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"I never saw an ugly thing in my life: for let the form of an object be what it may - light, shade and perspective will always make it beautiful."
Some words from John Constable, one of England's finest ever landscape artists.
I suspect though that if Mr Constable had paid a visit to the concrete jungle of Birmingham yesterday to witness this wretched game of football played in atrocious conditions at Villa Park, it might have taxed the notion of seeing beauty in everything.
The Rovers motto is 'Arte et labore' - meaning "by skill and labour".
There might have been a bit of labour on show yesterday, but there was precious little skill.
The match (admittedly not helped by the diabolical weather) was an affront to the beautiful game. Sloppy misplaced passes and the lack of any cutting edge up front meant that it was a grey afternoon in every respect.
Sparky admitted: "It wasn't a pretty spectacle. There wasn't a lot of quality out there."
Villa's nickname is 'The Villains', but it was Rovers who were guilty of criminally bad defending - scandalously allowing little Nobby to head home completely unmarked.
Highlights were few and far between in this dreadful match. Nissa hit the bar with a header in the first half. Jon Stead, 18 matches this season without a goal (if you include the Bournemouth game) didn't look like breaking his duck here - curling a shot well wide of the post in the opening few minutes.
Pablo Angel should have scored for Villa just before half time; but the Columbian, like most of the others on the pitch, was off-target.
Villa have been suffering from a goal drought this season. Indeed a shortage of goals has been a long-term problem for them . No Villa striker has scored 20 goals for the club since the Premiership started. (Dean Saunders and Dwight Yorke both managed 17).
If Big Ron had bought a decent strike partner for Saunders during the 92/93 season, instead of his lazy namesake Dalian Atkinson, Villa would probably have won the first ever Premiership. Sadly they were pipped at the post by the Red Scum.
O'Leary hopes that James Beattie will be the man to solve Villa's impotence in front of goal. For Rovers (as I've just posted in the Hartson thread), I hope we don't look towards the vicious thug from Celtic as being the answer to our problems.
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Big, big game tomorow where we must take all 3 points.
I agree that it's a must win game tomorrow. Our appalling home record has to be improved upon.
Let's hope we can see a bit more 'Arte' on the pitch against Charlton.
Incidentally, another club that still dabbles in the language of Latin failed to live up to their motto yesterday. Everton's badge reads "Nil satis nisi optimum" - meaning "Nothing but the best is good enough".
Alas, the blue half of Merseyside were thrashed by Spurs. There's clearly a huge gap in terms of quality between the top three sides in the country and fourth-placed Everton.
The top three sides are miles ahead of the rest, leading (in my view) to an unhealthy Premiership.
Match report written by Anti Euro Smiths Fan
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