17/18 Promotion Charge

[alreadyexists]

33 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

what?!

We've done brilliantly in the 'big pressure' games this year, aside from Fulham away we've won and performed well in nearly all of them (Middlesboro, Sheff United, Bristol City, Wolves, Cardiff).

It's the games against Norwich, Bolton etc that have let us down.

Exactly this. Saved me the time in typing it out.

[osmark86]

45 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

what?!

We've done brilliantly in the 'big pressure' games this year, aside from Fulham away we've won and performed well in nearly all of them (Middlesboro, Sheff United, Bristol City, Wolves, Cardiff).

It's the games against Norwich, Bolton etc that have let us down.

precisely this. which is why we really shouldn't worry too much about whomever we meet in the playoffs assuming the Gods of Football don't smile abundantly upon us and hand us automatic through a wild series of unexpected curveballs.

These are our results against the teams currently in the top 6 this season which aren't brilliant always, but not god awful either. Paints a bit of a picture of how we might perform. Some of these games weren't "big pressure" per se when we played them either:

Cardiff - Villa (3-0) L

Villa - Boro (0-0) D

Wolves - Villa (2-0) L

Villa - Fulham (2-1) W

Villa - Millwall (0-0) D

Derby - Villa (2-0) L

Boro - Villa (0-1) W

Fulham - Villa (2-0) L

Villa - Wolves (4-1) W

Villa - Cardiff (1-0) W

Villa - Derby (?-?)

Millwall - Villa (?-?)

That's 4 losses, 2 draws and 4 wins with 2 more games against these teams to go. It might not fill one with immediate over-confidence, but it's not exactly damning either. And to all of you who are really worried about Boro, they still haven't managed to beat us this season. I think they'll really worry about playing us.

Edited April 25, 2018 by osmark86

[Dodgyknees]

I'm excited and nervous about the play offs. Let's all get behind the club - even if we disagree with the manager, as there is no better set of fans than us when we are united. 

[BOF]

2 hours ago, sexbelowsound said:

If i'm worried about any teams it's the ones who play football, the Fulham's and Brentford's of this world.

I'd back us against any team in the playoffs though, especially against any team led by Neil Warnock or Tony Pulis.

And yet the results don't bear that out.  Yes OK we did lose to Brentford, Fulham & Wolves, but they're the only games this season where we've lost and been out-possessed (with the bizarre exception of Reading away 33.1%).

In other words when we give up possession and allow the other team to play football, we very rarely lose.  It's when we have possession and the other team play the counter attacker game that we struggle.  The other times we've lost this season, without exception, are games where we've had the lion's share.  At Derby (we had 67.2% lost 2-0), at Cardiff (65.2% lost 3-0), home to QPR (61.4% lost 3-1), at Bolton (57.2% lost 1-0), home to Sheff Wed (56.4% lost 2-1) & at Norwich (56.4% lost 3-1).

It's worth pointing out though, we have become an awful lot better recently at winning games AND dominating possession.  In fact our last 4 wins all came with >50% possession.

* Possession stats from Sky website

[Don_Simon]

2 hours ago, bannedfromHandV said:

what?!

We've done brilliantly in the 'big pressure' games this year, aside from Fulham away we've won and performed well in nearly all of them (Middlesboro, Sheff United, Bristol City, Wolves, Cardiff).

It's the games against Norwich, Bolton etc that have let us down.

Depends how you define pressure i guess. I don't think there was much pressure on us against Wolves as we weren't expected to win. However, having won that, the game after was high pressure to carry on with our form and make the most of our unexpected victory, we crumble. 

Each to their own. 

[bannedfromHandV]

1 minute ago, Don_Simon said:

Depends how you define pressure i guess. I don't think there was much pressure on us against Wolves as we weren't expected to win. However, having won that, the game after was high pressure to carry on with our form and make the most of our unexpected victory, we crumble. 

Each to their own. 

Well on that basis every single game is big pressure and given that we're 4th I'd suggest we haven't managed too badly. 

[bannedfromHandV]

46 minutes ago, Dick said:

I'm excited and nervous about the play offs. Let's all get behind the club - even if we disagree with the manager, as there is no better set of fans than us when we are united. 

I'd rather be City

[Don_Simon]

Just now, bannedfromHandV said:

Well on that basis every single game is big pressure and given that we're 4th I'd suggest we haven't managed too badly. 

"Haven't managed too badly" I'd probably agree with. Which given our squad and budget, and therefore enhanced expectations, in my opinion isn't quite good enough. 

[Eastie]

Surprised to see boro are the favourites to win the play offs at 11/4 with both villa and Fulham at 3/1 and Cardiff 11/2 .

I would have expected us to be lower odds than  boro .

http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/heres-latest-championship-play-odds-14575781#ICID=ios_BMNewsApp_AppShare_Click_Other

Edited April 25, 2018 by Eastie

[John]

20 minutes ago, Eastie said:

Surprised to see boro are the favourites to win the play offs at 11/4 with both villa and Fulham at 3/1 and Cardiff 11/2 .

I would have expected us to be lower odds than  boro .

http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/heres-latest-championship-play-odds-14575781#ICID=ios_BMNewsApp_AppShare_Click_Other

Coral have Cardiff and Fulham as joint favourites for promotion at 8/15 with us at 11/4, Boro 3/1, Derby 6/1, Brentford 20/1, Milwall 20/1, Preston 40/1, Bristol City 100/1 and Sheffield United 100/1. I suppose Fulham and Cardiff are longer odds with Sky Bet as they think they have a chance for second so won't make the playoffs. Here's hoping they both get their chance in the playoffs.  I guess they think there is still a chance we might do the same and that is why Boro are slightly shorter odds than we are. 

Edited April 25, 2018 by John

[HanoiVillan]

6 hours ago, VillaChris said:

We'll probably get the hardest of the three teams in the play offs as Boro will be tough to play but certainly beatable. 

I'm not really disagreeing with you, but we did absolutely boss them in the league at VP without finding the net, and then we did beat them at their place under Pulis, so I'm not running scared of them. 

[Vive_La_Villa]

2 hours ago, Don_Simon said:

Depends how you define pressure i guess. I don't think there was much pressure on us against Wolves as we weren't expected to win. However, having won that, the game after was high pressure to carry on with our form and make the most of our unexpected victory, we crumble. 

Each to their own. 

This is a good point. Just because a team is of good quality doesn't make it a high pressure game. For me the high pressure games were the recent ones against qpr, Bolton and Norwich where we blew it. Since we have more more or less secured playoffs and top 2 looked unlikely the pressure was lifted. We then won 3 games in a row.  

[jamesbuchanan]

Obviously it's pretty unlikely we're going to finish second, but I like messing around with spreadsheets and I wanted to know precisely how unlikely it is, so I just simulated the final 2 games of the season for Us/Cardiff/Fulham to find out.

It's a pretty crude simulation - I used match odds from Unibet as inputs into the simulation then ran it 10,000 times. I also assumed that if we finish level on points with Fulham, our GD will be better (we are guaranteed to have a better GD than Cardiff if we finish level on points with them).

Here are the results:

Conclusion: it's pretty unlikely! Approximately a 1 in 100 chance.

You should be able to download the file here if you want to run it for yourselves (click on Simulate).

[maqroll]

What date and KO time will our first playoff be? ( I might go down to NYC to watch with with NY Villans)

[DCJonah]

13 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

I'm not really disagreeing with you, but we did absolutely boss them in the league at VP without finding the net, and then we did beat them at their place under Pulis, so I'm not running scared of them. 

Were they not down to 10 men in the game at vp after 5 mins? And a last minute winner beat them at their place. 

My worry with boro, is that they have a couple of players (like us) who can make a goal out of nothing. 

[alreadyexists]

1 hour ago, maqroll said:

What date and KO time will our first playoff be? ( I might go down to NYC to watch with with NY Villans)

I think it still depends where we finish, if you google it though the dates are there for each of the semis and the final. Just don’t know which one we’ll be in yet.

[Eastie]

2 hours ago, maqroll said:

What date and KO time will our first playoff be? ( I might go down to NYC to watch with with NY Villans)

I think if we finish 4th as likely it looks like sat 12 May at 5.30 with the 2nd leg looking like tues 15 May 7.45 .

in the unlikely event we finish 3rd then the games are fri 11 May and mon 14 May at 7-45 

Edited April 26, 2018 by Eastie

[Vive_La_Villa]

8 minutes ago, Eastie said:

I think if we finish 4th as likely it looks like sat 12 May at 5.30 with the 2nd leg looking like tues 15 May 7.45 .

in the unlikely event we finish 3rd then the games are fri 11 May and mon 14 May at 7-45 

We are away first aren't we?  

So we need to go to boro derby or millwall and just be solid and play on the break. Pretty much our style. 

Then Wednesday evening in a packed out Villa park we need to raise the roof!! 

[Eastie]

5 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

We are away first aren't we?  

So we need to go to boro derby or millwall and just be solid and play on the break. Pretty much our style. 

Then Wednesday evening in a packed out Villa park we need to raise the roof!! 

Yep away leg first - you can turn up on the weds and make some noise but the home game would be on Tuesday

if we win Saturday and boro also win at home then boro will be confirmed as finishing 5th place .

Edited April 26, 2018 by Eastie

[Nigel]

Really could do with 2nd place being still on the cards after this weekend, doesn't matter how slim.

Don't really want to head to milwall with a new sense of disappointment as I can see them handing us a beating at the wrong time. 

It's important now to keep the run going.