18/19 Race for Promotion

[Tommo_b]

5 hours ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

 

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.

Okay but how do we know yet that they are weaker opposition yet?

In RDM’s ten games in charge everyone was saying how it was an easy start and should’ve been winning those games, come the end of the season I think we all saw in hindsight that we played the majority of the best teams in the league in those ten games. 

[VILLAMARV]

YAY! @Hornso graphs are back

 

[Hornso]

6 hours ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

 

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.

Just stating the facts mate. I did the same last season every 5 games. Will continue to do so regardless of how positive/negative the results are unless I start to get shouted down. 

[VILLAMARV]

6 hours ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

 

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.

[John]

A direct comparison between the actual games that we played last season against the teams we have played this season shows we are 4 points down on the points we took from those clubs last season (in Wigan's case we beat all of the relegated teams so a draw against them represents 2 points dropped). It depends what type of comparison each of us prefer. My personal choice would be a points target of 3 from each home game and a point from our away games which should give us automatic promotion. We are currently 2 points off that target. A win at Sheffield United would see us hitting that. I'm sure we would all be happy with that. 

[Mark Albrighton]

@Hornso

Regarding your league position graph, can you not just use minus numbers instead to get the correlation going the right way?

I guarantee that absolutely no one on here will use it as further proof that Bruce’s style of play is negative.

They probably won’t, anyway.

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

1 hour ago, VILLAMARV said:

Cheers I needed that.

As you could tell I was not in a great mood at the time hence why I even edited my comment.

A day wasted arguing with Villa fans on Facebook across multiple groups will do that to you. lol

[bobzy]

2 hours ago, John said:

A direct comparison between the actual games that we played last season against the teams we have played this season shows we are 4 points down on the points we took from those clubs last season (in Wigan's case we beat all of the relegated teams so a draw against them represents 2 points dropped). It depends what type of comparison each of us prefer. My personal choice would be a points target of 3 from each home game and a point from our away games which should give us automatic promotion. We are currently 2 points off that target. A win at Sheffield United would see us hitting that. I'm sure we would all be happy with that. 

2017/18:  Hull (A) [1 point], Winner of L1 (Sheff Utd (H)) [1 point], Ipswich (A) [3 points], Brentford (H) [1 point], Reading (H) [3 points] = 9 points

2018/19:  Hull (A) [3 points], Winner of L1 (Wigan (H)) [3 points], Ipswich (A) [1 point], Brentford (H) [1 point], Reading (H) [1 point] = 9 points

We've got exactly the same number of points from these games as we got last season.

[jim]

Thread should renamed to “The race to be there or thereabouts”

[Zatman]

18 hours ago, Tommo_b said:

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. 

Kuyt is a not really a good comparison. He had a decent scoring record since he mainly played on the wing at Liverpool

[Jareth]

1 hour ago, jim said:

Thread should renamed to “The race to be there or thereabouts”

Or the race to smell some hotdogs but then only not actually get to eat one

[weedman]

8 minutes ago, Zatman said:

Kuyt is a not really a good comparison. He had a decent scoring record since he mainly played on the wing at Liverpool

And I thought conversations about whether a striker should be judged on their goals even if they played on the wing would leave with Gabby! 

[John]

1 hour ago, bobzy said:

2017/18:  Hull (A) [1 point], Winner of L1 (Sheff Utd (H)) [1 point], Ipswich (A) [3 points], Brentford (H) [1 point], Reading (H) [3 points] = 9 points

2018/19:  Hull (A) [3 points], Winner of L1 (Wigan (H)) [3 points], Ipswich (A) [1 point], Brentford (H) [1 point], Reading (H) [1 point] = 9 points

We've got exactly the same number of points from these games as we got last season.

I went the result against the team that Wigan replaced this season but the above result does achieve your lower 9 points figure.

"If all the statisticians in the world were laid head to toe, they wouldn't be able to reach a conclusion" 

[LoughboroughLion]

Two teams smack bottom and we’ve gifted them half their points.

In the context of the teams we’ve played, this isn’t a good start. I’d say it’s an average start and we need to do better.

 

[Keyblade]

17 hours ago, weedman said:

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 

I'll be very interested to see if you can name even one team with a better attack than us let alone 2 or 3.

We're really only short in quantity and quality in 1 position; CB. In every other position we have an embarrassment of riches except for maybe CF, which I expect to change by the end of the week.

How many other teams can bring on someone of Conor Hourihane's quality off the bench, or have a Henri Lansbury warming the bench. Or have a Ritchie De Laet not even near the first team? I can't think of any to be honest.

I want to be optimistic about our season as I also think we're not 100% yet, but this Villa team under Steve Bruce has let me down too many times now to expect anything else. I really hope we continue picking up 2 ppg, and a win against United would put us right on track. But I'm not confident at all

 

[turvontour]

"Unbeaten" is up there with "must win game" for useless/misleading football cliches.

Plesse lets not aim to go unbeaten, lets actually win football matches. You dont get anything additional for avoiding defeats.

Bolton Wanderers are not unbeaten, Bolton Wanderers are above us in the table.

[Guest av1]

16 minutes ago, turvontour said:

"Unbeaten" is up there with "must win game" for useless/misleading football cliches.

Plesse lets not aim to go unbeaten, lets actually win football matches. You dont get anything additional for avoiding defeats.

Bolton Wanderers are not unbeaten, Bolton Wanderers are above us in the table.

That's why we will ultimately fail again with Bruce (imo). Bruce places more importance on not losing rather than winning, so ultimately i think we will draw to many games. 

We will finish above Bolton this season so as a stand alone statement it doesn't mean much, nonetheless it's an important point. The teams that go up this season won't do so because they have lost fewer games thsn anyone else, they will do so because they have won more than anyone else. 

We have a squad of players more than capable of winning the vast majority of our games. Sadly i don't believe we have a manager capable of winning the vadt majority of our games. 

[bobzy]

1 hour ago, av1 said:

That's why we will ultimately fail again with Bruce (imo). Bruce places more importance on not losing rather than winning, so ultimately i think we will draw to many games.

As proven last season when we won over 50% of our games, drawing fewer times than promoted Fulham

[vidukasbox]

On 21/08/2018 at 21:44, wilko154 said:

Encouraging to see Leeds wobble tonight, a Wolves team last season would have won that, as would have Newcastle the season before.

Care to explain that comment? Both Wolves and Newcastle LOST games in their first five league games, whereas we haven't. Strange opinion.

[Rugeley Villa]

It's too early to be worrying about other teams. We just need to keep ourself close by to the top two for now. We should be two points better off, but that's football. Sheffield united will be a big game. They have hit form, and are a decent team. We should have enough in us to dispose of them. Drawing the last 3 makes it even more important we win there on Saturday.