18/19 Race for Promotion

[Zatman]

9 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

Not bad nor is it impressive. Getting Brentford into the top 6 would be impressive.

Considering Brentford have only finished top 6 in this division once in 70 years you make it sound like its a regular thing 

[MapleVilla]

8 minutes ago, turvontour said:

A number of times last night it felt like we had no midfield.

Exactly. Maybe apart from McGinn

[AVTuco]

2 hours ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

I sincerely hope the same people who want Smith out, weren't the sames ones saying "We will win this League"  when we were looking sensational.

As I said then, i'll say now.

There will be ups and downs, and we require patience.

I'd like some "up" next JV, can you arrange it somehow?

 

[VillaChris]

1 hour ago, Shropshire Lad said:

I think you’re taking my “fall short” comment a bit literal.

I don’t mean I think we’ll miss out and finish 7th on goal difference, I mean I can see us go a reasonable run, pick up a few decent results maybe get our hopes up but ultimately not make it. 

This season to me feels like 16/17 so much. In that season we had that massive winless run from xmas to March (similar to what we've going through now) and then we had a very good winning run for 6 weeks that got people excited we could gatecrash the top 6 but in the end we finished a good 10 points + off them.

Same will happen this season. 10th on 62-64 points would be my guess. We're just not good enough as a unit and haven't been all season so don't really see it all clicking into place when Grealish starts playing again.

Disappointing but we are at this point for many reasons. It would be nice to start a season for once flying out of the blocks, 5 wins at the start would do wonders for us (we could've easily done it this season with an undercooked squad) so starting next season well is my realistic target.

[KHV]

2 hours ago, jjaacckk91 said:

Aston villa Goals Scored 56

Team's that have scored more. Norwich(57), West Bromwich(59)

 

Aston villa Goals Conceded 49

Team's that have conceded more Ipswich(51)

 

We are a seriously bipolar team, I didn't realise the stats were this bad, there is only one team in this division worse than us at the back, let that sink in.

All Dean Smith teams have encountered similar problems

[mikeyp102]

2 hours ago, AvfcRigo82 said:

Drawn the most in the league too.

The story of Aston Villa... when in the prem , we were always the team who drew too much. Look at those years under MON. I’m sure the overall premier league table has us second behind Everton for number of draws

[Villarocker]

1 hour ago, KHV said:

All Dean Smith teams have encountered similar problems

How does the goals for and against figure since Smith arrived? 

[Villarocker]

I think it's going to be too much of an ask for us to finish in the play-offs this season. Too many teams between us and sixth for us to make it this time around. 

[New_Hope]

We just have to accept that we will not go up this year...but then so what. 

Our accounts will look slightly better with the horrendous loss 3 years ago now not being part of FFP but above all, our financial future is secure.

Our squad is not as good as we would like to think with again many average players on above average wages for this league who will be shipped out in the summer.  I'm sure we will build a team of younger, quicker, fitter and technically superior players who have a real hunger to succeed. Thus meaning when promotion does happen, we will be far healthier in all aspects of the club to compete in the Prem.

We lost any 'divine' right that we thought we had when we came down to this league as one of the poorest teams in Premier League history.  Some of our fans need to wake up and smell the coffee.

[TRO]

1 hour ago, New_Hope said:

We just have to accept that we will not go up this year...but then so what. 

Our accounts will look slightly better with the horrendous loss 3 years ago now not being part of FFP but above all, our financial future is secure.

Our squad is not as good as we would like to think with again many average players on above average wages for this league who will be shipped out in the summer.  I'm sure we will build a team of younger, quicker, fitter and technically superior players who have a real hunger to succeed. Thus meaning when promotion does happen, we will be far healthier in all aspects of the club to compete in the Prem.

We lost any 'divine' right that we thought we had when we came down to this league as one of the poorest teams in Premier League history.  Some of our fans need to wake up and smell the coffee.

I can smell it ever so well.

I can see it too....I see teams come to VP  and eclipse our game with nothing much more than High energy and intensity and a willingness and appetite to physically compete.

Under such conditions nearly every game lately....I'm not sure where we are going.

[abdulaziz1]

2 hours ago, villarocker said:

I think it's going to be too much of an ask for us to finish in the play-offs this season. Too many teams between us and sixth for us to make it this time around. 

Thats actually better as it makes many games six pointers. Its much better than having no team but you’re far away with 9 points.

Ofcourse that would need a huge boost from us.

[chips'ngravy]

11 hours ago, VillaChris said:

This season to me feels like 16/17 so much. In that season we had that massive winless run from xmas to March (similar to what we've going through now) and then we had a very good winning run for 6 weeks that got people excited we could gatecrash the top 6 but in the end we finished a good 10 points + off them.

Same will happen this season. 10th on 62-64 points would be my guess. We're just not good enough as a unit and haven't been all season so don't really see it all clicking into place when Grealish starts playing again.

Disappointing but we are at this point for many reasons. It would be nice to start a season for once flying out of the blocks, 5 wins at the start would do wonders for us (we could've easily done it this season with an undercooked squad) so starting next season well is my realistic target.

It is very reminiscent of 2016/17. Comparing the stats from when Bruce took over with Smith taking over this season gives us an idea of where we are likely to finish.

Bruce took over on match day 13 with us 9pts off the play-offs and took an average of 1.47 pts per game up to match day 31. Smith took over a game earlier and has a pts per game of 1.61. That would see us finish on 68 pts. Almost certainly not enough for the play-offs.

To get into the play-offs we'd need to up the pts per game total to around 2 which translates as needing about 9 wins and 3 draws from our last 15. Not looking likely at the moment based on recent evidence.

[hippo]

8 hours ago, New_Hope said:

We just have to accept that we will not go up this year...but then so what. 

Our accounts will look slightly better with the horrendous loss 3 years ago now not being part of FFP but above all, our financial future is secure.

Our squad is not as good as we would like to think with again many average players on above average wages for this league who will be shipped out in the summer.  I'm sure we will build a team of younger, quicker, fitter and technically superior players who have a real hunger to succeed. Thus meaning when promotion does happen, we will be far healthier in all aspects of the club to compete in the Prem.

We lost any 'divine' right that we thought we had when we came down to this league as one of the poorest teams in Premier League history.  Some of our fans need to wake up and smell the coffee.

I thought somebody itk posted on here that the ne t set of accounts will be the worst yet.

happy to be corrected - but also said we were losing 1-2m per month.

[cbr600rr]

the club is losing over 100k a day! works in a loss of 60m a year,

the club will have to ask owners to see the short fall after the tv - league money at end of year , the sale of jg was saved last year as owners were allowed to invest but its can not carry on.

wages are the problem, theirs players (average) who are on 40k a week on 4year contracts , no other clubs in championship can pay this so they are not sell able ,thats why they are loaned out, you would be shocked on how much villa are paying on wages & if you think tammy did not not go to wolves..it was not down to football reasons,his agent wanted him out of villa,but he stayed, sending the everton player back released a lot of wage, you know where some of this extra money went..

players & agents see villa as the cash cow of the championship but the players soon become villa players to easy & find they dont have to give 100% ,its a culture ,how it can be stopped i dont know,look at utd under their new manager v old manager,

if smith can not get a tune from these instruments the owners will not be dancing .

[wilko154]

7 minutes ago, cbr600rr said:

the club is losing over 100k a day! works in a loss of 60m a year,

the club will have to ask owners to see the short fall after the tv - league money at end of year , the sale of jg was saved last year as owners were allowed to invest but its can not carry on.

wages are the problem, theirs players (average) who are on 40k a week on 4year contracts , no other clubs in championship can pay this so they are not sell able ,thats why they are loaned out, you would be shocked on how much villa are paying on wages & if you think tammy did not not go to wolves..it was not down to football reasons,his agent wanted him out of villa,but he stayed, sending the everton player back released a lot of wage, you know where some of this extra money went..

players & agents see villa as the cash cow of the championship but the players soon become villa players to easy & find they dont have to give 100% ,its a culture ,how it can be stopped i dont know,look at utd under their new manager v old manager,

if smith can not get a tune from these instruments the owners will not be dancing .

There is so much wrong with what you have just written.

We are making losses but we aren't making losses of 100k a day, that's ridiculous.

The losses will be fixed at the end of the season when the out of contract players save us over 300k a week (granted a few will need to be replaced)

We didn't send Bolasie back due to wages, he left of his own accord.

 

 

[Jareth]

 

11 hours ago, KHV said:

All Dean Smith teams have encountered similar problems

Might just give him the benefit of the doubt this time, given he has no choice but to start Hutton and Taylor. Given the amount of times the ball is played to Hutton and ABSOLUTELY NOTHING comes of it - I can't quite believe we've scored so many.

[wilko154]

For me our season is now pretty much over.

With a winning run we could realistically still push ourselves into the top 6, but a winning run is so far away from this current team. There is just nothing there, for 80 minutes on Friday we created nothing pumping the ball from one wing to the other, playing it slowly across the back 4, bypassed the midfield. A winning run to get into the playoffs would have to start on Wednesday and we just haven't shown any evidence of it coming.

The reliance on Grealish this season has cost us, as has the stubbornness to not adapt to life without him. We must have known he was going to be missing close to 3 months of football, why didn't we change the style of play and formation to suit the players playing every week? Why did we not find a like for like replacement (hard I know) early in January to plug the gap for 2 months.

 

The annoying thing about this season is the fact that the team have shown how good they can be, with Grealish against Derby and Boro. And then without Grealish in glimpses (the last 10 minutes on Friday). It makes it much harder to take how poor our league position and stats from the season really are.

[wilko154]

5 minutes ago, Jareth said:

Might just give him the benefit of the doubt this time, given he has no choice but to start Hutton and Taylor. Given the amount of times the ball is played to Hutton and ABSOLUTELY NOTHING comes of it - I can't quite believe we've scored so many.

I would argue that Hutton has been our best player for the last few games and he starts almost everything. He's the only player in our team (bar McGinn and Abraham) who isn't afraid to drive forward with the ball.

[cbr600rr]

17 minutes ago, wilko154 said:

There is so much wrong with what you have just written.

We are making losses but we aren't making losses of 100k a day, that's ridiculous.

The losses will be fixed at the end of the season when the out of contract players save us over 300k a week (granted a few will need to be replaced)

We didn't send Bolasie back due to wages, he left of his own accord.

 

 

running at 50-60 loss a year,

[Demitri_C]

26 minutes ago, cbr600rr said:

the club is losing over 100k a day! works in a loss of 60m a year,

the club will have to ask owners to see the short fall after the tv - league money at end of year , the sale of jg was saved last year as owners were allowed to invest but its can not carry on.

wages are the problem, theirs players (average) who are on 40k a week on 4year contracts , no other clubs in championship can pay this so they are not sell able ,thats why they are loaned out, you would be shocked on how much villa are paying on wages & if you think tammy did not not go to wolves..it was not down to football reasons,his agent wanted him out of villa,but he stayed, sending the everton player back released a lot of wage, you know where some of this extra money went..

players & agents see villa as the cash cow of the championship but the players soon become villa players to easy & find they dont have to give 100% ,its a culture ,how it can be stopped i dont know,look at utd under their new manager v old manager,

if smith can not get a tune from these instruments the owners will not be dancing .

Remember though a lot of High earners are out of contract come the summer 

Jedinak whelan richards adomah. Them alone is close to 200k a week. That's a huge saving for the club. If as well hogan does well at Sheffield united we can flog him off that be massive. 

Obviously we will sell grealish I think someone will bid 25_30m for him and we will sell. But I don't think it will be as bad as some think. We have shown we can score goals at this level without him.