danceoftheshamen

Shows what a desperate situation we were in prior to the Reading (a) match now doesn't it.... 2 wins later against 2 of those below us & we have given ourselves a kind of evens chance. Still much work to be done mind & i'll only be happy after another 2 wins & 4 draws / 3 wins & a draw to take us to 40 points & relative safety... May well need less but for me that should be the target just in case.. If "Arry" is targeting 5 wins & 37 points we have to target 3 more than that.

Still nowhere near safe yet.. For me we have to count on QPR getting 5 wins which would put them on 38 pts..so we need 39 in my opinion as that would see them with a significantly better GD to us.

Well well well, looks like our friend has others suspicious of his officiating...Just found this written by on a Scouse fans forum ""I am the first to admit that I look through Red favouring glasses, but I believe those with a neutral view will agree with me. Kevin Friend last night was incompetent to extent of me wondering whether or not the FA should look for any unusual betting activity.""... Guess what?... they were playing another London club.

Just watching the cloggers against France reserves... How on Earth is Macmanan still on the pitch? Yet more disgraceful refereeing.. How that guy is still on the pitch after that tackle is a joke... Talk about over the top.. he had both feet off the ground & hit him on his lower thigh for goodness sake !.. Wigan should be down to 10 men now absolutely no question about it. That could have a big impact on us come the last day.

Still too early to judge it yet but my goodness me that has helped today!

Well this has been a massive bone of contention with me for years now. I am convinced there is something dodgy going on in the Premier League. As far back as i can remember it was a known fact in football that if 2 totally different quality teams played each other 10 times, with one being a Prem club & the other being a conference team for example that the law of averages would dictate that the Conference team would win 1 or 2 of those matches, there would be a couple of draws & the Prem team would most likely win through 6 or 7 times out of the 10 games. Indeed this i remember was discussed on Match of the Day many years ago. So how come since the Premier League came about this "Law of averages" has changed? For example how can we go for decades without beating Man U? After all we are a much closer match to Man U than say a non league team & yet the non league team would win one in 10 against them supposedly. This is further evidenced in the FA cup when smaller teams regularly beat the "giants" of the game. So how come in the run of the mill Prem games when presumably teams are much more evenly matched this law of averages seems to be ineffective? I pondered this for years as it seemed something was a bit odd & this in turn made me look much more closely at fixtures & match referees game changing decisions & i must say what i have seen in games involving all the Prem teams not just Villa is quite shocking. There appears to be a pattern to it too & it is about this stage of the season when this "game changing" increases. This doesn't seem to happen at the start of the season quite so much but usually starts a bit later in the season which weirdly coincides with one of the "favoured" clubs being below their normal position.... Watch it next season & you'll see what i mean.. There is another hot spot too around about now although there seems to be a kind of mid season backing off when this reduces for some reason. Kevin Friends performance today is typical of a "game changer" & to be fair to us we did exceptionally well to win today despite this. So my conclusion is that the reason the "law of averages" work differently in todays Premier League is that there is something adversely affecting them...... The Officials!!.... They are the missing ingredient from the equation & there is no other explanation in my opinion. So now it is indeed possible to play another Premier League team who we are not comparably that far away from quality wise, about 40 times without winning one of them!!.. Look a bit more carefully & you can clearly see why that is the case. We all surely know that this game is decided by the tiniest of margins... Millimetres in fact.. A game can hinge on 1 bad decision so even the slightest bias can have a massive impact on results... & does year in year out.

I didn't see it either but let me guess... They were by a mile the better team & should have wiped the floor with us, They should have had 6 penalties & all our goals were a mile offside & the players who scored them shouldn't even have been on the pitch....especially in view of how much cash he slipped to Kevin Friend in the warm up.

MASSIVE MASSIVE RESULT!! Soooooo pleased with that & to come from behind too.

Well this is where they have to earn their crust... during the run in is when the dodgy officials always appear. We all know "Arry" has many "friends" & it appears the one officiating todays game is one of them...What a coincidence that his name is just that..."Friend" .... A few weird handshakes have clearly taken place before today's game.

This will be a war today... One we have to win. I would love nothing more than to shove the words back down HR's throat as he's been trying to play mind games all week. He thinks he has QPR on one of his "miracle rolls" & that we are there for the taking & he will have instilled that into his team for sure.. they will go for it early on in a big way for me as he believes if they can go 1 or 2 up that we will turn on the players..... We must make sure that does not happen!! We need to show this man what Aston Villa FC is all about & send them home packing with nothing! If we do that we could destroy their confidence for the run in & almost doom them to relegation instantly. If we don't that could easily happen to us instead........As i said ...WAR!

Yup... i fear the decimation will continue apace in the summer. Bent, Hutton, Ireland, Makoun & most likely Benteke plus i wouldn't be surprised to see Nzog & Dunne go either. I also wonder what will happen with the likes of Albrighton & Delfounso? Another lost "gem" is Gary Gardner..Anyone know how his recuperation is going? Could be like a new signing next season.

This is my view too... The problem was the quality of player we had whilst paying such high wages... For me the main reason we actually finished 6th was O'Niell's ability to squeeze an extra 10% out of very average players. So we were paying 6th place wages for lower mid table players in effect... But MON got them to 6th place anyways due to his extraordinary ability to motivate average players. My view is that if he had bought better quality we could have paid 6th highest wages but finished in the top 4 places due to his ability to get a bit extra from those players.

The QPR game is the one for me now.. pretty much the season decider in my book.. Win & i think we'll be ok, lose & i fear for us a draw however keeps us in there fighting & defers the same scenario to the Wigan match most likely. I am praying we somehow find a performance & win it though in reality i fear for us as i think they'll do us.

I think you're massively overestimating Newcastle, Southampton and Sunderland there. If we beat QPR next week I'll fancy us to finish ahead of them tbh I am indeed trying to err on the side of caution a touch but even that only has those teams winning as follows: Newcastle Stoke (h) W Fulham (h) W Sunderland (h) W Plus various draws. Southampton West Ham (h) W WBA (h) W Stoke (h)W Plus various draws Sunderland Norwich (h) W Everton (h) W (just a hunch? Mon seems to get results against Everton) Stoke (h) W Plus a couple of draws Those are the key games for those clubs.. winnable home games, although looking at it i agree i have maybe over estimated Sunderland by a point or two.

Yep i agree.. good analysis Pete. I have just looked at it in a different manner by studying everybody's remaining fixtures & trying to best guess the most likely result allowing for the odd freak one here & there. Started this 6 games ago & so far it seems quite close to the mark. I have this as the most likely points tallies Newcastle...46 pts (10 to go) West Ham...44 pts (10 to go) Southampton.42 pts (9 to go) Sunderland 40 pts (9 to go) Norwich.......40 pts (9 to go) Villa.............37 pts (9 to go) Wigan..........36 pts (10 to go) QPR............35 pts (9 to go) Reading.......32 pts (9 to go) Thats if we beat QPR which is a huge "if".

Was thinking this actually, provided we get a few draws too & don't lose against QPR or Wigan. That'd put us on 39 points which may well be enough (considering we are minus 1 point with our inferior GD 39 is the equivalent of 38 for us) 39 points will be more than enough. 36 will be enough Only thing that worries me with that is thats the equivalent of 35 for us with GD which is a bit close for my liking.. I still think more like 37 (38 for us) personally...may need less but wouldn't be confident of that.

Was thinking this actually, provided we get a few draws too & don't lose against QPR or Wigan. That'd put us on 39 points which may well be enough (considering we are minus 1 point with our inferior GD 39 is the equivalent of 38 for us)

Ok that was the minimum we needed to prolong our chances...nothing more. We now need to avoid defeat against QPR to prolong it still further...A win against them however starts to move us into a much better situation & puts massive pressure on both QPR & those teams above & around us!...This win was big but a win against QPR would now be absolutely MASSIVE!

Gabby has been dire for ages now.

All that we hear pre match is hype & hot air... "We're gonna do this" & "we're gonna do that"...But they simply don't! I feel it's all just ticket selling speak now. I mean it's been the same bull we've been being fed for 3/4 of the season now & the team is no better now than at the start of the campaign. Don't know what to think anymore really about PL. Hope he turns it round i really do but i somehow doubt it. I do wonder whether they already know we are not good enough to stay up & it's just all flannel to keep the interest of the fans up as much as possible.

Well this time tomorrow we'll be either resigned to relegation or filled with renewed hope!.. Unless it's a draw of course

Yeah it is a good effort indeed!.. About backs up what i thought too in that Clark is a weak link, at CB at least, & Baker is a star of the future

Doug was a nightmare.. I swear on the odd occasion we finished 2nd under his tenure & he refused to go the final mile to give us a real chance to win the thing was all down to him not having to have the financial pressure of lifted expectations. But this i have to say is now quite remarkably, just as bad, for different reasons, but just as bad.

So Aston Villa is basically now a glorified training academy..... Lovely!... Wow & we thought Ellis lacked ambition!

This is it now for me... S**t or bust!.. Lose either game against these two & we are down for me.. Draw both & we need to win against one of the really tough teams to compensate but lose either & we are gone in my opinion.