Delphinho123 Posted February 20, 2023 Share Posted February 20, 2023 If you sign players befitting of a mid table team, that’s where you’ll end up. Until we’re better in the transfer market, we won’t finish higher than 11th. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HKP90 Posted February 20, 2023 VT Supporter Share Posted February 20, 2023 I think you need to change the title of this thread. The phraseology sounds like [shudder] George Galloway. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chicken Field Posted February 20, 2023 Share Posted February 20, 2023 Being stuck midtable is really boring. Our signings just haven't been good enough. Players like Bailey, Coutinho, Digne, Carlos etc. are ambitious signings, none of them have really worked out for us. We are still mainly reliant on players bought with the goal of staying up/getting us to midtable, like Mings, Konsa, Luiz, Watkins etc. (some of these are defo good enough to be top half/europa league players). Very disapointing overall, still much better than midtable championship. Hopefully our transfer activity will change and improve now we have a world class manager with a clear goal. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GingerCollins29 Posted February 20, 2023 Share Posted February 20, 2023 10 minutes ago, Chicken Field said: Being stuck midtable is really boring. Our signings just haven't been good enough. Players like Bailey, Coutinho, Digne, Carlos etc. are ambitious signings, none of them have really worked out for us. We are still mainly reliant on players bought with the goal of staying up/getting us to midtable, like Mings, Konsa, Luiz, Watkins etc. (some of these are defo good enough to be top half/europa league players). Very disapointing overall, still much better than midtable championship. Hopefully our transfer activity will change and improve now we have a world class manager with a clear goal. Agree but harsh on carlos! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MakemineVanilla Posted February 20, 2023 Share Posted February 20, 2023 Emery acknowledged it in his post-match interview and pointed out the habit of the players to respond to the arrival of a new manager and then ease off when they think they have done enough. There does seem to be an established mind-set within the club which defies all changes of management or playing personnel. I think it is something which players like Southgate, Young, Barry and Milner recognised, which prompted them to move on. Every generation usually finds an excuse and Doug Ellis took the blame for years, and then we had to wait to find out that MON was faced with the same. Maybe it has something to do with the spirit of Birmingham, where it is generally accepted as being destined to be just a little bit shit or mediocre. We can only ask why Manchester has two top clubs, while Brum struggles to make the claim that it has one. Birmingham is the second-city which actually prefers to travel in third-class. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chicken Field Posted February 20, 2023 Share Posted February 20, 2023 39 minutes ago, GingerCollins29 said: Agree but harsh on carlos! Was not meant as a critique of Carlos, but because of his injury, he hasn't been able to improve us Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Posted February 20, 2023 Share Posted February 20, 2023 5 hours ago, HKP90 said: I think you need to change the title of this thread. The phraseology sounds like [shudder] George Galloway. Nice to see him getting a mention, he's such a cool cat! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HKP90 Posted February 20, 2023 VT Supporter Share Posted February 20, 2023 Just now, John said: Nice to see him getting a mention, he's such a cool cat! I see he's wearing a nice soviet red number, there. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Posted February 20, 2023 Share Posted February 20, 2023 3 hours ago, MakemineVanilla said: Emery acknowledged it in his post-match interview and pointed out the habit of the players to respond to the arrival of a new manager and then ease off when they think they have done enough. There does seem to be an established mind-set within the club which defies all changes of management or playing personnel. I think it is something which players like Southgate, Young, Barry and Milner recognised, which prompted them to move on. Every generation usually finds an excuse and Doug Ellis took the blame for years, and then we had to wait to find out that MON was faced with the same. Maybe it has something to do with the spirit of Birmingham, where it is generally accepted as being destined to be just a little bit shit or mediocre. We can only ask why Manchester has two top clubs, while Brum struggles to make the claim that it has one. Birmingham is the second-city which actually prefers to travel in third-class. I agree that we do need to break the habit of players, seemingly easing of, after a run of good results and I think that where UE sees that in a player, he won't tolerate it. I think that Young, Barry and Milner moved for more money and to clubs that offered them a better prospect of winning things. Why Southgate and Ugo went to Boro, now that always baffled me (perhaps the money was better)? Doug Ellis fully deserved the blame he got. I think the comment on "the spirit of Birmingham" is very harsh. Other people may think that of us, but we should not accept their conclusions, as having any basis in fact. One team in Birmingham is more than enough. We might not currently be winning much, but we have done in the past and can do so again. Birmingham is the second city and what does that say about all of the rest? I'm not sure what your comment on "third class" is getting at, but in my opinion, the people of Birmingham prefer the best, when they can get it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
useless Posted February 20, 2023 Share Posted February 20, 2023 I don't know which positions count as midtable, I'd say nineth to thirteenth, as eighth seems too good of a season to me be labelled as midtable and fourteenth seems too poor of a season to be labelled midtable. With that in mind we've only finished between nineth and thirteenth seven times since the Premier League began, more often than not we've been towards the top or towards the bottom. We've actually finished top eight for twelve of our twenty-six season in the Premier League, up until Martin O'Neill's last season we had finished top eight in twelve Premier League seasons out of eighteen, at one time if we dropped into midtable the manager would be seen to be in danger of losing his job. We went from mostly finishing towards the top teams of the table to mostly finishing towards the bottom teams and when averaged out it makes us seem more like a midtable team, but when you look at seasons individually we haven't finished midtable as much as perhaps some might imagine. The last ten years have seriously distorted the perception of how we've done overall as PL team, I imagine that that stat of us finishing top eight twelve times in PL era for example would surprise most non Villa fans and perhaps some Villa fans. It's why finishing top ten under normal circumstances shouldn't be seen as any kind of achievement, but for us under the circumstances of not finishing top ten in over ten years, it would be a massive step in the right direction, and hopefully would be the start of us challenging more often than not towards those top eight places and maybe beyond as was more often than not the case before things went wrong at the end of Lerner era. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
useless Posted February 20, 2023 Share Posted February 20, 2023 Up until O'Neill left we had finished half our eighteen Premier League seasons up until that point in the top six. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danceoftheshamen Posted February 20, 2023 Share Posted February 20, 2023 (edited) Well I personally have seen us win the biggest prizes so midtable for me is the minimum level this club should be averaging. I do feel we should on occasion be challenging once we have overcome the destruction of the later Lerner years up until NSWE. This of course will take time as we have a gap to bridge and as quick as you start to build, the Grealish's of this World will set you back. So it's like 3 steps forward 2 back all the time. This sifting of progress of course makes it a long slow climb back. Add to that the clear bias towards the usual clubs and massive helping hand they get (Which is largely why they will still be there or thereabouts even on a poor season) slows things up even further of course. So lets get back to midtable first and then maybe one day it will all get investigated, as it should be and the ceiling of corruption will be removed alowing clubs like ours a fair chance to rise up again. The Money is of course also an issue but the corruption, for me, is the bigger hurdle. Once the stadium is expanded & if we can maybe win a cup or two & get into Europe, which will boost our international profile thus bringing in more cashflow, we should be able to compete for the higher echelons much better. That corruption will always be a big issue mind you and that's why I see it as the bigger hurdle than the money. Financially we do of course already have wealthy owners, the stadium will be on a par with the big 6 soon too and we have a huge fanbase already. Of course we are behind the top 6 on that score currently simply due to a lack of trophies in recent years. Win some silverware and start competing in Europe though and this will grow rapidly, so that gap can be closed. At that point I don't see anything, other than the aforementioned corruption, that would stop us from at least competing with those clubs. Heck on a season like this one with Liverpool, Chelsea. Spurs & even to a point Man City faltering, we would get the chance to nick a top 4 spot. This is what Spurs did a few years ago and look at them now. This is however also the exact bit where the corruption kicks in, so this, under the current circumstances, would be very tough. Edited February 20, 2023 by danceoftheshamen 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I Make Pies Posted February 20, 2023 Share Posted February 20, 2023 It's an interesting quandry as to why clubs get stuck in the same positions for such a long time despite the constant churn of players and managers. When I was a kid we were always challenging for Europe bar the odd blip, whereas in the last 12 years it has been lower half/just above the relegation zone. Liverpool have finished in the top 8 every season since they were promoted to the top flight in 1962! You'd think they would have one bad season at least. I did see a graphic recently showing our spending in the 90s and it was much closer to the other top teams in the league than it is now. Probably answers the question as to why. During our period of dominance during the 1890s we broke the world transfer record twice. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AVTuco Posted February 20, 2023 VT Supporter Share Posted February 20, 2023 NSWE didn't come here for midtableness. They'll sell if we get stuck here. And then what? I'm not in a hurry though, we're in a consolidation phase getting over Jack's departure. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danceoftheshamen Posted February 21, 2023 Share Posted February 21, 2023 10 hours ago, I Make Pies said: It's an interesting quandry as to why clubs get stuck in the same positions for such a long time despite the constant churn of players and managers. When I was a kid we were always challenging for Europe bar the odd blip, whereas in the last 12 years it has been lower half/just above the relegation zone. Liverpool have finished in the top 8 every season since they were promoted to the top flight in 1962! You'd think they would have one bad season at least. I did see a graphic recently showing our spending in the 90s and it was much closer to the other top teams in the league than it is now. Probably answers the question as to why. During our period of dominance during the 1890s we broke the world transfer record twice. That right there is the true power of the corruption! These teams can have a poor season but then they tend to get a load of dodgy decisions which keeps them there or there abouts. It defies the law of averages even, which should set the alarm bells off straight away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomaszk Posted February 21, 2023 Share Posted February 21, 2023 22 hours ago, Delphinho123 said: If you sign players befitting of a mid table team, that’s where you’ll end up. Until we’re better in the transfer market, we won’t finish higher than 11th. Why would top half players sign for not top half Villa? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted February 21, 2023 Share Posted February 21, 2023 19 hours ago, Chicken Field said: Being stuck midtable is really boring. It is but at the same time its so much better for your mental health Don't get me wrong I still watch, I still vent on here but ultimately we lose to arsenal and a couple of hours later it's gone, it's largely irrelevant, I actually enjoyed Saturdays game, it was a great game of football, I personally think "Villa ruined my weekend" is now something that's insane for me, why people do that to themselves After spending weekends actually doing things the wife wanted to do rather than watch villa with the last clown in charge it's nice to be able to say I enjoyed watching a Villa game, there's no stress there's no pressure there's no ramifications, I'd love to get back to where I was with Smith where I just loved the club, I knew most of the players weren't good enough for the PL or where we wanted to be but I just like them as human beings, El ghazi for example, mings and Watkins I'll defend all day because I like them Next season when we start to push up the table and the pressure cranks up it will all disappear 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Fun Factory Posted February 21, 2023 Share Posted February 21, 2023 15 hours ago, I Make Pies said: It's an interesting quandry as to why clubs get stuck in the same positions for such a long time despite the constant churn of players and managers. When I was a kid we were always challenging for Europe bar the odd blip, whereas in the last 12 years it has been lower half/just above the relegation zone. Liverpool have finished in the top 8 every season since they were promoted to the top flight in 1962! You'd think they would have one bad season at least. I did see a graphic recently showing our spending in the 90s and it was much closer to the other top teams in the league than it is now. Probably answers the question as to why. During our period of dominance during the 1890s we broke the world transfer record twice. Because the champions league was only for the top 2 teams then. The serious tv money only really started to roll in from the mid 00's onwards, especially in the overseas market. That made a huge diffference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delphinho123 Posted February 21, 2023 Share Posted February 21, 2023 4 hours ago, Tomaszk said: Why would top half players sign for not top half Villa? Why do they sign for Fulham and Brighton then? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomaszk Posted February 21, 2023 Share Posted February 21, 2023 5 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said: Why do they sign for Fulham and Brighton then? Dunno, west London and nice seaside? Fulham only signed one in the summer. They are not better than us man for man. They have had a very good coach for coming up to two years. Brighton do exclusively what we do sometimes. Buy players who can grow into top half players. They've had two very good coaches for coming up to four years. I would expect if you put all our squads together, we'd have 8/9/10 of the top earners. We do need to stop dishing out huge salaries unless they are justified. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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