Are the Omens good or bad?

[martin@]

Football supporters are notoriously superstitious. Many follow the same routine on match days, wear that same old tatty club scarf and constantly look for omens, be they good or bad. I feared the worst after the draw for the semi-finals of the League Cup gave Villa a seemingly easy route to Wembley. It was too good to be true I thought, and history suggested that we would be unlikely to win the final anyway without an English manager.

your club mid-table respectability and, with luck, perhaps a Europa League place. But since Massie left Villa Park, only five of the club’s subsequent managers have achieved a better overall percentage of wins in league games than Massie did, and none of them were Scots.

What difference does an English manager make? Since World War Two, Villa have won major trophies on eight occasions, including a European Cup (Tony Barton), a Football League championship (Ron Saunders), one FA Cup (Eric Houghton) and five League Cups (Joe Mercer, Saunders twice, Ron Atkinson and Brian Little). All were Englishmen but und