Championship is a good league to be in

[Dante_Lockhart]

I want a new manager, our youth integrated in the main team (Mitchell, Green, O'Hare, Davis) and a solid core of the team so if we do get promoted next year we'll have a good foundation to build on.

[Dr_Pangloss]

Painfully shit league and for every year we stay in we're pushed closer and closer to bankruptcy. No reason to celebrate being in it.

[hippo]

1 hour ago, Shropshire Lad said:

To clarify my view, I don’t want us to be in the Championship.

Sadly, it’s better for us to finish 17th in the premier league, than 4th in the championship. But here we find ourselves.

However, if people want to take a moment to look on the bright side, deluded or otherwise, I’m not going to begrudge anyone from doing so.

From a Saturday afternoon point of view I prefer the championship.  

Obviously if we stay to long we will become a very different Aston Villa to the one I have followed for 45 years.

[imavillan]

To answer the title of the post.

In a word NO.

There is only one league to be in and thats the one that every team outside of it aspires to be in. The Premier League.

The Championship is the pits !!!!

[Stevo985]

I don't mind being in this division. It's fun. This season is the most entertaining season we've had in years.

What i have an issue with is the prospect of being here indefinitely.

It's great winning games and battling for promotion. If we do that again next year then fine.

But the prospect of dropping down and becoming also rans in the country's second division doesn't appeal to me.

[delboy54]

Money.....

That is the answer...

To be forever struggling in the Prem league season after season avoiding relegation or being mid table mediocrity and having the occasional surprise victory against a top 6 club is what the Premier League now is for most teams outside the top 6. ££££££££'s is all that matters.

If Villa had have gone up it would have been a huge battle to stay up in my opinion, our football most of the time is awful and Fulham got their tactics right on saturday, every Prem League team will have done the same to us. In the cold light of the day, after the day after, is that we are (not yet) good enough to go up - basically not ruthless or consistent enough. The old saying the "League Table Doesn't lie".

As for the future life in the Championship for our club who knows?, if bloody Cardiff can go up with little expense and unknown players then we should be able to. But the problem is in my view that we are viewed as giants in this league and every club wants our scalp they will always raise their game against us and that is what going to be hard.

keep the faith, but it is depressing....we threw away the final and Fulham took advantage.

Del

[bobzy]

I see both sides - we’re a competitive team in this league, we’re not in the Premier League. We’re under financial pressure in this league, we wouldn’t be in the Premier League. 

It’s sad that football has gotten to this stage - but the aim is basically to survive in the Prem. Grind out 0-0’s against top clubs if you can, but don’t worry too much about that. Your success is determined by a handful of games versus those around you. Ultimately, you need the £120m+ each season otherwise you miss out on the battle for mid-table, Premier League status.

There was a claim for Rafa Benitez to win manager of the year this season - his side finished 10th with 44 points. They won 31.5% of their games, were closer to 0 points than the points haul of the Champions and, despite finishing 10th, were equidistant from 7th and 17th. That’s, apparently, a modern-day success story, and is what we’re striving for. Joy. 

[lexicon]

Look, we're fans. All we can do is hope for the best and strap ourselves in for the ride, at the end of the day.

The only choice we have is whether to support the club or not and for pretty much all of us, I think I can safely say that it's not really a choice anymore. 

Here's to the future. 

[Rugeley Villa]

With all the financial gain from the premiership, that's where we need to be, so no, the championship is not good for the club. We might win a few games here, but we've also had good seasons in the premier league. This club is a premier league club, and that's where it needs to be. 

[dn1982]

20 hours ago, AVTuco said:

I think I'm over the loss now. Things are looking more up. Actually I think Championship is a good league to be in. Even for a great club like ours. It's better to be the biggest team in Championship than a relegation favorite in Premier League.

I'm looking forward to next season again. We are the biggest team in the summer transfer market with lots of action to be expected, both in and out. We may have a new manager, or not, we'll see. We'll win more than we'll lose. Quality of football is not so important to me, as long as it's Villa on the field. We'll be chasing promotion again. We have the best fans and the greatest stadium in the country. Foreign fans get to watch AVTV again.

Yeah, Championship is ok by me again, at least for another year.

BEComing the next Leeds is not something we want to become. 

[Tomaszk]

Such a waste last season.

Crap league, incredible squad. We could have had a field day. We'll likely never have that chance again.

Wouldn't have even taken much with how good our players were. Just play some football and attack teams.

Winning games is good yeah, but that feeling could dry up horribly in the coming seasons.

[choffer]

Do I think it's a good thing for us to be in the Championship? No.

Can I find positives in us being in the Championship? Yes. 

[NoelVilla]

It was kind of fun with something new for a while but 2 seasons of it was enough.

[The Fun Factory]

10 hours ago, picicata said:

It is what it is, no point stressing about it. Last season was good fun, lets hope the new one is even better.

I don't rate walking back down wembley way in silence, working how many player we will have to sell to stay in FFP as fun. Yes it was an improvement from 16-17 and yes there was some good matches, but the overall result was failure. An expensive day out failure as well.

[AVTuco]

Obviously I'm not saying we should be content with staying down here forever. But like many have said, this season was more exciting than any of the previous several years. The aim needs to be promotion to where we belong, but it ain't so bad down here either. And if we go up, the target should be comfortable mid-table or higher. Losing every Saturday is horrible.

[jim]

Can’t agree with any of this. It’s a dogshit league and the football is awful. 

Yes, we won more games but I can count on one hand the amount of games where I was actually entertained. 

The longer we stay down the further our once great club slips into oblivion and becomes a forgotten giant like Leeds and Forest.

[bobzy]

46 minutes ago, jim said:

Can’t agree with any of this. It’s a dogshit league and the football is awful. 

Yes, we won more games but I can count on one hand the amount of games where I was actually entertained. 

So you were more entertained scrapping for survival in the Premier League? Interesting. 

[VillaChris]

Imagine making this thread around 2009.

Finishing 6th is boring, let's get relegated and finish in a similar position in a league of poorer quality etc.

As a club we needed relegation and yes this season on the whole has been good if not the desired outcome.

I'd say at this point next season is more likely to be a repeat of our first year back when we finished bottom half let's remember and went three months without a win. Stuff we were doing for most of the last five years we were in the premier league.

The championship is only good if we're pretty competitive in it and I'd say that's highly doubtful with all the problems we have concerning FFP. So little different to the premier league.

[VillaChris]

17 hours ago, MrDuck said:

Meh, rather be wining games and challenging at the top end of the championship than fighting relegation year in year out in the PL.

If Burnley can finish 7th which was good enough for europa league this season no reason why we couldn't have done that within 2-3 years if we'd gone up.

They only lost 12 games out of 38. We lost 11 out of 46 so they actually were more likely to get points out of games from a higher level than we did.

[bobzy]

2 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

If Burnley can finish 7th which was good enough for europa league this season no reason why we couldn't have done that within 2-3 years if we'd gone up.

They only lost 12 games out of 38. We lost 11 out of 46 so they actually were more likely to get points out of games from a higher level than we did.

I don’t understand this last part at all. Burnley lost 31.5% of their games compared to us losing 23.9% of ours, so they’re more likely to get points out of games than us?