Battle for top half finish

[Vive_La_Villa]

I don’t want to get carried away but our lack of players going to the World Cup could really help us finish the season strongly. Hoping a near fully fit squad physically and mentally can have a very good Dec / Jan period which would put us right up there.

[viivvaa66]

38 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

I don’t want to get carried away but our lack of players going to the World Cup could really help us finish the season strongly. Hoping a near fully fit squad physically and mentally can have a very good Dec / Jan period which would put us right up there.

It looks so promising at the moment, even if it’s just one game so far, that not getting carried away is almost impossible.

We are 4 points away from a top half finish, to be honest I would be little bit disappointed if we can’t get into the top half. This season it seams like everybody is beating everybody, with the exception of Arsenal and ManC. That should mean that if we can produce result with some level of consistency, we would be moving up the table. That we are only 4 points adrift after the horrid start we had the first 11 games are just amazing, and gives us hope that we can salvage something from this season.

That we are 6 point from a potential place in Europe or 8 points from a guaranteed spot in Europe, can make us dream, but is clearly in carried away territory, at least for now.

[useless]

On 05/11/2022 at 21:42, useless said:

Beat United tomorrow and we will be just one point off top half with a winnable game to then come against Brighton.

Brighton won't be easy, but win that and we will be just three points off them.

Villa. Not. Yet. Done.

Edited November 14, 2022 by useless

[Mark Albrighton]

 So as we’re at the not quite halfway point and there is a renewed sense of optimism, how many points do we think is a good, realistic target for us to end on?

I typically overestimate what I think we will pick up. For instance, taking each game individually it’s reasonable to think we will beat Wolves, Leeds and Leicester at home. But winning all three might not be as realistic, contradictory as that sounds. Basically it’s the Lawro predicting that Liverpool will never lose again problem.

We’re currently on 18 points. Trying to be cautious, maybe finish on 52 points? Maybe another 21 from our home games, another 13 from our away games. I feel like I’ve been fairly sober with the estimate, maybe overestimated our home form and slightly underestimated our away form.

Trying to not set myself up for a fall.

[ender4]

39 minutes ago, Mark Albrighton said:

 We’re currently on 18 points. Trying to be cautious, maybe finish on 52 points? Maybe another 21 from our home games, another 13 from our away games. I feel like I’ve been fairly sober with the estimate, maybe overestimated our home form and slightly underestimated our away form.

I agree it's possible and in theory we could do even better than that.  However, ignoring the teams we are playing on a match by match basis as we still need to play everyone at least once.

Home - 21 points from 36 available - 58.3% win rate.  That seems a little high, maybe 50% win rate is more realistic, so 18 points.

Away - 13 points from 33 available - 39.4% win rate.  That also feels a little high, but that's because we've been so bad away for so long.  Who knows if Emery can change that long-term. 

I feel like we could finish anywhere between 46 and 55 points. That 9 point swing could be the difference between 13th and 7th.  It's so tight in that mid-table that a couple of extra wins over the season changes the outlook completely.

[Tayls]

Reckon if we can get to 45 points, that will be a good starting point to build on next season. After such a poor start to this season that would actually be a bit of an achievement I think. 

Edited November 16, 2022 by Tayls

[Laughable Chimp]

1 hour ago, Mark Albrighton said:

 So as we’re at the not quite halfway point and there is a renewed sense of optimism, how many points do we think is a good, realistic target for us to end on?

I typically overestimate what I think we will pick up. For instance, taking each game individually it’s reasonable to think we will beat Wolves, Leeds and Leicester at home. But winning all three might not be as realistic, contradictory as that sounds. Basically it’s the Lawro predicting that Liverpool will never lose again problem.

We’re currently on 18 points. Trying to be cautious, maybe finish on 52 points? Maybe another 21 from our home games, another 13 from our away games. I feel like I’ve been fairly sober with the estimate, maybe overestimated our home form and slightly underestimated our away form.

Trying to not set myself up for a fall.

FiveThirtyEight predicts us to finish on 48 points and just squeeze the top 10.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/soccer-predictions/premier-league/

If you look at their probability distributions, they predict that there's a 90 percent chance we end up somewhere in between 16th and 7th. That's a massive range of positions but I find it hard to disagree with. Midtable is often tight and we're only one third a way through the season, a lot can happen still.

Edited November 16, 2022 by Laughable Chimp

[Dante_Lockhart]

4 minutes ago, Tayls said:

Reckon if we can get to 45 points, that will be a good starting point to build on next season. After such a poor start to this season that would actually be a bit of an achievement I think. 

This. I want to be optimistic and aim for the stars, and I think we can beat anyone on our day, but REALISTICALLY if we can finish 12th on 40ish points after how we started the season I'll take it.

[WallisFrizz]

It will be interesting to see how teams push on after the break. I don’t think WC fatigue for those that played a lot during the tournament will happen until later in the season whereas those who had less players out there (like us) might be slower to get going and get match fitness up again. 
I’d be very pleased with a 10th placed finish.

[PussEKatt]

Looking at the table right now.I would expect us to finish above the 4 teams that are above us atm,thats Palace,Brentford,Fulham and Brighton,so,that would make our final position 6th.

[DJ_Villain]

On 08/11/2022 at 03:49, Vive_La_Villa said:

I don’t want to get carried away but our lack of players going to the World Cup could really help us finish the season strongly. Hoping a near fully fit squad physically and mentally can have a very good Dec / Jan period which would put us right up there.

I know right!

Hopefully, loads of the England lads get clattered and written off for the rest of the season too…

That would give us even more of an advantage!

[Nigel]

1 hour ago, PussEKatt said:

Looking at the table right now.I would expect us to finish above the 4 teams that are above us atm,thats Palace,Brentford,Fulham and Brighton,so,that would make our final position 6th.

You are one of those optimists I hear about!

[ender4]

2 hours ago, PussEKatt said:

Looking at the table right now.I would expect us to finish above the 4 teams that are above us atm,thats Palace,Brentford,Fulham and Brighton,so,that would make our final position 6th.

Ermm, we are 12th at the moment.   If we overtake those 4 teams, we'd move into 8th (not 6th).

[burchy]

I think our home form ppg is something like 1.8 but our away ppg is rubbish at 0.6 or something. If we could keep our home ppg at 1.8 over the 12 games that would be 21/22 points. 

Also if we could improve our away form too, which looks likely under Emery, say to 1.2 or similar that would, over the 11 games give us 13 points. 

18 + 22 + 13 = 53 points. I’d be happy with that. 

[romavillan]

5 hours ago, burchy said:

I think our home form ppg is something like 1.8 but our away ppg is rubbish at 0.6 or something. If we could keep our home ppg at 1.8 over the 12 games that would be 21/22 points. 

Also if we could improve our away form too, which looks likely under Emery, say to 1.2 or similar that would, over the 11 games give us 13 points. 

18 + 22 + 13 = 53 points. I’d be happy with that. 

Anywhere around 50 pts would be a big success.

[ejs1111]

9 hours ago, Mark Albrighton said:

 So as we’re at the not quite halfway point and there is a renewed sense of optimism, how many points do we think is a good, realistic target for us to end on?

I typically overestimate what I think we will pick up. For instance, taking each game individually it’s reasonable to think we will beat Wolves, Leeds and Leicester at home. But winning all three might not be as realistic, contradictory as that sounds. Basically it’s the Lawro predicting that Liverpool will never lose again problem.

We’re currently on 18 points. Trying to be cautious, maybe finish on 52 points? Maybe another 21 from our home games, another 13 from our away games. I feel like I’ve been fairly sober with the estimate, maybe overestimated our home form and slightly underestimated our away form.

Trying to not set myself up for a fall.

I think ppl quoting us finishing with around 45pts is complete rubbish.  That is what our CURRENT average is.  18pts/15 games = 1.2pts/game x 38 games = 45.6pts

There is no way in hell Emery has Villa playing 1.2pts per game the rest of the season.  That is barely above SG level ineptitude.  Even with SG, Villa have been very good at home this season.  With UE- that will certainly continue.  As a previous poster pointed out, Villa have been 1.86pts/game at home with SG.  I honestly expect that to improve slightly with UE.  Call it 2.1pt/game.  Away form has been abysmal with SG, UE will rectify that naturally with his counter attacking style.  We've already snatched from Brighton.  I honestly see 4 potential away wins (Soton, Everton, Brentford, Wolves).  We could avg about 1-1.2pts/game away maybe.

12 home games x 2.1pts = 25pts

11 road games x 1.2pts = 13pts

38pts + 18pts = 56pts to finish the season- that would put us in contention for top8- right where we should be frankly.  

And before people start calling me crazy...  That point total is Villa averaging 1.65pts over the remaining 23 games which is not that crazy for Emery.  Thats 62-63pts over a full season.  I really think Villa is fully capable of this with a REAL coach at the helm finally. UTV!

[Mark Albrighton]

50 minutes ago, ejs1111 said:

I think ppl quoting us finishing with around 45pts is complete rubbish.  That is what our CURRENT average is.  18pts/15 games = 1.2pts/game x 38 games = 45.6pts

Yes, this is my thinking. And again, trying to look at this rationally with a reasonable expectation (apologies for possibly some duplication of essentially the same point you were making).

If we say we ended the season with the 45 points that has been put forward in one or two posts.

That’s another 27 points over 23 remaining games. Which works out to be 1.17 PPG.

To give this some context, last season our final 23 games yielded 26 points. 1.13 PPG. 

And if memory serves correct, a fair few people weren’t terribly happy with that return. 

Of course, these are all just numbers and I guess there is a hypothetical scenario where we could reach 45 points and it not seem so disappointing. Maybe we play really well but the results aren’t coming, but we see what Emery is trying to do and there’s (understandably) more patience because of his pedigree…I don’t know.

But for me, a final total of 45 points - at this present moment - seems a little bit low. It’s obviously not an all or nothing scenario, but I think 50+ points is a fair and reasonable target. 

[VillaChris]

Should be aiming for 50 + points.

We're in a really strong position at home. 4 wins from first 7 is better win ratio than what we usually have at home from even first 10-11 games.

If we get the first goal then Liverpool is a very winnable game and after that it's just Arsenal and Spurs as top teams (we've won our last three without conceding at home to Newcastle).

Think 10 or even 11 wins is a possibility at VP. Another 20 or so points from the home games and we'd need 4 more away wins to get to 50 points so that's trickier although promising signs at Brighton we can turn a game round and then hold on reasonably comfortably.

[VillaChris]

10 hours ago, Tayls said:

Reckon if we can get to 45 points, that will be a good starting point to build on next season. After such a poor start to this season that would actually be a bit of an achievement I think. 

Way too low. Gerrard took over in similar circumstances and won games early like Unai has done early and he had us on 36 points after 27 games after Leeds away in mid March. Just a really really poor end of season as 5 wins from last 11 there would've got us comfortable top 8.

If we get in same position this season I don't expect any let up at all.

[Pinebro]

 Not expecting miracles just top 4