Championship is a good league to be in

[VillaChris]

57 minutes ago, AVTuco said:

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.

A season being exciting for once was the bare minimum.

Look at the players we've signed for this level since summer 2016. Entertaining football should've been expected but Steve Bruce has had a good go at making it no frills and very hard work to watch on occasions.

Basically with the squad we had this year it's the equivilant of Man. City finishing 6th or 7th in the premier league.

I don't understand the revising. Season 07-08 we scored I think 73 goals at premier league so one more than this year. We had a run of beating Bolton 4-0, Derby 6-0 and SHA 5-1. That was at top level so idea you can only have entertaining matches in the second division is mistaken.

[VillaChris]

1 minute ago, bobzy said:

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?

Must admit I got a little confused with the difference between playing 38 and 46 games! Hard to believe I did actually get an A Level for Maths so there's your dumbing down standards for education right there...

Point I was trying to make was I find it more impressive Burnley losing just 12 games from a smaller sample of games against some of the best teams in europe (they obiously play Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester clubs, Liverpool and Spurs 12 times so that's 12 games realistically they're not expected to win and probably lose) whereas 11 losses for us was too high considering our squad and expectations and the only really two good teams in this league were Wolves and Fulham.

[turvontour]

17 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

Nah, I don't agree with this. I want to watch football, not balance sheets. Last year, we won more than we did for years and years. I went to nearly every home game, with the belief that we might win it. If we'd gone up, I wouldn't have gone much next season. 

People watch football for different reasons. I understand yours, but they aren't the same as mine. 

I agree. I have a 5 year old lad who i want to support Villa, and thats made easier by us winning football matches.

We won more league games this season than we did across our final three Premier League seasons.

I know the Championship is bad for the club finanicially, but selfishly, i quite like seeing Villa regularly winning football matches.

[jim]

29 minutes ago, bobzy said:

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

Yes, because it was the promised land...

[VillaChris]

At the risk of getting more percentages horribly wrong...seasons 08/09 and 09/10 we won 17 out of 38 premier league games so a shade under 50% win ratio. This season 24/46 so just above 50% so minimal difference really when you take in account the quality of the premier league top 6 which is a world away from anything you get down here. (In those years of course you had likes of Man. United and Fulham in european finals).

Problem is when we don't win a huge amount at championship level. Just last season we only won 16 out of 46 games so one fewer than those good premier league seasons despite having eight extra games. With our issues I think that season is more likely to repeat next year and I imagine the championship won't seem as much fun then as we'd obviously have some long winless runs in there.

[HanoiVillan]

13 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.

Can I just say, this post is the absolute heart of the matter. People can be angry and annoyed if they want (and there are reasons to be so) but it won't change a thing, so why bother stressing. I didn't enjoy watching us lose at Wembley any more than any of the rest of you, but people have to let it go sooner or later. 

[terrytini]

22 hours ago, The Fun Factory said:

Really? Wow. Its a disaster for this club to be in the division for 3 straight years. We are fast becoming another sleeping giant irrelevance like Leeds, Forest, or Sheffield Wednesday. There is no chance we will be the biggest team in the market next summer- all 3 clubs who went down (including our wacky neighbours) will have far more money due to the parachute payments.  

It is an embarrassment that Villa got themselves in this position in the first place in getting relegated and we have now blown our best chance of getting out of this league. We have as much chance going up next season as coming mid table. For me it is going to take months to get over what happened on Saturday. 

Its all opinion of course, but Id say except for 3 seasons under MON (which weren't spectacular anyway) we' ve been that for a long long time.  Throw in a good run for a year each or so under Gregory, Little, and GT1, and that's, what about 6 decent seasons since the start of the 80's.

I prefer to think what happens next STOPS us being a sleeping giant and reinvigorates the Club properly.

[terrytini]

I have to agree that there are good reasons why its a bad thing we are in the Second Tier, no question.

But I'm surprised people cant see the good things that others have mentioned.

For myself, I love the season starting earlier, having a lot more games, and it being worth following us Away as well as at home - Id all but given up going Away towards the end of the PL............and I don't think Id have been mad keen had we gone up, Id have done it, but .......whereas I'm already looking forward to travels in a few weeks.

[bobzy]

13 hours ago, VillaChris said:

Must admit I got a little confused with the difference between playing 38 and 46 games! Hard to believe I did actually get an A Level for Maths so there's your dumbing down standards for education right there...

Point I was trying to make was I find it more impressive Burnley losing just 12 games from a smaller sample of games against some of the best teams in europe (they obiously play Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester clubs, Liverpool and Spurs 12 times so that's 12 games realistically they're not expected to win and probably lose) whereas 11 losses for us was too high considering our squad and expectations and the only really two good teams in this league were Wolves and Fulham.

One off season for Burnley though? Where they scored less than a goal-a-game and (did amazingly well, by the way) just ground out results. I won’t take anything away from them, they shouldn’t be 7th in the Prem and Sean Dyche has done a quite sublime job there. FWIW, I’d obviously rather be in Burnley’s position than our own. 

However, that isn’t a particularly entertaining season football-wise. Bruce gets absolutely slaughtered on here for having the 3rd highest scoring team in the league. Just imagine the sheer outrage of scoring less than a goal a game! 

[VillaChris]

Yeah Burnley finishing high does show the dropping off of teams below top 6. You raised a good point about how low the points totals are now for teams even in the top half.

O'Neill's first season here in 06/07 we finished 11th with 50 points. Everton finished 8th this year with 49 points.

One thing I don't understand with many posters in the thread is why people think it would be a desperate struggle if we did go up. I think many are just programmed by our car crash final few seasons in the prem when we were a mess on and off the pitch to think that's all that would happen to us in the prem.

If we'd beaten Fulham we'd be going out with a winning mentality running through the club again, one of the most exciting young players outside the top flight playing for us and Xia would've liked to have spent 50m + to improve rest of team.

I'm sure with all that behind us we could've hit around 45 points which is usually good enough for a top half season nowadays. On average it's only 7 more points than we were getting in the dismal Lambert seasons when we couldn't score a goal for about three months.

[AntrimBlack]

17 hours ago, AVTuco said:

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.

I didn't think it was exciting - I thought it was shit.

[AntrimBlack]

Have our expectations been managed downwards without us realising?

[AntrimBlack]

Will Xia be happy to be in the CH for a couple more years, or will he move on?

[S-Platt]

18 minutes ago, AntrimBlack said:

Will Xia be happy to be in the CH for a couple more years, or will he move on?

Think he and his backers have plans for the city of Birmingham not just Villa of course it's easier to get investment when we are in the Premier League but I don't see his long term plan changing.

[VillaChris]

1 hour ago, AntrimBlack said:

Have our expectations been managed downwards without us realising?

That all happened during the Lambert era.

[AVTuco]

4 hours ago, AntrimBlack said:

I didn't think it was exciting - I thought it was shit.

Really? Being competitive is exciting in my mind, but we don't all enjoy the same things. Like I said, I'm not so bothered about the overall quality of football.

[BOF]

On 28/05/2018 at 20:41, Shropshire Lad said:

There are more “What the ****?!?” results in this division than the premier league (I think).

You piqued my curiosity with this statement, and as I already had most of the info to hand, I decided to finish it off.

Now obviously it depends how you define 'WTF results'.  But let's say it constitutes a team 10 or more places lower than their opponents at that point in the season achieving a result in the game.

We'll also only count the final 29 weeks of the season, which allows the Premier League 9 weeks to arrange itself into something approximating a representative order.

Premier League
Home team 10 or more places lower than their opponent
Wins - 11
Draws - 9

Away team 10 or more places lower than their opponent
Wins - 6
Draws - 13

Championship
Home team 10 or more places lower than their opponent
Wins - 17
Draws - 20

Away team 10 or more places lower than their opponent
Wins - 6
Draws - 14

Judging by the above, the home team in the Championship has a much better chance against the top sides, but going away from home they're actually worse off than their Premier League counterparts.  Considering the Championship will have 20% more games played in that period owing to the larger league size, parity would be at least 7 wins and 15-16 draws.  I wasn't expecting that tbh.  So it's partially correct, depending on where you're playing

[AVTuco]

23 hours ago, VillaChris said:

A season being exciting for once was the bare minimum.

Look at the players we've signed for this level since summer 2016. Entertaining football should've been expected but Steve Bruce has had a good go at making it no frills and very hard work to watch on occasions.

Basically with the squad we had this year it's the equivilant of Man. City finishing 6th or 7th in the premier league.

I don't understand the revising. Season 07-08 we scored I think 73 goals at premier league so one more than this year. We had a run of beating Bolton 4-0, Derby 6-0 and SHA 5-1. That was at top level so idea you can only have entertaining matches in the second division is mistaken.

My point was that it's much more likely that we do well down here than in PL.

[ferguson1]

In answer to the title of the thread - "no it isn't"!  The longer that you're out of the Premier League, the worse it is for you financially and everyone knows this.   It's depressing to know that we'll have to sell, buy cheap players/loans and try and compete.  No disrespect to them, but it's also thoroughly depressing seeing teams line Brighton, Huddersfield, Watford etc way ahead of us now.   Whilst we'll be playing Rotherham away on a Tuesday night, probably scraping a narrow win.   I've been so fed up since Saturday and seeing the latest club statements just makes my mood even worse.   I just can't motivate myself with our club at present. 

[VillaChris]

Little chance in our current state we're going to be that more competitive in this division than premier league.

With what's happened last 48 hours us being stuck in the championship is a very bad thing, I couldn't care if we'd be more likely to win a few more games as the club is in a very bad state now.