| Donate |
|
|
 |
|
 |
| Links |
|
|
|
|
|
| Users Online |
 Welcome Guest
Join Us!
 
Register! It's free and you can post to the site
 Create an account | | | |  Login:
|
| | | | |  Admin |  limpid | |
| | | |  Moderators |  LancsVillan | | | BOF | | | bickster | | | blandy | | | NurembergVillan | | | PauloBarnesi | | | OutByEaster? | | | TrentVilla | |
| | | | | Members: |  New Today: | 39 | | New Yesterday: | 58 | | Total: | 41543 | | Last: | | Flatlynaw |
| | | |  Online |  Members: | 271 |  Guests: | 540 |  Total: | 811 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Menu |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
Posted by: PB
on Monday, December 21, 2009 - 01:43 PM
PB returns for a somewhat downbeat spot of half term analysis. Can Villa crack the big four, or better yet challenge for a long overdue title as some have claimed?
I write this after reading articles by the always excellent TFT blogger Chris Nee who claimed that the top four are, well, not dead exactly but in a coma, and my old mate from the anti-Ellis campaigns Ian Robathan who claimed on his blog that Villa had a shot at the title this year. Even Alex Ferguson chimed in the other day with his Christmas message, which as last year claimed he wouldn't be surprised to see Villa challenging for the title.
As last year, he will be wrong; there is absolutely no chance, zero, nil, nada, nowt, none of Villa acquiring more points over a 38 game season than the football point machines which are Manchester United and Chelsea, never mind the likes of Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester City and even our old friends Tottenham. Our squad cannot match the quality and depth of those squads, and over a full season that will be exposed, as it was last. We can, to be topical, Rage Against The Machine by believing little old Villa with our superior team ethic and our work rate and our annoying, if media savvy, manager have what it takes to compete, but its a delusion.
All of our competitors have, to be blunt, better football players than us in most positions on the pitch (defence excepted perhaps, in some cases), they have more strength in depth and with the exception of Tottenham more experience of being in the mix when the pressure kicks in than we do. All of them (again with the exception of Spurs) have managers who have won titles and/or European Cups, managers who have a proven record of going the distance without imploding under the pressure. Our manager has the exact opposite record. He has won nothing of note, and when it looked for all the world last season like he was going to really mark his arrival on the scene by doing something significant he froze like a rabbit in the headlights and to this point in time isn't showing many signs of having learnt the lessons from the last campaign. Here we are again after playing five games in 19 days with the same starting eleven with O'Neill complaining about his players being tired and playing too many matches. Go figure. Its like a bizarre kind of dčja vu and I'm already dreading the team selections in the cup matches next month.
Anyway, the simple fact of the matter is that neither the title race nor the race for the top four have even started yet. They won't for another ten games really. Up until then, up until we hit the final ten games of the campaign its all about jostling for position on the starting grid. We are still in qualifying. Yes, we are doing nicely so far, really nicely and if we can pick up twenty points or so from the next ten games then we'll be in a nice spot on the grid to launch a top four bid from. You can bet, despite all their current troubles, that even if we do rack up those 20 points we won't have shaken off any of our current competitors, not even Liverpool or Man City, oh no, they'll be there, count on it. If we are still there hanging around this group at that time THAT's when it starts to get real, thats when the pressure is on, thats when every game is a Cup Final and the experience or lack thereof will be ruthlessly exposed. If we are there still after 28 games I'll start to believe its possible, that we have what it takes. I hope we are, but it is just that, hope, in the face of all realistic expectation.
I'd love to believe that Villa can compete. I'd love to see us playing Champions League football next season, but the lesson from last season, harsh as it is, is that we aren't good enough or experienced enough and lack quality and the ability to control football matches. We haven't added that genuine top level talent, we haven't added enough quality in depth. We've had some great results this season, beating three of the big four with Arsenal to come next, and I've really loved that, especially the win at Old Trafford which was so sweet after so many years. And yet, counterbalancing that I've seen us somehow come off the pitch against Spurs with a point after totally outclassed, I've seen Brad Friedel being a one man team to get us totally unjustified wins against Liverpool and Chelsea after being similarly outclassed, and while I've celebrated those wins as excitedly as the next man it nags at me that like last season its a bubble waiting to burst. We cant keep getting away with it. We didn't last year, we wont this.
I'd take sixth place right now, I really would. I think us and Spurs will be fighting for sixth come May, and I'll take beating them to that and lifting the Carling Cup as being a good, positive forward moving season. Anything else is, in my opinion, just 'belief', faith with nothing to back it up, people setting themselves up for a huge, huge fall. I know, 12 months ago, that was me, I took the fall and I'm not about to do that again. As it is, I'll go to the Emirates on Sunday (thanks for the tickets JF! I'll see if I can knock you up a match report!) ready for a good Christmas knees up, ready for Villa to maintain our incredible record at that ground, ready to rub my Arsenal supporting friends noses in the mud for a while, but also ready to accept that when you are talking about the serious teams, at the serious end of the season, we are outgunned.
PB
Click here to comment on this article
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
