Worst Season ever?

[Brend'Watkins]

The McNeil era was far worse.  We looked totally clueless back then.  This time we lack direction but it's clear to see there is better there than has been produced.

[Lambert and Payne]

Been attending 13 years, not really old enough to get all that was going on then. The worst season for me was Ellis/O'Dreary years not knowing who to hate more, the in house fighting, protesting and surrenders.
This season matches it I think.

[mal]

I stood among Nottingham Forest fans on the open terrace behind the goal at their ground in Autumn 1986 with my then girlfiend (now wife) at her first ever football match. Villa were awful and lost 0-6. The Forest fans were taking bets on how many more they could score, given longer than 90 minutes. THAT was the low point.

You can see just how awful at

Thanks for posting that. How Forest didnt get 10 I dont know. It does put this season in perspective.

[richardhubbard]

Surely 69 or 87 are worse, this is as bad as 2005 but no worse

[Chris Harte]

I saw something yesterday that claimed that if Villa fail to beat Norwich then it will have been the worst season in the club's history in terms of actual league wins.

Don't know if the stat is accurate though.

[Chris Harte]

Apologies is this has been said already, but it's the worst season since we've had the global information tool that is the internet, where we can moan to each other and make it seem worse than if we were just wallowing in our own misery in private.

This undoubtedly makes things seem worse.

[nick harper]

85/86 and 86/87 were like a slow painful death often played out in front of crowds of less than 20,000.

There was an inevitability about the final outcome then and it was harder than now given that we only had to look back three or four years to be reminded of the best side we'd had for 70 years.

10/11 and 11/12 have had a similar feel but nothing like as bad. I still remain optimistic that with the right manager and handful of astute signings we would be quickly back on the right track - but this really is a critical summer.

[WarszaVillan]

The McNeil era was far worse.  We looked totally clueless back then.  This time we lack direction but it's clear to see there is better there than has been produced.

While its true that we were awul that season I think the general feeling was that we were desperately under achieving. At least at the start of the season it was felt that a team that had the likes of Spink, Dorigo, Williams, Evans, Elliot, Keown, Birch, Hodge, Walters, Stainrod and Gray should do ok. Didn't we also sign Steve Hunt and Andy Blair in the middle of the season, both decent players in their day. Also I remember that when McNeill came we did have a brief 'new manager bounce' and it looked as though things were looking up. Also we reached the semi-final of the League Cup final that year, after a fantastic win at Highbury in the Quarter final. Although that second leg at Oxford was a trully depressing night.

[rob_bridge]

1986-87. Even worse than today. It was a car crash waiting to happen after the previous season's narrow escape.
Ooo Eck is Tuner/McNeill rolled into one

[rob_bridge]

The McNeil era was far worse.  We looked totally clueless back then.  This time we lack direction but it's clear to see there is better there than has been produced.

While its true that we were awul that season I think the general feeling was that we were desperately under achieving. At least at the start of the season it was felt that a team that had the likes of Spink, Dorigo, Williams, Evans, Elliot, Keown, Birch, Hodge, Walters, Stainrod and Gray should do ok. Didn't we also sign Steve Hunt and Andy Blair in the middle of the season, both decent players in their day. Also I remember that when McNeill came we did have a brief 'new manager bounce' and it looked as though things were looking up. Also we reached the semi-final of the League Cup final that year, after a fantastic win at Highbury in the Quarter final. Although that second leg at Oxford was a trully depressing night.

Wasn't the League Cup the year before? Same with Hunt and Blair - we were too close for comfort in 1986 and they were signed.

[PeterWithesShin]

85/86 and 86/87 were like a slow painful death often played out in front of crowds of less than 20,000.

There was an inevitability about the final outcome then and it was harder than now given that we only had to look back three or four years to be reminded of the best side we'd had for 70 years.

10/11 and 11/12 have had a similar feel but nothing like as bad. I still remain optimistic that with the right manager and handful of astute signings we would be quickly back on the right track - but this really is a critical summer.

20,000 was a rarity in those seasons.

One the one hand, because it was cheaper and we were younger we probably did have more fun those seasons than we had this year. On the other, looking back we aren't even that close to how dire we were those couple of years.

[MarkM]

This is one of the worse seasons I have seen for the general apathy around the club, fans and players.

Its like we have all resigned ourselves to the drivel we are watching and we just sit there and shrug our shoulders.

Lerner et al had lifted all our expectations and love or hate him O'Neil did lift the club into the top half of the table and gave us a better media image [important in this media driven world, especially when looking to recruit new supporters and gain better commercial deals]

Over the past two years those expectations have been dashed and it now feels almost worse than ever.

When things were bad in the 80's we had a focal point for our venom and Mr Ellis got plenty of it, we all had the view that we would be better off without him, and that he was more than likely the reason for the mess we were in.

Now we have no real focal point, some blame Lerner, Some Faulkner, Some blame O'Neil and many blame McL [or all or a mixture of them all] We have no real groundswell for a change in ownership and Mr Lerner has ascaped relatively unscathed from the past few years of piss poor ownership. So what we get is general apathy all around. From my view without some major changes it will be the same next year.

Maybe it didnt seam so bad to me in the 80's, after all I was paying £1.25 to stand on the Holte back then!

[pedro25]

I think this is worse than the 3 previous relegation scares in the Premier League era, under Little, Taylor and O'Leary, purely because we have a better squad of players this year, we did not have quality like Bent, N'Zogbia, Ireland, Gabby, Dunne and Given in those seasons, so i think this is the most underachieving squad we have had for 20 years.  I'm not M'ON's biggest fan, but when you look at our squad in his first year when we finished 11th, player for player on paper we are infinitely stronger this season, which makes it that much harder to take.

[Small Rodent]

[
Wasn't the League Cup the year before? Same with Hunt and Blair - we were too close for comfort in 1986 and they were signed.

I thought Andy Blair was signed Championship 1981 close season?

[Small Rodent]

Ah. Signed again in 1986.