Villa’s Race for Europe 22/23

[duke313]

2 minutes ago, messi11 said:

I think we can win tomorrow! Its a 51% vs 49% game.
A draw will be a good result too  

I wouldn't be upset with a draw, away from home against an in-form Newcastle team. 

[rubberman]

1 hour ago, PussEKatt said:

We are 6 points off 7th place right now.Im sure a manager like we have now coupled with our squad can make up those 6 points.At least I hope so.

Unfortunately it is almost certain that Liverpool will pick up form and get into the top 6 at very least. That leaves us needing to catch and overhaul Man U or Newcastle who are 8 & 9 points ahead of us (and likely to be fighting for 7th). Man U, Chelsea and Liverpool all have a game in hand as well. Can't see any of the others in the top six getting fewer points than us over the rest of the season. Everyone else is definitely catchable, so 8th is IMO our ceiling. I suppose if we win this weekend, Toon will only be 6 ahead, so there's a slight chance but we'd have to have incredible form to do it.

Given our start I'd be happy with top half, and very pleased with anything more this season.

[duke313]

Just now, rubberman said:

Unfortunately it is almost certain that Liverpool will pick up form and get into the top 6 at very least. That leaves us needing to catch and overhaul Man U or Newcastle who are 8 & 9 points ahead of us (and likely to be fighting for 7th). Man U, Chelsea and Liverpool all have a game in hand as well. Can't see any of the others in the top six getting fewer points than us over the rest of the season. Everyone else is definitely catchable, so 8th is IMO our ceiling. I suppose if we win this weekend, Toon will only be 6 ahead, so there's a slight chance but we'd have to have incredible form to do it.

Given our start I'd be happy with top half, and very pleased with anything more this season.

6th and 7th don't even guarantee European football anyway, they are entirely dependent on who wins the cups.

I would take a cup win and 10th any day of the week.

[tomsky_11]

What would we probably need points wise to get top 7?

Here's the average, minimum and maximum points achieved by PL final position since 01/02 (first season with 4 CL places and potential for 7 European places to fall to top 7, ignoring Fair Play and Intertoto qualification) as well as for the last 5 and 10 seasons:

Looking at the above, 60 points almost guarantees top 7 (in only 3 seasons since 95/96 season has 8th place earned more than 60 points) and might even get us into 6th while as low as 53 points might still give us a chance of top 7 (in 11 of the last 21 seasons 8th place has had 53 points or fewer)

So how achievable is this?

60 points and almost guaranteed top 7 would require 48 points (1.85ppg) over our remaining fixtures. As I've posted in the Emery thread, he's achieved this kind of run at every club he's managed apart from Spartak (where he only managed 17 league games in total). So we would appear to have a manager capable of putting together the kind of run we'd need.

To give that rate of 1.85ppg some further context:

- Dean Smith's best 26 game run in the PL for Villa, from the end of 19/20 until Grealish's injury in early 2021, was at 1.7ppg

- Eddie Howe got 44 points from 27 games, or 1.63ppg, for Newcastle last season.

So expecting us to fly to 60 points might be asking too much of Emery, especially when, as I've also noted elsewhere on VT, his first 25 games at the likes of Valencia, Sevilla and Villarreal brought between 1.32 and 1.56ppg. But if Emery can achieve a start on the higher end of this range, 1.56ppg would get us to 53 points and perhaps an outside chance of 7th if we are lucky. (Also worth noting at this point that Gerrard last season got around 1.3ppg, so would fully expect Emery to surpass this, especially with hopefully a fully fit squad after the winter break)

Who do we play and what points would we potentially need to finish with between 53 and 60?

Pre winter break - new MNU bha - 4 to 5 points - At least one win from these feels doable, with Brighton perhaps most likely. At least one or two points from the other games seems feasible if we play as well as we did on Sunday.

Post winter break - LIV tot WOL LEE sou LEI mnc ARS - 12 to 15 points - 4 games we should be looking to win, bookended either side by 4 of the 'top 6'. We'll need to be consistently good against the weaker sides and then hopefully pick up the odd point against the stronger sides.

The "easiest run of the season" - eve CRY whu BOU che NFO NEW bre FUL (+ lei to be rescheduled) - 18 to 21 points - 4 very winnable home games, plenty of opportunity to pick up points from the others with only Chelsea to play from the 'top 6'.

Tricky finish - mnu wol TOT liv BHA - 6 to 8 points - three 'top 6' sides and local derby away from home not the nicest finish. At least Brighton at home final day is a good opportunity for 3 points.

 

[messi11]

17 hours ago, tomsky_11 said:

What would we probably need points wise to get top 7?

Here's the average, minimum and maximum points achieved by PL final position since 01/02 (first season with 4 CL places and potential for 7 European places to fall to top 7, ignoring Fair Play and Intertoto qualification) as well as for the last 5 and 10 seasons:

Looking at the above, 60 points almost guarantees top 7 (in only 3 seasons since 95/96 season has 8th place earned more than 60 points) and might even get us into 6th while as low as 53 points might still give us a chance of top 7 (in 11 of the last 21 seasons 8th place has had 53 points or fewer)

So how achievable is this?

60 points and almost guaranteed top 7 would require 48 points (1.85ppg) over our remaining fixtures. As I've posted in the Emery thread, he's achieved this kind of run at every club he's managed apart from Spartak (where he only managed 17 league games in total). So we would appear to have a manager capable of putting together the kind of run we'd need.

To give that rate of 1.85ppg some further context:

- Dean Smith's best 26 game run in the PL for Villa, from the end of 19/20 until Grealish's injury in early 2021, was at 1.7ppg

- Eddie Howe got 44 points from 27 games, or 1.63ppg, for Newcastle last season.

So expecting us to fly to 60 points might be asking too much of Emery, especially when, as I've also noted elsewhere on VT, his first 25 games at the likes of Valencia, Sevilla and Villarreal brought between 1.32 and 1.56ppg. But if Emery can achieve a start on the higher end of this range, 1.56ppg would get us to 53 points and perhaps an outside chance of 7th if we are lucky. (Also worth noting at this point that Gerrard last season got around 1.3ppg, so would fully expect Emery to surpass this, especially with hopefully a fully fit squad after the winter break)

Who do we play and what points would we potentially need to finish with between 53 and 60?

Pre winter break - new MNU bha - 4 to 5 points - At least one win from these feels doable, with Brighton perhaps most likely. At least one or two points from the other games seems feasible if we play as well as we did on Sunday.

Post winter break - LIV tot WOL LEE sou LEI mnc ARS - 12 to 15 points - 4 games we should be looking to win, bookended either side by 4 of the 'top 6'. We'll need to be consistently good against the weaker sides and then hopefully pick up the odd point against the stronger sides.

The "easiest run of the season" - eve CRY whu BOU che NFO NEW bre FUL (+ lei to be rescheduled) - 18 to 21 points - 4 very winnable home games, plenty of opportunity to pick up points from the others with only Chelsea to play from the 'top 6'.

Tricky finish - mnu wol TOT liv BHA - 6 to 8 points - three 'top 6' sides and local derby away from home not the nicest finish. At least Brighton at home final day is a good opportunity for 3 points.

 

Great Post! We can do it! Beat Newcastle today and its right on

[daft]

I told you this would happen.

[Pinebro]

Top 17th more like it. 

[Lerner's Driver]

lol

[daft]

The amount of shit I have gotten for even suggesting we might be overestimating this squad… Still, the jury is out. Indications are we need some work, even with Carlos and Kamala back, but more patience is needed for now. 

[tomsky_11]

2 hours ago, messi11 said:

Great Post! We can do it! Beat Newcastle today and its right on

Lol

[rodders0223]

Just now, daft said:

The amount of shit I have gotten for even suggesting we might be overestimating this squad… Still, the jury is out. Indications are we need some work, even with Carlos and Kamala back, but more patience is needed for now. 

Hold on there buddy. I called them shit first.

[messi11]

2 hours ago, tomsky_11 said:

Lol

We can still do it! Beat Man United and its still on

[thunderball]

18 hours ago, daft said:

The amount of shit I have gotten for even suggesting we might be overestimating this squad… Still, the jury is out. Indications are we need some work, even with Carlos and Kamala back, but more patience is needed for now. 

I still think its the system. I guess we will all know come May next year. I would agree we still need better players, but you can always say that.

[messi11]

12 minutes ago, thunderball said:

I still think its the system. I guess we will all know come May next year. I would agree we still need better players, but you can always say that.

Its 100% the system/tactics  for sure!

@daft Would you swap our group of players for 7th place Fulham's ?

Exactly! 

Edited October 30, 2022 by messi11

[daft]

9 minutes ago, messi11 said:

Its 100% the system/tactics  for sure!

@daft Would you swap our group of players for 7th place Fulham's ?

Exactly! 

That is an insane comparison and it just shows absolute ignorance of all things team related. We tend to focus on specific points in time where the table looks a certain way and then pass judgement. This is about the trend. 

Of course part of it is tactical. Part of it is mental amongst the club as a whole and the players. Part of it is individual skill on multiple levels, from tactical to technical and everything in between. Thinking all of it is tactical is simply as ludicrous as forcing a choice between our squad and Fulhams just because they happen to sit higher up the table than us. 

Let's say Emery gets this squads tactics right, that should definitely push us upthw table some. How much? No-one knows, but even if we pip Fulham and for a while sit at 7th, that does not mean much more than that we are, at that point in time, above Fulham.

More important is the longer trend shown in performance over time, and currently that is trending downward under multiple different managers. We can still get something out of this squad, and I might be proven wrong in my suspicion (that is all I am voicing) about this squad being overrated if Emery manages to lift the performances of the team. But he needs way more that tactics to do that.

Time will tell. This squad still has it all to prove in my very humble opinion. They need to show the stuff on all levels. 

Emery is a great appointment, and if anyone can do it I believe he is the best equipped. 

[Pinebro]

Still 75 points to play for.

We can do this.

[messi11]

Best thing to do is not to look at the table and take it game by game.
Man United should be a win

[ender4]

On 28/10/2022 at 20:11, tomsky_11 said:

What would we probably need points wise to get top 7?

Here's the average, minimum and maximum points achieved by PL final position since 01/02 (first season with 4 CL places and potential for 7 European places to fall to top 7, ignoring Fair Play and Intertoto qualification) as well as for the last 5 and 10 seasons:

Looking at the above, 60 points almost guarantees top 7 (in only 3 seasons since 95/96 season has 8th place earned more than 60 points) and might even get us into 6th while as low as 53 points might still give us a chance of top 7 (in 11 of the last 21 seasons 8th place has had 53 points or fewer)

So how achievable is this?

60 points and almost guaranteed top 7 would require 48 points (1.85ppg) over our remaining fixtures. As I've posted in the Emery thread, he's achieved this kind of run at every club he's managed apart from Spartak (where he only managed 17 league games in total). So we would appear to have a manager capable of putting together the kind of run we'd need.

To give that rate of 1.85ppg some further context:

- Dean Smith's best 26 game run in the PL for Villa, from the end of 19/20 until Grealish's injury in early 2021, was at 1.7ppg

- Eddie Howe got 44 points from 27 games, or 1.63ppg, for Newcastle last season.

So expecting us to fly to 60 points might be asking too much of Emery, especially when, as I've also noted elsewhere on VT, his first 25 games at the likes of Valencia, Sevilla and Villarreal brought between 1.32 and 1.56ppg. But if Emery can achieve a start on the higher end of this range, 1.56ppg would get us to 53 points and perhaps an outside chance of 7th if we are lucky. (Also worth noting at this point that Gerrard last season got around 1.3ppg, so would fully expect Emery to surpass this, especially with hopefully a fully fit squad after the winter break)

Who do we play and what points would we potentially need to finish with between 53 and 60?

Pre winter break - new MNU bha - 4 to 5 points - At least one win from these feels doable, with Brighton perhaps most likely. At least one or two points from the other games seems feasible if we play as well as we did on Sunday.

Post winter break - LIV tot WOL LEE sou LEI mnc ARS - 12 to 15 points - 4 games we should be looking to win, bookended either side by 4 of the 'top 6'. We'll need to be consistently good against the weaker sides and then hopefully pick up the odd point against the stronger sides.

The "easiest run of the season" - eve CRY whu BOU che NFO NEW bre FUL (+ lei to be rescheduled) - 18 to 21 points - 4 very winnable home games, plenty of opportunity to pick up points from the others with only Chelsea to play from the 'top 6'.

Tricky finish - mnu wol TOT liv BHA - 6 to 8 points - three 'top 6' sides and local derby away from home not the nicest finish. At least Brighton at home final day is a good opportunity for 3 points.

 

54 points on average gets you 8th and 46-49 has got 8th a couple of times. I would say that's our aim for this season. Will need some strong form during our relatively easy run in Jan though.

I'd take 10th though.

[messi11]

Beat Manchester United tomorrow and we are right back in the mix. It's still on.

[Follyfoot]

40 points first and then we can dream