18/19 Race for Promotion

[John]

9 hours ago, VillaChris said:

Our last two games are Leeds away and Norwich at home, the current top 2.

It's written isn't it, about time we had a cliff hanger end to a league season.

We will be champions by then.  If not, I wouldn't mind automatic promotion being decided on a home game against Norwich. They would have the play offs as their consolation.

[John]

8 hours ago, hooter said:

 

You'll enjoy our promotion party, bring a bottle. 

Hopefully it will be a joint promotion party then. Will it be OK if we bring the Championship trophy with us to show it to you boys? 

[villalad21]

You will never be automatic promoted with a total of 2 central defenders in your squad.

I believe in top 6 ut top 2 will be out of reach this season

[A'Villan]

51 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

I watched them at Elland Road. They were really organised and should have won. Got robbed by a blatant handball by roofe.

I see a similar pattern tonight where they will sit back and hit us on the break. We’ll have to be really on it to break them down.

I have seen the handball and while they were robbed, the build up play and chance created by Leeds was there for the taking.

Forest had the luxury of going up against Leeds after 11minutes and then gave up 70% possession to Leeds for the remainder of the game.

Leeds finished with 18 shots and Forest with 3. I didn't watch the game but it would seem like Forest rode their luck a bit.

Hopefully we don't afford them an early lead. I think we will be taking points from this one if Forest afford us the same kind of possession and shots they did Leeds.

Would of been nice to have Adomah fit for this but hopefully Bolasie can step up. The fact that someone like Bolasie is coming off the bench for us in this division goes to show the fire power available to us. Kodjia is in good form. Abraham is a smart and capable player. Grealish is arguably the best player in the division. Add to that we now have a way of playing that creates chances and encourages us to take it to the opposition.

I don't want to underestimate Forest but I'm hopeful we make a good showing.

[Wainy316]

9 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

You will never be automatic promoted with a total of 2 central defenders in your squad.

I believe in top 6 ut top 2 will be out of reach this season

We can add to that in January though.  That window could be the difference between playoffs (don't think  can go through that again) and automatic.

[villan-scott]

10 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

You will never be automatic promoted with a total of 2 central defenders in your squad.

I believe in top 6 ut top 2 will be out of reach this season

Luckily for us we have a transfer window in between now and the end of the season. The likelihood is we will sign a centre back, therefore not having to last the whole season with 2 centre backs. 

Automatic is still very much on the cards IMO. 

[villalad21]

2 minutes ago, Wainy316 said:

We can add to that in January though.

The question is how far we will be from top 2 within January

Edited November 28, 2018 by villalad21

[Jareth]

I think we'll see quite a few high scoring encounters this season, would not be surprised if Forest ends 3-3. Someone asked me how Villa were, I said new decent manager, lots of goals, entertaining football and wins - could not ask for more - well promotion would be nice but put it this way, we don't go up this season I worry for the rest of the league next season, we'll stonk it. 

[Wainy316]

Just now, villalad21 said:

The question is how far we will be top 2 within January

Who knows, if we can maintain a confidence based run until then we could be well in the mix.

Attack really is the best form of defence for us at the moment.

[wilko154]

18 hours ago, romavillan said:

Until it's impossible that has to be the aim, Smith will deserve a **** statue if he pulls it off though. Fulham's rise was incredible last year but they couldn't catch the top 2. We'd have to do better than they did to get automatic promotion. Monumental, but who knows, we've still got to finish hiring coaches, scouts, have a transfer window in Jan. The room for improvement is there, and tbf if we play at the QPR/Derby levels against anyone in this league I think we've already got too much for 99% of this division. If we manage to improve on what we've got, then autos is possible, going to be a hell of a ride either way

I'm going to disagree with you 

We are in a much better position than Fulham were last season, mainly because the league is so poor this year. Last season after 20 games Fulham were on 26 points (we are currently on 27 points with 2 more games to play)

Wolves at the top had 44 points (they won their game in hand to take it to 47) and Cardiff 43. Currently Norwich are top with 37 points and Leeds second with 36 points, both have one game to play to match the below table.

Fulham had a 17 point gap to second after 20 game. After 18 games we currently have a 10 point gap with a game in hand...

 

If we can win our next two games (Forest and Boro) it will take us 3 points away from where we were at this stage last season. After the way we started this season it would be pretty incredible and momentum would really have swung in our favour going into December.

Championship Table at: 04 December 2017
		Pl	HW	HD	HL	HF	HA	AW	AD	AL	AF	AA	GD	POINTS
1	Wolves	19	8	1	1	24	10	6	1	2	16	7	+23	44
2	Cardiff	20	7	3	0	19	5	6	1	3	11	9	+16	43
3	Bristol C	20	5	3	2	15	10	5	4	1	17	11	+11	37
4	Sheff Utd	20	7	1	2	19	10	5	0	5	14	14	+9	37
5	Aston Villa	20	6	3	1	15	8	4	3	3	14	10	+11	36
6	Derby	20	6	1	3	16	8	4	4	2	14	13	+9	35
7	Ipswich	20	6	1	3	20	12	4	1	5	15	18	+5	32
8	Leeds	20	4	3	3	15	9	5	0	5	15	16	+5	30
9	Middlesbro	20	5	2	3	11	9	3	3	4	14	11	+5	29
10	Preston	20	4	4	2	11	8	3	4	3	12	13	+2	29
11	Brentford	20	3	6	1	18	14	3	3	4	13	13	+4	27
12	Sheff Wed	20	4	5	1	17	12	2	4	4	8	11	+2	27
13	Nottm Forest	20	6	0	4	14	11	3	0	7	14	22	-5	27
14	READING	20	3	3	4	11	11	4	2	4	15	13	+2	26
15	Fulham	20	2	6	2	10	11	4	2	4	16	16	-1	26
16	Norwich	20	2	5	3	8	10	4	1	5	10	16	-8	24
17	Millwall	20	5	2	3	17	11	0	5	5	5	10	+1	22
18	QPR	20	5	3	2	15	11	0	4	6	7	18	-7	22
19	Barnsley	20	3	2	5	11	13	2	3	5	13	18	-7	20
20	Hull	20	3	2	5	25	19	1	5	4	9	18	-3	19
21	Bolton	20	3	2	5	13	18	0	5	5	6	19	-18	16
22	Birmingham	19	4	2	3	6	8	0	2	8	4	20	-18	16
23	Sunderland	20	0	4	6	11	19	2	4	4	15	19	-12	14
24	Burton	20	2	1	7	9	23	1	4	5	3	15	-26	14

[BOF]

12 hours ago, rodders0223 said:

Seen more bollocks on my Gran.

Be careful what you google search for.

[Vive_La_Villa]

26 minutes ago, A'Villan said:

I have seen the handball and while they were robbed, the build up play and chance created by Leeds was there for the taking.

Forest had the luxury of going up against Leeds after 11minutes and then gave up 70% possession to Leeds for the remainder of the game.

Leeds finished with 18 shots and Forest with 3. I didn't watch the game but it would seem like Forest rode their luck a bit.

Hopefully we don't afford them an early lead. I think we will be taking points from this one if Forest afford us the same kind of possession and shots they did Leeds.

Would of been nice to have Adomah fit for this but hopefully Bolasie can step up. The fact that someone like Bolasie is coming off the bench for us in this division goes to show the fire power available to us. Kodjia is in good form. Abraham is a smart and capable player. Grealish is arguably the best player in the division. Add to that we now have a way of playing that creates chances and encourages us to take it to the opposition.

I don't want to underestimate Forest but I'm hopeful we make a good showing.

It was similar to our game against qpr in some respects. Whilst being behind we totally bossed the game and should have at least got a point. 

From what I remember Leeds didn’t create too many big chances but thinking back they did boss the game and probably deserved a point. 

[BOF]

Most significantly in our attempts to finish top 2, the leaders dropped points

[Nigel]

1 hour ago, villalad21 said:

You will never be automatic promoted with a total of 2 central defenders in your squad.

I believe in top 6 ut top 2 will be out of reach this season

Only 7 games to go till this can be sorted!

[DaveAV1]

Chester and Tuanzebe are a decent pairing. The problems begin if either or both (gulp!) get injured. I think we’ll get at least one decent centre half in January. 

Mind blowing ineptitude from the previous manager to leave us in this position. 

[villalad21]

29 minutes ago, DaveAV1 said:

Chester and Tuanzebe are a decent pairing. The problems begin if either or both (gulp!) get injured. I think we’ll get at least one decent centre half in January. 

More problems than that. Nyland is not a good enough keeper to push for automatic promotion.

Whelan and Jedinak are not good replacements for McGinn when he is injured. Birkir is a decent option but he is often injured

Short of wingers.Adomah is injured, if either Bolasie or Kodjia get's injured we will have problems

If Kodjia is prefered on the wing, then Hogan is the backup for Abraham. Hogan is nowhere near good enough

 

In my honest opinion if we want to be realistic about automatic promotion we will have to buy 5-6 quality players in January, and i don't see that happening.

Edited November 28, 2018 by villalad21

[CosmicVillan]

3 hours ago, weedman said:

I think they will, they're basically us last season, and there's no Wolves this year and I can't see anyone doing a Cardiff again, so unless a team puts together a great run I think they'll win it

Hopefully we can be this season's Fulham

[bannedfromHandV]

2 hours ago, villalad21 said:

You will never be automatic promoted with a total of 2 central defenders in your squad.

I believe in top 6 ut top 2 will be out of reach this season

Just as you can't win the league with kids...........apparently..........

[dounavilla]

1 hour ago, CosmicVillan said:

Hopefully we can be this season's Fulham

Naaa Fulham are crap this season. 

[DaveAV1]

1 hour ago, villalad21 said:

More problems than that. Nyland is not a good enough keeper to push for automatic promotion.

Whelan and Jedinak are not good replacements for McGinn when he is injured. Birkir is a decent option but he is often injured

Short of wingers.Adomah is injured, if either Bolasie or Kodjia get's injured we will have problems

If Kodjia is prefered on the wing, then Hogan is the backup for Abraham. Hogan is nowhere near good enough

 

In my honest opinion if we want to be realistic about automatic promotion we will have to buy 5-6 quality players in January, and i don't see that happening.

Whilst I don’t particularly disagree with any of the above, you have to remember that we are in the Championship, so the standard isn’t as high. The right training and tactical nous can overcome some of the deficiencies in the squad. 

We do have quality in the squad and at this level it’s difficult to cover all positions with an equal ability swap. You’re right that an injury crisis could hit us hard, but that’s the case with most teams. I think we will do something with regards to a GK during January.