2-2

Villa end the season safe from relegation as ‘Petrov day’ celebrates the career and retirement of Villa great Stiliyan Petrov.

Villa end this most difficult of campaigns with a draw at relegated Wigan to leave them with a stack of unwanted records and with a host of players either exiled or underperforming by this most bewildering of regimes. 

It would be difficult to imagine that a season without relegation could have been much worse. 

Off the pitch there was chaos and recrimination with the infamous Bomb Squad of first team players not to be considered for duty robbing Villa of crucial experience, whilst players and systems were constantly changed leaving an incoherent manager presiding over an incoherent style of play. 

Record defeats, lower league humiliation, sub par players and performances, the banishment of effective first teamers and a malevolent discontent meant that in normal circumstances Paul Lambert would have been another one term manager consigned to the dustbin of failure. 

These weren’t normal times however as a distracted and disconnected Chairman seemed to accept and encourage this most bewildering of management regimes. 

In truth Villa’s form throughout the season meant they should have been relegated. Villa though avoid relegation under Paul Lambert at the last thanks to the goals of Christian Benteke and latterly Gabriel Agbonlahor without which a first relegation since 1986 was inevitable. 

Perhaps that end to the season bred over confidence, if true it’s difficult to understand the chutzpah of forgetting the other 40 odd games of mostly ineptitude. 

Whatever it was, this most undeserving of managers got an apparently emboldened endorsement for a second season. 

Consider the statistics: 

Paul Lambert has now led Villa to 16 defeats in 38 games in the 2012-13 season. 

Much maligned Alex McLeish delivered 14 defeats across the entire 2011-12 season. 

Lambert had hit that total in just 28 games. 

Villa have conceded 3 or more goals on 9 occasions across 38 Premier League under Paul Lambert.

McLeish had suffered four such games over the 38 game 2011-23 season. 

In his first season as manager of the club, Paul Lambert delivered the biggest defeat in Villa’s history, 0-8 to Chelsea.

In his first season as manager of the club, Paul Lambert set the record for the most goals conceded in successive games in Premier League history. 

Villa secured 5 wins in 25 League games under Paul Lambert. The five wins in the final ten games that effectively saved Villa came against Reading (19th, relegated), Queens Park Rangers (20th, relegated), Stoke City (13th, one point above Villa), Sunderland (17th) and Norwich. 

McLeish had delivered that many by New Years Eve 2011. 

Villa were never out of the bottom five under Paul Lambert in 2012-13, spending most of the season in 17th and 18th until the six-pointers against relegation rivals at the end of the season lifted them to a barely believable 15th placed finish.

McLeish’s Villa never dropped lower than 15th until the final two games of the season when they fell to 16th after finishing without a win in ten. 

Yet Lambert was not only still feted by a section of the support to the same degree as McLeish was hated, he was confirmed as manager of the club for 2013-14 even before the final placings had been realised. 

Darren Bent scores his 25th goal in a Villa shirt on his 63rd appearance (51 Starts) and had now been substitute in 11 of his last 17 games, starting just three League games, having only been a sub once in his first 46. Bent's record now stood at W24 D18 L21, 25 Goals, 3 Assists and 2 Bookings having scored 6 times in 23 games under Lambert - with 3 of those goals coming against lower league cup opposition - compared to 19 in 40 under his predecessors (1 Cup Goal against Premier League opposition). This would prove to be Bent’s last game in a Villa shirt for 43 games as Lambert would exclude the player from selection for the entirety of the 2013-14 season for no apparent reason.

Forward Simon Dawkins makes his 4th and final appearance for Villa (0 Starts) aged 25 before returning to Tottenham Hotspur at the end of his loan spell. Dawkins, never looking a Premier League player during his 5 months with Villa, left with a record of W1 D1 L1, 0 Goal, 0 Assists and 0 Bookings from his 71 minutes on the field for Villa.

Brad Guzan concedes his 100th goal in a Villa shirt on his 67th appearance (65 Starts) to make it W26 D15 L26, 100 Goals Conceded, 14 Clean Sheets, 1.68 Goals per League Game and 4 Bookings so far in his Villa career.

Fabian Delph makes his 50th start in a Villa shirt (66 Appearances) to make it W24 D18 L24, 2 Goals and 20 Bookings so far in his Villa career.