18/19 Race for Promotion

[TRO]

2 hours ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

How can you say they are not competing and staying in the game when we’ve lost one in 11. 

I’m not defending the performances but you’re making out like we’re getting spanked every week. 

while you have your abacus out....how many wins is that exactly?

draws are like cosmetic defeats, when you are looking for promotion.

we are giving up leads in most games....and conceding for fun at home.

wake up and smell the coffee.

[A'Villan]

22 minutes ago, TRO said:

while you have your abacus out....how many wins is that exactly?

draws are like cosmetic defeats, when you are looking for promotion.

we are giving up leads in most games....and conceding for fun at home.

wake up and smell the coffee.

I'd do the math before telling anyone to wake up mate.

We're still in the promotion push and a few weeks backs only Leeds had a better ppg ratio than us under Smith.

[Vive_La_Villa]

5 hours ago, TRO said:

while you have your abacus out....how many wins is that exactly?

draws are like cosmetic defeats, when you are looking for promotion.

we are giving up leads in most games....and conceding for fun at home.

wake up and smell the coffee.

It’s actually 5 wins. Yes not good enough for promotion but hardly a crisis just yet! 

You give up hope for the season if you want. I’ll continue to believe thanks. 

[Jareth]

Sorry can I just say it should always be ‘maths’ - as in mathematics. 

I trust I’ve been understood

[Demitri_C]

2 hours ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

It’s actually 5 wins. Yes not good enough for promotion but hardly a crisis just yet! 

You give up hope for the season if you want. I’ll continue to believe thanks. 

You can believe no one saying you can't just like those that feel we won't.

I personally don't think we are going up as we are not consistent enough and leaking too many goals. It's too big a job for this year I feel.

I have a feeling though next year we will be alot better even with or without grealish. For me the grealish injury although a blow shows that we are still reliant on one player. When smith was at Brentford he was not reliant on one player.  He had a team that was able to play without players. 

This is something we are struggling with. When grealish gets injured we struggled. When mcginn was out we missed him.

I think we will really see how good smith is next year when he has had his own squad and got his point across.

[Mark Albrighton]

3 hours ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

It’s actually 5 wins. Yes not good enough for promotion but hardly a crisis just yet! 

You give up hope for the season if you want. I’ll continue to believe thanks. 

Those 11 games (not sure why we’re discussing the last 11 but anyway) would work out as just over 1.8 ppg. Not quite where we want to be, but considering it’s his first three months, pretty decent.

Even if you just looked at this bad run, the past six games (which included two automatic hopefuls, another two recently relegated sides and QPR who are on a decent run, who are above us and turned us over last season at VP lest we forget) it’s 1.16 ppg. 

Again not good enough, but we can point to six runs of 5 or more games which garnered a worst point average under the previous manager and who was still being defended to the hilt in certain quarters on here.

Who knows? Some seem to have already decided already on Smith and won’t give him the same allowance they previously afforded the last manager. That’s fine, but the lack of consistency in giving different managers time matches the inconsistency we’ve seen for so long on the pitch.

[Vive_La_Villa]

15 minutes ago, Shropshire Lad said:

Those 11 games (not sure why we’re discussing the last 11 but anyway) would work out as just over 1.8 ppg. Not quite where we want to be, but considering it’s his first three months, pretty decent.

Even if you just looked at this bad run, the past six games (which included two automatic hopefuls, another two recently relegated sides and QPR who are on a decent run, who are above us and turned us over last season at VP lest we forget) it’s 1.16 ppg. 

Again not good enough, but we can point to six runs of 5 or more games which garnered a worst point average under the previous manager and who was still being defended to the hilt in certain quarters on here.

Who knows? Some seem to have already decided already on Smith and won’t give him the same allowance they previously afforded the last manager. That’s fine, but the lack of consistency in giving different managers time matches the inconsistency we’ve seen for so long on the pitch.

The last 11 was on the back of my comment about 1 defeat in the last 11.

We haven’t been good enough but in the 14 games smith has been in charge we’ve played 4 teams currently below us, one of them twice. In those games we’ve picked up 11 points from a possible 15 or 2.2 ppg.

Our next 4 games are against teams below us so if we can continue that form we are looking at potentially 3 wins. 

Everything then looks different.

If however we continue to drop points at the rate of the last 6 games then playoff chances will be over and we can look to next season. 

[TRO]

11 hours ago, A'Villan said:

I'd do the math before telling anyone to wake up mate.

We're still in the promotion push and a few weeks backs only Leeds had a better ppg ratio than us under Smith.

I go by what i see during the game...not whats on paper....there are many tell tale signs imo that indicate the weaknesses and the strengths.

as a team ( reasons to one side) we concede the initiative far too easily in a game to EXPECT 3 points.

If we continue as we do with the performances we have dished up we soon won't be in the promotion race.....a single point per game is no good.

we are expecting to make signings to improve the situation.

I will wait and see who comes in and what affect they make, before my mood changes.

 

Edited January 7, 2019 by TRO

[TRO]

2 hours ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

The last 11 was on the back of my comment about 1 defeat in the last 11.

We haven’t been good enough but in the 14 games smith has been in charge we’ve played 4 teams currently below us, one of them twice. In those games we’ve picked up 11 points from a possible 15 or 2.2 ppg.

Our next 4 games are against teams below us so if we can continue that form we are looking at potentially 3 wins. 

Everything then looks different.

If however we continue to drop points at the rate of the last 6 games then playoff chances will be over and we can look to next season. 

Reasonable assessment.....we shall see, then.

[omariqy]

2 minutes ago, TRO said:

If we continue as we do with the performances we have dished up we soon won't be in the promotion race.....a single point per game is no good.

we are expecting to make signings to improve the situation.

I will wait and see who comes in and what affect they make, before my mood changes.

 

Think you are being very harsh. Before we lost arguably our two most important players in Axel and Jack we were playing really well and dominating teams like Boro, Derby and WBA. Boro were 2nd when we played them no? Yes we have had a bad spell but we just need to maintain touching distance to playoffs by the time Jack comes back and then Axel. Autos are long gone. 

[TRO]

18 minutes ago, omariqy said:

Think you are being very harsh. Before we lost arguably our two most important players in Axel and Jack we were playing really well and dominating teams like Boro, Derby and WBA. Boro were 2nd when we played them no? Yes we have had a bad spell but we just need to maintain touching distance to playoffs by the time Jack comes back and then Axel. Autos are long gone. 

My point is not meant to be harsh.....merely that we rely on too few players to give us any hope.

The overall needs to be of a higher standard.... The best players are fine, its the rest thats questionable.

We need to change the lower profile players to improve the overall.....We cannot keep relying on the Jacks, the Axels and Tammy's.......the other players need to be able to hold things together while these players are out.

We need to raise the bar of our non- best players.

[TRO]

4 hours ago, Demitri_C said:

You can believe no one saying you can't just like those that feel we won't.

I personally don't think we are going up as we are not consistent enough and leaking too many goals. It's too big a job for this year I feel.

I have a feeling though next year we will be alot better even with or without grealish. For me the grealish injury although a blow shows that we are still reliant on one player. When smith was at Brentford he was not reliant on one player.  He had a team that was able to play without players. 

This is something we are struggling with. When grealish gets injured we struggled. When mcginn was out we missed him.

I think we will really see how good smith is next year when he has had his own squad and got his point across.

Good post Dem.

I think you have hit the nail on the head.

[TRO]

4 hours ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

The last 11 was on the back of my comment about 1 defeat in the last 11.

We haven’t been good enough but in the 14 games smith has been in charge we’ve played 4 teams currently below us, one of them twice. In those games we’ve picked up 11 points from a possible 15 or 2.2 ppg.

Our next 4 games are against teams below us so if we can continue that form we are looking at potentially 3 wins. 

Everything then looks different.

If however we continue to drop points at the rate of the last 6 games then playoff chances will be over and we can look to next season. 

Or 1 win in the last 5

7 points from 6 games....that is the current form.

If you look at the form league......we are 15th

You talk about playing teams below us v Teams above us.....its more about form than league table.....what was done in August has debatable relevance on the here and now.

Hull City are top of the form league.....wouldn't want to meet them right now....maybe after Wigan, we can find some form to give them a game.

We are not ready for promotion.....we might as well scrap the expectation and enjoy the general match day experience and watch the rebuild.

Edited January 7, 2019 by TRO

[Mark Albrighton]

1 hour ago, TRO said:

Or 1 win in the last 5

7 points from 6 games....that is the current form.

If you look at the form league......we are 15th

You talk about playing teams below us v Teams above us.....its more about form than league table.....what was done in August has debatable relevance on the here and now.

Hull City are top of the form league.....wouldn't want to meet the right now....maybe after Wigan, we can find some form to give them a game.

We are not ready for promotion.....we might as well scrap the expectation and enjoy the general match day experience.

Ok, if it’s about form rather than league table positions, let’s have a look. Last six opponents-

Baggies - had won 3 out of their last 4 going into our fixture, including hammering Leeds. Looking at automatics and in good form. Robbed of a win by the officials.

Stoke - when we played them, they had gone 8 games unbeaten (and would go on to reach 10 games). Mid table, not so high in the league, but in reasonable form. Hard to beat. 

Leeds - First or second in the table, when we played them. Won the previous 5 games going into our fixture, that number would increase to 7. High in the table, electric form.

Swansea - well, we won this, so their form doesn’t really come into it.

Preston - ok, here we go. A depleted Preston side, lower in the table. Had won 2 and lost 3 of the previous 5 games that month. Form patchy. Should have been a win.

QPR - Of their previous 5 games, they had 1 defeat to Leeds, drew once and 3 wins, including wins against Boro and Forest. One place higher in the league than us and in good form. Not a great performance, but hardly a disastrous result either.

So whether you want to judge it by sides we’ve played who are above us or sides that are in form. Whichever way you want to cut it, the past 5-6 weeks has been overall rather hard. Only the Swansea and Preston games stand out to me as a nailed on “should win” game, and I don’t need to remind you what happened when we played them earlier at Villa Park.

Just so we’re clear, no one is saying we can’t be doing better or that we shouldn’t have done better in those games. We should have done. And no one is saying it’s all rosy either. But we knew that December was going to be hard, we said as much at the start of the season so apologies if I or some of us have remembered that and are not as despondent as others might be about the recent patchy month.

[TRO]

18 minutes ago, Shropshire Lad said:

Ok, if it’s about form rather than league table positions, let’s have a look. Last six opponents-

Baggies - had won 3 out of their last 4 going into our fixture, including hammering Leeds. Looking at automatics and in good form. Robbed of a win by the officials.

Stoke - when we played them, they had gone 8 games unbeaten (and would go on to reach 10 games). Mid table, not so high in the league, but in reasonable form. Hard to beat. 

Leeds - First or second in the table, when we played them. Won the previous 5 games going into our fixture, that number would increase to 7. High in the table, electric form.

Swansea - well, we won this, so their form doesn’t really come into it.

Preston - ok, here we go. A depleted Preston side, lower in the table. Had won 2 and lost 3 of the previous 5 games that month. Form patchy. Should have been a win.

QPR - Of their previous 5 games, they had 1 defeat to Leeds, drew once and 3 wins, including wins against Boro and Forest. One place higher in the league than us and in good form. Not a great performance, but hardly a disastrous result either.

So whether you want to judge it by sides we’ve played who are above us or sides that are in form. Whichever way you want to cut it, the past 5-6 weeks has been overall rather hard. Only the Swansea and Preston games stand out to me as a nailed on “should win” game, and I don’t need to remind you what happened when we played them earlier at Villa Park.

Just so we’re clear, no one is saying we can’t be doing better or that we shouldn’t have done better in those games. We should have done. And no one is saying it’s all rosy either. But we knew that December was going to be hard, we said as much at the start of the season so apologies if I or some of us have remembered that and are not as despondent as others might be about the recent patchy month.

When Form Tables are comprised....who you have played, is not a considered factor or injuries or suspensions....it may be mitigation but that's all.

Its a measure of your form....which is more current than the league table.

There is not an asterisk denoting the team at the top has only played the bottom teams during that spell...That is not how the compilers present it.

If I am being honest....I don't really look at them with any firm defining opinions....what I see at the games tell me all I want to know.... it doesn't have to be a win, however that's what we are all in it for...in the end.

[WakefieldVillan]

15 minutes ago, Shropshire Lad said:

Ok, if it’s about form rather than league table positions, let’s have a look. Last six opponents-

Baggies - had won 3 out of their last 4 going into our fixture, including hammering Leeds. Looking at automatics and in good form. Robbed of a win by the officials.

Stoke - when we played them, they had gone 8 games unbeaten (and would go on to reach 10 games). Mid table, not so high in the league, but in reasonable form. Hard to beat. 

Leeds - First or second in the table, when we played them. Won the previous 5 games going into our fixture, that number would increase to 7. High in the table, electric form.

Swansea - well, we won this, so their form doesn’t really come into it.

Preston - ok, here we go. A depleted Preston side, lower in the table. Had won 2 and lost 3 of the previous 5 games that month. Form patchy. Should have been a win.

QPR - Of their previous 5 games, they had 1 defeat to Leeds, drew once and 3 wins, including wins against Boro and Forest. One place higher in the league than us and in good form. Not a great performance, but hardly a disastrous result either.

So whether you want to judge it by sides we’ve played who are above us or sides that are in form. Whichever way you want to cut it, the past 5-6 weeks has been overall rather hard. Only the Swansea and Preston games stand out to me as a nailed on “should win” game, and I don’t need to remind you what happened when we played them earlier at Villa Park.

Just so we’re clear, no one is saying we can’t be doing better or that we shouldn’t have done better in those games. We should have done. And no one is saying it’s all rosy either. But we knew that December was going to be hard, we said as much at the start of the season so apologies if I or some of us have remembered that and are not as despondent as others might be about the recent patchy month.

Good post. 

The worry for me in the last few games is that as well as the results, the performances haven't been there either.

I understand that the main reason is more than likely due to the loss of Tuanzebe and Grealish but nevertheless a tad disappointing after such a promising start under Smith.

We have Wigan (A), Hull (H), Ipswich (H) and Reading (A) coming up, we need to be looking at 12 points out of 12 to get us firmly in the play-off mix, I think we have a great chance of doing that then hopefully Jack will be back and along with a couple of additions it will be an interesting few months.

 

 

[Mark Albrighton]

15 minutes ago, TRO said:

When Form Tables are comprised....who you have played, is not a considered factor or injuries or suspensions....it may be mitigation but that's all.

Its a measure of your form....which is more current than the league table.

There is not an asterisk denoting the team at the top has only played the bottom teams during that spell...That is not how the compilers present it.

If I am being honest....I don't really look at them with any firm defining opinions....what I see at the games tell me all I want to know.... it doesn't have to be a win, however that's what we are all in it for...in the end.

Ok, if I’m reading you correctly (apologies if i’m not) it looks like you’re broadly saying that (hypothetically) three draws against out of form Bolton, Wigan and Rotherham are the same as three draws against in form Leeds, Baggies and Norwich.

Which, hey you get the same number of points so on that you’re correct.

But if you don’t consider either where in the league the opposition is or their current form going into the fixture to be a relevant factor in whether we end up winning the game then I guess we should leave it there.

Edited January 7, 2019 by Shropshire Lad

[srsmithusa]

if we gain promotion, we will be good enough for promotion.    

[TRO]

25 minutes ago, Shropshire Lad said:

Ok, if I’m reading you correctly (apologies if i’m not) it looks like you’re broadly saying that (hypothetically) three draws against out of form Bolton, Wigan and Rotherham are the same as three draws against in form Leeds, Baggies and Norwich.

Which, hey you get the same number of points so on that you’re correct.

But if you don’t consider either where in the league the opposition is or their current form going into the fixture to be a relevant factor in whether we end up winning the game then I guess we should leave it there.

In the cold light of day HOW you get them is cosmetic.

The team that goes up wins the most points and the reward for points is commonly known....who you get them off is irrelevant.

hypothetically you could beat all the lower 15 team in the division home and away and secure 90 points, which would pretty much set you on the way for Auto promotion...if only life was so simple.....so, dropping points against the top teams is no really big deal....but you have to win the others, and we don't.

I guess the burning question is whether we associate Dean Smith with this team in terms of the personnel, as essentially they are Steve Bruce's players.

Edited January 7, 2019 by TRO

[romavillan]

Jack and Axel aren't out for the season, we are strengthening too. Playoffs are well within our reach, we knew it would be up and down and we all knew that one or two injuries in defence and we were screwed. No need to panic IMO, the fact we were contemplating catching one of the top two shows how good we are when we are good, the current doom and gloom shows how bad we can be when we are bad, and injury hit. The truth is somewhere in between, and every week Smith learns more about his players I'm pretty sure we'll get top 6 regardless of the recent performances.