Season 22/23 Target League Position

[tomsky_11]

40 minutes ago, hippo said:

I m sure someone posted on here - we didn't have that many late collapses last season.

In that list of games posted above there's at least 3 or 4 that changed for the worse following late subs. And even if that wasn't the case, the point that we are improved by having better squad depth is surely still valid?

44 minutes ago, hippo said:

AFAIK - Pre Season started Early July - so the players have an extra 4 or 5 weeks getting to grips with Gerrards system - not six months.

1 hour ago, tomsky_11 said:

key retained players have got six months in Gerrard's system to build on, a full preseason to work with now

This is clearly referring to the six months or so of playing under Gerrard last season, and now further dedicated time with existing and new players alike to build on that. I obviously didn't use enough words to make the point...

48 minutes ago, hippo said:

Luck with Injuries ? - You mean bailey and Traroe stay fit ? (more of a problem would be fitting those players into a system where full backs provide width)

As in hopefully this season we won't have the multiple availability issues we had last season, especially like at the start of the season under Smith.

50 minutes ago, hippo said:

Don't get me wrong Im not expecting us to flop next season - 10TH would be reasonable IMO.

But Im not expecting a massive uptick in results .

Even if the results stay on par with last season we are looking at around 9th. And the gap to at least 7th isn't a big one from there. For me we've done enough already with the signings we've made to be in with a good shot of bridging that gap, while no other teams we will be competing with in that part of the table have done more so far. If we can build on last season's positives and avoid any major negatives eg. injury issues, losing key players just before the season, then 7th is gettable.

[hippo]

1 minute ago, tomsky_11 said:

In that list of games posted above there's at least 3 or 4 that changed for the worse following late subs. And even if that wasn't the case, the point that we are improved by having better squad depth is surely still valid?

This is clearly referring to the six months or so of playing under Gerrard last season, and now further dedicated time with existing and new players alike to build on that. I obviously didn't use enough words to make the point...

As in hopefully this season we won't have the multiple availability issues we had last season, especially like at the start of the season under Smith.

Even if the results stay on par with last season we are looking at around 9th. And the gap to at least 7th isn't a big one from there. For me we've done enough already with the signings we've made to be in with a good shot of bridging that gap, while no other teams we will be competing with in that part of the table have done more so far. If we can build on last season's positives and avoid any major negatives eg. injury issues, losing key players just before the season, then 7th is gettable.

Let's wait and see.

Hope we don't get all those injuries that we got last season - that was awful

[tomsky_11]

40 minutes ago, nick76 said:

Lost the 4th most league games last season at 19 games so we’ll end up 17th next season.  See, individual spouting off facts that support an argument doesn’t give the picture of what is happening.  How about the final 11 games we got 9 points, so based on that we’ll get 31 points next season over 38 games.

Oh come on, you can't seriously think these are reasonable and comparative arguments. We're talking about how this team has performed under Gerrard but let's throw in 7 losses under different management and with all the other issues at the time. Or taking a smaller isolated sample of results under Gerrard and suggest that's more reflective than his entire tenure to date, because a smaller data set is obviously more use than a larger one? That's basically like me going "Gerrard's first 11 games? 17 points. 58 over a season. 7th nailed on."

[hippo]

4 minutes ago, tomsky_11 said:

Oh come on, you can't seriously think these are reasonable and comparative arguments. We're talking about how this team has performed under Gerrard but let's throw in 7 losses under different management and with all the other issues at the time. Or taking a smaller isolated sample of results under Gerrard and suggest that's more reflective than his entire tenure to date, because a smaller data set is obviously more use than a larger one? That's basically like me going "Gerrard's first 11 games? 17 points. 58 over a season. 7th nailed on."

Do you have any idea how modern football works ?

You seem to get your 'knowledge' from a Roy of the Rovers comic lol

[tomsky_11]

10 minutes ago, hippo said:

Let's wait and see.

Hope we don't get all those injuries that we got last season - that was awful

Our opening 10 games of last season saw 18 personnel changes to the starting line ups and only two ever present players, with a switch from 4 to 3 at the back, and then back again. Injuries, covid and suspensions were the main causes of this.

Compare that to the previous season and the amazing start we had: 6 changes total in just two positions, nine ever present players and a consistent formation.

These things make a difference. See West Ham last season. Great start, in which they rarely had to move from their first choice xi. A few key injuries at the back and there results had a significant drop off.

[tomsky_11]

7 minutes ago, hippo said:

Do you have any idea how modern football works ?

You seem to get your 'knowledge' from a Roy of the Rovers comic lol

Lol what does this even mean? Please, tell me how it works and how our results under Smith are in any way reflective of Gerrard?

[hippo]

4 minutes ago, tomsky_11 said:

Lol what does this even mean? Please, tell me how it works and how our results under Smith are in any way reflective of Gerrard?

I haven't said that.

Most scorelines in the PL  are the prem are tight. Because we narrowly lost 7 selected matches last season doesn't mean we will win them this season. 

Some players will step up this season and have a great season - others will fail to hit the heights of last season.

Imo we got off pretty lightly with injuries last season. Again imo 2 of the most injured players (Bailey + Traroe) were unlikely to feature in Gerrards full back width driven system anyway.

Gerrard has been here 8 or 9 months now. In that time he will have accumulated many hours on the training pitch with the players - again imo the extra 4/5 weeks in July / Aug  arent likely to be significant.

You have to average things out - for every new player that's hits the ground running - there will be one that's a takes a while longer.

So yeah I'm hoping for improvement - but so are fans and head coaches of other clubs.

Every club is trying to make improvements for next season - not just villa. It's an incredibly competitive division.

[hippo]

19 minutes ago, tomsky_11 said:

Our opening 10 games of last season saw 18 personnel changes to the starting line ups and only two ever present players, with a switch from 4 to 3 at the back, and then back again. Injuries, covid and suspensions were the main causes of this.

Compare that to the previous season and the amazing start we had: 6 changes total in just two positions, nine ever present players and a consistent formation.

These things make a difference. See West Ham last season. Great start, in which they rarely had to move from their first choice xi. A few key injuries at the back and there results had a significant drop off.

Fair enough.

I was only talking the Gerrard era.

Oh and covid is still a thing. 

[nick76]

40 minutes ago, tomsky_11 said:

Oh come on, you can't seriously think these are reasonable and comparative arguments. We're talking about how this team has performed under Gerrard but let's throw in 7 losses under different management and with all the other issues at the time. Or taking a smaller isolated sample of results under Gerrard and suggest that's more reflective than his entire tenure to date, because a smaller data set is obviously more use than a larger one? That's basically like me going "Gerrard's first 11 games? 17 points. 58 over a season. 7th nailed on."

It’s called form, ever heard of it? We finished the season in the last 11 games with 9 points giving a indication how after six months how we were doing under Gerrard.  You want to go back further? In 2022 in all competitions we won 6…great! 5 draws and 10 loses….so a 28.5% win rate, not great! Our form in 2022, not an isolated period was not great…that’s our form! That’s how we are doing most recently over a very extended period.  

You want to include the first half a dozen games to cover the poor ending.  The run rate of points per game at the beginning of Gerrard’s tenure is far more than at the end of the season, we were getting worse.  Never mind the argument that the first handful of games could be considered a new manager bounce, the euphoria of a new manager, players wanting to impress the new manager, the players also haven’t gotten Gerrard’s methods and tactics really in their heads at that point because they’ve had very few training sessions. This is further back up that people say that Gerrard needs a full preseason to get his methods into the players so then hard to justify he can do that in the first few games of his tenure.  The hype around a new manager and players wanting to impress is generally the answer and proven in many studies and defined as the ‘new manager bounce’.

By the time we are into April, we are into a six month period where he’s had more time with the players and his ideas yet we are worse then ppg wise than earlier in his tenure as I’ve shown.  You want to dismiss form over an extended period because it doesn’t look good.

Gerrard needs time and this preseason is giving him that but what we have seen in 2022 and in games like today especially from an attacking point of view isn’t as rosy as you are portraying. You don’t agree, fair enough!

Edited July 20, 2022 by nick76

[tomsky_11]

5 minutes ago, hippo said:

I haven't said that.

You were responding to a post in which I argued that using Smith's losses to judge Gerrard next season isn't particularly useful with "you know nothing about football", so forgive my misunderstanding.

10 minutes ago, hippo said:

Most scorelines in the PL  are the prem are tight. Because we narrowly lost 7 selected matches last season doesn't mean we will win them this season.

My point hasn't been just the scorelines though, the perfomances IMO (bar Arsenal which we were poor in) were good as well given the level of opposition and most of the time would warrant better points return.

16 minutes ago, hippo said:

Imo we got off pretty lightly with injuries last season. Again imo 2 of the most injured players (Bailey + Traroe) were unlikely to feature in Gerrards full back width driven system anyway.

Our first dip pretty much coincided with Nakamba's injury. He'd been ever present under Gerrard and a more natural fit for the '6' role than Luiz. Our first defeat to a team outside the top 3 was against Brentford when missing Nakamba, Watkins and Mings.

And on the Bailey thing, he's not just a winger. His best season at Leverkusen was from the right playing as an inside forward which can be entirely consistent with Gerrard's set up with Cash occupying the wide right and Bailey the inside right.

23 minutes ago, hippo said:

Gerrard has been here 8 or 9 months now. In that time he will have accumulated many hours on the training pitch with the players - again imo the extra 4/5 weeks in July / Aug  arent likely to be significant.

Plenty of coaches, Gerrard included, have made the point that a full preseason is incredible valuable for implementing a style and ideas to a team, much more so than trying to do this mid-season where the focus of training/coaching is much more geared to the short term, next opponent, etc.

28 minutes ago, hippo said:

Every club is trying to make improvements for next season - not just villa. It's an incredibly competitive division.

Sure, but looking at the teams we are likely competing with, at this point in time we've done more to improve, at least on the transfers front:

West Ham - Aguerd seems on paper like could improve their defence, and at very least gives another option where they had injury issues when their form dropped.

Leicester - Have done nothing in window yet. Could still lose Tielemans.

Wolves - Replaced Saiss with Nathan Collins. Lost depth with Marcal going and Fabio Silva loan.

BHA - Lost Bissouma, signed an 18yo striker from Paraguay.

Newcastle - Have signed Pope, Botman and Targett. The first is a excellent signing, the second has a lot of potential it would seem, the third was our backup player. The rest of there squad needs a lot of work to match ours IMO and they appear to be struggling with other targets so far.

Palace - Doucoure and Johnstone. A player we were previously linked with and a player we know well. Both look like good signings for them but I don't think the same level as we have with Kamara and Martinez.

Not sure any other teams are worth mentioning are they?

[tomsky_11]

48 minutes ago, nick76 said:

It’s called form, ever heard of it?

Sure. Immediate form is surely more relevant without a 2/3 month break though?

52 minutes ago, nick76 said:

We finished the season in the last 11 games with 9 points giving a indication how after six months how we were doing under Gerrard.

Could put forward the alternative view that these results are reflective of a mid table side with little left to play for playing 9 games where the opposition are still fighting for the title, euro places or against relegation. Or that if we take final league position as an indicator of fixture difficulty that that set of games is hard than the average run of games.

1 hour ago, nick76 said:

You want to include the first half a dozen games to cover the poor ending.

I want to include the first half dozen games because that gives the largest sample of games under Gerrard, nothing more. You are being way more selective to make a point than I am. Is the first 6 games new manager bounce? Because lets break the 27 games into groups of three? The results in the first 9 games are identical to the second group of 9? Is that still new manager bounce? Is that drop off?

Either way, I've already said that IMO there were plenty of positive extended periods of performance in those last 11 games and they ultimately give me more hope for this season than the final results in those games.

There's another factor as well that makes the first 6 (or rather 5) games of some relevance, which is that it's the only run of games which featured a more natural player in the '6' role, which I feel is pretty critical to Gerrard's whole set up and which we appear to have dramatically improved upon this summer.

1 hour ago, nick76 said:

in games like today especially from an attacking point of view isn’t as rosy as you are portraying.

Today's a funny one because you'd guess probably 4 of the first choice attacking 5 (Cash, Digne, Ings, Coutinho) were in that first half, but the set up was somewhat more experimental: Coutinho part of the middle 3 so not really in that attacking 5, Traore and Bailey there instead, with Bailey weirdly wide left which doesn't really suit the usual Digne overlapping set up. The second half was closer to the more successful 4312 set up we saw last season and we looked a lot better in the final third.

[nick76]

14 minutes ago, tomsky_11 said:

Sure. Immediate form is surely more relevant without a 2/3 month break though?

Could put forward the alternative view that these results are reflective of a mid table side with little left to play for playing 9 games where the opposition are still fighting for the title, euro places or against relegation. Or that if we take final league position as an indicator of fixture difficulty that that set of games is hard than the average run of games.

I want to include the first half dozen games because that gives the largest sample of games under Gerrard, nothing more. You are being way more selective to make a point than I am. Is the first 6 games new manager bounce? Because lets break the 27 games into groups of three? The results in the first 9 games are identical to the second group of 9? Is that still new manager bounce? Is that drop off?

Either way, I've already said that IMO there were plenty of positive extended periods of performance in those last 11 games and they ultimately give me more hope for this season than the final results in those games.

There's another factor as well that makes the first 6 (or rather 5) games of some relevance, which is that it's the only run of games which featured a more natural player in the '6' role, which I feel is pretty critical to Gerrard's whole set up and which we appear to have dramatically improved upon this summer.

Today's a funny one because you'd guess probably 4 of the first choice attacking 5 (Cash, Digne, Ings, Coutinho) were in that first half, but the set up was somewhat more experimental: Coutinho part of the middle 3 so not really in that attacking 5, Traore and Bailey there instead, with Bailey weirdly wide left which doesn't really suit the usual Digne overlapping set up. The second half was closer to the more successful 4312 set up we saw last season and we looked a lot better in the final third.

Thanks for the discussion, we disagree on almost all of it but that’s cool.  

I’m out for today!

[Vive_La_Villa]

All we need to do is beat every team apart from the top 6 both home and away and we’ll finish top 4.  

[Vive_La_Villa]

Fascinating stuff. I have to admit I agree with pretty much everything @tomsky_11has written but it was still a great discussion.

[sne]

Think 7th should be the target and anything outside top-10 should be seen as a failure. A failure doesn't mean it has to be sackable of course depending on how it looks and the circumstances. 

[tomsky_11]

55 minutes ago, nick76 said:

Thanks for the discussion, we disagree on almost all of it but that’s cool.  

I’m out for today!

Yeah no worries. Good discussion.

[tomsky_11]

On 20/07/2022 at 17:47, nick76 said:

...what we have seen... in games like today especially from an attacking point of view isn’t as rosy as you are portraying.

Didn't mention yesterday as hadn't seen myself but had heard from a friend that the players had done extra training before the game in order to basically test the players in game when overloaded, which would perhaps make it more difficult judge the quality of play. Just now seen this was confirmed by Gerrard post game, players did 11km day before the game. Sounds about the equivalent of playing a full game the day before.

[nick76]

1 hour ago, tomsky_11 said:

Didn't mention yesterday as hadn't seen myself but had heard from a friend that the players had done extra training before the game in order to basically test the players in game when overloaded, which would perhaps make it more difficult judge the quality of play. Just now seen this was confirmed by Gerrard post game, players did 11km day before the game. Sounds about the equivalent of playing a full game the day before.

Yeah they’d already talked about that during the game.  It’s preseason training they overload players to improve fitness, they do it all the time in preseason, every year, every club, the tops clubs do.  Preseason is predominantly getting fitness to a high level while also bonding and players ideas, tactics and goals into the players.  This isn’t anything new!  Even at my substandard level of football when I used to play, in preseason we just ran and ran until we couldn’t run anymore, then we’d do sprint training drills and then more running, and then play a friendly games to get match fitness.

The attacking issues wasnt just down to fitness. I keep going back to the word cohesion, something we lack as an attacking force.  On top of that we were playing Brisbane Roar, not exactly the world class team of defenders.

[hippo]

8 minutes ago, nick76 said:

Yeah they’d already talked about that during the game.  It’s preseason training they overload players to improve fitness, they do it all the time in preseason, every year, every club, the tops clubs do.  Preseason is predominantly getting fitness to a high level while also bonding and players ideas, tactics and goals into the players.  This isn’t anything new!  Even at my substandard level of football when I used to play, in preseason we just ran and ran until we couldn’t run anymore, then we’d do sprint training drills and then more running, and then play a friendly games to get match fitness.

The attacking issues wasnt just down to fitness. I keep going back to the word cohesion, something we lack as an attacking force.  On top of that we were playing Brisbane Roar, not exactly the world class team of defenders.

Tbf he does have a point. You don't just overload and get fitter - your recovery is as important as well.

So imo if players were trained to overload on a day prior to a match - it would be unwise for them to go hammer and tong in a match the day after.

[nick76]

Just now, hippo said:

Tbf he does have a point. You don't just overload and get fitter - your recovery is as important as well.

So imo if players were trained to overload on a day prior to a match - it would be unwise for them to go hammer and tong in a match the day after.

I have no issue with that, I just worry that our attacking play seems like we haven’t worked together, we aren’t clicking, continuing from last season.  I look at our talent and see creativity and forgetting hammer and tong, I would just like to see good play between the players, creating space, creating better/clear cut chances. I’m seeing similar things to last season attacking wise where there doesn’t seem to be a plan attacking wise apart from the basic.  I hope I see better over the coming games.