18/19 Race for Promotion

[Tomaszk]

6 hours ago, Tomaszk said:

You can if you score 4 a game.

Players absolutely needed but stranger things have happened. Especially in this league.

Sorry, I mean 6.

[VillaChris]

1 hour ago, AVTuco said:

That feeling of uneasiness creeping in again. Our defense is so shit and we have literally no options.

We have 10 points from our last 12 with some really good performances in that.

The previous manager failed to beat any of Bristol City, Sheff Weds, Preston, Ipswich, Reading and Blackburn. These are all bottom half teams I think. That's the reason we're not in the top 6.

[VillaChris]

Actually surprised to see table now and find we're only 3 points off sixth (would've been 1 point if we'd held onto the 5-4).

I'd actually be pretty happy if we're only 3-4 points off top 6 at start of January.

Our run of games in January up to middle of Feb is:

QPR (H)

Wigan (A)

Hull (H)

Ipswich (H)

Reading (A)

Sheffield United (H)

Brentford (A)

With a new keeper and CB that's when we make our move into the top 6 and then we'll see what will happen for the last three months.

Top 2 is still a bit of a long shot for me unless we significantly close the gap in next six games which will be tough. If we were serious about automatic promotion we should've sacked Steve Bruce after five games.

[Zatman]

I think Forest is one of better teams in this division, feel if keep current style up and tightening at the back we can finish top 4 in this league. I dont think anybody has the firepower we had.

We could probably even hit 100 goals

[hippo]

8 minutes ago, Zatman said:

I think Forest is one of better teams in this division, feel if keep current style up and tightening at the back we can finish top 4 in this league. I dont think anybody has the firepower we had.

We could probably even hit 100 goals

If we can continue to score goals like we are and tighten up at the back we will the league. Couple of big 'if's in there though.

[Zatman]

1 minute ago, hippo said:

If we can continue to score goals like we are and tighten up at the back we will the league. Couple of big 'if's in there though.

We might be a bit behind to win the league but no stopping us challenging at least

Really a weak league this season 

[Mark Albrighton]

Forest have only lost twice all season and if it wasn’t for incompetence on our part, they would have recorded their third defeat tonight. Additionally to that, if I’m reading the table right, Forest had the second best defence before tonight. Nearly 20% of their goals conceded are from Tammy.

I think one way or another, Villa’s defence will improve. Scoring the way we are, we’re going to be a handful for the vast majority of teams in this league.

[villalad21]

I actually forgot El Ghazi existed this past week, so obviously we are sorted in terms of wingers.

Need a keeper and a cb and i would also like another quality centre midfielder i don't think Jedi or Whelan is good enough

[terrytini]

What a season this is going to be. Bring it on !

[briny_ear]

2 hours ago, VillaChris said:

Actually surprised to see table now and find we're only 3 points off sixth (would've been 1 point if we'd held onto the 5-4).

I'd actually be pretty happy if we're only 3-4 points off top 6 at start of January.

Our run of games in January up to middle of Feb is:

QPR (H)

Wigan (A)

Hull (H)

Ipswich (H)

Reading (A)

Sheffield United (H)

Brentford (A)

With a new keeper and CB that's when we make our move into the top 6 and then we'll see what will happen for the last three months.

Top 2 is still a bit of a long shot for me unless we significantly close the gap in next six games which will be tough. If we were serious about automatic promotion we should've sacked Steve Bruce after five games.

Not that surprising given we were 4 points off 6th when Smith took the reins.

I think Villatalk got itself into a bit of a lather about how badly we were doing. Obviously we needed to do better and a change was needed but things were never as disastrous as was often made out.

Shame about tonight’s shambles - as you say, we would have been knocking on the top 6 door if we had held on to our lead at home against 10 men.

[terrytini]

Things were absolutely awful, which is what led to an entire ground ( or at least those that hadn’t gone home) calling for the last Managers head.

With no mythical pre season, no transfer windows, and against the decent sides in the League, Smith has transformed us from an unwatchable mid table sideshow to a potential and entertaining challenger for promotion.

As for 10 men , I was at Ipswich when I saw a miserable, pitiful , showing against a bottom of the League side who outplayed us for an hour with 10 men.

Now that WAS a shambles.

Edited November 29, 2018 by terrytini

[briny_ear]

2 hours ago, VillaChris said:

We have 10 points from our last 12 with some really good performances in that.

The previous manager failed to beat any of Bristol City, Sheff Weds, Preston, Ipswich, Reading and Blackburn. These are all bottom half teams I think. That's the reason we're not in the top 6.

Think that just about earns an old briny dodgy stats award. 

Why pick the last four games in particular?

I’m not a great fan of selecting chunks of statistics rather than displaying the whole picture but if you are going to be selective, wouldn’t 13 points from our last 21 - which represents the time Smith has been here - be more appropriate?

[briny_ear]

16 minutes ago, terrytini said:

Things were absolutely awful, which is what led to an entire ground ( or at least those that hadn’t gone home) calling for the last Managers head.

With no mythical pre season, no transfer windows, and against the decent sides in the League, Smith has transformed us from an unwatchable mid table sideshow to a potential and entertaining challenger for promotion.

As for 10 men , I was at Ipswich when I saw a miserable, pitiful , showing against a bottom of the League side who outplayed us for an hour with 10 men.

Now that WAS a shambles.

I notice you don’t challenge the basic factual point that we were 4 points off top 6 when Smith took over and now are 3 points off.

That is what my post was addressing.

[Keyblade]

1 hour ago, briny_ear said:

I notice you don’t challenge the basic factual point that we were 4 points off top 6 when Smith took over and now are 3 points off.

That is what my post was addressing.

We were playing the worst teams in the league under Bruce. The only (current) top half team we faced was Sheffield United who battered us 4-1.

Since then, under Smith we have played the current league leaders Norwich, and the 2 teams above us in the table as well as the 2 below (we're 8th). The only teams outside of the top 10 were second from bottom Bolton and Swansea who sit a point outside of it in 11th.

It's easy to say we were "only" 4 points off without any context, but with the fixtures that we had, that shouldn't have even been the case. The remarkable thing is that Smith is inching us closer despite playing the best teams in the league. It doesn't get easier, as we have Boro, Baggies, Stoke and Leeds in our next 4. If we remained with Bruce do you really believe he'd still have us in contention after those fixtures? I don't, but I have confidence that Smith will keep us within striking distance.

[terrytini]

3 hours ago, briny_ear said:

I notice you don’t challenge the basic factual point that we were 4 points off top 6 when Smith took over and now are 3 points off.

That is what my post was addressing.

I didn’t challenge it since it was true, and a fair point in my view. 

[Junxs]

3 hours ago, briny_ear said:

I’m not a great fan of selecting chunks of statistics rather than displaying the whole picture but if you are going to be selective, wouldn’t 13 points from our last 21 - which represents the time Smith has been here - be more appropriate?

Can't believe you're even asking. People do it because it represents current form, otherwise you might as well just look at the league table!

Next you'll be complaining why they give a manager of the month award, speaking of which.. Deano in for a shout for November? considering the opponents we've had 10 points from a possible 12 is brilliant. Only Norwich matched that but they had easier fixtures. 

[Rob182]

There’s a difference between a new manager not picking up points with a team he only just joined, and a manager not picking up points with a team that he has had 100 games and numerous transfer windows with.

 

Just incase anyone was trying to imply that for certain spells under Smith we were no better than under Bubble’N’Steve.

[eholm]

5 hours ago, briny_ear said:

Think that just about earns an old briny dodgy stats award. 

Why pick the last four games in particular?

I’m not a great fan of selecting chunks of statistics rather than displaying the whole picture but if you are going to be selective, wouldn’t 13 points from our last 21 - which represents the time Smith has been here - be more appropriate?

Indeed. Still a good return of nearly 2ppg. The improvements have been very considerable. 

[TrentVilla]

7 hours ago, briny_ear said:

Not that surprising given we were 4 points off 6th when Smith took the reins.

I think Villatalk got itself into a bit of a lather about how badly we were doing. Obviously we needed to do better and a change was needed but things were never as disastrous as was often made out.

Shame about tonight’s shambles - as you say, we would have been knocking on the top 6 door if we had held on to our lead at home against 10 men.

A lather about how badly we were doing? Seriously? That is some serious revisionism or selective memory.

Tonight despite the result was a massive improvement on what we saw under Bruce. It’s just a shame Smith inherited a shambolic defence and incapable keeper from Bruce.

 

[Mark Albrighton]

6 hours ago, briny_ear said:

Think that just about earns an old briny dodgy stats award. 

Why pick the last four games in particular?

I’m not a great fan of selecting chunks of statistics rather than displaying the whole picture but if you are going to be selective, wouldn’t 13 points from our last 21 - which represents the time Smith has been here - be more appropriate?

And that would be nearly double the amount of points Bruce achieved in his final seven matches. Including four times as many victories.

And there’s an argument to say that of the seven we have faced under Smith, five could be considered top six hopefuls (Swansea, Norwich, QPR, Derby and Forest). 

To your mind, how many promotion candidates had we faced during Bruce’s final seven games? Or indeed at all this season? 

To my mind, Sheff Utd, and to the best of my memory there were a fair few goals flying in that day too. 

Just something to consider. Wouldn’t want to be selective now, would we.