PaulC Posted December 18, 2023 Share Posted December 18, 2023 3 hours ago, Pinebro said: Not having Kamara against United is gonna really, really suck Yes but the other two games we should really win without him. So not all bad really and he gets a rest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulC Posted December 18, 2023 Share Posted December 18, 2023 8 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said: Start of the season 100%. Now I’d be gutted if we don’t make champs league whether it’s via 4th or 5th. Would still congratulate the team and everyone involved if got 6th. But it would still hurt. Yes 6th wouid be a disappointment now. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
osmark86 Posted December 18, 2023 Share Posted December 18, 2023 9 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said: Start of the season 100%. Now I’d be gutted if we don’t make champs league whether it’s via 4th or 5th. Would still congratulate the team and everyone involved if got 6th. But it would still hurt. Yeah I agree. We're in such a good place right now to make CL and I want to belt that song ahead of games next year! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vive_La_Villa Posted December 18, 2023 Share Posted December 18, 2023 30 minutes ago, MarkLillis said: I believe we will keep getting results and i believe pundits will keep trying to find reasons (like the imaginary "poor" away form) why we wont stay the course. To be fair pundits and opposition fans of clubs around us have been very complimentary about us and if anything are putting us in the title race more than our own fans are. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turvontour Posted December 18, 2023 Share Posted December 18, 2023 29 minutes ago, PaulC said: Yes 6th wouid be a disappointment now. It's not necessarily that it's a disappointment as it's a league place improvement on last season and European football again. But what it would be is a really noticeable drop off in the results we have been getting and the way we've been playing for the last year. It would mean us going from about the 2nd best team in the league for the last year, to about 8th or 9th best, so achieving Chelsea, West Ham kind of results. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkLillis Posted December 18, 2023 Share Posted December 18, 2023 (edited) 13 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said: To be fair pundits and opposition fans of clubs around us have been very complimentary about us and if anything are putting us in the title race more than our own fans are. Yes i do agree MOTD and others have said a lot good things. The "poor away form" has slightly got under my skin though. Mainly based on a comparison with a 100% home record and swayed by the fact that we had played one less away match than most of the teams around us in my opinion they should really have applied more context than they did. Edited December 18, 2023 by MarkLillis 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leeroy Posted December 18, 2023 Share Posted December 18, 2023 Currently on course to get 85 points. We will probably need to play even better in the 2nd half of the season to win the league, aiming for 88-90 points, which would mean getting minimum 50 points from 21 games. We would need to win around 16 of our final 21 games, with three draws and two defeats. Very hard to do that while trying to win the Europa Conference but we can of course try. I still think top 4 and winning the Europa Conference has to be the realistic aim. If we get 70-75 points we should make top 4. We would only need 32 points from 21 games to get to 70 and 37 points from 21 to get to 75. We can definitely do that and our games up until early March are favourable and we should be looking to win the majority of them. Our next 10 games are Sheff U (h), Man Utd (a), Burnley (h), Everton (a), Newcastle (h), Sheff U (a), Man Utd (h), Fulham (a), Notts Forest (h), Luton (a). We will be favourites in 9 of those 10 games, except the game at Old Toilet where they are only narrow favourites. Everton and Fulham away might be tricky, but we can win both. I think 20-25 points is realistic from those which would have us on around 60 points with 11 games to go. Our final 11 games are harder, we go away to Man City and Arsenal and play Liverpool and Spurs at home. Even games like West Ham and Brighton away will be hard and Chelsea at home is no guarantee if they improve in the 2nd half of the season. So we need to be targeting lots of points in the next 11 games, if we can get to minimum 60 points from 27 games we would probably only need 10-15 points from those last 11 games to finish top 4. If we were genuine title contenders we would obviously do better than that and take it all the way, but I think with Europa Conference games back after that Luton game and the games being more difficult in those final 11 games I think we'd be looking at top 4 and winning the Conference but I may be wrong and we exceed that. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JPJCB Posted December 18, 2023 Share Posted December 18, 2023 1 hour ago, PaulC said: Yes but the other two games we should really win without him. So not all bad really and he gets a rest. Also, Manure’s main (of many) weakness(es) is their non existent midfield so it’s not quite as bad as losing him against a similarly ranked team but with much better midfield (e.g spurs, Brighton) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turvontour Posted December 18, 2023 Share Posted December 18, 2023 4 minutes ago, JPJCB said: Also, Manure’s main (of many) weakness(es) is their non existent midfield so it’s not quite as bad as losing him against a similarly ranked team but with much better midfield (e.g spurs, Brighton) On top if it too is the fact that we have an extra day to prepare/rest, as they are away at West Ham three days before. And also we should have a less energy intensive game in Sheff U, fingers crossed, whereas they are competing with West Ham for league positions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VILLAMARV Posted December 18, 2023 Share Posted December 18, 2023 9 minutes ago, Leeroy said: Currently on course to get 85 points. We will probably need to play even better in the 2nd half of the season to win the league, aiming for 88-90 points, which would mean getting minimum 50 points from 21 games. We would need to win around 16 of our final 21 games, with three draws and two defeats. Very hard to do that while trying to win the Europa Conference but we can of course try. I still think top 4 and winning the Europa Conference has to be the realistic aim. If we get 70-75 points we should make top 4. We would only need 32 points from 21 games to get to 70 and 37 points from 21 to get to 75. We can definitely do that and our games up until early March are favourable and we should be looking to win the majority of them. Our next 10 games are Sheff U (h), Man Utd (a), Burnley (h), Everton (a), Newcastle (h), Sheff U (a), Man Utd (h), Fulham (a), Notts Forest (h), Luton (a). We will be favourites in 9 of those 10 games, except the game at Old Toilet where they are only narrow favourites. Everton and Fulham away might be tricky, but we can win both. I think 20-25 points is realistic from those which would have us on around 60 points with 11 games to go. Our final 11 games are harder, we go away to Man City and Arsenal and play Liverpool and Spurs at home. Even games like West Ham and Brighton away will be hard and Chelsea at home is no guarantee if they improve in the 2nd half of the season. So we need to be targeting lots of points in the next 11 games, if we can get to minimum 60 points from 27 games we would probably only need 10-15 points from those last 11 games to finish top 4. If we were genuine title contenders we would obviously do better than that and take it all the way, but I think with Europa Conference games back after that Luton game and the games being more difficult in those final 11 games I think we'd be looking at top 4 and winning the Conference but I may be wrong and we exceed that. In that first batch we still have 3 teams that have beaten us this year (Ok, Everton was in the cup but the point still stands - and Dyche is doing what he does to good effect for them they'd be in the top half without the points deduction) so far from easy games at Goodison or against Newcastle or the double header against Man Utd , and hopefully the FA Cup to contend with aswell Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leeroy Posted December 18, 2023 Share Posted December 18, 2023 4 minutes ago, VILLAMARV said: In that first batch we still have 3 teams that have beaten us this year (Ok, Everton was in the cup but the point still stands - and Dyche is doing what he does to good effect for them they'd be in the top half without the points deduction) so far from easy games at Goodison or against Newcastle or the double header against Man Utd , and hopefully the FA Cup to contend with aswell Yeah Everton and Fulham will be tricky, a point wouldn't be too bad in those. I think we should be aiming to win all the home games. Newcastle's away form is really bad, we should be winning that one (plus we owe them one for that hammering on the opening day), and we should be beating Man Utd at least once. I think 7 wins (Sheff Utd x 2, Burnley, Luton, Forest, Newcastle and Man Utd), 2 draws (Everton and Fulham) and 1 defeat (at Old Toilet from a terrible refereeing decision). Puts us on 61 points from 27 games. Might do better than that, might do worse but that should be par for the course I'd say. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MotoMkali Posted December 18, 2023 Share Posted December 18, 2023 11 hours ago, The Fun Factory said: Won't we be constrained by FFP as well? I can't see us making any big signings. We can actually spend a fairly ridiculous amount. In this 3 year period ending at the end of this year we have probably a Revenue-wage gap of about 115 ish million, our amortisation over this period is 275 million pounds, but we have sold 206 million worth of players. You are allowed up to 105 mil in losses over a 3 year period. So we are probably allowed to spend something ridiculous in January. The issue is it remaining on the books whilst the grealish sale doesn't. Anyway I don't really think short term money is the issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheStagMan Posted December 18, 2023 Share Posted December 18, 2023 2 hours ago, turvontour said: Pundits part not understanding what we are doing and part trying to dismiss it in their own minds. Villa will tail off because they don't have any squad depth. They only beat Man City because they had a couple of injuries and a suspension. ?????????????? I think we are in a pretty good place at the moment. The pundits have not been paying attention and think that this is a purple patch for us - but the thing is we have been performing at this level for a year - pretty much from the day Unai joined, and what's more, the manner in which we are achieving the results shows that they are not flukes. Sure, in some games we have ridden our luck but overall the approach and performance is convincing. Whilst I don't expect Mings or Buendia to come back this season in any meaningful way (maybe the last few games, but certainly not match fit), we have Moreno and JJ coming back having missed half the season - so they will be like two new January signings and will be fresh. we don't have any European games until March Overall our playing style is all about conserving energy so I am not worried about fatigue towards the end of the season. Bring it on. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sulberto21 Posted December 18, 2023 Share Posted December 18, 2023 10 more wins and top 4 is ours I believe. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ellebonnie Posted December 18, 2023 Share Posted December 18, 2023 Win on Friday and we are top of the league. The other two draw and we sit eating our turkey top of league on Xmas day. merry Christmas 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turvontour Posted December 18, 2023 Share Posted December 18, 2023 4 hours ago, Vive_La_Villa said: To be fair pundits and opposition fans of clubs around us have been very complimentary about us and if anything are putting us in the title race more than our own fans are. Yes most are now to be fair. But there's so little knowledge about us I suppose because we've been unfashionable for so long. I just watched a 50 min review of the weekends games by the two Robbies for NBC. They discuss our game for 1 minute and say that Emery had a tough job at Arsenal because of Wenger leaving, and that we will be stronger once Nkunku returns from injury. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheStagMan Posted December 18, 2023 Share Posted December 18, 2023 2 hours ago, turvontour said: Yes most are now to be fair. But there's so little knowledge about us I suppose because we've been unfashionable for so long. I just watched a 50 min review of the weekends games by the two Robbies for NBC. They discuss our game for 1 minute and say that Emery had a tough job at Arsenal because of Wenger leaving, and that we will be stronger once Nkunku returns from injury. WTF? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turvontour Posted December 18, 2023 Share Posted December 18, 2023 3 minutes ago, TheStagMan said: WTF? Yes it was an error, and they knew they made it when they said it. It's just a great example of the lack of interest in the detail of Villa though. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheStagMan Posted December 18, 2023 Share Posted December 18, 2023 Just now, turvontour said: Yes it was an error, and they knew they made it when they said it. It's just a great example of the lack of interest in the detail of Villa though. I was wondering if they knew something we didn't, then I realised they were pundits, so unlikley. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maqroll Posted December 18, 2023 Share Posted December 18, 2023 4 hours ago, ellebonnie said: Win on Friday and we are top of the league. The other two draw and we sit eating our turkey top of league on Xmas day. merry Christmas Simply incredible. No matter what happens between now and season's end, we'll have had some great fun. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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