Premier League - Aston Villa can't afford to be much worse this season

[Gregorys Boy]

Still think we need a centreback in. A big commanding centreback who dominates in the air. I know that's easier said than done, but I don't trust either Baker, Okore or Clark, and Richards is injury prone. Once we sign one I can relax a bit, but until then the defence still worries me.

Not either Okore? I thought he played really well last season and he is the one out them who I expect to step up.  The defence does not convince me at all though.

[tomd2103]

The truth is you have to be very poor to go down. Sunderland and ourselves are proof of that. We even had a mid season break from scoring goals and winning points and got away with it.

To be honest, we will have to be pretty awful to be worse than the three promoted teams, Sunderland and Leicester this season.  That's before you even consider the likes of Newcastle, West Ham and the Albion. 

[pauliewalnuts]

The truth is you have to be very poor to go down. Sunderland and ourselves are proof of that. We even had a mid season break from scoring goals and winning points and got away with it.

To be honest, we will have to be pretty awful to be worse than the three promoted teams, Sunderland and Leicester this season.  That's before you even consider the likes of Newcastle, West Ham and the Albion. 

I haven't read the article, but if the title of this thread is the title of the article, then it is clearly true.

Any worse than we were last season & we'll go down. We've just pushed it as far as we can, we can't be doing that again.

I read something the other day - one of the papers, probably - saying how we'd lost the spine of the team.

In that "spine", they'd included Given. That's the ageing second choice keeper who got brought in for a few games at the end of the season. Part of the spine of the team? Hmmm.

I'm relaxed about not having Vlaar, too. He is another one who was the spine of nothing - you can't be that important a player to the club AND have that kind of injury record.I would probably have kept him, but that was really almost entirely along the lines of "easier than wasting time recruiting a new CB".

The two big losses that need to be replaced are Delph and Benteke. The midfield acquisitions make me feel pretty comfortable about him going. The Benteke "replacement" (using that word in the sense that we need to score goals), I am concerned about.

Gestede and Kozak might both turn out to be amazing, but one has never played (bar a few sub apps) in this league, and the other one is really only just back from a terrible injury. I like Kozak a lot, but would I rely on him to score the goals? No.

[Dave]

5 of our best players have gone (started cup final ) , that's what the media will look at and comment on mostly.

Which 5 best players are these?

Doesn't take a genius to work out 4 of them. Benteke, Vlaar, Delph, Cleverley. The 5th is probably Given, but he's not too much of a miss in reality.

You're probably right, but if so then it's difficult to take seriously a post suggesting that Given was amongst our "best players".

If he were and we thought he were going to be missed, he wouldn't have been pushed towards the door marked "do one" at the first available opportunity.

But that's no sort of argument because that is just assuming that Sherwood was right to get rid of Given, news flash managers do make wrong calls.

They do, but in this case he quite clearly hasn't.

[themossman]

It's also factually incorrect to suggest Given was one of our key players last season and smacks of this article only basing the analysis on the last two months of the season. Let's not forget we also started last season well, relying on entirely different "key players", like Hutton.

[ChicagoLion]

I thought that was a pretty fair write up to be honest, the crux of it being that the squad is full of 'ifs and but'.  If we get off to a good start and the squad begins on an upward trajectory we could improve quickly.  On the flip side we do not know much about the character of most of the players, especially the new ones, so it is an unknown what will happen if we start badly.

I agree with this,we have had to gamble on exciting but untried talent.
Benteke Vlaar and Delph are a huge loss, I think we need a decent start to the season or things could go wrong pretty quickly.

[Vegas]

Maybe I'm missing something but I'm taking a lot less offence at this article than most of us.

Can't afford to be much worse? Obviously true. Lost key players? Obviously true. Sherwood has brought in a collection of players unproven at premier league level? Obviously true.

As fans it's the most exciting close season for bloody ages, and massive credit to the club and Sherwood for giving us belief again, but I can totally see why neutrals would see us as a relagation risk. 

I think we'll be alright and finish around 12-13th, but it could clearly be a lot better or worse than that.

[themossman]

I'm not offended by it. Just an annoyingly half informed article dressed up as being highly insightful with its talk of Ligue 1 stats and what not.

[Dante Lavelli]

Still think we need a centreback in. A big commanding centreback who dominates in the air. I know that's easier said than done, but I don't trust either Baker, Okore or Clark, and Richards is injury prone. Once we sign one I can relax a bit, but until then the defence still worries me.

Not either Okore? I thought he played really well last season and he is the one out them who I expect to step up.  The defence does not convince me at all though.

My worry about signing a CB is that any new player would block the progress of either Okore/Clark.  Furthermore, if the Stones figures are any sort of benchmark, we would have to spend north of £10m to get a player who is guaranteed to be better.  I think we're better off keeping the money and coaching the arse off the players.

On a slight tangent, I watched a documentary about Team Sky/Froome the other day, and to paraphrase one of the key points, 'they (Sky) discovered that overall the team is better off by spending $800k on a rider and $200k on coaching, rather than $1m on one rider.'  Thankfully Villa appear to be adopting a strategy more aligned to this than the 'bibs and 'cones' which we have suffered recently.

[PeterWithe]

Youd think coaching a pushiron rider would be pretty simple, and cheap. Pedal up that hill as fast as you can and when you get to the top keep padalling, no shopping to go in a basket and no backies.

[enigma]

Whenever an article appears that doesn't kiss our arses people always get huffy and pedantically pull it apart. I happen to agree with most of what he says. The broad thrust of it is correct, even if I am more optimistic than at any point in the last few years.

I also quite like that journalist. He's actually one of the better ones. There's nothing too insightful in that one piece but generally he knows what he's talking about.

[Toronto Villa]

5 of our best players have gone (started cup final ) , that's what the media will look at and comment on mostly.

We finished 17th and got blootered 4-0 in the Final, so just how good were those five players? I'll say, Benteke aside, the answer is "not very".
So considering Delph and Benteke were off anyway, what have we lost by replacing just about the entire team with what, in general, looks like quite an exciting bunch of new players? We may well go down if they don't gel or Sherwood is found out, but many pundits have been predicting that for the past three seasons anyway.
 Same as I said in another thread, we had nothing to lose, may as well enjoy the ride!

 I agree with Dave, it's exciting so let's just enjoy it.  FWIW though, I think we're better now in every single department on the pitch, we just need it to gel fairly quickly.

Count me in. I can't be arsed with being nervous or miserable now. I have no idea how this will end up but feel we are much stronger as a group than last season. We could have a super season and I'd rather think that way than shitting myself before the first ball is kicked. The PL is full of surprises and we could be this seasons Southampton who essentially rose from nowhere in the last 2 seasons to being considered top six potential. Or even Swansea. Everton weren't that far ahead of us either. There's a gap but it's not insurmountable.

Ask me again in March when possibly my glass of hope isn't just empty it's been smashed to pieces and the shards of despair cut deep into my bare feet. But right now I will live in hope and optimism that this is the season we wake out of our hibernation.

[Dave]

I'm not offended by it. Just an annoyingly half informed article dressed up as being highly insightful with its talk of Ligue 1 stats and what not.

I'd be interested to know which bits you feel aren't fully informed.

As enigma says, Michael Cox isn't some dimwitted transfer-rumour-churner, or Robbie Savage-style "any opinion is fine as long as it's loud" type.

[silhillvilla]

As long as we can replace Bentekes goals we will be fine. There's also the incentive of a new hero to emerge which was virtually impossible with Benteke around and our whole game geared around him.

[themossman]

I'm not offended by it. Just an annoyingly half informed article dressed up as being highly insightful with its talk of Ligue 1 stats and what not.

I'd be interested to know which bits you feel aren't fully informed.

As enigma says, Michael Cox isn't some dimwitted transfer-rumour-churner, or Robbie Savage-style "any opinion is fine as long as it's loud" type.

I've read worse but it strikes me as very skewed by the end of the season, and the talk of Grealish and Westwood stepping up but no mention of Clark and Okore is off. Vlaar and Cleverley as "key players" is stretching it. Also, the point about attacking stats in the French league seems wilfully arse about face. You could argue that getting good numbers in an overly physical, defensive league is a plus not a minus.