Doing a Fulham

[KentVillan]

43 minutes ago, cheltenham_villa said:

Most fans seemed to predict a finish in or around the relegation spots. As such surely the expectation is we would spend time in the bottom 3. If you dont want to do a Fulham the answer is to keep the faith in your management and then systems that got you promoted. 

Bang on. We're still in the title race at the moment! Only 9 points off 1st!

[LakotaDakota]

1 hour ago, Villan_of_oz said:

How many games have we lost in a row??? Complete hyperbole at its best.....

TBF we have lost 3 of our 4 games so far..

[Villan_of_oz]

5 hours ago, LakotaDakota said:

TBF we have lost 3 of our 4 games so far..

I'm aware of that, and whilst I know it isn't great to have only 3 points from 4 games, it's also not bad enough to warrant some of the comments that I've read.

If after 12 games we only have 9 points then I'll be just as concerned but until then I'm going to continue to be astounded by some of the negativity.

[Vive_La_Villa]

Looking at the fixtures I can see us getting about 11 points from the next 13 games which sounds bad just wouldn’t be the end of the world. 

After that we have 5 games in a row which are all 6 pointers. Win 3 of those and we’ll be on  23 points by the 2nd Jan which would have us outside the bottom 3 based on the last 3 seasons.

That December period will be massive.

[alreadyexists]

Winning 1 in 3 over the season would be roughly 12 wins 36 pts... a few draws as well and I think we’ll stay up. 

Can’t make any real judgments about the league in September, we’ll know more by Christmas.

[TRO]

On 31/08/2019 at 17:39, Villarocker said:

My concern is that people will (if they haven't already) start panicking and that will spread to the players and make them nervous. We have a much younger squad these days and they are largely adjusting to Premier League and area. Most probably don't even have a home laid down here! 

Those players need our undivided support. If we give them that, they will be fine. Getting on their backs will make them nervous and it'll just make life harder for them. 

 

I think the key here is "young"......If we had an older squad I would be more concerned.

They have the possibility of improvement on their side as the season progresses.....but young players are notoriously inconsistent, we have to be patient.

dare I say this, but if we do go down, unlike last time, I think we will come straight back up.We are much stronger now as a group.

I don't think some fans quite realised how bad we was when we went down, despite only winning 3 games to help us realise.

It is incremental, but we are getting stronger all the time.

Edited September 7, 2019 by TRO

[KenjiOgiwara]

8 hours ago, alreadyexists said:

Winning 1 in 3 over the season would be roughly 12 wins 36 pts... a few draws as well and I think we’ll stay up. 

Can’t make any real judgments about the league in September, we’ll know more by Christmas.

You mean 1 in 4 surely? 

[A'Villan]

On 07/09/2019 at 06:59, cheltenham_villa said:

Most fans seemed to predict a finish in or around the relegation spots. As such surely the expectation is we would spend time in the bottom 3. If you dont want to do a Fulham the answer is to keep the faith in your management and then systems that got you promoted. 

Good post.

Especially when those systems are delivering in making the team a competitive outfit, which Fulham very much were, they just didn't get the all important results.

Sacking Jokanovic was silly and cost Fulham their PL status IMO. It's one thing to be ambitious but it must be backed up the ability to thrive and the qualities which allow for that.

Unfortunately for Fulham, they were displaying the ability to excel, but weren't rewarded for their efforts as they might've been. They made a bad situation worse sacking Jokanovic.

They had their flaws and that's what was exposed by teams who were able to capitalise despite creating less and retaining possession less than Fulham over 90 minutes.

I'm not saying they would've stayed up had he stayed on, but I think they were on the wrong side of results for a period that seemed unusual given the balance of play.

As for us, we've had quite a few changes since promotion and very little time to implement a culture and strategy for how we approach becoming a winning PL side.

It's quite remarkable that we're even back in this league if you consider how uninspired and destined for another year in the championship we were one year ago from now.

Smith hasn't even been here a year, majority of playing personnel have had less than a handful of opportunities to integrate where it matters. It's all very fresh.

Even players who were influential in promotion haven't really spent much time at the club, McGinn just over a year, Mings a few months under. Grealish is the only mainstay.

I can't recall or locate the exact stats for percentage of squad carrying over from one campaign to the next for each PL team this season. But it's quite a significant difference.

Hopefully someone can refresh with the actual figures, but from memory we have replaced 40% of our squad, compared to the 5-10% for majority if not all other clubs.

Then consider that of the players we have retained, some are not up to standard, most have zero experience in a league of this difficulty, few have played any football together.

And yet Smith has managed to recruit players who are seemingly up to standard and some, as well as getting performances out of those who might not impress but have a role.

 

 

[Tomaszk]

On 07/09/2019 at 12:45, Villan_of_oz said:

I'm aware of that, and whilst I know it isn't great to have only 3 points from 4 games, it's also not bad enough to warrant some of the comments that I've read.

If after 12 games we only have 9 points then I'll be just as concerned but until then I'm going to continue to be astounded by some of the negativity.

You could add to the debate and say why you're so positive? It may even spread and you'd see less upsetting comments that astound you.

Much better to give your own opinion than sneer at others. Helps discussion on the forum.

[romavillan]

Just seen on Twitter a lot of folk saying we should be getting minimum 8-10 points from the next 5. Not sure what planet they are on, if we get 7 it'll be a good return really, even if we have Man City and Liverpool back to back afterwards. We haven't clicked yet, we look nervous too quite a lot and we have a lot of work to do to get to the point where everyone knows exactly  how this new squad will fit together. 

[Delphinho123]

Yeh. We’re not doing a Fulham because they had a squad and added to it with shite players at the last minute. 

We didn’t have a squad so we had to buy players just to field a team that can compete.

If we go down, it will be a failing of the scouting and management to identify the correct players to add to the 3/4 we had that were premier league quality.

Anyway, who cares if we ‘do a Fulham’ (which we’re not), if we go down we go down. We’ll have failed. Don’t let the cretins on twitter bother you. 

[Villan_of_oz]

6 hours ago, Tomaszk said:

You could add to the debate and say why you're so positive? It may even spread and you'd see less upsetting comments that astound you.

Much better to give your own opinion than sneer at others. Helps discussion on the forum.

Sneer? I don't think I've done anything of the sort. I've just said I'll wait till we have played a few more games until I put any or all of my eggs in one basket. 

I think I offered my opinion by saying if after 12 games we have 9 points I will then be concerned. 

There is definitely some sneering going on, just not by me!

 

 

[briny_ear]

On 07/09/2019 at 22:20, KenjiOgiwara said:

You mean 1 in 4 surely? 

1in 4 would be about 9-10 wins so not so comfy. We need about 10 draws on top of that to be really sure of survival.

[VillaChris]

4 hours ago, romavillan said:

Just seen on Twitter a lot of folk saying we should be getting minimum 8-10 points from the next 5. Not sure what planet they are on, if we get 7 it'll be a good return really, even if we have Man City and Liverpool back to back afterwards. We haven't clicked yet, we look nervous too quite a lot and we have a lot of work to do to get to the point where everyone knows exactly  how this new squad will fit together. 

Guess they see West Ham as same as Everton, special night atmosphere will win us three points again but not as simply as that.

Burnley and Brighton obviously nobodies at prem level so two wins there...that logic worked out well v Bournemouth.

And a win at Norwich...even though we've lost out last four at Carrow Road.

I'd be very happy with 7 points, expecting 5 which won't have us in a great position ahead of a very tough November-early December period but that's the road we're on.

[VillaChris]

7 minutes ago, briny_ear said:

1in 4 would be about 9-10 wins so not so comfy. We need about 10 draws on top of that to be really sure of survival.

We need 30 points at home so 10% of the way there. It is a formula that has kept likes of Stoke and Burnley up in recent times as you only need 7-8 points away which is very little over a season.

[tomav84]

10 hours ago, VillaChris said:

Guess they see West Ham as same as Everton, special night atmosphere will win us three points again but not as simply as that.

Burnley and Brighton obviously nobodies at prem level so two wins there...that logic worked out well v Bournemouth.

And a win at Norwich...even though we've lost out last four at Carrow Road.

I'd be very happy with 7 points, expecting 5 which won't have us in a great position ahead of a very tough November-early December period but that's the road we're on.

7 points really should be the minimum over the next 5. i said all along we should be aiming for 9 on the board by end sept. west ham are good, but we need to be winning these home games. yeah bournemouth was disappointing, but avoidable. we weren't outclassed by them. and yeah you quite rightly mention our record at carrow road...lets be positive and talk about our record at the emirates instead

Edited September 13, 2019 by tomav84

[romavillan]

16 hours ago, VillaChris said:

Guess they see West Ham as same as Everton, special night atmosphere will win us three points again but not as simply as that.

Burnley and Brighton obviously nobodies at prem level so two wins there...that logic worked out well v Bournemouth.

And a win at Norwich...even though we've lost out last four at Carrow Road.

I'd be very happy with 7 points, expecting 5 which won't have us in a great position ahead of a very tough November-early December period but that's the road we're on.

Totally, it's the way people seem to think that Burnley, Brighton, Norwich are gimmies that most gobsmacks me really. Before we get the right to think like that about anyone in this league we need to earn it, either by being comfortable top half or by staying up a couple of times and being established in this league. 

I think West Ham might be a classic, might be on the wrong end of a 5 goal thriller, might be on the right end of it. I'd be surprised to see us click so fast though, we've had an hour against Bournemouth where we've looked good, looked great on the counter against Everton. We've not really seen much else yet so where this idea comes from that we're just going to walk games at this level comes from I don't know.

Love Smith, love the project, love captain Gresford, love McGinn, love the atmosphere at home against Everton, love the new owners and Purslow, so much awesome about us right now but we need to be patient and we need to support them even is we don't stay up this year.

[VillaJ100]

If we lose to West ham, draw with Burnley and Brighton and lose the other two ill be seriously worried. We need about 5 points from these as an absolute minimum. As a relegation fighting team which 90% of the playoff winners are, the twelve games against the top 6 you have to hope for about 3-4 points maximum anything else is a bonus, zero points is realistic. That leaves 26 games to get results from. We've already shagged two against Bournemouth and Palace. 

[screwdriver]

On 12/09/2019 at 20:53, Delphinho123 said:

Yeh. We’re not doing a Fulham because they had a squad and added to it with shite players at the last minute. 

The biggest concern is most of these players who came in to villa were 2nd or third choice. smith wanted phillips from leeds butland from stoke and some spanish winger mentioned in the evening mail (instead of the laughably named trezouget). and probably abraham back. He had to make do with compromises. Just like lambert who had tapped up  lukaku and coutiniho only to be told "paddy reilly says cost too much tonev's stats look impressive for bulgarian league"

If the owners are so rich why are they moaning about 5 million quid here or there? 

At liverpool Klop wanted Van dyke there was no plan b if saints said no so they blew them out the water and now they have an awesome team that never loses.

[Vive_La_Villa]

28 minutes ago, screwdriver said:

The biggest concern is most of these players who came in to villa were 2nd or third choice. smith wanted phillips from leeds butland from stoke and some spanish winger mentioned in the evening mail (instead of the laughably named trezouget). and probably abraham back. He had to make do with compromises. Just like lambert who had tapped up  lukaku and coutiniho only to be told "paddy reilly says cost too much tonev's stats look impressive for bulgarian league"

If the owners are so rich why are they moaning about 5 million quid here or there? 

At liverpool Klop wanted Van dyke there was no plan b if saints said no so they blew them out the water and now they have an awesome team that never loses.

You sound like Sam Alledyce and would have a good point if we didn’t need to buy so many players.

But then you expect this shit from a pundit that doesn’t bother to research how much of a rebuild we needed. 

And probably from a bluenose.

Edited September 15, 2019 by Vive_La_Villa