[Slick_Footwork]

Overall we got what we deserved this season.

Nothing.

The club was completely mismanaged from the top and it was easy to see before a ball had even been kicked...

We employ 2 managers who have never managed before, the latter never even as an assistant.

Had we employed a good manager at the start of the season, with this playing squad, I think we would've been top 2 comfortably.

In fact, if Darren Moore just curbed his insistence on playing out from the back we probably would've made top 2 with him.

But it was impossible to predict his stubbornness, as he had no previous managerial experience.

Lai bought into the club as an investment, without any football knowledge and has employed the wrong people. Jenkins was a good Chief Financial Office for Peace, but he doesn't have any football knowledge to do the CEO role. No idea what Luke Dowling does, but if it was his idea to sack Moore and replace him with Shan, then he should be shown the door now.

That said... we didn't deserve to lose the tie.

Shan bought into all the hullabaloo about Villa's "talent" and played a negative game. I didn't agree with it, but had it not been for poor refereeing, the plan would've worked. When the referee gives the opposition a penalty for a dive and then fails to even things up when there's 2 chances - Abraham diving on Holgate in the first leg and El Ghazi handling tonight - it's always going to be tough. With all that against us, we still drew.

In fact, in most other cup completions, we would've won on away goals.

That said, I can't help thinking if we setup positively to go at Villa, we would've won.

I honestly don't know why people perceive Villa to be so good. Grealish is arguably the best player in the Championship but him aside, I think they are very average. The creative wingers like Green and Adomah will never play above Championship level and I wouldn't swap any of them for ours. In fact, I'd put Jefferson Montero above all of them and he hasn't even kicked a ball for us for months. I can see why the Villa fans like McGinn, as he's all action, but honestly they are deluded about his quality.

And that's why despite setting up completely wrong and sacrificing a central midfielder, we still deserved to win the tie.

The sad thing is, where do we go from here?

Brunt, Mozza and Barry are a chest hair away from the end of their time. Gayle, Johansen, Holgate and Murphy will return to their parent clubs. The likes of Rondon, Dawson, Gibbs, Phillips, Livermore, Rodriguez and others will all have potential suitors. And after giving us a season in this division, could we really stop them from going?

I've got no problem with selling and replacing, but with our recruitment track record this year - signing the likes of the terrible Conor Townsend - I have zero faith we would replace them.

Even squad players like Mears, Hoolahan, Montero and Adaraboiyo will be gone.

It's a downward spiral from here... I'm just glad I got to see us play at the top level in my lifetime.

But at least I'm not embarrassed tonight. That's the only positive I can think at the moment.