useless Posted March 2, 2020 Share Posted March 2, 2020 (edited) Leicester have only won two of their last ten games and in that time have only taken one more point than us and we've played a game less than them, we also beat them and drew with them in the cup, so whilst they will be favorites at home against us no reason to write us off in that game if we play well we have a chance of getting a result. Looking at each fixture on an individual basis I think we're capable of winning all of them as much as we're capable of losing all of them, which is why it's hard to predict, with the exception of the Liverpool the game, and even then in football you can never be 100% certain... Everyone seems to be predicting that we'll beat Newcastle, but I think I'm less confident about that game than I am about us against some some of the better teams at VIlla Park. Edited March 2, 2020 by useless 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hitzlsperger_12 Posted March 2, 2020 Share Posted March 2, 2020 Look at the our wins this year, the coincidence I notice is that Hourihane seems to be in the squad when we've picked up those wins. Is it his set pieces? eye for a forward pass? Greater goal threat? I've no idea but we seem to get results with him playing. Food for thought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AXD Posted March 2, 2020 Share Posted March 2, 2020 3 minutes ago, Hitzlsperger_12 said: Look at the our wins this year, the coincidence I notice is that Hourihane seems to be in the squad when we've picked up those wins. Is it his set pieces? eye for a forward pass? Greater goal threat? I've no idea but we seem to get results with him playing. Food for thought. I’m a bit on the fence on Conor. Yesterday, his cameo didn’t really make a difference. He has games where he goes missing. but he does spot a pass from time to time and his set piece threat does offer us something. On the other hand, there are plenty of games where luiz and nakamba play awful but they keep their spot. So maybe Hourihane deserves more game time. also, don’t underestimate the effect of CH being here a while. Him, Jack, AEG, Mings, McGinn have been playing together for while and know how the other guys play. Right now our midfield duo have been here for half a year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ender4 Posted March 2, 2020 Share Posted March 2, 2020 time to pull off a couple of shock wins now! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elton Posted March 2, 2020 Share Posted March 2, 2020 55 minutes ago, Hitzlsperger_12 said: Look at the our wins this year, the coincidence I notice is that Hourihane seems to be in the squad when we've picked up those wins. Is it his set pieces? eye for a forward pass? Greater goal threat? I've no idea but we seem to get results with him playing. Food for thought. No, it’s because he is usually selected against the poorer teams, so our chances of a result are already higher no matter who is selected in his position. He does have moments of quality but our main issue as a team/unit is defensively and Hourihane is a liability in this respect. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted March 2, 2020 Share Posted March 2, 2020 14 hours ago, Keyblade said: Wouldn't be scared of Wolves at home at all. We've ran better teams close like Spurs and Liverpool and beaten Leicester. Hoping for at least 4 points from Sheffield United, Wolves and Palace at home. Another 3 points from Arsenal/Chelsea/United. Have to beat at least one of these some day. Absolutely must beat Newcastle away. And then at least 4 points from West Ham, Everton and Leicester. That leaves us with 39 points and a free shot at Liverpool who have hopefully wrapped up the league by then. Feels like a draw to me but they are very very good in central midfield and deadly on the counter attack. Interesting what we do for that and Sheffield United, match them with 3-5-2 and ultimately see both are simply better than us in that formation or stick with the back 4 for rest of the season and beef up central midfield. I presume that will happen when McGinn is fit and ready to start. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted March 2, 2020 Share Posted March 2, 2020 11 hours ago, Keyblade said: Brighton got tonked by City and Liverpool. Norwich sprung a couple of surprise results while West Ham were just plodding away with draws. I was possibly being harsh on us. We lost to Arsenal, Liverpool, Wolves, Everton and West Ham and drew with Palace and Chelsea. Do Liverpool really trash teams away? They only beat Brighton 2-1 at Anfield. I'm confident Watford was just a wake up call and they'll beat Brighton but think expecting them to win 4 or 5 nil is a tad optimistic. We can finish above Brighton with their run in but to do that it's far more likely we'll have to be a point better than them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted March 2, 2020 Share Posted March 2, 2020 3 hours ago, villalad21 said: Jack haven't worked as an 8. He tends to drift back to our own half when we play him there. We need him further up the pitch to make an impact. ....................Reina.................... Guilbert....Engels....Mings....Targett .................Nakamba..Luiz.................. .......................Hourihane................... Elmo..............Samatta..............Jack I'm a bit thorn regarding Engels. He's lack of pace frightens me. Thoughts? Engels was great yesterday. You have Mings alongside him and pace isn't an issue. No Mings and all our CBs are weak and exposed. Aside from that I think we might go back to how we started the season and AEM and Taylor will be the full backs for games v Liverpool, Man. United and Arsenal just to be a little more conservative and make it less likely we concede 2 or 3 goals. McGinn in for Hourihane when he's fully fit which might be the Wolves game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted March 2, 2020 Share Posted March 2, 2020 I think we'll beat Chelsea. Great time of the season to play them although wish they'd only lost 1-0 to Bayern Munich as that second leg is in the midweek after our game. Historically Chelsea is the big team at VP we've had most success against in last 20 years. I think they've won twice in that time at VP by more than a one goal margin. Recent away games are 1-0 defeat at Newcastle and 2-2 with Bournemouth so not really winning many games at all and have loads of injuries upfront. Tammy, Hudson Odoi and Pulisic all out currently so they don't have that much pace in final third compared to Spurs. If we don't it will likely be yet another game where points will slip through our grasp. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villalad21 Posted March 2, 2020 Share Posted March 2, 2020 2 minutes ago, VillaChris said: I think we'll beat Chelsea. Great time of the season to play them although wish they'd only lost 1-0 to Bayern Munich as that second leg is in the midweek after our game. Historically Chelsea is the big team at VP we've had most success against in last 20 years. I think they've won twice in that time at VP by more than a one goal margin. Recent away games are 1-0 defeat at Newcastle and 2-2 with Bournemouth so not really winning many games at all and have loads of injuries upfront. Tammy, Hudson Odoi and Pulisic all out currently so they don't have that much pace in final third compared to Spurs. If we don't it will likely be yet another game where points will slip through our grasp. Not enough teams in our fixture list will be at the beach when playing them is my worry. Newcastle and Palace potentially being the only ones. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted March 2, 2020 Share Posted March 2, 2020 21 minutes ago, villalad21 said: Not enough teams in our fixture list will be at the beach when playing them is my worry. Newcastle and Palace potentially being the only ones. West Ham may well be safe on the final day. It's the odd crux of either hoping they barely win so they can stay down there with us and then have a shoot out on the last day or hoping they pull well clear and just be mentally checked out and we can play out a draw on the last day. Everton have stopped winning now they're actually playing decent teams again so think they'll just settle back into 9th or 10th. We play them in May. Arsenal have a very tough run in. Think before they play us they've got Leicester, Spurs and Liverpool so they could easily be well adrift of top 5 although I wish they were still in europa as that really impacted on their run in last season. Still no idea when Sheffield United will be played. If it's late April then possible they might've fallen away from europe qualification and just be playing out the season although still a tough team to play and we really don't match up well against them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted March 2, 2020 Share Posted March 2, 2020 have everton and arsenal got off the beach this season? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villalad21 Posted March 2, 2020 Share Posted March 2, 2020 1 minute ago, villa4europe said: have everton and arsenal got off the beach this season? Everton and Arsenal still got European spots to fight for. They won't be at the beach the time we play them Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted March 2, 2020 Share Posted March 2, 2020 1 minute ago, villalad21 said: Everton and Arsenal still got European spots to fight for. They won't be at the beach the time we play them they're both horribly inconsistent though, I wont write those games off, got potential points in them I think out of the 10 only Liverpool, wolves and Sheffield utd are consistently good and even then I think we can potentially get points from wolves and sheffield only the Liverpool game is a complete write off, all the others you can get a glimmer of hope from, there's little cracks in more or less every team 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villalad21 Posted March 2, 2020 Share Posted March 2, 2020 Just now, villa4europe said: they're both horribly inconsistent though, I wont write those games off, got potential points in them I think out of the 10 only Liverpool, wolves and Sheffield utd are consistently good and even then I think we can potentially get points from wolves and sheffield only the Liverpool game is a complete write off, all the others you can get a glimmer of hope from, there's little cracks in more or less every team But we are terrible away. Everton look amazing after Ancelotti took over. Watch that 2nd half against United. They played them off the park. Their fans are up for it. And when it's like that Goodison Park is one of the most difficult and hostile places to go to. Arsenal game more winnable, but Aubamayang still scares me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WakefieldVillan Posted March 2, 2020 Share Posted March 2, 2020 38 minutes ago, villalad21 said: Not enough teams in our fixture list will be at the beach when playing them is my worry. Newcastle and Palace potentially being the only ones. Palace will be, they are already 9 points clear of the bottom 3 (with a much better GD) and have 6 more matches before they visit VP, that win at Brighton was a real blessing for us and hopefully Messrs Ayew and Benteke will blaze a few into the Holte (well Benteke will anyway!) Newcastle will still need points I should imagine and it will be interesting to see if they progress past the Baggies tomorrow because I think the Quarter Finals are scheduled for the 21st March which is when we visit St James Park. If they progress it could work against them and work in our favour. A couple of weeks ago I did the predictor and the results have gone pretty much what I expected so far, except for the obvious one - my final prediction ended up with the following points; Norwich 33 Villa 37 Brighton 38 West Ham 38 Watford 39 Bournemouth 39 I had us down for several draws in that including on the last day of the season at the Olympic Stadium, that game could be absolute torture. By hook or crook we need to get around 13 more points to have a chance IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
osmark86 Posted March 2, 2020 Share Posted March 2, 2020 whoever we play it's going to have to be 100% effort for each game from now on. we have to grind out hard fought wins and everyone has to feel their own personal responsibility in doing so. I liked the formation we played against man city and hope we continue with that one going forward because the playing 3 CBs experiment should be well and truly buried now. I think it will be really tight and be decided on the last day against WHU. make it count villa! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vive_La_Villa Posted March 2, 2020 Share Posted March 2, 2020 Yesterday should hopefully give everyone a much needed lift. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted March 2, 2020 Share Posted March 2, 2020 (edited) 6 hours ago, villalad21 said: But we are terrible away. Everton look amazing after Ancelotti took over. 45% win rate conceding over a goal a game and lost to Liverpool youth team What is your definition of amazing? Edited March 2, 2020 by Zatman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted March 2, 2020 Share Posted March 2, 2020 7 hours ago, villalad21 said: Everton and Arsenal still got European spots to fight for. They won't be at the beach the time we play them How far does europe do down in the league with the potential Man. City ban, 7th? Top 3 still looks secure and I'd fancy Wolves, Man. United, Chelsea and Spurs all to finish above those two still although it's pretty tight so can't really see with 2-3 games either having that much of a shot through league. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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