Given that it would have been a disaster for Aston Villa to mess up an FA Cup quarter-final at Preston the strength of feeling as supporters celebrated a first Wembley appearance in five years might seem a little overblown.
But Villa are in a uniquely unusual position as we enter the run-in. The excitement on Sunday afternoon contains a large dollop of relief.
This could be the club's best season in more than 40 years, bringing the silverware their adventure under Unai Emery deserves.
It could also be technically their worst season under Emery: a ninth-place finish and zero trophies, for the 29th year in a row.
To a certain extent that is par for the ‘big clubs.’ All you can ask for in April is to be competing on multiple fronts. To fall just short in the weeks that follow is no great disaster.
But nobody in the Premier League is in quite the same precarious position of hovering on the edge of the elite, a few careful steps short of becoming a super-club but the smallest setback away from dropping into the middle tier.
Win the FA Cup and get back into the Champions League and Aston Villa remain on a clear upward trajectory.
The financial windfall would allow them to make Marcus Rashford and Marco Asensio permanent signings and, quite likely, consolidate Villa as part of a new ‘Big Six/Seven’ in the years ahead.
The gap to Tottenham or even Arsenal, in terms of wealth and status, gets smaller every year Villa remain in Europe’s top tier.
But fail on both fronts, plus finish sixth or below, and suddenly the 2023/24 season will look like a one-off; the victory over Bayern Munich in the Champions League Phase a smash-and-grab high point, not the start of something.
Asensio and Rashford probably wouldn’t stay and, with PSR still an issue, another sale like Douglas Luiz’s last summer would be on the cards.
From that perspective there is no Premier League club with a more important (and more difficult) two months ahead than Villa, who might need as many as seven wins from their final nine to secure a top-five finish.
The good news is that there’s really nothing stopping them from doing it.
Injuries have decimated the Villa defence almost to the same extent as Spurs this season, explaining their under-performance compared with last year, but finally those days are behind them.
Villa have a full-strength team for the first time this season and, with those loan signings in the final third, arguably possess a better team than any of their rivals for the final Champions League spot.
They've won five matches in a row in all competitions, keeping a clean sheet in four. Prior that Villa had only kept seven clean sheets all season and not a single one in their previous ten, a run that stretches back to January 15.
With Tyrone Mings in the form of his life and Emiliano Martinez seemingly over his wobble, Villa’s defence is finally strong again. Add to that Boubacar Kamara’s return to form following 8 months out and suddenly Villa will not fear the Premier League challenge.
Nor will they fear either leg of the Champions League quarter-final against PSG.
Winning that competition surely remains out of reach, especially with two legs against Real Madrid to come. But the FA Cup and a top-five finish is theirs for the taking.
Villa now possess a well-balanced and fully fit squad that’s been refresh by warm-weather training in Dubai during the international break. The stars have aligned for them to surge through the next two months and consolidate Villa’s new position among Europe’s elite.
And yet 2024/25 could still end in their lowest league finish under Emery, and nothing to show for the last year other than a few strong performances in a Champions League campaign that would retrospectively look like a one-off.
It’s an enormous six weeks: an enviable position for fans of other clubs, but nerve-wracking all the same. Villa supporters will keep ‘over-celebrating’ each win.
Any one of us would.
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