportunity, winning the Championship by a fairly comfortable margin, and will be back in the Premier League next season. How exciting is that for the fans?

RL: I hope you end up in fourth.