Title race 2023/4

[turvontour]

I've seen it reported in a lot of places that we are on the same number of points right now than Leicester were the season we won it.

Are we not also on the same number of points as Man City were at the equivalent point in each of the seasons they've won it? 

[Stevo985]

38 minutes ago, rubberman said:

I think this season will be a lower winning total than we've seen for a bit. There are more sides in contention (generally) who can take points off the 'top' teams and no standout side looking unbeatable. Apart from the promoted sides pretty much everyone else would fancy their chances in most games. Fulham, Bournemouth, Everton - all mid-table (kind of in Everton's case), but getting results. Arsenal and Liverpool only just getting past Luton, Palace, Fulham etc. You may well be right that we don't have enough and eg City might win 20 in a row or whatever, but I'm on the belief train for now.

Only once in the last 12 seasons would our current PPG have been enough to win the league. And that was the Leicester season.

I'm not trying to put a dampener on things. Just highlighting how ridiculously hard it is to win the league. Even if you're good. You need to be really really **** good

[Stevo985]

24 minutes ago, turvontour said:

I've seen it reported in a lot of places that we are on the same number of points right now than Leicester were the season we won it.

Are we not also on the same number of points as Man City were at the equivalent point in each of the seasons they've won it? 

Leicester won the league with 81 points. There was only one other time in the 21st century when that was enough to win the league. It was quite an anomaly (especially when you consider that their nearest challenger was a further 10 points behind them)

[ThunderPower_14]

Just now, Stevo985 said:

Only once in the last 12 seasons would our current PPG have been enough to win the league. And that was the Leicester season.

I'm not trying to put a dampener on things. Just highlighting how ridiculously hard it is to win the league. Even if you're good. You need to be really really **** good

A lot of recent years Man City were so far ahead of the competition that it was barely worth running the league. I feel like it's a lot more competitive this season, there's no runaway favourite at this point of the year.

Man City would still be title favourites now and they've already dropped more points than they did in one of their title winning seasons.

I'm not arguing that we won't have to play out of our skins and have a lot go our way, but i'd hope the club fully believe they're in a title race and play accordingly.

[dont_do_it_doug.]

I had forgotten how randomly aggressive some VT posts can be. Maybe I do have a short memory!

I think the comparisons to Leicester are lazy. I don't care and it doesn't make me sad, but for many various reasons it just doesn't fit. This is our 5th season back in the league, we're a much bigger club with a more balanced squad and a smoother upward trajectory on the whole, Gerrard aside. We're not really running on vibes, as that Leicester team did to a degree. it feels far more sustainable. 

And, we haven't won the bloody title. If we do, you could compare us to PNE winning the title in 1889/90 and I really dgaf mate. 

 

[TRO]

It really is a time to rejoice in what is a truly, phenomenal run of form at Home.

However, to win the Title, requires and almost equally impressive away record.....I think, we are not quite ready for that, yet.

Top 4 would be truly remarkable, and if we can keep this drive and intensity going, who knows where it can take us.

I think speculating on a Title finish so early in the season, invites undue pressure on the club, and the cliche of one game at a time is prudent.

There is nothing wrong with aiming high, but expecting high, can be detrimental.

Stay calm, composed, and Humble....and see where it takes us.

UTV

[jimmygreaves]

I think the main thing lots of people are missing is that we're still improving. We've been getting better and better both individually and as a team.

We're 2 points off the top and we still have room to grow. Our main weapon last season was down the left with Ramsey and Moreno. They've still to get back in the side fully firing. Bailey is only now starting to show what a player he can be. Tielemans is another who beginning to find his feet. Donk against Arsenal was excellent in his cameo. And the group is getting better at executing the coaches plan. Olsen playing out from the back against Warsaw is a case in point. All of this and we've still maintained a challenge.

I'm a believer mate!

[RicRic]

17 hours ago, VillaChris said:

If we win most of them which we're capable of we'll be on 60-61 points. Do that and we'd probably make top 4 with less than a point a game from that point.

To actually win the league we'd probably then need to win 9 of our last 11...

Will require 70 points i reckon  for top four thats got to be the aim so roughly 

11 wins more

5 draws more 

total wins=22 wins 

[TRO]

7 minutes ago, jimmygreaves said:

I think the main thing lots of people are missing is that we're still improving. We've been getting better and better both individually and as a team.

We're 2 points off the top and we still have room to grow. Our main weapon last season was down the left with Ramsey and Moreno. They've still to get back in the side fully firing. Bailey is only now starting to show what a player he can be. Tielemans is another who beginning to find his feet. Donk against Arsenal was excellent in his cameo. And the group is getting better at executing the coaches plan. Olsen playing out from the back against Warsaw is a case in point. All of this and we've still maintained a challenge.

I'm a believer mate!

I don't know what the medium term plan is with Donk...but I can see him being used strategically away from home in particular... to help close games down, and secure points gained.

He can still do a job, to relieve the more talented players, of fatigue.

Maybe he too, needs some dedicated work on him, to improve his contribution....but I can see, how he can help.

[Rightdm00]

14 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

Only once in the last 12 seasons would our current PPG have been enough to win the league. And that was the Leicester season.

I'm not trying to put a dampener on things. Just highlighting how ridiculously hard it is to win the league. Even if you're good. You need to be really really **** good

On the same note, when was the last time the PL had 4/5 genuine title contenders. Plus, massive spenders like ManU/Chelsea occupying mid table. I feel like this season is shaping up for a low title winning points total. 

Look at the season Leicester won it.  Big clubs, Villa()/Newcastle, getting relegated.  Liverpool 8th, Chelsea 10th. I am starting to see the comparisons. Baring another cyborg like City winning run, a low points total could do it. 

[ejs1111]

I can see it now.  AVFC will fall 1 point short and everyone will be moaning about the Forest match until the end of time.

[MotoMkali]

1 hour ago, Stevo985 said:

Only once in the last 12 seasons would our current PPG have been enough to win the league. And that was the Leicester season.

I'm not trying to put a dampener on things. Just highlighting how ridiculously hard it is to win the league. Even if you're good. You need to be really really **** good

That assumes we won't improve our PPG though and I don't see any reason to think we couldn't. We've been missing 2 key players who are now back for most of the season. And we can definitely use Jan to bring in 2 players to improve our squad which could have us playing better. 

Realistically to have a shot at winning the league we need 50 points in the next 22 matches. 16 Wins, 2 Draws and 4 losses essentially. Or 17 wins and 5 losses. That will be very challenging of course but we have 7 very winnable home games (Bournemouth, Wolves, Brentford, Forest, Sheffield, Chelsea, Burnley) in those 22, and 7 winnable away games (Sheffield, Everton, Luton, Fulham, Brentford, West Ham, Crystal Palace) as well.

We'd still need to probably get 4 wins from Liverpool (H), Brighton (A), Arsenal (A), City (A), United (H) (A), Spurs (H) Newcastle (H) so we at least have some cushion if we **** up some of those "winnable games". But given we play 4 of those at home, we play Brighton who we historically have done well and vs united who have struggled recently that 4 wins and/or 3 wins and 2 draws seems doable. 

[HKP90]

4 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

It isn't really though. 

The minimum points total needed to win the league over the past 7 or 8 seasons was 87 (on the assumption we'd need one more point than the team that did win the league)

That requires a PPG of around 2.4 to achieve from where we are.

We are currently around 2.2. So even to reach the lowest tally needed to win the league in the last 7 seasons, we'd need to improve even more

 

 

Now of course there's no guarantee we'd need that many points. But it seems likely

To add a little more sauce to your point there, our run in for the next month or so is chock full of teams we'd back ourselves to beat. That 2.2ppg has survived some very difficult games on paper.

[leemond2008]

1 hour ago, ejs1111 said:

I can see it now.  AVFC will fall 1 point short and everyone will be moaning about the Forest match until the end of time.

I can see it now. AVFC will fall 1 point short and Neville, Carragher, Redknapp and all the other rocket polishers will be crowing about what amazing pundits they are because they told us that our away form would cost us.

[colhint]

I can see it now we will call one point short. But the news filters through that Man city docked 2 points on ffp 

[Stevo985]

2 hours ago, Rightdm00 said:

On the same note, when was the last time the PL had 4/5 genuine title contenders. Plus, massive spenders like ManU/Chelsea occupying mid table. I feel like this season is shaping up for a low title winning points total. 

Look at the season Leicester won it.  Big clubs, Villa()/Newcastle, getting relegated.  Liverpool 8th, Chelsea 10th. I am starting to see the comparisons. Baring another cyborg like City winning run, a low points total could do it. 

Of course. The tally could be much lower. I was really just urging caution when people were saying our current form was good enough to win the league. Historically, it just isn’t. 

[Stevo985]

2 hours ago, MotoMkali said:

That assumes we won't improve our PPG though and I don't see any reason to think we couldn't. We've been missing 2 key players who are now back for most of the season. And we can definitely use Jan to bring in 2 players to improve our squad which could have us playing better. 

Realistically to have a shot at winning the league we need 50 points in the next 22 matches. 16 Wins, 2 Draws and 4 losses essentially. Or 17 wins and 5 losses. That will be very challenging of course but we have 7 very winnable home games (Bournemouth, Wolves, Brentford, Forest, Sheffield, Chelsea, Burnley) in those 22, and 7 winnable away games (Sheffield, Everton, Luton, Fulham, Brentford, West Ham, Crystal Palace) as well.

We'd still need to probably get 4 wins from Liverpool (H), Brighton (A), Arsenal (A), City (A), United (H) (A), Spurs (H) Newcastle (H) so we at least have some cushion if we **** up some of those "winnable games". But given we play 4 of those at home, we play Brighton who we historically have done well and vs united who have struggled recently that 4 wins and/or 3 wins and 2 draws seems doable. 

I agree with all of this. And my entire point was that we would need to improve our PPG. I didn’t say we wouldn’t (even though it’s a very tough ask), merely just pointing out that if we were actually going to win the league we’d have to be EVEN better 

[Mantis]

11 hours ago, Pongo Waring said:

They're all expecting villa to go in a bad period. Have we had a bad period since Emery has been in charge?

Our worst 5 game stretch in the league in any combination saw us get 6 points (the three defeats in a row in February were buffeted by wins). And that was very much a unique event so far, hence why it sticks out to all of us. Pretty incredible really. In most seasons we've been in the PL during the last 13 years or so, 6 points from 5 games would be considered very much average.

[Villan_of_oz]

3 hours ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

I had forgotten how randomly aggressive some VT posts can be. Maybe I do have a short memory!

I think the comparisons to Leicester are lazy. I don't care and it doesn't make me sad, but for many various reasons it just doesn't fit. This is our 5th season back in the league, we're a much bigger club with a more balanced squad and a smoother upward trajectory on the whole, Gerrard aside. We're not really running on vibes, as that Leicester team did to a degree. it feels far more sustainable. 

And, we haven't won the bloody title. If we do, you could compare us to PNE winning the title in 1889/90 and I really dgaf mate. 

 

Random....

[Mantis]

One thing I would say which does put a dampener on things a little is that we still have to play City and Arsenal away, and you'd imagine those could end up being key title decider games if we were to make a serious push for it for the rest of the season. We also have Liverpool at home but obviously you'd be a lot more confident backing us there.