Villa’s rise and Reading’s ruin should provide context for our frustrations

There’s a lot of rightful frustration around Fulham’s performance against Aston Villa, especially the substitutions and the added time, where you could be forgiven for thinking that the Whites were the team in the lead, such was their lack of urgency in getting the ball towards the opposition box. 

It was hard to watch, whether at Villa Park or on the TV, because of what it meant – the opportunity to grab a point that would have taken us closer to Europe, which has been tantalisingly within touching distance for so much of this season. So close, and yet so far away. 

But watching a host of football on Saturday, it got me thinking about two clubs who we sparred with in our Championship days, and the journeys we’ve all been on since then. The most obvious was our hosts on the day, who we beat in the Championship Play-off final on that famous, sun-drenched day back in 2018. 

Since then, Villa have been on a seemingly perennial upwards trajectory, coming up the following year, surviving by the skin of their teeth, bringing in a world class manager, qualifying for the Conference League, and then going one better to reach the Champions League quarter-finals this season. 

It’s been meteoric, and it seems surreal to think that two members of that team who lost to us at Wembley seven years ago – John McGinn and Tyrone Mings – were part of the squad at the weekend as well. 

But it’s a reminder that we can dream, that making the right decisions and building the right squads under the right manager can produce magic that seems sustainable. Villa have lived on the edge a little bit in terms of PSR, and they have the backdrop of a far larger stadium and fanbase; but that shouldn’t take away from how smartly they have been put together to achieve their goals. 

That may seem a far cry from where Fulham are right now, but take a counterexample in the form of Reading, who on Friday finally saw an end to the saga that has seen them go from being a Championship club fighting for promotion, to one which feared for its very future as a football institution. 

Back in 2017, when Reading knocked Fulham out of the play-offs at the Madjeski, as I watched Tom Cairney cajoled and mocked by pitch-invading Reading fans, as I sat on that godforsaken bus back to the station, there was little I disliked more than Reading Football Club. But from being one game from the Premier League, they tumbled into a nightmare that you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. 

Unpaid players, relegations, selling off the training ground, dissolving the women’s team – it has been one blow after another for the Royals faithful. Through persistent pressure groups, and with a team on the pitch formed of little more than academy graduates and free agents fighting well above their weight, the supporters have taken the fight to their absent ownership and won – and they deserve nothing but love and credit for doing so. A dream turned to a nightmare in just seconds. 

I say this not really to invoke pity for Reading, or to suggest that we should be grateful for our lot, but to frame the context that Fulham, Villa and Reading all competed in the same 2017/18 Championship, and now find themselves in very different positions. 

Football is transient, and it moves quickly. We should always want to be the very best we can be, and Saturday’s frustration is an embodiment of how that doesn’t always come to pass. But while Villa’s Champions League exploits feel like they’re a long way away – they’re a lot closer to us than they are to Reading – and while it will definitely sting if we miss out on Europe, we’re still on the right path as far as I’m concerned.