Premier League 2019-2020 Thread

[Delphinho123]

11 minutes ago, Elton said:

Guess you stopped watching after the first half. Liverpool away won’t be the reason we survive or get relegated.

We say this far too often. Let’s just not bother going then, save on the petrol. 

[Elton]

2 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

We say this far too often. Let’s just not bother going then, save on the petrol. 

I don’t remember saying we’ll lose? In fact I kind of implied we shouldn’t be overly fearful of that game. They will have won the league by then and will be playing their kids whilst resting up for a CL match. 

[Only2McInallys]

That Burnley result has made me realise relegation is now a real possibility.

You look at teams like West Ham ,they have some really good players and will probably have enough to escape.aWatford are looking really good now and are getting great results against top 6 sides.

What got us promoted last year and what we need now is. Momentum.I think yesterday’s draw and the win away at Burnley may be the beginning of our second wind.We seem more determined and with Mings back are holding on better at the end of games.

We need some luck with our new signings but let’s not forget this time last year we were 12 th in the championship.

We also need positive energy at Villa park similar to what our away fans provide.

[jim]

30 minutes ago, romavillan said:

Play like we did away at Spurs and Arsenal at home and we could turn them over. Or at least get points. At home with VP rocking if we get about it we could do United, Wolves or the blades as well. I'm not by any means saying we will as we are not consistent enough over 90 minutes let alone week to week to know how it will go against anyone at the moment. It's not beyond us though. 3 wins at home and 1 away and a few draws is 15 points.

Problem is we haven’t played anywhere close to those performances for months. I can’t see, how all of a sudden we will. If anything we’ve gone backwards 

[supermon]

19 minutes ago, Londonastonvilla said:

That Burnley result has made me realise relegation is now a real possibility.

You look at teams like West Ham ,they have some really good players and will probably have enough to escape.aWatford are looking really good now and are getting great results against top 6 sides.

What got us promoted last year and what we need now is. Momentum.I think yesterday’s draw and the win away at Burnley may be the beginning of our second wind.We seem more determined and with Mings back are holding on better at the end of games.

We need some luck with our new signings but let’s not forget this time last year we were 12 th in the championship.

We also need positive energy at Villa park similar to what our away fans provide.

My concerns too, just got to hope Burnley and Watford stay within touching distance. Can't see West Ham in that mix with the quality of players they have

[Zhan_Zhuang]

Bad result for us today, really hoped Burnley will get sucked in. However they still have some awfully difficult fixtures!

Edited January 19, 2020 by Zhan_Zhuang

[John]

35 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

That Burnley result may be the worst single result of the season for us (outside of our own results). 

Of our remaining home games I think we have to look at Watford and Palace as potential points. I can't see us getting anything from Spurs, Chelsea, Man United, Arsenal or Wolves and Sheffield United will be tricky - hopefully we fluke something out of one of those, but it's our away games against Bournemouth, Southampton, Newcastle and West Ham where we'll need to pick up points. 

14 more points will give us a shot at it, 15 will make us likely to stay up and I feel and 38 is pretty much guaranteed safety.  So, four wins and three draws from fifteen games should be enough. 

It's going to be as tight as a gnats chuff.

I agree that the gap between 18th and the next couple of clubs is likely to be wafer thin and that 38 points may well secure our safety. We may also need something from the last game, which could determine whether we or West Ham take the drop.

I see our home games against Watford and Palace as potentially winnable. We can also take a point, if not all three when Wolves, Manchester United, Arsenal, Spurs and Sheffield United visit us. Villa Park and our home results in front of our home fans, can in my opinion determine our fate. Wins or a point at Bournemouth, Southampton, Newcastle and West Ham, are also not totally beyond us. I would only write off the game at Anfield at the moment. I'm being a bit cup half full, I accept and things could go horribly wrong, but until they do, I refuse to accept that they are likely to.

[markavfc40]

17 minutes ago, Zhan_Zhuang said:

Bad result for us today, really hoped Burnley will get sucked in. However they still have some awfully difficult fixtures!

Leicester let them off the hook today. I think they will be well in the mix to be relegated as they look very pedestrian and lack creativity. 

I think West Ham and Watford may well pull away but would not be surprised to see Newcastle or Southampton slump again and get dragged in with Norwich, Bournemouth,  Brighton, Burnley and ourselves.

It'll go to the wire.

[Elton]

10 minutes ago, markavfc40 said:

Leicester let them off the hook today. I think they will be well in the mix to be relegated as they look very pedestrian and lack creativity. 

I think West Ham and Watford may well pull away but would not be surprised to see Newcastle or Southampton slump again and get dragged in with Norwich, Bournemouth,  Brighton, Burnley and ourselves.

It'll go to the wire.

I agree that they both should be doing better but West Ham’s upcoming fixtures are as bad as you can get. I would be surprised if they are not in the bottom 3 by the end of March. 
 

If we beat Watford on Tuesday they would have to be massively deflated to find themselves back in the relegation zone again after their great run so I wouldn’t rule them out just yet. This could be wishful thinking of course!

[Laughable Chimp]

I would expect a lot of the teams above to start pulling away tbh. 

The teams I expect to be in the relegation mix are us, Bournemouth, Norwich, West Ham and Newcastle.

Burnley and Brighton will probably occupy the 15-14 position imo. Trash on a bad day, but not consistently trash enough to be sucked into the relegation scrap.

Southampton and Watford barring a complete destruction of their form will probably be safe above. They should have enough quality to safely survive and they were arguably heavily underperforming earlier in the season anyway.

I think Bournemouth are going down if they stick with Eddie Howe. I'm not familliar with their transfers this January but without a big change, I think they're done.

I expect Norwich to start to gain a bit of form in the final stretches, but its most likely too late.

Newcastle will be down with us if their luck doesn't hold up. The question is if they continue to get lucky or if their early season form is enough to keep them safe.

For us? I don't think the current team under Smith is underperforming. Similar to Bournemouth, without big changes I think we're done for. Our entire future probably rests on how our January signings turn out.

 

Edit: For some reason I thought Ancelotti was managing West Ham. My bad. Its Moyes eh? Could go either way.

 

 

Edited January 19, 2020 by Laughable Chimp

[OutByEaster?]

2 minutes ago, Laughable Chimp said:

The teams I expect to be in the relegation mix are us, Bournemouth, Norwich, West Ham and Newcastle.

I think Newcastle are fairly safe on 29 points - they might only need 1 win, 4 draws and 10 defeats to stay up - two wins and they're pretty much guaranteed.

I think the Burnley result today is absolutely massive - I think Norwich and Bournemouth will go and it's now a straight fight between us and Brighton for the last spot.

 

 

[Kiwivillan]

5 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

I think Newcastle are fairly safe on 29 points - they might only need 1 win, 4 draws and 10 defeats to stay up - two wins and they're pretty much guaranteed.

I think the Burnley result today is absolutely massive - I think Norwich and Bournemouth will go and it's now a straight fight between us and Brighton for the last spot.

 

 

West Ham?

[VillaChris]

3 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

That Burnley result may be the worst single result of the season for us (outside of our own results). 

Of our remaining home games I think we have to look at Watford and Palace as potential points. I can't see us getting anything from Spurs, Chelsea, Man United, Arsenal or Wolves and Sheffield United will be tricky - hopefully we fluke something out of one of those, but it's our away games against Bournemouth, Southampton, Newcastle and West Ham where we'll need to pick up points. 

14 more points will give us a shot at it, 15 will make us likely to stay up and I feel and 38 is pretty much guaranteed safety.  So, four wins and three draws from fifteen games should be enough. 

It's going to be as tight as a gnats chuff.

 

I think we'll go down pretty comfortably if we just concede home defeats to these "top" teams, we need at least one win from those games to stay up I think.

Can I ask @OutByEaster? why you don't think we have any chance of even draws in those games? If you don't think our current team has the bottle/belief (which is far enough given how we messed up winnable situations in some of the games already) surely we should be signing some players in this window who can improve our mentality in those games? That's one way I'll be judging this transfer window, will we sign some players who can make a difference v likes of Arsenal and Spurs. Other relegation threatened teams have those players like Saint Maxmim who hit a wonderful cross for the Newcastle winner yesterday,

Also we've won as many away games as Arsenal and Spurs this season and one fewer than Man. United. We were really poor away in the first half of the season so that dosen't say a huge amount for them does it? I imagine we'll be playing a few of those (and Wolves) around europa league games aswell.

Just feels to me the crowd will start sighing and getting frustrated early on at misplaced passes in those games and the players will see that as an excuse to clock off again rather than digging in and being hard to break down.

[VillaChris]

3 hours ago, Delphinho123 said:

We say this far too often. Let’s just not bother going then, save on the petrol. 

That one's just being realistic I'm afraid, Liverpool haven't dropped a league point at Anfield since sometime in 2018 which is mad. Hopefully it won't be 6-1 like Man. City though as GD suddenly becomes critical in the last few weeks.

Liverpool could also break the Arsenal 49 game unbeaten record v us.

Guess we could always get Lambert back just for that one fixture, he always seemed to morph into a cross of Guardiola/Klopp for the Anfield games!

Edited January 19, 2020 by VillaChris

[VillaChris]

44 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

I think Newcastle are fairly safe on 29 points - they might only need 1 win, 4 draws and 10 defeats to stay up - two wins and they're pretty much guaranteed.

I think the Burnley result today is absolutely massive - I think Norwich and Bournemouth will go and it's now a straight fight between us and Brighton for the last spot.

 

 

I'd agree with that but worth noting in the McLeish season after we beat Wolves on 21st Jan we had 27 points. We then seemed content to draw our way to safety and as we saw were clinging on at the end when QPR went on that mad run.

There will be someone above who'll just stop winning and start to drop but think they have enough points to survive. If you have 38 points after 37 games then I don't think that team will be safe going into the last day so still a bit of work for plenty of teams to do.

[Keyblade]

1 minute ago, VillaChris said:

I'd agree with that but worth noting in the McLeish season after we beat Wolves on 21st Jan we had 27 points. We then seemed content to draw our way to safety and as we saw were clinging on at the end when QPR went on that mad run.

There will be someone above who'll just stop winning and start to drop but think they have enough points to survive. If you have 38 points after 37 games then I don't think that team will be safe going into the last day so still a bit of work for plenty of teams to do.

Or even the season Newcastle dropped. They were on 35 points around April if I remember correctly. Teams can easily go on huge losing runs.

[zab6359]

I want to see where we are at after the Watford and Bournemouth games, if we can't take any points from either of them we are as good as down I think. I reckon anyone above Burnley is odds on to stay up but the rest is so close and despite the Leicester win Burnleys form is horrible!

 

[OutByEaster?]

Quote

Can I ask @OutByEaster? why you don't think we have any chance of even draws in those games? If you don't think our current team has the bottle/belief (which is far enough given how we messed up winnable situations in some of the games already) surely we should be signing some players in this window who can improve our mentality in those games? That's one way I'll be judging this transfer window, will we sign some players who can make a difference v likes of Arsenal and Spurs. Other relegation threatened teams have those players like Saint Maxmim who hit a wonderful cross for the Newcastle winner yesterday,

I should say, I don't necessarily think we'll lose all our home games against all those teams, just that I don't think we can expect to get anything out of them - I'm sure we'll get one result from that group, be it a good draw or a surprise win - but I think our away games are much more winnable - there's every chance we might not win another home game - I think it's possible we could win four away.

I don't necessarily think it's mentality that's the cause of our not beating a big team this season - I think it's quality, or at least balance of quality - in terms of players that can do a bit extra, I'll see your Saint-Maxim and raise you a Jack Grealish. It's the balance of quality in our team that I think is an issue, that and our depth.

We have eight home games left - seven of those are from teams in the top half.

We have seven away games left - only two of those are against teams in the top half.

I think it'll come down to how many we can win on the road.

Quote

 If you have 38 points after 37 games then I don't think that team will be safe going into the last day so still a bit of work for plenty of teams to do.

I agree with everything else wholeheartedly, but I have a feeling that 37 points from 38 games will keep you up.

In the last 21 years, you've only needed 40 points to stay up twice (and one of those was hilarious) - last season you only needed 35. I think 37 will be enough this season and 36 might well do the job.

 

 

 

 

[Kiwivillan]

5 minutes ago, zab6359 said:

I want to see where we are at after the Watford and Bournemouth games, if we can't take any points from either of them we are as good as down I think. I reckon anyone above Burnley is odds on to stay up but the rest is so close and despite the Leicester win Burnleys form is horrible!

 

Bournemouth is key. Watford are 3rd behind Liverpool and Man City in the form table last 8 games. People just looking at position on the table and ignoring current form. Need Sarr out to have a chance I think

[Hornso]

We've taken 6 points off Norwich, 4 off each of Brighton & Burnley, 3 off each of Everton & Newcastle and 1 off each of United & West Ham.

I know it's great to get the better of the sides around us, but to stay up we're going to have to pick up a few wins against sides we're not expected to beat because everyone else seems to be doing it.