Relegation

[Villaboy69]

The next five days are crucial it will tell us the real path our club is taking. we've lost so many good andexperienced premiership players its unbelieveable.

The quality left in this squad is the weakest i have see since we were in the 2nd division.

I make this prediction with a very heavy heart - if there is no investment in the squad before the window closes we will be BOTTOM yes BOTTOM of the league when the next window opens

[Villaboy69]

The next five days are crucial it will tell us the real path our club is taking. we've lost so many good andexperienced premiership players its unbelieveable.

The quality left in this squad is the weakest i have see since we were in the 2nd division.

I make this prediction with a very heavy heart - if there is no investment in the squad before the window closes we will be BOTTOM yes BOTTOM of the league when the next window opens

[Amo69]

I know I'll get crucified for this but I'm not sure isolating Warnock Hutton and selling Collins is gonna help much either. Ok still early days for Lowton but I would rather see Collins at the back than Clark and although Baker did well today defensively he is no left back. But these are just the start of our problems, I think we had 2 attempts on goal today.

As for fans saying if Mcleish can keep us up so can Lambert. It's not as simple as that. Last season we had the easiest start to a season Ive ever seen in terms of games and managed to pick up enough point early to keep us up. We got Keane in who contributed to help us achieve crucial points. Mcleish for all his faults clearly realised we were a very poor team and set us up to defend. This led to the most negative football ever seen at Villa but also got us crucial draws which kept us up.

If there are no more players brought in we are going down!

As much as I hate to say it, I do see your point regarding car-crash and Mutton. They are still on the books and it looks unlikely that anyone else is going to be stupid enough to take them off our hands. Isolating them like Lambert has is only going to make his job more difficult when he arrives at the point of needing them to play.

I also see your point about McLeish! Which is even more worrying because if we are that bad that we only stayed up through his negative shit then we are doomed this season because Lambert has already promised us a season of attacking football!

To sort of add to your point about Collins; we have lost Cuellar, Collins, Heskey, Petrov (illness), Gardner (injury), Warnock & Hutton (frozen out). These are all players who got game time for us last season. 7 out and 4 in. It's the same story every year and at some point it is inevitably going to come back to haunt us!

Wow somebody agreed me...:TWICE! Let's all hope there is a lot of business at Villa park in the next week.

[Biskitt]

I'm normally quite optimistic but I'm a bit covered too. People keep mentioning the fact that Norwich stayed up with a worse squad than ours but the players there had a couple of years to fit into his system and back to back promotions would have meant they were full of confidence, wheras we've had 2 seasons of struggle. I still think we have a decent academy but when you see the likes of Bannan, Delfouneso, Herd and Baker starting who haven't exactly set the world on fire when loaned to clubs in the championship or lower, it does make you question if they are really good enough.

[Mantis]

As for fans saying if Mcleish can keep us up so can Lambert. It's not as simple as that. Last season we had the easiest start to a season Ive ever seen in terms of games and managed to pick up enough point early to keep us up. We got Keane in who contributed to help us achieve crucial points. Mcleish for all his faults clearly realised we were a very poor team and set us up to defend. This led to the most negative football ever seen at Villa but also got us crucial draws which kept us up.

What's with the sudden McLeish love in on here anyway? It's not even as if we were that attacking against West Ham or Everton either, so that can't be blamed for the defeats.

McLeish's tactics were terrible. He's a shit manager. Just because we've got off to a terrible start this season doesn't change those two facts.

I remember relegation last time around. It's a horrible atmosphere that clings over the club all season. That feeling is back, I never really felt it under GED or Eck, but it's here now. The squad is woeful, the league is tougher than ever and we have an owner who has lost the will to spend.

This has been coming since the day Gareth Barry left, slowly but surely.

Talk about an overreaction. You never had the relegation feeling under ether managers despite the fact that we were in the relegation zone as late as January under Houllier and perched just above it in the latter half of McLeish's season, all the while being one of the worst form teams in the league? Yet now, two games into the new season under a manager we know is better, you're saying you have the "relegation feeling"?

Give me a break.

[Morpheus]

With our current crap of players we are going down. There are no longer three worse teams in the Premiership than us and once we all understand that, then, the reality of our situation should be accepted by us the fans who in the past have blamed poor form on previous managers and stated that a forward line of Bent, Gabby, N'Zogbia and Ireland should be scoring more.

The fact is that although those players look good on paper the reality is they are no longer as good as they once were and all four are suffering from don'tgiveashititus. Indeed two of those players have been given the captaincy and that should tell you all you need to know about the remaining players in our squad.

Couple that with our chairman starting a cost cutting exercise at exactly the wrong time when we should have reinvested the revenue from the sales of Barry, Milner, Young and Downing back into the team again instead of relying on our youth who have shown time and time again that they are not Premiership standard while watching the team flirt with relegation on two consecutive seasons then it should be no surprise at all to anyone where we are at the moment.

Currently we have yet again failed to make the investment needed to even stand still although that may change before the window shuts. However, every day that moment draws closer without the required investment needed should bring us all, fans and board alike, to the conclusion that if you want to run a club on the cheap, there are plenty of those clubs in the Championship and beyond and that's exactly where we're headed! Anyone who suggests otherwise needs a reality check, or worse, is suffering from delusion.

[Villaboy69]

In fairness mantis under GH we had just finished 6th and even though we were terrible early on there was always too much quality within the squad for us to be relegated. Even under AM we still appeared to have enough about us although his tactics almost proved disasterous.

But this season just feels wrong. the squad has changed beyond recognition and the quality within it is non existent.

Relegation i believe is almost a certainty unless the current trend is reversed in the next 5 days

[piav_k4]

It makes me weep when thinking about how balanced and settled the Everton back four looked yesterday. They had Bent and Fonz in their pockets all game. Every run tracked perfectly. I can only remember the Weimann run getting the better of them. He and Bent need to start the next game.

At the moment our back four is all over the shop. Baker doesn't look comfortable at left back and Lowton is going to have to learn quickly, though he does have potential to be brilliant for us. Neville and Baines had so much space yesterday it was unreal so perhaps questions need to be asked tactically.

Barry doesn't give enough protection to the back four, Delph is great in the challenge but rather ineffective in the air. If only he was 6ft 4!

I don't think we will be relegated but it could be a long old season ahead.

[VillaRoy]

Mick McCarthy summed up our team on Goals on Sunday, the team that played yesterday would have been a reserve team for Villa 2 years ago. Our squad is absolute w+nk. It is relegation fodder right now, 3/1 odds on relegation at the moment 2 games in. Reading around on other forums, we seem like many peoples favourites for relegation. Was reading Sunderland's SMB board, one was saying when reading through our team sheet they were saying "who?" to every other player. Randy Lerner's extreme cost cutting is sabotaging our team. We were matching teams like Everton even when Gerard Houllier was here, even last season we got 2 draws against them and were perhaps the better team in the home game. Yesterday was embarrassing, as was West Ham who we failed to create a single chance against. Big signings are needed to stop this rapid decline.

[Dr_Pangloss]

Yep, when N'Zogbia is the clubs idea of a replacement for Ashley Young you know you're going to run into trouble.

[piav_k4]

Villaroy we need to be more self sustainable i'm afraid. How many 'Big signings' have the Albion made in pre season? Or in the last 3 seasons? How about Everton? The myth that Randy needs to keep throwing money at the club to keep it competitive is laughable.

[piav_k4]

Yep, when N'Zogbia is the clubs idea of a replacement for Ashley Young you know you're going to run into trouble.

Who was your preferred replacement then?

[Big_John_10]

Villaroy we need to be more self sustainable i'm afraid. How many 'Big signings' have the Albion made in pre season? Or in the last 3 seasons? How about Everton? The myth that Randy needs to keep throwing money at the club to keep it competitive is laughable.

Yeah because the current approach is working a treat.

[lexicon]

The current approach has had 2 games to make an impact, stop being so ridiculous.

[sne]

The current approach has had 2 games to make an impact, stop being so ridiculous.

The current approach started when we sold Barry

[Big_John_10]

The current approach has had 2 games to make an impact, stop being so ridiculous.

The current approach has been happening for the last 2 years and we have 5 days to prove it's going to change.

The only ridiculous thing is the acceptance of what's happening to our club right now.

[Dr_Pangloss]

Yep, when N'Zogbia is the clubs idea of a replacement for Ashley Young you know you're going to run into trouble.

Who was your preferred replacement then?

lol it doesn't matter who I preferred as I'm not paid to sign players for the club. But for what it's worth we could have picked up a player like Assaidi for less than what we paid for Charlie.

But I was certainly against N'Zogbia signing because I knew he was limited with no consistency and vastly overrated 'ability'.

[Ulver]

The current approach started when we sold Barry

Amen.

[piav_k4]

lol Barry wanted to go! So did Young and so did Downing. Barry's contract was running out and he wasn't going to sign a new deal.

[VillaRoy]

Villaroy we need to be more self sustainable i'm afraid. How many 'Big signings' have the Albion made in pre season? Or in the last 3 seasons? How about Everton? The myth that Randy needs to keep throwing money at the club to keep it competitive is laughable.

Baggies have been up and down in the league's building the squad they have. We can't afford to do that can we? By "Big Signings" I mean just some decent players who are proven in respected league, not just free signings or players up to £3m. The Premier League is becoming even more competitive, pretty much every other club is strengthening/getting better, whilst we are standing still/going backward. Isn't our revenue like the 20th highest in Europe? Only Spurs, City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, and United have higher than us. Randy does need to throw money at the squad, it's full of "youth" players that are not actually that young and are not really that good at this level. It is unbelievable light. Do we have any players that get bums off seats? Can't think of any and struggle to think of a time in my 24 years that Villa didn't have one of those type of players. Randy does need to pull his finger out!