2021/22 expectations

[Peter Griffin]

17 minutes ago, blandy said:

Because winning games in style is an absolute asset and something to genuinely enjoy and be proud of

I agree, I really enjoy watching us play

[mikeyp102]

I reckon we’ll catch a few sides of this year. The media will focus on Jack not being there and every defeat it will be without Grealish Villa lack edge. But I think the pace and ability of Bailey will be such a vital asset to us, we’ve needed some genuine pace. 
I actually think we’ll have a slower start than hoped as pre season has been all over the shop (as have other teams admittedly). But once settled I could see us getting good run together. 
Top 8 would be nice and I hope we can get a trophy, a league cup win would be perfectx

[nick76]

34 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

im the same

ill add if ramsey and chuk get 20+ appearances, including 10+ starts, bidace makes 10+ appearances, barry has a great loan at ipswich, kesler same at swindon, 2 more players make debuts (maybe younger ramsey not sure on the other) then there should be plenty to be excited about even if we are 10th

ill also add if thats the case i want us to look good in the cups, cant set an expectation on it due to the luck of the draw but if we know we're hovering around mid table again then give the cups a push

The problem is you are focusing so much on our youth coming through which is great but history from most clubs has shown us that most of the youth won’t make it to regular first team football at the level we are at.  You are believing we’re are going to have a class come through comparable to the Man Utd of the 90s.  The chances of that are so slim.  We look at them and wow, wow and wow but history has shown us in regular game time at the top level when these kids come in a lot won’t cut it.  Which of those won’t, we don’t know and we’ll see over the coming seasons but likely only a couple will be good enough.

[Peter Griffin]

2 minutes ago, nick76 said:

The problem is you are focusing so much on our youth coming through which is great but history from most clubs has shown us that most of the youth won’t make it to regular first team football at the level we are at.  You are believing we’re are going to have a class come through comparable to the Man Utd of the 90s.  The chances of that are so slim.  We look at them and wow, wow and wow but history has shown us in regular game time at the top level when these kids come in a lot won’t cut it.  Which of those won’t, we don’t know and we’ll see over the coming seasons but likely only a couple will be good enough.

I agree and if we do manage to get a couple of 1st team regulars from the youth setup then that would be an excellent return. That said, it is nice the way Villa is buying lots of promising youth players, we appear to be doing much more than other clubs so maybe we are increasing our odds of striking gold with a few of the kids

[LondonLax]

5 minutes ago, Peter Griffin said:

I agree and if we do manage to get a couple of 1st team regulars from the youth setup then that would be an excellent return. That said, it is nice the way Villa is buying lots of promising youth players, we appear to be doing much more than other clubs so maybe we are increasing our odds of striking gold with a few of the kids

Not only that, there is a decent chance some of the kids who don’t make it with us can be sold for profit to clubs a bit lower down the pyramid. Chelsea has been very successful at self funding their youth set up through player sales and occasionally you get a first team regular like Mason Mount coming through.

[Adman]

Team success is achieved by more than the sum of its individual parts.  To have owners, management, and team all pulling in the same clear direction will give us an advantage.  To have players like Watkins, bertie, martinez and cash all with a seasons experience makes us a better team than last year.  Our recruitment this year, knowing how meticulous our procurement has been in identifying weaknesses in the squad and addressing them will give us far more tools to win games than before.  Addressing the holes in our coaching team with set piece specialists again gains us small but significant improvements.  We could really kick on

I'm going to say it. 6th for me

[DCJonah]

49 minutes ago, Kiwivillan said:

Arsenal don't really. They're in transition and lost their best keeper last season. Spurs were a dumpster fire when Kane was injured so if he leaves... not to mention I think Nuno is overrated

They've just smashed our club record signing on a cb. They've extended the deal of a player we wanted to replace Jack. They've still got some class players in that team. They're not a top 4 team but they're still a very strong top half team. Overtaking them will be a challenge. 

Spurs are a strange one. They could potentially be a disaster this season.

[ender4]

Just now, DCJonah said:

They've just smashed our club record signing on a cb. They've extended the deal of a player we wanted to replace Jack. They've still got some class players in that team. They're not a top 4 team but they're still a very strong top half team. Overtaking them will be a challenge. 

Spurs are a strange one. They could potentially be a disaster this season.

Yeah, people are under-rating Arsenal.  They had 1 bad season and still finished above us.  Their players won’t be as bad this season, they have signed better players (like we also have), they haven’t lost any key players, and they have proper squad depth.  It will be tricky to overtake them, though I have faith that we can.

[DCJonah]

2 minutes ago, ender4 said:

Yeah, people are under-rating Arsenal.  They had 1 bad season and still finished above us.  Their players won’t be as bad this season, they have signed better players (like we also have), they haven’t lost any key players, and they have proper squad depth.  It will be tricky to overtake them, though I have faith that we can.

Yeah people have decided Arsenal are a joke. And in the context of title challenging they are. But I think they're still way ahead of us at the moment 

[sparrow1988]

42 minutes ago, Peter Griffin said:

Point won after falling behind in a game

1. Manchester United – 31 points
2. Leicester City – 20 points
3. Wolves – 16 points
4. Liverpool – 13 points
5= West Ham – 12 points
5= Arsenal – 12 points
5= West Brom – 12 points
8= Chelsea – 11 points
8= Leeds – 11 points
8= Tottenham – 11 points
11. Newcastle United – 9 points
12= Everton – 7 points
12= Southampton – 7 points
14. Burnley – 6 points
15= Manchester City – 5 points
15= Aston Villa – 5 points
15= Crystal Palace- 5 points
18= Sheffield United – 4 points
18= Brighton – 4 points
20. Fulham – 2 points

That doesn't suggest that we are grinding out too many results. Only 4 teams below us and 3 of those were relegated. The only reason Man City is in the bottom half of that table is that they rarely fall behind in a game hence very little opportunity to come back from a loosing position.

 

EDIT: Sorry, only two of the teams below us were relegated 

That only tells half of the story. There are also the other games, where we didn't fall behind despite being the second best team. That is also part of grinding out results.

[Peter Griffin]

4 minutes ago, sparrow1988 said:

That only tells half of the story. There are also the other games, where we didn't fall behind despite being the second best team. That is also part of grinding out results.

I agree, jt is only half the story but as we scored 55 points last season and 50 of those game from games we did not fall behind in suggests that we have a problem we need to address. Considering the Baggies even managed to get 12 points from loosing positions and they were awful. We must improve of that and be able to grind out more points from loosing positions. Those extra 6 or 7 points could be the difference between 7th and Europa qualification and 10th and midtable.

Edited August 12, 2021 by Peter Griffin

[villa4europe]

38 minutes ago, nick76 said:

The problem is you are focusing so much on our youth coming through which is great but history from most clubs has shown us that most of the youth won’t make it to regular first team football at the level we are at.  You are believing we’re are going to have a class come through comparable to the Man Utd of the 90s.  The chances of that are so slim.  We look at them and wow, wow and wow but history has shown us in regular game time at the top level when these kids come in a lot won’t cut it.  Which of those won’t, we don’t know and we’ll see over the coming seasons but likely only a couple will be good enough.

i am because i think its what the club are targeting and more importantly what they think will set us apart

continuous throwing money at the team is shown to not be a guaranteed success because everybody does the same, we wont get europe merely by spending £150m every summer, some of these kids have to be something special, that's the reality of it IMO

we can either scout better or we can use the academy, the academy is a better bet IMO

[blandy]

51 minutes ago, Peter Griffin said:

Point won after falling behind in a game

1. Manchester United – 31 points
2. Leicester City – 20 points
3. Wolves – 16 points
4. Liverpool – 13 points
5= West Ham – 12 points
5= Arsenal – 12 points
5= West Brom – 12 points
8= Chelsea – 11 points
8= Leeds – 11 points
8= Tottenham – 11 points
11. Newcastle United – 9 points
12= Everton – 7 points
12= Southampton – 7 points
14. Burnley – 6 points
15= Manchester City – 5 points
15= Aston Villa – 5 points
15= Crystal Palace- 5 points
18= Sheffield United – 4 points
18= Brighton – 4 points
20. Fulham – 2 points

That doesn't suggest that we are grinding out too many results. Only 4 teams below us and 3 of those were relegated. The only reason Man City is in the bottom half of that table is that they rarely fall behind in a game hence very little opportunity to come back from a loosing position.

 

EDIT: Sorry, only two of the teams below us were relegated 

That stat is kind of a very partial picture.

If, for example a team tends to score first in games, then there's going to be fewer opportunities to "win points after going behind" - the obvious example being Man City. Equally a poor team will tend to concede first and lose many games.

So to paint a fuill picture we need to look at more than just that stat - adding in points dropped after being ahead would be a start, or games won after scoring first, or points won in the last 10 minutes...and so on. But basically the league table over the season is the best gauge of where a team is. Isolated stats are bollex.

[Peter Griffin]

1 minute ago, blandy said:

Isolated stats are bollex.

I disagree. They can show were we are getting our points and where potential weaknesses are. If we win 90% of our home games and lose 90% of our away games we clearly have a problem away from home. We are right at the bottom of teams that score points from a loosing position. We need to fix that and score more. 

[Steero113]

I don't care if we get relegated as long as we beat Man Utd home and away this season. 

Of course I'm joking about relegation, but seriously, beat Man Utd this season its agony every year. 

[Sulberto21]

Our points dropped from winning went from being the best to kinda average after the covid outbreak at the club. It changed our season.

[blandy]

Just now, Peter Griffin said:

We are right at the bottom of teams that score points from a loosing position. We need to fix that and score more.

Well, we're not. And to say again, a team that won every game 1-0 would come right down the bottom of that table, because they'd never get a point from a losing position. it's why the stat is pretty uninformative - or in the real world, Man City have a problem, right,  because they only got 5 points after going behind - no, they won the league by a mile.

From my perspective we have to look at things more roundly. I agree that at times Villa were a bit feeble in terms of resilience last season, not just in terms of not recovering from going behind, but also dropping points after going ahead - I mean take the Burnley away game as an example - we did both those things - lost after going behind (when they made it 3-2) but also we were 1-0 and 2-1 up and lost. But for most of the season they weren't, they were strong defensively, helped a great deal by having an excellent keeper.

A lot of us would say that making the midfield both a bit better at stopping the oppo and also making it a bit more creative, collectively, would be a good thing. I'm not saying we can't improve, or expect improvement in that area, we clearly can and should, and personally I'd rather focus on what we see with our eyes and how it could be made better than using stats to try and demonstrate that the manager has a problem - I'm not saying you're necessarily doing that, but I think your use of the stat is kind of seeing something that isn't there..

[nick76]

10 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

i am because i think its what the club are targeting and more importantly what they think will set us apart

continuous throwing money at the team is shown to not be a guaranteed success because everybody does the same, we wont get europe merely by spending £150m every summer, some of these kids have to be something special, that's the reality of it IMO

we can either scout better or we can use the academy, the academy is a better bet IMO

Rightly the club are targeting youth but that doesn’t guarantee first team starters in the future.  Plus developing youngsters can generate a good revenue stream if we can keep selling the players that don’t succeed for a few million here or there.

The point is that it’s rare to have more a couple of home grown players ever in the first team, so to believe 5 or 6 will be first team starters is extremely unlikely.

[Peter Griffin]

1 minute ago, blandy said:

Well, we're not

We are actually. We have only got 5 points from losing positions. Only 2 teams with 4 points and one team with 2 points below us

[blandy]

1 minute ago, Sulberto21 said:

Our points dropped from winning went from being the best to kinda average after the covid outbreak at the club. It changed our season.

Well that's right, but for me it's the wrong way round. We played worse after Covid and that resulted in that stat dropping off.

Anyway, back to expectations, next season will (hopefully) for all clubs be different in terms of Covid outbreaks, fans in grounds and all of the pandemic issues. There will still be a compressed schedule, because of the World Cup, but it should be more of a level playing field - Villa was hampered by the Covid outbreak and then by having to play more games in less time as a consequence of the illness.