viivvaa66

16 minutes ago, TRO said:

Are we ready for Champions league?.....missing out on the Europa, is a huge step up.

Don't get me wrong, I want to achieve it, but I wonder, if we are actually ready for it.

A chicken and egg question. Unless you have Champions League and the income that comes with it, you wouldn’t be able to attract and pay for the players to build the squad required for Champions League. If we qualify for Champions League this season, the next and the one after that, I think by then we would be ready for Champions League.

39 minutes ago, Tubby said:

Spurs could definitely put six past Sheff United alone. I don't think it will matter at that point however.

I'd be surprised if they take more than four points from Chelsea, Liverpool and Citeh. Four points would be enough for us if that's the case.

If we can match whatever Spurs do against Chelsea, Liverpool and ManC in our last 3 games, we get 4th place, either it is 0 points, 4 points or 9 points.

I think a win against Brighton will be enough. 

Chelsea are chasing 6th place and Europa League. If they beat Spurs they are 3 points behind ManU.

I’m 80% confident that Chelsea would at least manage a draw on Thursday.

If we then manage to beat Brighton on Sunday, we would be 9 or 10 points ahead of Spurs when they play Liverpool.

29 minutes ago, MaVilla said:

Intertoto?

That wasnt really a competition, it was a knockout competition to qualify for the actual competition teams wanted to play in (to qualify for UEFA Cup).

I wouldnt count that as a genuine cup win (in the sense of we can say proudly we have "won a European trophy").

Last season there were a lot of fans that wanted us to finish 8th to avoid the Conference League, because it wasn’t a real European competition, and it would distract us from getting in to one of the real ones. The real competition everybody wants to play in is Champions League. Europa League is a knockout competition to qualify for the real deal.

If you are speaking to a Newcastle fan it is a must mentioning since they lost their final to Troyes that year. Who has even heard about Troyes?

7 minutes ago, rodders129 said:

First manager since 1982 to progress Villa to a European semi

2001 - Last time we won an European trophy, and we did progress to the semi and final.

24 minutes ago, MaVilla said:

 

 

Unai Emery records and key achievements at Villa:

• Finished above Man Utd in the PL for the first time since XXX?.

1989/90 I think.

I assume everybody is following the Spurs match, but people should have a look at the other match that is played now. It looks like summer vacation has started early in Brighton, hopefully they still are on the beaches next Sunday.

9 minutes ago, Pongo Waring said:

70 points is enough. 3 more points.

I'm surprised people think we need 72/73.  Spurs don't look like achieving 2+ points per game in their remaining fixtures 

That Spurs get trashed today is no surprise.

It is harder to predict how they will do against Chelsea and Liverpool. Since they play both away, we could hope they lose both. However, we know how fragile the Chelsea defence are, so that match can go both ways. When it comes to Liverpool, they have lost form the last few weeks and their internal problems are well known, it’s not impossible that Spurs return from Anfield with 3 points.

If Spurs do well in the two other matches this week, we most likely need 6 more points. On the other hand if Spurs loses them both, we have secured 4th place.

3 hours ago, rodders129 said:

I think some of the wild overreactions are being driven by a feverish desperation to qualify for the UCL on the basis that it’s the promised land and will suddenly transform the club and and team into a title chasing outfit.

Qualifying one year for the UCL is not a magic bullet. We have living proof this season from Newcastle.

The way we transform this club is by getting behind Unai and the lads for every game and enjoying the process/challenge. The players and staff will learn and level up as they go. There’s no rush here. Of course I want us to hit 4th this season but if we’re in Europa we should be grateful and there are upsides. It’s another great opportunity for a European trophy next season and a great learning experience. Im so glad we’ve had conference this year as preparation.

UCL is the promised land, without a doubt. Of course qualifying once and then never again is not the magic bullet, as Newcastle is an example of.

UCL provides massive prize money, more exposure that provides more lucrative sponsorship deals, more worldwide fans that increases merchandise sales. All that resulting in more revenue for the club, that if invested wisely can result in better players and improved results.

If we qualify for UCL this year, it is the first small step towards a better future for the club. The next step would be to qualify for UCL next season too, and then the season after that and so on. If we do that we will at some point have the revenue and squad capable of chasing titles.

As long as Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool beat Spurs over the next 7 days, the point to day is crucial.

Isn’t over yet, it feels like this half have been going on for hours

2 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

Step back @MotoMkali, I got it this time

Oh is Palmer playing? I didn't notice 

Let’s agree he is on the pitch. If he is playing or not is debatable.

One more in the start of 2nd half should kill of Chelsea

17 hours ago, villan-scott said:

Slot the front runner to replace Klopp. I don’t know much about him!

 

Interesting to see if he would be the third front-runner that turn Liverpool down.

If Chelsea is docked points this season, do not mean they are in the clear for next season.

Remember the rule is that they can’t lose more than £105mill over 3 season.

Now get done for losing £170mill over three seasons; 21/22, 22/23 and 23/24.

I do not believe that they will have the income next season, to make the numbers any better over 22/23, 23/24 and 24/25 season, so potentially they get -15points next season too, + maybe additional points for being a serial offender.

6 minutes ago, CVByrne said:

People keep saying this. Mings is a completely different player to Pau and Lenglet. Mings is competition for Diego Costa. If Pau is injured for 2 months and Lenglet is not in the squad we have compromised our build up structure which is fundamental to the way we play. 

Mings is a superb defender and our poor record from set pieces defensively is because of how dominant Mings is with first contact and how weak Pau is. If you look at the two players profiles strengths and weaknesses they are completely different players. This is why I think it's critical we get another player with similar skillset as Pau and for me that's Hermoso on a free. 

With Pau, Hermoso, Mings, Costa and Konsa we have the perfect mix of player profiles for our system of one attacking FB and 3 CBs. 

You seems to argue that we need two new CB, one to cover for Pau and one to cover for Mings, unless we find a CB with the skill sets of both Pau and Mings.

2 hours ago, Zatman said:

Mourinho has also been linked.........this would be the dream 

Would be worse than Everton hiring Rafa 

It seems like one after the other is turning down the Liverpool job, they could well end up with Mourinho or Gerrard if they run out of alternatives.

The question is: “Are Chelsea this bad or are they just missing Cole Palmer?”

If Chelsea are this bad, we have to assume Spurs are at least winning 3 more games; Chelsea, Burnley and SheffieldU. That means Saturday is a must win game for us.

If Chelsea are missing Cole Palmer this much, let’s pray he is out on Saturday, but back early next week.

38 minutes ago, El-Reacho said:

Yeah statistically you can't argue with it, but it does suggest we're nearly over the line when all it takes is a couple of results to turn it on its head.

Yes, statistically it is the most likely outcome, but it is not a guaranteed outcome. For some reason, people seams to be confused about this and think it is the same.

At the moment is highly unlikely (less than 1%) that Aston Villa is going to win the league, but a few couple of result and it all is turned on its head. ( read: Aston Villa win all our remaining matches and Arsenal, ManC and Liverpool loses all theirs.)

3 minutes ago, BleedClaretAndBlue said:

Spuds have had a long rest whereas Arsenal play tonight before the NLD this weekend. Could be a factor but I still fancy Arsenal to get at least a draw.

We need an Arsenal win to ensure ManC haven’t won the league by the time they play Spurs.

12 minutes ago, El-Reacho said:

Those prediction percentages swing massively with every result at this stage of the season. If Chelsea beat us and Spurs beat Arsenal, which is not implausible, that 80/20 would probably flip back in Spurs' favour. 

The chances for that to happened is about 20%, so nothing really wrong with prediction. 

6 minutes ago, AshVilla said:

I'm worried about United now.

Just got a massive confidence boost after beating Coventry on Pens.

They could go on a run.

When you have heard the same joke 100 times, it isn’t funny anymore.

4 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

So as it stands, Spurs need to beat both Arsenal and Chelsea just to go level on points with us. Let's just say I wouldn't want to be them right now.

If Spurs manage to beat Burnley and SheffieldU, then they would have the same number of points as us.

But then Spurs need to match the number of points we get from Chelsea, Brighton, Liverpool and Crystal Palace in their games against Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and ManC.

In my mind we have the advantage here, I can’t really see Spurs getting to 70 points, while I sort of expect us to manage to get 70+ points.

1 hour ago, villa4europe said:

I thought that with the new CL format next year we would play 2 teams from pot 1, 2 from pot 2, 2 from 3, 2 from 4

It's 1 game from each pot at home and 1 away

So us being in pot 4 or pot 1 makes no difference to us, it's balanced 

If we end up in pot 4, it would make a difference to the teams that are drawn against us, since they get a stronger opponent than what would have been expected from pot 4.

It is likely that there will be teams that are in the “wrong” pot, like this season Feyenoord was in pot 1 and Newcastle was in pot 4. The group stage draw will play a role in the chances to progress into the knockout stage, but being drawn against 8 teams, it should even out somewhat.

Again what pot we are in, would not make a difference to us.