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Aston Villa has never been an exciting team. For starters, they’re based in Birmingham, the “Most Boring and Unromantic City in Europe” according to a 2011 survey of 3,500 tourists. For mains, their “famous” supporters include such dullards as Prince William and David Cameron, rendering them instantly unfashionable to all but the most blue-rinsed of grandmothers. Finally, for cheese and biscuits, they’ve been managed by some of the greyest men in football: John Gregory, Alex McLeish, Brian Little and Graham Taylor (twice).
Not until this season, however, have The Villains been quite so brain-hemorrhagingly dreary to behold. We’d compare them to drying paint, but that would be an affront to decorators the world over. Paul Lambert – an eminently intelligent yet preposterously unexciting man – has sculpted a team which plays with such a gaping chasm of élan that a night of Bible study with Sarah Palin seems downright racy by comparison. They couldn’t even get excited about Christmas for Christ’s sake:
“Conjecture!” we hear you shout, which is fair: one man’s dishwater could quite legitimately be another’s Laurent Perrier. But while dullness may in most walks of life be difficult to quantify, with Aston Villa it’s mind-numbingly simple: they don’t score, they don’t concede many (Arsenal aside) and they don’t even kick people.
To put a fine point on it, here are 7 reasons we believe Aston Villa deserves the title of "Most Boring Football Team Ever":
- Aston Villa haven’t scored a single goal in their last 10 hours and 12 minutes of Premier League football. In that time, Villa fans could have watched the entire first season of Breaking Bad. Twice.
- No team in Europe’s top five leagues (98 teams in total) has scored fewer goals per game than Aston Villa, who are averaging a goal every 188 minutes played: enough time for Villa fans to fly to the Santiago Bernabau, where Real Madrid average a goal every 26 minutes.
- Aston Villa had to cancel their Goal Of The Month competition for October, because they didn’t score a single goal in any competition.
- No Premier League team has had fewer shots, accurate or otherwise, or created fewer chances.
- No football ground in English professional football has witnessed fewer goals than Villa Park this season, with just 21 (for either side) scored in 11 games. For context, those lucky enough to inhabit the Camp Nou have seen 40 in 10.
- The Villains’ Birmingham-based travelling supporters have covered 1,165 miles following Villa this season, to see them score just four goals. At least they had the good grace to concede five against Arsenal this weekend.
- Villa don’t even provide any gratuitous violence: only four teams in Europe have committed fewer fouls.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Villa Park is the emptiest ground in the Premier League, averaging 9,859 unsold tickets a game (just 77% full). In a city with a population of over 1 million, with seemingly little else to do (according to 3,500 randomly chosen tourists, at least), that’s quite an achievement.
Aston Villa: boring the sh*t out of their supporters sinc…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
