Away Form

[TRO]

There are many ways of appraising progress, and our Home form is clearly that, progress....The comparison is stark.... 1st for home form, 13th for away form.....we all know that gap should be closer.

I think away from home requires more game management and against some tough durable teams in this league, scrapping for points, because away points are sparse for them....we come across, some very hard working teams, that go after us. I also think some attention to physicality/ athleticism away from home wouldn't go amiss...we need another player or two to help us with that.

Its not easy, to think we can keep out scoring teams, there will be days, when a pragmatic approach is wise/ required......When we can go away from home, and fashion out a 1-1 or 0-0 with confidence, then we will know we are progressing in that area.

You cannot lose too many games and expect to reach the top places in the league... we at least need to turn them in to draws.

8 teams below us in the league are above us in the away league.....thats a concern.....only 4 teams have conceded more than us away from home....thats a concern, or should be.

If you don't fix a duff shock absorber on your car, the danger is, the rest go......thats the concern here, if we don't fix the away form, we are relying too much on the Home form, and pressure builds.

For me, I think the approach to the games is too similar.....Home and away, requires a different mind set.

I have a suspicion that away from home we are dining out, on our Home Form....we need to refocus and be up for a tough away encounter, who ever it is.

Ps everyone has their own opinions....but at St James's and Anfield, we was way, way, way, too open.....and we gifted them games to them.

Edited November 9, 2023 by TRO

[DJBOB]

2 hours ago, El Segundo said:

There are home only and away only tables on Footystats and SoccerStats. 

This season we are top of the Home table on goal difference with same points as City, Liverpool and Newcastle.  Newcastle have played 6, the rest 5.

We're 13th in the away table, level on points with Brentford in 8th, as well as Everton, West Ham, Wolves and Brighton.   We've played 6, one more than Brentford, Brighton and Everton.

If you're away form is not as good as Everton's I'm not sure it's anywhere near good enough for top 5.

Last season we finished 6th in the home table and 9th in the away table.  In the latter we had the same points as Fulham, Liverpool and Spurs in 6-8th.  We have to allow for Gerrard's best attempts to have us near the bottom of both, but our last four away games following the win at Leicester yielded only 2 points and 2 goals.

I think our away form is a concern if we are aiming for CL places. 

As others have said a big problem is not being switched on and fully focussed at the start of each half and this is especially true away from home.  

 

     

The funny thing is that we were much more switched on for Wolves (maybe because it was a derby) and almost immediately went with 6 at the back to counter their long balls.

But I don't really think we played particularly well until they went down to 10 men.

Whereas I think we moved the ball and played much better against Forest but couldn't put the ball in the back of the net.

It's kind of a dilemma for Unai. By principle, he wants to score quickly, get ahead and control the game. Most big sides will do that and he wants us to operate in the same manner. That we have the personnel to do so is the thing he believes and that the fans might not.

So for all this talk of going 'pragmatic' in the beginning, I just don't think he will do it. For us to be a top side, we need to play like a top side and you're not going to see City or Arsenal sit back and absorb pressure for the first 10 minutes. Maybe pass it around to kill off the game but definitely they won't be 'pragmatic'

Time will tell - I think there's just some random variance on the goals conceded and our away form will pull together as we also won't continue this blistering home form.

[TRO]

On 06/11/2023 at 12:19, MikeMcKenna said:

I am still not sure why it went so badly wrong yesterday, other than possibly we were too cocky going into the game. Being away from home, I wonder if the over confidence is skin deep? The number of times we lost one on ones was shocking and across the pitch we were easily knocked off the ball. 

 

 

 

Spot On.

The thing is Mike....We cannot do that and still expect to get maximum results....your observations there, are not spoken about enough...it had similarities against Wolves.....We have to go after teams....We was happy to play our passing game, away from them.

Those things have consequences, as we are finding out, away.

 

[VillaChris]

Newcastle's away form is surely much worse than ours?

They're going to lose today. Didn't win at Wolves or West Ham either and lost twice away right at the start of the season.

This is a direct rival for top 4.

[Sulberto21]

Our away form is the result of loads of missed chances. The only exception is the Liverpool game where I felt that we didn’t look like creating chances. 

One difference from last season is that we would start games deeper and then push up whereas this season we’re starting higher up. Away from home that is. 

[Vive_La_Villa]

Nearly every teams away form is a concern. That’s why there is such a thing as home advantage. 
 

If you look at the Away table there is 7 points between 13 teams.

Edited November 11, 2023 by Vive_La_Villa

[Sulberto21]

All I know is that we’re going to give someone a right pasting away from home. 

[S-Platt]

9 minutes ago, Sulberto21 said:

All I know is that we’re going to give someone a right pasting away from home. 

Please be Boxing Day!

[briny_ear]

We’ve played a handful of games at home and a handful away so far this season. It is perhaps a bit early to be talking about “form” at either locations, certainly not enough to back up some of the long dissertations we have here about what is “going wrong” away from home.

Let’s see how things pan out over the full span of this very exciting season. It doesn’t seem too bad so far. 

[Made In Aston]

14 hours ago, VillaChris said:

Newcastle's away form is surely much worse than ours?

They're going to lose today. Didn't win at Wolves or West Ham either and lost twice away right at the start of the season.

This is a direct rival for top 4.

Man Utd's away for was poor last season as well, but they finished in the top 4. 

[turvontour]

It's a bit quiet in here tonight.

Absolutely phenomenal away wins at Chelsea and Tottenham for the second season in a row.

For so many years we didn't get anything in London, let alone from those clubs. 

Edited November 26, 2023 by turvontour

[Farlz]

That's a big one. Needed something like that. 

I'm not totally convinced yet, we give away so many early chances away from home I don't really get it. We managed to ride the storm today though and that's a good sign but still work to be done in getting our balance right. 

[Pongo Waring]

Beat Bournemouth and we will have the joint second best away form in the league.

What a total myth. 

[Farlz]

The away game table doesn't actually look that bad. 

I dunno why I think it's so bad, maybe the lack of control makes me feel that way. 

or maybe I'm just an idiot. 

[tomav84]

4 hours ago, Farlz said:

The away game table doesn't actually look that bad. 

I dunno why I think it's so bad, maybe the lack of control makes me feel that way. 

or maybe I'm just an idiot. 

the away form was being discussed as we only took 1 point from wolves and forest plus bad scorelines at newcastle and liverpool. it was a valid discussion as we were particularly poor vs forest and not great vs wolves. if ollie's header goes in at the end of wolves then away form probably wouldn't have even been talked about

[QldVilla]

I don’t get the narrative around our away form, I think it’s just a tool commentators use so they don’t have to take Villa seriously. In my mind, we played a Newcastle team who thought it was a cup final first day of the season, otherwise we have been pretty solid except for Liverpool and a poor performance against Forrest where if I remember our xG was actually better.

The next month is going to tell us where we actually are.

 

[Zatman]

We played Liverpool, Newcastle, Spurs and Chelsea away plus Forest and Wolves who are really good at home and still have 10 points

[Mantis]

5 hours ago, turvontour said:

It's a bit quiet in here tonight.

Absolutely phenomenal away wins at Chelsea and Tottenham for the second season in a row.

For so many years we didn't get anything in London, let alone from those clubs. 

Between 2004 and 2022 we beat Spurs in the league 4 times. We've now beaten them 3 times under Emery in a year.

Under Emery we've also beaten Chelsea twice at Stamford Bridge this year. Prior to that we'd only beaten them once there since 2002/2003.

He just has to break that St James' Park curse next season.

21 minutes ago, Zatman said:

We played Liverpool, Newcastle, Spurs and Chelsea away plus Forest and Wolves who are really good at home and still have 10 points

I was thinking this as well. We've been brilliant at home but one of the reasons why our home form has been *so* good is because we've had a relatively easy run there. In contrast, our away fixtures have been way harder than average.

[VillaChris]

5 hours ago, Farlz said:

The away game table doesn't actually look that bad. 

I dunno why I think it's so bad, maybe the lack of control makes me feel that way. 

or maybe I'm just an idiot. 

Two of those losses were at Liverpool and Newcastle. Have a look in May how many teams will win at those venues, it won't be many although losing both so heavily were disappointing.

We won at Chelsea which even now dosen't seem that amazing but since then they've drawn v Arsenal and Man. City.

Wolves was also seen as a disappointment. Since then Newcastle have only drawn there and Spurs lost at Molineux.

To me our only big disappointment was losing at Forest and again they don't lose many.

If we win at Bournemouth we're on 4 wins from 8 games so that's pretty much in line with what we need as many teams finished top 4 winning 8-9 away games a season.

[Rugeley Villa]

Our away form is just fine, it just looks worse than it is because we always win at home at the moment .