Premier League 2019-2020 Thread

[danceoftheshamen]

It is way too close to call in my view,

On one hand we are, despite a heck of a lot of defeats in the first half of the season exactly where i thought we would need to be points wise to be on track for survival.

21 points from 21 games was, at the start of the season, in my view the target from the first half of the season. Basically a point per game putting us well on track for 38 points.

However...... I did not take a few things into account,

Firstly a lot of our defeats have come against the teams below us, Norwich aside.

Watford 0-3

Southampton 1-3

Bournemouth 1-2

This has prevented us from being clear of trouble as we have boosted most clubs around us and to survive this needs to stop over the remainder of the season. It has also made our Goal difference much weaker whilst strengthening that of those around us as just on those 3 games we are -6 (only -3 from all the other games combined).

Secondly we have now lost a few of our top players for the second half of the season. Key players right up the spine of the team and this is very bad news. My thinking at seasons start was that we should improve for the second half of fixtures and so improve on the 1 point per game ratio slightly. I had us getting maybe 23 - 24 points from the last 19 games and us finishing on 42 - 43 points. I fear we can downgrade this now due to the injuries to key players. How much by will be determined by what signings we make and how quick/if they settle in ok. This is a big window if ever there was one!

Thirdly is the bizarre way the fixtures have fallen.

We have literally played the top half of the division away from home ( ironically aside from arguably the toughest two Leicester & Liverpool) and the bottom half we have played all at home aside from Watford & Norwich (Again ironically the two lowest placed teams as we speak!!) I am not sure i like this as it effectively means, having now played the Norwich home game, that we have played all bar one of our easiest home games and thus have already played our most likely winnable fixtures. Especially if you also consider Watford are now playing like a different team under their new manager!

So it's very tough to call and we really need to become a good away side in the 2nd half of the season. Thankfully we got off to a great start at Burnley but now that team has lost two key components in Heaton & Wesley.

This window is Huge!! Please get it right Dean!

 

Edited January 6, 2020 by danceoftheshamen

[Rob182]

42 minutes ago, danceoftheshamen said:

So it's very tough to call and we really need to become a good away side in the 2nd half of the season. Thankfully we got off to a great start at Burnley but now that team has lost two key components in Heaton & Wesley.

This window is Huge!! Please get it right Dean!

I think we will. Our results haven't reflected our performances for many of our away games.

Spurs, we looked good, but collapsed at the end.

Arsenal, see above plus VAR failure.

Palace, Kevin Friend happened.

Man Utd, we were disappointed to only leave with 1 point.

I'm sure there are more examples of where our early season performances were undone by individual errors and calamitous moments. 

As the season goes on, the points (or lack of) from away games start to become a horrible stat that is shared around social media, which makes us look like our away team is akin to Remi Garde and his band of 2015/16 misfits, but actually, our whole season has been all about fine margins, as opposed to gaping chasms.

I hope that the Burnley game was us turning a corner, and becoming more streetwise and finding a formation that fits our players.

Or maybe I'm just being overly optimistic!

[omariqy]

7 hours ago, The Hawk said:

A draw away to a team that has W19 D1 L0 is pretty optimistic

Haha that should obviously be a L!

[omariqy]

I know 8 draws is probably unrealistic but then winning only 3 more games the rest of the season is pretty negative imo. Just trade 3 of those draws for another win and it's much more feasible. 

[VillaChris]

@omariqy "pessimistic" but giving us an away point at Anfield.

BTW I assume we're sacking DS and re-appointing McLeish...7 out of your last 8 are draws!

I can't really see us grinding our way to safety, it will hopefully be more like losing two and winning two like the xmas games.

[VillaChris]

9 hours ago, Laughable Chimp said:

I think people are just wired to give the benefit of the doubt to their team when they do these kinds of predictors. Tend to just give wins for most of the winnable fixtures and then put in a couple of draws for some of the difficult games purely on the basis that they might nick a couple of them.

Even though history has shown we don't win most of our winnable fixtures and the only difficult game we got a draw of is United.

Very true. I also think that's the case when people predict our results against the higher teams in the league. Arsenal, Spurs and Man. United have been s*** for large parts of this season. Chelsea have been better but they've provided our relegation rivals with even more points recently than the first three!

Yet most will probably have us losing majority of those games as happened in first half of the season. If that happens again I can't see us staying up as that would mean we wouldn't be winning many home games and so too much pressure on six pointers like Watford.

[omariqy]

34 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

@omariqy "pessimistic" but giving us an away point at Anfield.

BTW I assume we're sacking DS and re-appointing McLeish...7 out of your last 8 are draws!

I can't really see us grinding our way to safety, it will hopefully be more like losing two and winning two like the xmas games.

Sorry that should have been a L. I did put that down as a loss originally. We may not draw 8 games but we probably will win more than 3 games. Say we win 4 and draw 5. Still the same result.

[fightoffyour]

1 minute ago, omariqy said:

Sorry that should have been a L. I did put that down as a loss originally. We may not draw 8 games but we probably will win more than 3 games. Say we win 4 and draw 5. Still the same result.

Relegation? 

[KentVillan]

12 hours ago, VillaChris said:

@omariqy "pessimistic" but giving us an away point at Anfield.

BTW I assume we're sacking DS and re-appointing McLeish...7 out of your last 8 are draws!

I can't really see us grinding our way to safety, it will hopefully be more like losing two and winning two like the xmas games.

Agree on us not grinding our way to safety, but a draw isn't always a result you grind out. Sometimes it's just a free scoring 2-2 or whatever, as we had against Man Utd.

The good thing is we only have 2 or 3 games left where I'd say we're overwhelming favourites to lose. Everything else is up for grabs. Games like Chelsea at Villa Park or Man Utd at Villa Park are very winnable.

[Vive_La_Villa]

12 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

Agree on us not grinding our way to safety, but a draw isn't always a result you grind out. Sometimes it's just a free scoring 2-2 or whatever, as we had against Man Utd.

The good thing is we only have 2 or 3 games left where I'd say we're overwhelming favourites to lose. Everything else is up for grabs. Games like Chelsea at Villa Park or Man Utd at Villa Park are very winnable.

Exactly. Take away City, Liverpool and maybe Leicester games I fancy us to try and get something from the remaining games. We really could do with Villa Park being a fortress though. 

[useless]

Taking each game in isolation, a result is possible in all our remaining fixtures, the only one that would majorly surprise me if we got anything would be Liverpool away.

[terrytini]

1 hour ago, useless said:

Taking each game in isolation, a result is possible in all our remaining fixtures, the only one that would majorly surprise me if we got anything would be Liverpool away.

Agree - it would really be something if we beat them twice  in one season when nobody else manages it once!

Edited January 7, 2020 by terrytini

[omariqy]

10 hours ago, terrytini said:

Agree - it would really be something if we beat them twice  in one season when nobody else manages it once!

We should already have beaten them twice tbh

[MarkLillis]

I am feeling more optimistic after the Burnley performance.

It showed that we can and will change formation.

It showed that we have some fight, as they were always going to come at us second half and despite two injury's we held firm.

The transfer window is here and we are planning to use it.

Most of our games this season have been tightly contested affairs. December being the only month where our opposition have comfortably taken the points and even then it hasn't been in all matches. 

T o be honest IMO we have been the bottom of the table and survived with a worse squad of players and manager at our disposal.

[BOF]

I was curious to re-visit the pre-season accusation of many rival fans and pundits that Villa would 'dO a FuLhAm' this season, by checking how both sides have done up to gameweek 21.

If it wasn't already obvious that we're not doing a Fulham, I think we can put it to bed now.

At this point last season Fulham had 3 wins.  We have 6 (+100%)
They had 14pts. We have 21 (+50%)
They scored 19.  We have 27 (+42%)
Conceded 47. We have 37 (-27%)
Fulham were 19th and 4pts from safety.  We're 17th and have spent 6 out of 21 weekends in the relegation places (and even they were only just).  They had spent 15 out of 21 in total, but more significantly they had spent the previous 13 weeks inside it (and would never again get out).

That's not even the worst for them though.  From gameweeks 22 to 33 inclusive, Fulham were about to go on a run of 11 defeats and 1 win.  That would put them on 17pts after 33 games.  In fact it took Fulham until the 20th of April (gameweek 35) to get more points on the board (23) than we currently have now (21).

Their mini-run of 3 'garbage time' wins from gameweek 34 thru 36 was far too little too late, and put some artificial gloss on a turd of a season that was, in reality, done and dusted by February.

We may or may not end up going back down, but we've not done a Fulham.

[Tomaszk]

3 hours ago, BOF said:

I was curious to re-visit the pre-season accusation of many rival fans and pundits that Villa would 'dO a FuLhAm' this season, by checking how both sides have done up to gameweek 21.

If it wasn't already obvious that we're not doing a Fulham, I think we can put it to bed now.

At this point last season Fulham had 3 wins.  We have 6 (+100%)
They had 14pts. We have 21 (+50%)
They scored 19.  We have 27 (+42%)
Conceded 47. We have 37 (-27%)
Fulham were 19th and 4pts from safety.  We're 17th and have spent 6 out of 21 weekends in the relegation places (and even they were only just).  They had spent 15 out of 21 in total, but more significantly they had spent the previous 13 weeks inside it (and would never again get out).

That's not even the worst for them though.  From gameweeks 22 to 33 inclusive, Fulham were about to go on a run of 11 defeats and 1 win.  That would put them on 17pts after 33 games.  In fact it took Fulham until the 20th of April (gameweek 35) to get more points on the board (23) than we currently have now (21).

Their mini-run of 3 'garbage time' wins from gameweek 34 thru 36 was far too little too late, and put some artificial gloss on a turd of a season that was, in reality, done and dusted by February.

We may or may not end up going back down, but we've not done a Fulham.

Good numbers. I agree sir.

Now will you lock that doing a Fulham thread up then, it annoys me seeing it on here

[VillaChris]

Everyone looking forward to Sunday then.

Man. City destroying their neighbours, all this with Aguero and Gabi Jesus as subs.

[Rightdm00]

8 hours ago, BOF said:

I was curious to re-visit the pre-season accusation of many rival fans and pundits that Villa would 'dO a FuLhAm' this season, by checking how both sides have done up to gameweek 21.

If it wasn't already obvious that we're not doing a Fulham, I think we can put it to bed now.

At this point last season Fulham had 3 wins.  We have 6 (+100%)
They had 14pts. We have 21 (+50%)
They scored 19.  We have 27 (+42%)
Conceded 47. We have 37 (-27%)
Fulham were 19th and 4pts from safety.  We're 17th and have spent 6 out of 21 weekends in the relegation places (and even they were only just).  They had spent 15 out of 21 in total, but more significantly they had spent the previous 13 weeks inside it (and would never again get out).

That's not even the worst for them though.  From gameweeks 22 to 33 inclusive, Fulham were about to go on a run of 11 defeats and 1 win.  That would put them on 17pts after 33 games.  In fact it took Fulham until the 20th of April (gameweek 35) to get more points on the board (23) than we currently have now (21).

Their mini-run of 3 'garbage time' wins from gameweek 34 thru 36 was far too little too late, and put some artificial gloss on a turd of a season that was, in reality, done and dusted by February.

We may or may not end up going back down, but we've not done a Fulham.

Completely agree all that Fulham stuff can be put to bed.  Not to be buzzkill but I think the team we are more closely tracking is Cardiff City. They had a difficult time drawing they either won or lost (10W 4D 24L). At this point in the season they had 18 points and were 16th. They to had an issue fielding a prem quality striker (their leading scorer finished with 5 goals). They spent a sizeable sum on a striker from Nantes but I think we are all familiar with what happened after that. It's likely if Sala had survived that plane ride they are still in the prem right now. 

So let also hope we don't pull a Cardiff City as well. 

[VillaJ100]

27 minutes ago, Rightdm00 said:

Completely agree all that Fulham stuff can be put to bed.  Not to be buzzkill but I think the team we are more closely tracking is Cardiff City. They had a difficult time drawing they either won or lost (10W 4D 24L). At this point in the season they had 18 points and were 16th. They to had an issue fielding a prem quality striker (their leading scorer finished with 5 goals). They spent a sizeable sum on a striker from Nantes but I think we are all familiar with what happened after that. It's likely if Sala had survived that plane ride they are still in the prem right now. 

So let also hope we don't pull a Cardiff City as well. 

I think Wes already has 5? It's likely he would have got at least a few more. 

[villalad21]

City game is a write off.