ender4 Posted January 24, 2021 Share Posted January 24, 2021 53 minutes ago, dont_do_it_doug. said: If we were to win our games in hand (I know) we would be top 6? What do you think is going to hold us back? The other 5 teams ahead of us at that point Anyway, I think if we win our 2 games in hand we go 4th just above Liverpool. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ender4 Posted January 24, 2021 Share Posted January 24, 2021 Just now, messi11 said: Would love us to sign Folarin Balogun on a free from Arsenal. Hes highly rated there. He proven he can score goals in senior football aswell. He could compete with Watkins and be our 2nd striker. Send Davis on loan I don’t think Arsenal are going to sell us any more of their fringe players ever again 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post dudevillaisnice Posted January 24, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted January 24, 2021 28 minutes ago, villalad21 said: If we were in the Europa League and fighting for top 6 in the league I'd rather focus on the league and play the B team in Europa. Like we did under MON MON was an idiot for doing that. Dean won’t make that same mistake if it came to it. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villalad21 Posted January 24, 2021 Author Share Posted January 24, 2021 (edited) 9 minutes ago, dudevillaisnice said: MON was an idiot for doing that. Dean won’t make that same mistake if it came to it. Evidence suggest otherwise. Dean is always playing his B teams in the cup. The exception being the semi final against Leicester. But up until then we pretty much played our weakened team Edited January 24, 2021 by villalad21 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mic09 Posted January 24, 2021 Share Posted January 24, 2021 1 minute ago, villalad21 said: Evidence suggest otherwise. Dean is always playing his B teams in the cup. The exception being the semi final against Leicester. But up until then we pretty much played our weakened team In the cup against Peterborough. There is no evidence to suggest he would play the "B team" against Wolfsburg or Sporting Lisbon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dudevillaisnice Posted January 24, 2021 Share Posted January 24, 2021 5 minutes ago, villalad21 said: Evidence suggest otherwise. Dean is always playing his B teams in the cup. The exception being the semi final against Leicester. But up until then we pretty much played our weakened team Not really, Europa is different. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villan-scott Posted January 24, 2021 VT Supporter Share Posted January 24, 2021 If we finish 7th, and the cup winners are both in the top 6 we would qualify for the UEFA Europa Conference League, instead of the normal Europa League. It’s a new tournament launching next season, in addition to Champions League and Europa League. Played on Thursdays too, with similar clubs from around Europe who’ve had the same pathway. If we did, I’d fancy us to go quite far in that, as you’d imagine the standard to be lower than the normal EL due to the qualifying pathway. I would still love us to get into Europe, however it happened. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted January 24, 2021 Share Posted January 24, 2021 We've played top 6 football this season imo. Our defence is one of best in league which you can see with clean sheets and everything and our level of performance v top and bottom teams has been very consistant. What we lacked until recently was playing poorly and then one of the forwards bails us out e.g. Spurs can get domainted but Son or Kane can grind out a 1 or 2 nil win for them, same for Man. United. However December seems ot have changed that with AEG and Traore massively coming into form, 3 months back neither were getting in our first 11 so it's all very exciting. I'd still want a new forward in though as what we have is working so don't want it disrupted by having to play Traore or El Ghazi as CF tbh. Wolves finished 7th and got europa with 57 poinys in 18/19 so I really think we can do better than that and 60 points is a realistic target now. Yes it's miles better than majority of us predicted but you do have to strike while things are hot in football and we're playing well enough to do that. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted January 24, 2021 Share Posted January 24, 2021 (edited) 1 hour ago, Tayls said: You have to admit the jump from where we were last season to now, and what we could potentially achieve this season, is pretty huge. I don’t think the expectation was to finish top 6 this season and I think the squad reflects that, in some ways. That’s my interpretation of what was said, and about where I am on it. Hope I am wrong though, would love any form of European footy. Burnley qualified for europa two years after being promoted. As did Leicester famously. And Wolves did it in their first season up. Sheffield United easily could've done it but for lockdown I think so it's not as rare in recent years as many think. We've seen in the past it's much harder to go from 6th to 4th in prem than it is 17th to 7th and think it's true again nowadays. In 05/06 we finished 16th and then 6th two years later and that actually wasn't with a huge amount of investment considering what we then spent over next two years under O'neill. Think in that timeframe we only signed Petrov, Carew, Young and Reo-Coker as regular first teamers. Edited January 24, 2021 by VillaChris 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted January 24, 2021 Share Posted January 24, 2021 1 hour ago, villalad21 said: Making the top 4 is is worth much more than a decent Europa League run. I'd do the same again if i was the coach all those years ago. You win the europa now and you're in CL. Don't think that was the outcome in MON's days but we've seen Man. United do it in recent seasons when they finished 6th. Given how decent defensively we are we've got the structure that would be hard to beat in europe if we kept this squad together and added a bit more depth in the key positions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sam-AVFC Posted January 24, 2021 Share Posted January 24, 2021 10+ years ago winning the Europa League didn't qualify you for next years CL, now it does. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post HanoiVillan Posted January 24, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted January 24, 2021 8 minutes ago, VillaChris said: Yes it's miles better than majority of us predicted but you do have to strike while things are hot in football and we're playing well enough to do that. 5 minutes ago, VillaChris said: Sheffield United easily could've done it but for lockdown I think so it's not as rare in recent years as many think. These two comments are why the 'I hope we finish just outside the European places because we're not ready' takes are so woefully mistaken. So many posters on here seem to be operating from a mental model in which we gradually make progress up the league, so we finish 17th in the first season, then 8th, then 6th, then 4th, then 1st or whatever. Obviously that isn't at all how things work in real life. If we narrowly miss out on European football this season, we are just as likely to be in a relegation battle next season as we are to be mounting a Champions League challenge. We should aim to finish as high up the table as possible, and if that involves European football, then we should take that competition very seriously. The lesson of MON is that we don't know when the next time might be; it might be a longer wait than we're expecting. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PieFacE Posted January 24, 2021 VT Supporter Share Posted January 24, 2021 8 minutes ago, Sam-AVFC said: 10+ years ago winning the Europa League didn't qualify you for next years CL, now it does. This. It's a competition to take seriously in the unlikely event we did qualify. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villalad21 Posted January 24, 2021 Author Share Posted January 24, 2021 9 minutes ago, VillaChris said: You win the europa now and you're in CL. Don't think that was the outcome in MON's days but we've seen Man. United do it in recent seasons when they finished 6th. Given how decent defensively we are we've got the structure that would be hard to beat in europe if we kept this squad together and added a bit more depth in the key positions. Back then. The chances of us making the top 4 were higher than winning the Europa League. His thinking was the correct decision. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davkaus Posted January 24, 2021 Share Posted January 24, 2021 (edited) 42 minutes ago, villan-scott said: If we finish 7th, and the cup winners are both in the top 6 we would qualify for the UEFA Europa Conference League, instead of the normal Europa League. It’s a new tournament launching next season, in addition to Champions League and Europa League. Played on Thursdays too, with similar clubs from around Europe who’ve had the same pathway. If we did, I’d fancy us to go quite far in that, as you’d imagine the standard to be lower than the normal EL due to the qualifying pathway. I would still love us to get into Europe, however it happened. An even worse tournament than the EL, with lots of extra games requiring a bigger squad, but presumably with even less prize money? Basically the reborn Intertinpot Cup? It'll be like sitting at the kid's table, playing clubs that get knocked out early from the EL and the likes of the Liechtenstein Cup holders. What a joke. The EL is a decent competition these days, but if we did get dragged in to this Europa Conference competition I'd send the u23s. Edited January 24, 2021 by Davkaus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villan-scott Posted January 24, 2021 VT Supporter Share Posted January 24, 2021 17 minutes ago, Davkaus said: An even worse tournament than the EL, with lots of extra games requiring a bigger squad, but presumably with even less prize money? Basically the reborn Intertinpot Cup? It'll be like sitting at the kid's table, playing clubs that get knocked out early from the EL and the likes of the Liechtenstein Cup holders. What a joke. The EL is a decent competition these days, but if we did get dragged in to this Europa Conference competition I'd send the u23s. They split the Europa League in half basically, so less games in the EL. 32 teams in each I believe. So shorter tournaments than the current set up. It wouldn’t be much of an attraction, but still enjoyable I’d say. Rival fans would likely enjoy taking the piss out of us if we were in it though. It has got a bit of the Inter Toto’s about it! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PieFacE Posted January 24, 2021 VT Supporter Share Posted January 24, 2021 9 minutes ago, villan-scott said: Rival fans would likely enjoy taking the piss out of us if we were in it though. It has got a bit of the Inter Toto’s about it! Well, they're not exactly great themselves so this doesn't bother me one bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Talldarkandransome Posted January 24, 2021 Share Posted January 24, 2021 13 minutes ago, villan-scott said: They split the Europa League in half basically, so less games in the EL. 32 teams in each I believe. So shorter tournaments than the current set up. It wouldn’t be much of an attraction, but still enjoyable I’d say. Rival fans would likely enjoy taking the piss out of us if we were in it though. It has got a bit of the Inter Toto’s about it! Another Mickey Mouse euro league is the last thing we need. Hopefully we'll just keep improving and when the time is right we will be good enough for top 4. I could just about cope with the Europa League, another level below that would be like playing vanarama teams from the former USSR. I'd rather win the FA Cup 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted January 24, 2021 Share Posted January 24, 2021 48 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said: These two comments are why the 'I hope we finish just outside the European places because we're not ready' takes are so woefully mistaken. So many posters on here seem to be operating from a mental model in which we gradually make progress up the league, so we finish 17th in the first season, then 8th, then 6th, then 4th, then 1st or whatever. Obviously that isn't at all how things work in real life. If we narrowly miss out on European football this season, we are just as likely to be in a relegation battle next season as we are to be mounting a Champions League challenge. We should aim to finish as high up the table as possible, and if that involves European football, then we should take that competition very seriously. The lesson of MON is that we don't know when the next time might be; it might be a longer wait than we're expecting. Yep totally agree. There was always the feeling in MON era "there's always next season" so we just shrugged off failing to secure top 4 when we were comfortably clear of Arsenal with 15 games left in 08/09. Then the next season we did well but ultimately didn't win the cup final we were in and again narrowly missed out on top 4. I think at that point people realised we'd peaked under MON. Then he quits and we become a joke club over next decade with the owner losing interest. Not saying any of that is going to happen but you can't predict that one day in near future Jack will wake up and feel he's done all he can here. Or Man. City do buy Doug back. Or England flop at euros and England come in for DS. Unless we get a top class manager or buy incredibly well that would inevitably mean we slip back down the league a bit if say we finished high this season. Time to get europe with this squad and manager and strengthen from there rather than having to replace 2-3 players in one go. Wonder what the vibe was in the Leicester season. Sure a few on their forums were saying they'd be happy to finish 5th but ultimately they did what they did and are now established top 6 club. I'd say aswell the team they had for the next season wasn't that strong for CL but they got to quarter finals and Atletico Madrid only narrowly knocked them out so think people are doing our 11 a disservice saying it wouldn't be much good in europa. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JAMAICAN-VILLAN Posted January 24, 2021 Share Posted January 24, 2021 2 hours ago, ender4 said: I don’t think Arsenal are going to sell us any more of their fringe players ever again Saka looks shite to be honest. Villa might be his level... Might need a new challenge Cheeky 12 mill bid? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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