GeordieVillan

2 minutes ago, BOF said:

I still believe we are down.  However, we don't need to make up 8 points on 'the pack'.  Just on Newcastle.  We need 4 on Sunderland and 7 on Norwich, plus the nature of everyone's goal difference being almost identical means that if we were to make up the points, we would by default then have the better goal difference, unless we get an absolute mauling at some point between now and May.  There is a glimmer and only a glimmer.  Here's hoping it's still there at 4pm on Sunday.

Indeed, and the 8 points on Newcastle is only 5, assuming we beat them second last day of the season. I agree though - only a glimmer.

34 minutes ago, Wainy316 said:

If, big if we win our next two we'll be on the same points as that time last season.

Is that true? Thats mental. I would also say that if we won our next 2, we would almost certainly be less than 6 points from safety (not counting the fact we still have to play Newcastle).

Christ - imagine if we won our next 2 and we were only 3 points from safety. I would practically be off-loading everywhere.

2 hours ago, It's Your Round said:

Okay maybe not that extreme but seen as the world and his dog have written us off, at least 50-1 would seem reasonable. 

Either way, it's unlikely. 

Even the bookies know its too early to write us off. One team down the bottom always has a late run, just like one team from mid-table has a late collapse.

I keep saying it - as long as we get within 2 wins of safety with 6 games left, we have a chance. If we win on Sunday and the 3 teams above us all fail to win on Saturday (we don't even need them all to lose!), we are already within 6 points of safety, with 12 games still to play!

The problem is we keep having demoralising days where it really knocks the stuffing out of the fans, and to an extent I think the manager. Fair play to them though, the last 6 games has been solid mid-table form. If we can just convert that into top 8 form somehow then we might have a chance....

We just need one week where we win and the other teams around us all lose - not impossible. If/when that happens, we are right back in it. Our problem will be if we have a week where we lost and the other teams around us all win - we are at the stage where we can't be falling further behind. To be fair though, the gap is 8 points now, but a few weeks ago it was 11-12 points.

8 minutes ago, TRO said:

Err no, don't get ahead of yourself......we are giving credit, where credit is due.

its not an argument clincher.

Indeed - he's getting more praise for his post-match interview than for his performance on the pitch!

Can't believe I'm going to say this again - I still think we can do it. And I was devastated and had given up after the West Ham game.

Looking at the table and the fixtures, I don't see us catching Swansea or Bournemouth unless either has a major collapse now. On the flip side though, I can see us catching Sunderland and Norwich. The tricky one is Newcastle - they have the squad and could easily go on a run of winning 3-4 games.

But, we are only 8 points behind them, imagine if we won this weekend against Liverpool, and Sunderland, Norwich and Newcastle all lost. That would put us 1 point behind Sunderland, 4 behind Norwich and 5 behind Newcastle. Bearing in mind we play Newcastle in the second last game of the season, as long as we could catch up 2 more points on Norwich by then, if we beat Newcastle when we play them, then we would be in contention on the last day of the season. As someone said earlier, you would probably accept being in contention on the last game of the season.

So to be clear, to be in contention last game of the season, we need to -

1) Catch up 2 points on Sunderland

2) Catch up 5 points on Norwich

3) Catch up 2 points on Newcastle and then beat them in the second last game of the season

Someone above said that they would accept having to go to Arsenal and win to stay up - the above scenario would require us to win and everyone else to lose on the last day of the season, which is not ideal.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that we just need to better everyone else's results once or twice in the next 10 games or so, and then match them the rest, We don't necessarily need to win all of our remaining games, it all depends what everyone else does.

A win against Liverpool with other results going our way will put us back in the mix. Come on Villa, don't let me down again!

He's not my favourite player (and hasn't been for a while), but fair play - that goal was crucial as it calmed the nerves and meant there wasn't as much tension in the second half. Imagine if it was only 1-0 going into the last 10 minutes....

I would also point out that he looked like a totally different player after the goal, dare I say like the Gabby of old. A good performance against Liverpool and hopefully another goal to help us win and he might just save himself (and us).

1 hour ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

If we'd signed a half decent striker on January 4th like we should have I'm convinced we'd be 4 points better off right now and, I think, we'd be in with a good shout.

Humble opinion.

The loss of Ayew is the nail in the coffin for me.

If I was Garde now I'd go for the lineup Sherwood put out against Leicester, with Gabby up front and Grealish, Sinclair and Gil behind, and hope they play like they did in the first half of that game. That would see Gana and Veretout as 2 in midfield I guess.

5 minutes ago, Zatman said:

NIgel Pearson wont take no crap though, he is the type of guy who wont be allowed near board meetings

I don't think Pearson or any other "decent" manager would want to come to us until our fate is decided. If we do change manager, it will be in the Summer. If Garde leaves, we will need a caretaker to take us down. FWIW, I don't think Remi will leave - he seems like the kind of guy who hates failing.

I think he thought the first goal was going wide so he didn't dive for it. Can't complain too much about him, he is very unnoticeable as a goalkeeper, which probably means he's doing ok and certainly isn't making any howlers. The defence don't seem to make mistakes with him in the team either.

Just now, Grasshopper said:

To  be fair, He knew that if he treid to push Collins back, Collins would have just gone back with him leaving no space behind nullifying him.

The way Gabby was "forced" to play was reliant on WH misplacing passes, which is something WH dont "do" as they have won the world cup.

Yeah but the issue was our approach made it easy for West Ham to camp in our half. Gabby should have been on the half way line, rather than mid-way in our half.

11 minutes ago, West said:

When you have fraudsters like Richardson and Sinclair on the bench, it doesn't make one hoot of difference who you bring on. 

Fair enough. But these are the same fraudsters who were at the disposal of previous managers. There is a lot wrong with our club, and I'm still behind the manager, but that does not mean he is immune from criticism.

Defence was good, as it has been for the last month. 

We invited pressure on ourselves when we down to 10 men, as we didn't have out ball. I would have brought Sinclair on Gil, and had him and Bacuna trying to join Gabby, but more than anything else I would have put Gabby right on the shoulder of the last defender so they had to keep at least 2 defenders back. As it was, James Collins was running into our box for crosses thoughout the second half, as we had no chance of a counter attack.

Our approach with 10 men was as frustrating as the reason we were down to 10 men.

I also thought Gana was excellent, after his howler on Saturday.

He's a fat as f*ck. Thats what he is. I've always mis-heard the chant it seems.

Tactical arguments aside, the introduction of Richardson was ridiculous. He looked like a rabbit in the headlights every time the ball came near him. I would have rather brought on Clark if we were planning on sitting in and hoping for a goal from a set piece.

I'm still behind Remi, but I don't think we can overlook things that previous managers would be vilified for.

I'm genuinely upset today.

This is the first time I genuinely don't see any way out for us.

A win today and Saturday and we were right back in it. Instead we have a defeat with a whimper, players looking demoralised, and our "star" player suspended for 3 games.

Game over.

I am probably way behind many of you, but I need to come to terms with relegation now.

2 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

Hang on to a point?

What else could we do? We barely have good enough attackers to score when we play well with 11 men. Down to 10 and with Agbonlahor leading the line, I don't really see what his options were.

We gambled towards the end and it cost us a second goal, but I haven't seen us as drilled defensively as we were today for a long time. It's sad that that's the only positive I can take from the game, but I don't think you can blame Garde, or any of the players that remained on the pitch, for what happened tonight.

I agree with you - but I thought it was wrong to have Gabby so deep aswell. We may aswell have left him up front on his own and tried to hit him with a ball over the top.

We defended quite well, but there was no respite at all, so eventually we were going to concede.

You could see the West Ham player was trying to wind him up and it looked like he nipped him on the shoulder before he swung the elbow.

No excuse though - this was a game we could have won today.

I like him, but not sure what we were trying to do after we went down to 10 men.

I suppose you could say that when we did try to attack we conceded a goal pretty much immediately, so maybe that vindicates our approach.

1 minute ago, HanoiVillan said:

We have no more than ten goals in this squad. There are just no goalscorers in it. Gabby has something like 8 in his last 70 appearances? And is now fat. Ayew isn't an out-and-out striker, and Kozak and Gestede are both shite. Oh well, at least we've got all those goalscoring midfielders . . . 

Forget points, I genuinely don't believe we will score ten more goals. 

I actually think we have goals in us now from set pieces at least. We've finally got some players who attack corners, and Veretout can actually deliver a decent cross. But yes, our strikers don't currently look like they will ever score.

1 minute ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

We do, understandably, forget at these times that football is indeed played on a pitch, not in the boardroom. But I think Remi could have chose his words better talking about a lack of quality in the squad, that won't do much for their confidence.

We will lose tomorrow night.

In all likelihood yes - we will lose.

But if we can somehow score the first goal, then you never know. You've got to think that the guys on the pitch have some pride, they've shown it in the last few league games, and if they have something to cling to then they will do it. 

If we concede first, then we might as well just get straight back on the coach.

Someone made an anology earlier about John Gregory regularly complaint about having to battle with the Chairman to get better players and improve the squad. Behind closed doors you have to assume the manager is saying "listen lads, ignore all that stuff in the press. I'm just saying it to put some pressure on the board. I still think we can do this, let's go out there and prove some people wrong". If he's not saying that to the players, then as much as I want Remi to succeed, maybe he should quit.

I've got a sneaky feeling we might win tomorrow. West Ham are a good team, but they are not unbeatable. If we get Lescott and Okore back in the middle, we've got a chance of a clean sheet at least. 

Amazingly - if we can somehow nick a win tomorrow and then beat Norwich, we could be 4 points from safety (if results go our way), with plenty of points left to play for.

That being the case on Saturday, not buying any players is going to seem even more foolish.

Its entirely possible Remi could harvest some kind of "them and us" mentality if the media reports of him considering his future are a load of rubbish. 

Sadly, I think even if the reports are rubbish, the wind (well the small gust we were building) has been well and truly knocked out of sails now. Defeat tomorrow and the players will be dreading Saturday.

1 minute ago, supernova26 said:

It would be odd for SSN to just bring it up like that based on a presser 9 hours ago.

He's been talking to someone. Caretaker manager for rest of season looks imminent. 

It's based on the newspaper reports tomorrow morning, which are based on the press conference. And tomorrow's papers are making some pretty big assumptions I think.

I would be amazed if he left before the end of the season.

Just now, AndFos said:

00:04

 

 

 

GARDE TO CONSIDER VILLA FUTURE

Aston Villa manager Remi Garde has indicated he may reassess his position in the summer after failing to land any of his transfer targets. 

The Frenchman has missed out on all of the players he wanted to aid Villa's survival bid in the Premier League, missing out on Seydou Doumbia, Wahbi Khazri and goalkeeper Lovre Kalinic. 

"Maybe it was not as clear when I signed, but it's something that I don't want to discuss too much," Garde said. 

"I understand that you cannot carry on doing the same things when you have not been as successful as you have wanted. 

"I cannot say the club hasn't done everything they could. It wouldn't be fair. I'm not happy about this situation. I am not stupid and saying we need nobody. 

"Some people have to be brave enough to say what have we done wrong in the past and what we should be doing now to stop that and to be better, maybe not in the next months but the next season or in two or three years."

 

I think it's a stretch to say he's considering his future based on that.

I think this is all based on his quotes earlier in the day. The press have picked up on it and are trying to stir things up.

I don't think he will quit.