612 minutes.
Six games, over 10 hours, and 47 calendar days have passed since Aston Villa last hit the back of the net in the Premier League.
We’ve come into our third different month, a second year and Christmas has come and gone since Christian Benteke beat David De Gea of all people, and 10-man Villa held United to stop their six-game winning run at that stage.
Benteke has scored once more in the FA Cup since then. New signing Carles Gil – the poor fella – and Andi Weimann joined him on the tiniest score sheet in the next round by showing that Paul Lambert’s side actually do understand the objective of this game but not since December 20 have the once giants of Europe (never forget 1982) managed to score against a top flight side.
Unfortunately for some of us, we’re burdened by the chain of actively supporting one of the seven teams in the Premier League to never have been relegated but, with just 11 goals in 23 games – 42 less than their opponents on Saturday Chelsea – the Villa Park outfit are flirting perilously with the drop zone this season.
Rickie Lambert – Rickie bloody Lambert – turned down a move to the Birmingham side and things have gotten that desperate that we were actually whinging at missing out on his signature. Missing out on Rickie Lambert.
Villa welcome Mourinho’s men on Saturday and we’re thoroughly expecting 612 minutes to rise to over 700. Yet again, some of us will be sat down almost as if it was torture to watch another game of nothingness on our end. And it has got us thinking: Imagine how much more productive our lives would be if we just gave up the ghost.
612 minutes sat in hopeless desperation awaiting a goal that was never coming.
Here’s a list of things we could’ve been doing instead.
1. Making money
Instead of watching over 10 hours of crap, we could’ve earned exactly €88.23 working on minimum wage anywhere in Ireland.
2. Travelling
We could’ve flown from Dublin airport to New Dehli in that space of time.
Or, you know, to keep me away from the misery of it all, I could’ve just drove from Derry to Galway to Limerick to Dublin to Belfast and back to Derry again in exactly the same amount of time Villa have tried fruitlessly to do anything of note on a football pitch. I could’ve drove in a loop that encompassed most of this beautiful island. It would’ve been pointless but… you know.
3. Improving our culture
You could’ve been watching some of the finest sporting movies ever instead. Each of Remember The Titans, Jerry Maguire, Moneyball, Rocky and Rocky IV would’ve taken you 615 minutes but sure if we cut out the sex scene in Jerry Maguire then everybody’s happy. Right?
4. Essentials
In 612 minutes, you could’ve watched almost every single episode of Father Ted. Almost. In the time Villa have accumulated so spectacularly by not scoring, 24 episodes – including the Christmas special – could’ve been watched whole as well as nine minutes and 20 seconds of the very last episode, Going To America.
– You do meet a lot of celebrities.
– Yeah? Like who?
– Kevin Spacey, he’s nice.
– Don’t know him. What about Val Kilmer? I believe he’s a complete b*stard.
You would’ve gotten that exchange in with Buzz, the American telling Ted he wipes his ass with 400 dollars and right up to Mrs Doyle clipping Father Jack’s nails. Think how much more enlightened Villa fans’ lives could’ve been.
Come Saturday, just hit play at this scene and we’re sure you’ll get the rest of the episode finished without scoring to complete the box set. (Start it all again as well while you’re at it)
5. The Championship
You could’ve watched Kerry’s All-Ireland-winning campaign the whole way through from the first outing against Clare with Dublin’s Leinster-winning exploits thrown in there as well. On top of that, you could’ve watched the  first half of Derry and Donegal back in May after Derry had reached the league final and led Jim McGuinness’ men by two points at the break in the first round of the Ulster championship. You know, back when things were good. The first half is all that fits in on top of Kerry’s and Dublin’s journeys. That’s all we need to see again.
6. Exercising
A marathon could’ve been ran five times over (if you were a world record holder).
7. Time wasting
You could’ve spent the same amount of time browsing through Netflix looking for something to watch. You might’ve finally finished browsing by this stage though.
8. Tea
Assuming your standard 1.7 litre Russell Hobbs kettle takes exactly 4 minutes and 16 seconds to boil from scratch at full capacity like ours does, you could’ve boiled a full kettle 143 times and still had nearly two minutes to work with to finally pour your guests a cup of tea. Assuming they’re that patient, obviously.
9. Biting your lip
That time might’ve been better spent queuing behind the old lady with four cards at the ATM machine.
10. Swooning
The official Puskas Award video for Stephanie Roche’s goal could’ve been watched in full 895 times but if you just preferred to watch the goal and the replay of it, rather than the FIFA spiel afterwards, you could’ve done so 1,792 times. Better than no goals, eh?
11. Being thankful for what you have
You could watch the mind-boggling, jaw-dropping, dramatic climax to Sky Sports News’ deadline day coverage from 12:48pm. But we’re sure you’d rather watch Aston Villa…
12. Shopping
That time might’ve been better spent standing outside Penney’s, waiting for a girl, pretending to be on your phone until she manoeuvred her way through the crowds back to the exit. You could’ve gotten maybe two trips out of it.
13. Taking over
We could’ve watched all five of Conor McGregor’s UFC wins 21 times and still found time for a couple of his hilarious YouTube videos.
14. Running
Tommy Bowe could’ve scaled the length of the Aviva from inside his own 22′ against Australia 3,338 times.
We could’ve done it 19.2 times. Between us.
