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18/19 Race for Promotion


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1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said:

I'm not willing to stick a pin in it just yet, but we certainly cannot have a week like that at any point in the remainder of the season, nor can we afford to go three games without a win agai

We'll have many more weeks like this. Just look at our fixture list in November and December.

Last season was the time to get automatic promotion but we fell short.

I suppose if you're looking for positives are that we're 4th despite not really playing well and the division is certainly weaker at the top end than last year. Fulham also didn't turn up until December last season and should've claimed second in the end.

Dosen't look to me this year like we have the resilience. Games like today and Ipswich away are the types we'd have ground out 1-0 wins last season. John Terry is a big miss with ten minutes to go today talking and settling everyone down, we don't have that type currently.

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59 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

We'll have many more weeks like this. Just look at our fixture list in November and December.

The big hope now is that he gets sacked before January then.

Last September was the time though. Well, last Summer really, but September it was even more clear he was done at this level.

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2 hours ago, VillaChris said:

We'll have many more weeks like this. Just look at our fixture list in November and December.

Last season was the time to get automatic promotion but we fell short.

I suppose if you're looking for positives are that we're 4th despite not really playing well and the division is certainly weaker at the top end than last year. Fulham also didn't turn up until December last season and should've claimed second in the end.

Dosen't look to me this year like we have the resilience. Games like today and Ipswich away are the types we'd have ground out 1-0 wins last season. John Terry is a big miss with ten minutes to go today talking and settling everyone down, we don't have that type currently.

I know the owners want a young team and I am all for that.. but surely reduced wages to Terry is required. As you said.. that leadership is invaluable.

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Leeds' best player is a 33 year old Hernandez. 10% of the way through and Bielsa is showing that they will be contenders.

Middlesbrough lost their best player in Traore and defender Gibson. They have been less impressive so far, but look like challenging for promotion.

We should be winning this league this season. By some margin. The draws are frustrating because of the dejavu that comes with them from last season.

The signing of McGinn, El Ghazi and Bolasie puts us way above our opponents for quality, once we settle in, we should be better than we were last season.

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6 minutes ago, A'Villan said:

Leeds' best player is a 33 year old Hernandez. 10% of the way through and Bielsa is showing that they will be contenders.

Middlesbrough lost their best player in Traore and defender Gibson. They have been less impressive so far, but look like challenging for promotion.

We should be winning this league this season. By some margin. The draws are frustrating because of the dejavu that comes with them from last season.

The signing of McGinn, El Ghazi and Bolasie puts us way above our opponents for quality, once we settle in, we should be better than we were last season.

I’d never heard of McGinn or El Ghazi before so I couldn’t say wether those signings put us above on quality yet.

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1 minute ago, Tommo_b said:

I’d never heard of McGinn or El Ghazi before so I couldn’t say wether those signings put us above on quality yet.

McGinn would of gone for 10 million had he come from League One. He had a choice between us and Celtic, and is a Scottish international.

El Ghazi averaged 10 goals a season over 2 seasons with Ajax and played a full season under Lille as well, who purchased him for 8 million from Ajax.

Absolutely put us above in quality.

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2 minutes ago, A'Villan said:

McGinn would of gone for 10 million had he come from League One. He had a choice between us and Celtic, and is a Scottish international.

El Ghazi averaged 10 goals a season over 2 seasons with Ajax and played a full season under Lille as well, who purchased him for 8 million from Ajax.

Absolutely put us above in quality.

Whilst i agree with your point, its also fair to say that whilst the quality of our attacking options have dramatically improvement, our back line has been dramatically weakened. 

I always felt last year we could hold onto a lead (see the playoff semi final), this season it looks like we are always going to concede. 

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55 minutes ago, A'Villan said:

 

The signing of McGinn, El Ghazi and Bolasie puts us way above our opponents for quality, once we settle in, we should be better than we were last season.

That doesn't matter if your defence is hopeless 

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1 minute ago, av1 said:

Whilst i agree with your point, its also fair to say that whilst the quality of our attacking options have dramatically improvement, our back line has been dramatically weakened. 

I always felt last year we could hold onto a lead (see the playoff semi final), this season it looks like we are always going to concede. 

We still have Elmo, Chester and Hutton from last season, we are a 37 year old short of last seasons back four.

Now that's not to say that Terry won't be missed, credit to him, our shape and organisation will certainly not be better having lost him without replacement.

But really, we still have one of the better defensive outfits and should not be as vulnerable as we have been this season.

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9 hours ago, A'Villan said:

McGinn would of gone for 10 million had he come from League One. He had a choice between us and Celtic, and is a Scottish international.

El Ghazi averaged 10 goals a season over 2 seasons with Ajax and played a full season under Lille as well, who purchased him for 8 million from Ajax.

Absolutely put us above in quality.

I get your point however what I would say is dirk Kuyt was a goal scoring king in Holland and Brighton signed the top scorer from their last season for 16 million, he hasn’t scored a premier league goal yet over here. 

Barry Bannan is also a Scottish international... so again although they maybe a quality above they may also not yet be. 

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4 hours ago, Keyblade said:

Interesting how a lot of people think we're not good enough for promotion, meanwhile fans of other clubs are seething about us "cheating" with regards to the squad that we've assembled in recent times. To them who only look at the quality of our squad, we're buying the league...but to us who watch the team every week, we're not good enough for promotion yet. That's a big discrepancy, and shows that we're not playing to the full potential of the talent we have at our disposal.

Think you will find it's not the "Squad" that has been the issue.

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5 hours ago, Keyblade said:

Interesting how a lot of people think we're not good enough for promotion, meanwhile fans of other clubs are seething about us "cheating" with regards to the squad that we've assembled in recent times. To them who only look at the quality of our squad, we're buying the league...but to us who watch the team every week, we're not good enough for promotion yet. That's a big discrepancy, and shows that we're not playing to the full potential of the talent we have at our disposal.

Its probably because the way people assess the "quality of the squad" is wrong. The modern football fan will massively overvalue players based on their reputation, and therefore assume that signing a big name player for lots of money is essentially cheating and buying the league. Case in point, Micah Richards - many fans were adamant we'd picked up a bargain with him, even this summer I heard someone saying "I wonder why Villa don't play him anymore, must be some kind of clause in his contract they can't pay because they're skint". Now we've had the *pleasure of watching him and know exactly why he doesn't play.

Everyone's assuming the same with Bolasie, for example, because of his reputation they're assuming we're basically cheating by signing a guy that's barely played in like 2 years because of injuries. He might be great, he equally might have lost it completely, we won't know until we see him, I'm happy we have signed him and I hope he turns out well for us, but if it turns out he's crap now because his knees have gone, it doesn't mean that "we should have walked the league because we had the best players", it means the players we signed weren't as good as we hoped they would be

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13 minutes ago, weedman said:

Its probably because the way people assess the "quality of the squad" is wrong. The modern football fan will massively overvalue players based on their reputation, and therefore assume that signing a big name player for lots of money is essentially cheating and buying the league. Case in point, Micah Richards - many fans were adamant we'd picked up a bargain with him, even this summer I heard someone saying "I wonder why Villa don't play him anymore, must be some kind of clause in his contract they can't pay because they're skint". Now we've had the *pleasure of watching him and know exactly why he doesn't play.

Everyone's assuming the same with Bolasie, for example, because of his reputation they're assuming we're basically cheating by signing a guy that's barely played in like 2 years because of injuries. He might be great, he equally might have lost it completely, we won't know until we see him, I'm happy we have signed him and I hope he turns out well for us, but if it turns out he's crap now because his knees have gone, it doesn't mean that "we should have walked the league because we had the best players", it means the players we signed weren't as good as we hoped they would be

That's just one extreme example. On the whole, our squad is very strong based on how they perform now and the qualities they possess now, and other fans actually do have some reason to be envious. 

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17 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

That's just one extreme example. On the whole, our squad is very strong based on how they perform now and the qualities they possess now, and other fans actually do have some reason to be envious. 

I agree, we do have a strong squad, I'd say our midfield and attack is probably up there as one of the best in the league (top 2/3/4?) once they settle, our defence however is barely worthy of top half, and we are worryingly short of strength in depth everywhere except midfield, so assertions that we should be winning the league at a canter or blowing teams away week in week out or that "just" making the playoffs is a disaster is just ridiculous 

Our squad is good enough to finish somewhere between 6th and 2nd in my opinion. We are currently 4th, now we haven't played any particularly great teams yet, but after the summer we had there was always going to be a settling in period, and we're ticking over while everything settles down and I am confident we will improve as the season goes on. Luckily we haven't had a tough start so we've been able to pick up some points and get the season going while still not 100%

Someone pointed out either here or in the Bruce thread that pretty much since our terrible start last season we've been getting 2 points per game average, continued onto this season, we may look inconsistent to ourselves watching and over analysing everything, but to the outside world we are the defenition of consistency, that team that just seems to keep picking up points regardless of performances 

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The beauty of this league is that every game is winnable. 

I’ve just had a quick look at our next few fixtures and there is no reason we can’t remain unbeaten for a while yet. 

The most important element to that is putting games to bed and not trying to shut up shop at 1-0. 

Hopefully we add a couple before Friday to bolster the squad and improve the starting 11, and even with Bruce at the helm we will be up there. 

Most people would get off his back if he picked a more balanced sensical team, which is hopefully coming with the additions inc Bolasie. 

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24 minutes ago, Hornso said:

Comparison to previous seasons:

After 5 games:

16/17 - 16th with 5 points

17/18 - 18th with 5 points

18/19 - 4th with 9 points

image.png.2f5f91eced47d691660766e2de1df07a.png

image.png.44812aeca262fca86b1deb89634c2a8f.png

 

Apologies for the league position being upside down again, still haven't figured out how to change this in Google Sheets.

 

Or you could have just said we  are 4 points better off having played weaker opposition?

Not sure if the graph is supposed to blow us away with the dramatics of upward trajectory?

It is literally ONE win/draw difference.

EDIT: I'll stop being an arse as your post probably doesn't deserve it.

So yes, good to see progress I guess.

Edited by JAMAICAN-VILLAN
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