Dead cats apparently have a reputation for bouncing.
The relevance to Villa after a home loss to Watford may not be clear, but it is perhaps in that light that one should consider this fact:
Villa's chances of staying up improved despite a home loss to Watford. Whether the change was major (it more than doubled!) or minor (the difference was 0.3%) is a question of the observer's perspective, but the fact remains: the club are in a slightly
They think its all over it seems it is now and it is still only November!
It is hard to see us coming back from this sad, sad situation to retain our top flight status this time. Our absentee landlord has failed in his role as custodian of our football club and that will cost him financially and us in ways he does not or chooses not to appreciate. It looks like we are down before the Christmas decorations have gone up!
This was a must not lose game that we lost. Watford beat us at
It's All About the Base!
Since the arrival of the new "Garde", people have been talking about a new start. Sadly, after the 4-0 drubbing at Everton, new start or not, the same issues came to the surface. Villa have suffered with consistency for the last 5 years, the only thing that has been consistent is the fight against relegation. It is time to stop the tinkering with the team, and find a base we can build off.
It doesn't matter in th
Jack Grealish - A True Claret and Blue?
In the Guardian, on the 14th October, 2014, Jack Grealish stated after signing a new four year contract, "I’ve grown up supporting the club. In fact I’ve had a season ticket at Villa since I was four years old and came to every game so this is a big thing for me and my family." Fast forward thirteen months, and the new Aston Villa manager labels Jack, "Unprofessional", as he is dropped from the squad to face Watford, in a
I want things to be stable, but not this kind of stable...
The good: Losing 4-0 to Everton didn't really hurt us.
The bad: It definitely didn't help us.
Our relgation chances stay the same, though the chances of finishing bottom increase somewhat.
17th 0.2% unchanged18th 2.1% -1.4%19th 10.2% -7.5%20th 87.5% +8.9% Median, most likelyVilla: 99.8% (unchanged)
Sunderland: 89.8% (-6.2%)
Bournemouth: 79.6% (-3.0%)
Newcastle: 18.0% (+11.8%)
You've heard this episode of Aston Villa Review before. Villa have been terrible for ages. In the last game they offered us a glimmer of hope, picking up an unexpected point before being cut off by an international break. This week, they've brought us back down to earth with a crash by bending weakly to the will of a superior side. This time out that was Everton, the score was 4-0 and the culprits were many. In this week's show Chris and Steve briefly discuss Jordan Amavi's injury before servin
Getting a draw against the league leaders was not enough to dramatically improve the Monte Carlo's estimations, but it didn't dramatically hurt things (not that things could have gotten much worse). This is not really a cause for pressing the panic button. The Monte Carlo's assessment is now just about solely based on the period when you could fairly say that other sides figured out Sherwood. Assuming that the level of performance Remi Garde brought out of the team is the new normal, as some
It's only been eight days since the last episode of Aston Villa Review but things have moved on apace at Villa Park since then. Remi Garde was officially appointed in time to be in the stands as Villa were beaten by Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane and took charge for the first time in Sunday's home draw against Manchester City. It was a solid start for the new boss and Chris and Steve look back over his debut, the result, the line-up and the performance in this week's show. We also skim ov
An unwelcome snake slithered into Villa Park yesterday and spent most of the game sitting upon the bench which has now become its usual habitat. That greedy snake came onto the playing field on 78 minutes and received the welcome it so merited but was happily denied a victory. Manchester City arrived as table toppers whilst we were embarrassingly propping up the rest of the division. There could only have been one result couldn’t there? Many of us arrived expecting the worse as we have grown
These numbers assume no dramatic improvement in quality of play (including, for instance, tactics), nor any new manager bounce. Additionally, as can be seen in the recent yo-yoing of the Tyne & Wear clubs' chances, it only takes one sufficiently good result to cause things to look (at least for a time) a lot brighter.
16th 0.1% -0.3%17th 0.3% -0.9%18th 2.1% -1.4%19th 10.8% -0.6%20th 86.7% +3.2% Median, maximum likelihoodVilla: 99.6% (+1.3%)
Sunderland: 84.9% (+26.3%)
The Monte Carlo results as of 30 October. The current results, Round 11, will follow in another post soon.
15th 0.1% -0.3%16th 0.4% -0.8%17th 1.2% -2.3%18th 3.5% -8.6%19th 11.4% -18.6%20th 83.4% +30.9% Median, maximum likelihoodVilla: 98.3%
Sunderland: 58.6%
Bournemouth: 53.9%
Newcastle: 41.5%
Norwich: 25.7%
Liverpool: 13.7%
Watford: 3.5%
WBA: 3.0%
Chelsea: 1.1%
Everton: 0.4%
Swansea: 0.2%
Stoke: 0.1%
Life as an Aston Villa supporter is currently dominated by the appointment of the club's new manager, expected to be confirmed as Remi Garde this morning, but there's football to attend to as well. In this week's Aston Villa Review we briefly preview tonight's match against Tottenham Hotspur and even more briefly preview Sunday's visit from Manchester City. There's a very short chat about last week's League Cup loss to Southampton before we address a handful of listener questions, ranging from
With apologies for the mix at the top of the show - an oversight, sorry about that - here's a special one-off show in which Steve investigates a few of the perceived problems at Aston Villa. We've all become accustomed to the blame game in recent years, and with Villa now bottom of the Premier League we believe it's time to really start attaching the right names. Steve talks to @Flav_Bateman of The Fighting Cock podcast (Tottenham Hotspur, obviously) about former Villa manager Tim Sherwood, who
After eight months, 28 matches and a three-week propaganda war, Aston Villa's decision makers have defenestrated "manager" Tim Sherwood with the team sitting at the foot of the Premier League table. The weekend's defeat to Swansea City appears to have been the final straw but the likelihood is that Sherwood has been a dead man walking for weeks. In this week's Aston Villa Review we touch on the latest match briefly before discussing Sherwood's tenure, sacking and potential replacement. Sunday a
I actually thought we might win this one when we went a goal ahead with 28 minutes of this game left to be played. All we then needed was to do was to keep a clean sheet but we seldom do that do we? Up until then it had been our visitors that had looked the team most likely to break the deadlock and within 6 short minutes they were level. Inevitably our heads then dropped and we fell behind to a cruel late winner that spelt the end for our beleaguered former manager. This was another unusual
Aston Villa losing to Chelsea is no surprise. In fact, Aston Villa losing to anyone is no surprise. Tim Sherwood's bumbling, incompetent performance has dragged the team right back to where it was when he replaced Paul Lambert but he won't enjoy the same longevity as his predecessor. Villa's 2-0 loss at Stamford Bridge, reviewed in this week's show, might very well have been the penultimate straw. Chris and Steve also discuss the possibility of David Moyes replacing him, compare Moyes to Brenda
You can tell Tim Sherwood is the Aston Villa manager, can't you? The ordinarily quiet international break has been taken over by gossip and apparent leaks from the club, all pointing towards some kind of behind-the-scene endgame and Sherwood's possible departure. In this week's show Chris and Steve examine the current state of play and ask why, if he's going, the Villa suits don't just make him go now. We also preview this weekend's Premier League fixture against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, whe
This game had offered us an opportunity to climb out of the bottom three. But we do not beat Stoke at home do we? A third successive defeat at Villa Park against yesterday’s visitors has seen us go into the international break with just the two hapless North Eastern clubs keeping us off the bottom. We cannot rely on those two teams losing each week and at one point yesterday it seemed they might not. A worrying four point gap has also now opened between Villa and the three teams who are now
It's not looking great at Villa Park, is it? 9th0.1%10th0.1%11th0.3%12th0.5%13th1.0%14th1.6%15th2.8%16th5.0%17th8.9%^^^ upper quartile18th16.2%19th27.2%median, maximum likelihoodvvv lower quartile20th36.3%I suspect that this is the most pessimistic Monte Carlo run I've ever had; right after our loss to Hull last season, our relegation probability was only around 65%. The "maximum likelihood" refers to our finish in the table that came up the most often. Relegation chances: Sunderland: 84.0% Vill
This was a game of two halves in which we were the better team in both. We gave a passable impersonation of how we had played against WBA in the first half although as we were playing a more limited team we still shaded that half. The substitutions made at half time and the decision to play football in the second half left Small Heath with much more than they could handle and perhaps fortunate to escape with just the one goal defeat. As Rowett said prior to the game Small Heath had nothing to l
For the past few years, I've endeavored to periodically post results of Monte Carlo simulations of the remainder of the season. The process is essentially analogous to repeatedly running the BBC predictor and seeing how often various events come up. I've decided that with the new site, it perhaps makes more sense to have this as a blog series rather than regular comments.
5th0.1%6th0.1%7th0.2%8th0.3%9th0.6%10th0.8%11th1.3%12th2.2%13th3.4%14th5.2%15th7.4%^^^ upper quartile16th10.3%17t
Testament to his progression too that when he came on I didn’t think “oh this is a last roll of the dice” but was actually expecting him to cause them problems.
I think he's now comfortable within the side. He strikes me as quite a quiet, slightly introverted type who takes a while to fully trust people around him (which makes a lot of sense given his upbringing) but now he feels at home and part of the team.
He's done well in his first season in a very difficult league - one that is far more demanding physically than what he's previously experienced.
He's played 2605 of minutes in all comps and chipped in 15 goal contributions. That's not bad at all.
We paid a lot of money for him, so I do get that there are additional layers of expectation on him.
Didn't look right to me last night. There was one ball played over the top for him which he gave up on, I'm sure a fully fit Bailey would have got to it before it went out for a goal kick.
Watched fonsecas interview and thought he come across well, Lille played some really good football and have some talented youngsters and then I'm sat thinking I wonder if he or they can get moves to the PL or to big European teams
Footballs gone hasn't it? I wouldn't even say Lille are a small French team, 50k stadium, won the league 2 years ago, played CL but it's a case of with PSG in that league and French football now what can they all actually do there?
I should be watching it thinking Lille can build and do something good but it's the opposite, like the "big club" stuff and poaching of any kind of talent is ingrained on me and at this point not accepted but expected
Edit - I even googled the keeper after the game to see who he is linked with, its Bayern Munich
All of this.
I think it's clear that Emery doesn't think Tim is up to it either, so we definitely need at least one CDM and possibly an additional youngster in that position.
Was unlucky not to score at the end, either side of the keeper and thats in.
I think he's now comfortable within the side. He strikes me as quite a quiet, slightly introverted type who takes a while to fully trust people around him (which makes a lot of sense given his upbringing) but now he feels at home and part of the team.
Didn't look right to me last night. There was one ball played over the top for him which he gave up on, I'm sure a fully fit Bailey would have got to it before it went out for a goal kick.
