Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: JJ-AV on December 30, 2013, 10:07:20 AM
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Really highlights just how bad our home form has been for a while now.
(http://i.imgur.com/8mYxL70.jpg)
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A good quiz question comes out of that. How many teams are ever present and who are they? How many would get it without looking?
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9 I reckon, the top 9 ?
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9 I reckon, the top 9 ?
Yeeeeees.
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Ever present in the Prem since 1992/93 would be:-
Arsenal
Aston Villa
Chelsea
Everton
Liverpool
Manchester United
Tottenham Hotspur
In the last 10 years you can add Fulham and Manchester City.
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Small Heath will be wanting an open top bus parade for finishing that high.
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Blacburn have won more home games than us?! Despite being in the league for three seasons less.
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Depressing just depressing
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Blacburn have won more home games than us?! Despite being in the league for three seasons less.
One less, Eamonn ;)
Fulham's home wins is the surprise for me
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Blacburn have won more home games than us?! Despite being in the league for three seasons less.
Well they won as many home games the year they won the title as we have in the last 3 and a half seasons so those three seasons haven't done us much good on that front!!!
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You can draw up a table over any period in the last thirty years for definite and probably longer than that and our home form will look comparatively poor. We've never been particularly good at home.
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Blacburn have won more home games than us?! Despite being in the league for three seasons less.
Well they won as many home games the year they won the title as we have in the last 3 and a half seasons so those three seasons haven't done us much good on that front!!!
Hang on! Just realised they haven't actually won more games (one less) and the numbers don't include the year they won the title!
Probably best to just ignore any reference to Blackburn!
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We were very good at home for all my youth through to the mid 80s, particularly under Ron Saunders. In fact, under Saunders, Villa Park was pretty much a fortress. I grew up watching Villa being strong at home so find our home form of the past few years really galling.
Even the year we were relegated to the 3rd division we were average at home (we lost 5 or 6 at home all season, as many as we have already in December) but I don't think we won a single away game.
However in my lifetime I don't think we have ever had a season undefeated at Villa Park. That would be quite nice.
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We were very good at home for all my youth through to the mid 80s, particularly under Ron Saunders. In fact, under Saunders, Villa Park was pretty much a fortress. I grew up watching Villa being strong at home so find our home form of the past few years really galling.
The facts say otherwise. From getting promoted to Saunders leaving we lost by my reckoning 25 home league games in just over 6 1/2 seasons. It's a good record but it's not a fortress.
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Out of all the teams who have been in the prem for all those 10 years, we are, with the exception of Fulham, the worst team.
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Out of all the teams who have been in the prem for all those 10 years, we are, with the exception of Fulham, the worst team.
Is your cup half empty by any chance?
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We were very good at home for all my youth through to the mid 80s, particularly under Ron Saunders. In fact, under Saunders, Villa Park was pretty much a fortress. I grew up watching Villa being strong at home so find our home form of the past few years really galling.
The facts say otherwise. From getting promoted to Saunders leaving we lost by my reckoning 25 home league games in just over 6 1/2 seasons. It's a good record but it's not a fortress.
In 1976/77 that great season where we had our most exciting team, trouncing Arsenal and Liverpool 5-1 we only lost one home match in league and cups.
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Out of all the teams who have been in the prem for all those 10 years, we are, with the exception of Fulham, the worst team.
Is your cup half empty by any chance?
What's that got to do with pessimism? The facts are all to plain to see.
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We were very good at home for all my youth through to the mid 80s, particularly under Ron Saunders. In fact, under Saunders, Villa Park was pretty much a fortress. I grew up watching Villa being strong at home so find our home form of the past few years really galling.
The facts say otherwise. From getting promoted to Saunders leaving we lost by my reckoning 25 home league games in just over 6 1/2 seasons. It's a good record but it's not a fortress.
In 1976/77 that great season where we had our most exciting team, trouncing Arsenal and Liverpool 5-1 we only lost one home match in league and cups.
The exception that proves the rule.
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Out of all the teams who have been in the prem for all those 10 years, we are, with the exception of Fulham, the worst team.
Is your cup half empty by any chance?
What's that got to do with pessimism? The facts are all to plain to see.
It's taking a table where we're 8th out of 35th and saying, yeah, well we're almost the worst if you exclude the bottom 26!!!
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Out of all the teams who have been in the prem for all those 10 years, we are, with the exception of Fulham, the worst team.
So we are not the worst team then!
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Out of all the teams who have been in the prem for all those 10 years, we are, with the exception of Fulham, the worst team.
Is your cup half empty by any chance?
What's that got to do with pessimism? The facts are all to plain to see.
It's taking a table where we're 8th out of 35th and saying, yeah, well we're almost the worst if you exclude the bottom 26!!!
We're one from bottom of the 9 ever presents. That just about sums up the last 10 years, am it's not a good stat.
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Out of all the teams who have been in the prem for all those 10 years, we are, with the exception of Fulham, the worst team.
Is your cup half empty by any chance?
What's that got to do with pessimism? The facts are all to plain to see.
It's taking a table where we're 8th out of 35th and saying, yeah, well we're almost the worst if you exclude the bottom 26!!!
We're one from bottom of the 9 ever presents. That just about sums up the last 10 years, am it's not a good stat.
It's taking one group of clubs from one specific period. It's a completely irrelevant stat.
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Out of all the teams who have been in the prem for all those 10 years, we are, with the exception of Fulham, the worst team.
Is your cup half empty by any chance?
What's that got to do with pessimism? The facts are all to plain to see.
It's taking a table where we're 8th out of 35th and saying, yeah, well we're almost the worst if you exclude the bottom 26!!!
We're one from bottom of the 9 ever presents. That just about sums up the last 10 years, am it's not a good stat.
It's taking one group of clubs from one specific period. It's a completely irrelevant stat.
Not really. Other than the O'Neill years we've been on a steady decline this last decade. That table sums it up really. It's not good.
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So to sum up - if we take out all the good years, and take away all the teams who are worse than us, we're at the bottom.
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Out of all the teams who have been in the prem for all those 10 years, we are, with the exception of Fulham, the worst team.
Is your cup half empty by any chance?
What's that got to do with pessimism? The facts are all to plain to see.
It's taking a table where we're 8th out of 35th and saying, yeah, well we're almost the worst if you exclude the bottom 26!!!
We're one from bottom of the 9 ever presents. That just about sums up the last 10 years, am it's not a good stat.
So we're one of only 9 ever presents in the top flight since 2003 out of a total of 35 teams. I'd say that is a good stat and one at least 26 other clubs are jealous of.
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So to sum up - if we take out all the good years, and take away all the teams who are worse than us, we're at the bottom.
If you took out the 3 or so good years we'd be bottom of the ever present table and not 2nd bottom.
Now matter how you try, Dave, you'll struggle to find a positive with this topic.
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Now matter how you try, Dave, you'll struggle to find a positive with this topic.
Is this more of your trademark 'balance'?
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Out of all the teams who have been in the prem for all those 10 years, we are, with the exception of Fulham, the worst team.
Is your cup half empty by any chance?
What's that got to do with pessimism? The facts are all to plain to see.
It's taking a table where we're 8th out of 35th and saying, yeah, well we're almost the worst if you exclude the bottom 26!!!
We're one from bottom of the 9 ever presents. That just about sums up the last 10 years, am it's not a good stat.
So we're one of only 9 ever presents in the top flight since 2003 out of a total of 35 teams. I'd say that is a good stat and one at least 26 other clubs are jealous of.
Let's hope we stay one of the ever presents.
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So to sum up - if we take out all the good years, and take away all the teams who are worse than us, we're at the bottom.
If you took out the 3 or so good years we'd be bottom of the ever present table and not 2nd bottom.
Now matter how you try, Dave, you'll struggle to find a positive with this topic.
Except for the ones that have been found by myself and others, which you'll ignore because all you want to look for is the worst possible outcome in everything.
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So to sum up - if we take out all the good years, and take away all the teams who are worse than us, we're at the bottom.
If you took out the 3 or so good years we'd be bottom of the ever present table and not 2nd bottom.
Now matter how you try, Dave, you'll struggle to find a positive with this topic.
Yeah, if you take out all the years when we weren't rubbish the table would show us as being rubbish!
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Now matter how you try, Dave, you'll struggle to find a positive with this topic.
Is this more of your trademark 'balance'?
And your trademark to pull up anyone who dares criticise the club no matter how dreadful the performance.
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So to sum up - if we take out all the good years, and take away all the teams who are worse than us, we're at the bottom.
If you took out the 3 or so good years we'd be bottom of the ever present table and not 2nd bottom.
Now matter how you try, Dave, you'll struggle to find a positive with this topic.
Yeah, if you take out all the years when we weren't rubbish the table would show us as being rubbish!
Even with the few good seasons we're still second bottom of the ever presents, so whatever way we look at it this last decade or so has been poor.
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Now matter how you try, Dave, you'll struggle to find a positive with this topic.
Is this more of your trademark 'balance'?
And your trademark to pull up anyone who dares criticise the club no matter how dreadful the performance.
What on earth has this thread got to with any individual team performance?!
But you're right, how dare I support the club I support!
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Now matter how you try, Dave, you'll struggle to find a positive with this topic.
Is this more of your trademark 'balance'?
And your trademark to pull up anyone who dares criticise the club no matter how dreadful the performance.
What on earth has this thread got to with any individual team performance?!
But you're right, how dare I support the club I support!
Well in that case, how dare I criticise the club I support!
We're not all nodding dogs you know.
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So to sum up - if we take out all the good years, and take away all the teams who are worse than us, we're at the bottom.
If you took out the 3 or so good years we'd be bottom of the ever present table and not 2nd bottom.
Now matter how you try, Dave, you'll struggle to find a positive with this topic.
Yeah, if you take out all the years when we weren't rubbish the table would show us as being rubbish!
Even with the few good seasons we're still second bottom of the ever presents, so whatever way we look at it this last decade or so has been poor.
That's a truly meaningless stat, though, isn't it?
Look at it another way. At least we are an ever present.
I don't really see the need to extrapolate something depressing from this table, I really don't.
Don't we have enough depressing shit to moan about (ie this season) without looking for more?
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It's a stat which proves something we didn't need statistical proof to know: we've been pretty average for a while.
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We've been in decline since the year 2000 in my opinion. If that's meaningless, fair enough, but the table that was posted sort of confirms it.
It wasn't me who started the thread by the way.
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It's a stat which proves something we didn't need statistical proof to know: we've been pretty average for a while.
That's my point.
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It's a stat which proves something we didn't need statistical proof to know: we've been pretty average for a while.
Yet still better than all but 7 other clubs in the land. And that's exactly how it should be for the Villa - finishing 8th should be classed as distinctly average over the long term.
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It's a stat which proves something we didn't need statistical proof to know: we've been pretty average for a while.
Yet still better than all but 7 other clubs in the land. And that's exactly how it should be for the Villa - finishing 8th should be classed as distinctly average over the long term.
Well, we should definitely be a top flight club. The whole place is nothing but top level of the world of football. However, we've been pretty close to bare minimum possible in terms of performance needed to stay in the division. Uninspiring, but we haven't done a Leeds or Wednesday or anything that's happened to plenty of big clubs (not as big as us, but big).
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Never mind the last ten years, we are one of only 7 teams that have never been relegated from the premier league so we can't be that crap can we?
The list is.....
Arsenal, Aston Villa, Chelsea, Everton, Liverpool, Manchester United, and Tottenham Hotspur
So whether you think we are almost the worst of the 9 ever presents in 10 years or the worst of the above seven, my perspective is that it's quite a record even though none of us are happy with this years position or what's happened in last few seasons.
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We've been in decline since the year 2000 in my opinion. If that's meaningless, fair enough, but the table that was posted sort of confirms it.
It wasn't me who started the thread by the way.
We may have been in decline since 2000 but we are still in the Premier League 13 years later. Not that great a decline then seeing as we were haven't finished in the top four since Taylor MKI.
There are many clubs who would take our decline over theirs.
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Little managed a top 4 finish is 96 I think, but it was before the CL places went that far. Typical!! As for the way this thread has gone, pointless like the table itself.
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We've been in decline since the year 2000 in my opinion. If that's meaningless, fair enough, but the table that was posted sort of confirms it.
It wasn't me who started the thread by the way.
We may have been in decline since 2000 but we are still in the Premier League 13 years later. Not that great a decline then seeing as we were haven't finished in the top four since Taylor MKI.
There are many clubs who would take our decline over theirs.
Yes we are still in the PL after all these years but Lerner and co are taking serious risks with our Premier League status. When was the last time we were this bad for so long? Mid 80s? Maybe even further back.
Atkinson and Little got us in the top 4 by the way.
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Wasn't there also a second place under BFR in 92-93?
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Little managed a top 4 finish is 96 I think, but it was before the CL places went that far. Typical!! As for the way this thread has gone, pointless like the table itself.
So he did, sorry Sir Brian for my blasphemy.
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Wasn't there also a second place under BFR in 92-93?
And that one, I'm having a very bad day historically!
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We were very good at home for all my youth through to the mid 80s, particularly under Ron Saunders. In fact, under Saunders, Villa Park was pretty much a fortress. I grew up watching Villa being strong at home so find our home form of the past few years really galling.
The facts say otherwise. From getting promoted to Saunders leaving we lost by my reckoning 25 home league games in just over 6 1/2 seasons. It's a good record but it's not a fortress.
Dave, you intrigued me and made me doubt my memory so I thought I would look up the stats.
You are right, it wasn't a fortress under Saunders but it was a bloody well guarded castle. In his 7.5 seasons by my reckoning we played 158 league games winning 93, drawing 40 and losing 25. So on average we lost 3.33 games per season (on average winning 12 and drawing 5). Even when we were relegated in 1970 we lost 6 games.
This record must be better than anything since I reckon.
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Our home record was quite good under Little I think , regularly got 11 or 12 wins in a season and probably under Gregory aswell.
Just shows you though, we've won what 55 home games over that period and Spurs have won 100 odd so double!
And it's not like Spurs have always been chasing top 4 in that period, they had that crap period under Ramos.
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We've been in decline since the year 2000 in my opinion. If that's meaningless, fair enough, but the table that was posted sort of confirms it.
It wasn't me who started the thread by the way.
We may have been in decline since 2000 but we are still in the Premier League 13 years later. Not that great a decline then seeing as we were haven't finished in the top four since Taylor MKI.
There are many clubs who would take our decline over theirs.
Yes we are still in the PL after all these years but Lerner and co are taking serious risks with our Premier League status. When was the last time we were this bad for so long? Mid 80s? Maybe even further back.
Atkinson and Little got us in the top 4 by the way.
So, when you say "in decline for 13 years" what you really mean is "Lerner isn't spending enough".
They're two totally different things.
We certainly weren't in decline from 2006-2010, when we went from 11th to 6th three times in a row, were we?
In the 14 complete seasons since 2000, we have finished in the top six 5 times. I know we've not won anything, and the European Cup was 30 plus years ago, but that's hardly Leeds United style decline, is it?
I appreciate you make a lot of decent points about the state of affairs today, but then you go and spoil it with nonsense like this which just makes you look like a deliberate miserablist and blow your credibility.
You're like a scientist who does good work for the first six days of the week, but then spoils it on Sunday by telling everyone he's Jesus Christ returned to earth, and we all need to move to Belgium or we're all done for.
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We all have to move to Belgium? Fucking Bruges.
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Yes, saunders_heroes is Jesus Christ and he COMMANDS it.
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And not somewhere nice, like Bruges, either.
Somewhere fucking horrible. Charleroi, maybe.
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'Decline' is too simplistic. We declined until 2006, raised up a bit and then declined a bit again.
Oh wait, sorry, we're in the Blue Square Premier and have had to change our name to Greggs Villa to stay afloat.
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And not somewhere nice, like Bruges, either.
Somewhere fucking horrible. Charleroi, maybe.
Rather like the Grand Place.
Lovely coffee and portrait artists.
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Bruges has a racist dwarf, Chloe, and is like a fucking fairytale.
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Bruges has a racist dwarf, Chloe, and is like a fucking fairytale.
I think I saw a waitress like that but I'm not sure
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And not somewhere nice, like Bruges, either.
Somewhere fucking horrible. Charleroi, maybe.
Antwerp. Never forgiven them for 1975.
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We've been in decline since the year 2000 in my opinion. If that's meaningless, fair enough, but the table that was posted sort of confirms it.
It wasn't me who started the thread by the way.
We may have been in decline since 2000 but we are still in the Premier League 13 years later. Not that great a decline then seeing as we were haven't finished in the top four since Taylor MKI.
There are many clubs who would take our decline over theirs.
Yes we are still in the PL after all these years but Lerner and co are taking serious risks with our Premier League status. When was the last time we were this bad for so long? Mid 80s? Maybe even further back.
Atkinson and Little got us in the top 4 by the way.
So, when you say "in decline for 13 years" what you really mean is "Lerner isn't spending enough".
They're two totally different things.
We certainly weren't in decline from 2006-2010, when we went from 11th to 6th three times in a row, were we?
In the 14 complete seasons since 2000, we have finished in the top six 5 times. I know we've not won anything, and the European Cup was 30 plus years ago, but that's hardly Leeds United style decline, is it?
I appreciate you make a lot of decent points about the state of affairs today, but then you go and spoil it with nonsense like this which just makes you look like a deliberate miserablist and blow your credibility.
You're like a scientist who does good work for the first six days of the week, but then spoils it on Sunday by telling everyone he's Jesus Christ returned to earth, and we all need to move to Belgium or we're all done for.
Have you been drinking?
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We were very good at home for all my youth through to the mid 80s, particularly under Ron Saunders. In fact, under Saunders, Villa Park was pretty much a fortress. I grew up watching Villa being strong at home so find our home form of the past few years really galling.
The facts say otherwise. From getting promoted to Saunders leaving we lost by my reckoning 25 home league games in just over 6 1/2 seasons. It's a good record but it's not a fortress.
Dave, you intrigued me and made me doubt my memory so I thought I would look up the stats.
You are right, it wasn't a fortress under Saunders but it was a bloody well guarded castle. In his 7.5 seasons by my reckoning we played 158 league games winning 93, drawing 40 and losing 25. So on average we lost 3.33 games per season (on average winning 12 and drawing 5). Even when we were relegated in 1970 we lost 6 games.
This record must be better than anything since I reckon.
Since we went down to the third division in 1970 our home record has outperformed our final league place seven times in 43 seasons. Since 1983 it's been five times in thirty. We just don't do well at home.
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A great day this has turned out to be. I'm suicidal, me mate tries to kill me, me gun gets nicked and we're still in fucking Bruges.
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A great day this has turned out to be. I'm suicidal, me mate tries to kill me, me gun gets nicked and we're still in fucking Bruges.
Get the train to Ghent and a cab to the Waterhuis.
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All the table shows is that we've been a midtable club for the last 10 years, on average, which is really any shock, our average finishing position in that time is 10th, if averaging 10th is a terminal decline then I clearly missed all the title challenges in the 90s.
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I would imagine our average league place in my time is 9th or 10th. Lower if I go from when I was born rather than from my first game as I reckon that was 75/76 so I can ignore division 2 and 3 which would drag the average right down.
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All the table shows is that we've been a midtable club for the last 10 years, on average, which is really any shock, our average finishing position in that time is 10th, if averaging 10th is a terminal decline then I clearly missed all the title challenges in the 90s.
The 90s were great. Things haven't been that great since 2000 though (apart from the O'Neill years).
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We had three relegation battles in the 90s. Great times indeed.
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We had three relegation battles in the 90s. Great times indeed.
And 2 runners up positions and 2 league cups. Stop being so negative for goodness sake.
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Just thought it strange that someone so vociferous about relegation battles thought three of them in the 90s were great. Or did you mean part of the 90s were great?
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Just thought it strange that someone so vociferous about relegation battles thought three of them in the 90s were great. Or did you mean part of the 90s were great?
We generally had really good teams back in the 90s with the occasional bad one. It was 2 relegation battles by the way, not 3. Is wasn't very often that we weren't at least a top 8 team.
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He meant most of the 90's.
Relegation battles in 90/91 and 94/95. What was the third?
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Three. We were in the shit when Gregory took us over in Feb.
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Three. We were in the shit when Gregory took us over in Feb.
We finished 7th in '98. I defy anyone to claim finishing 7th is a relegation battle.
Are you being serious?
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Three. We were in the shit when Gregory took us over in Feb.
We finished 7th in '98. I defy anyone to claim finishing 7th is a relegation battle.
Are you being serious?
So if we are 15th in feb and on a run of 1 win in 7 you won't be worried and call it a relegation battle?
And I'm pretty sure you class finishing 9th under GH as a relegation battle season.
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Three. We were in the shit when Gregory took us over in Feb.
We finished 7th in '98. I defy anyone to claim finishing 7th is a relegation battle.
Are you being serious?
In that case presumably you wouldn't see 9th place under Houllier as us being in a relegation battle either then.
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You'll have to explain that one to me.
So we weren't in a relegation battle under GH in 2010/11, when we only guaranteed safety on the second last weekend of the campaign.
But we were when we finished 7th under JG and qualified for Europe?
We were something like 14th when BL left. Not great, but his departure wasn't entirely down to results. We won the next game against Liverpool and moved up to mid table by the end of Feb.
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You'll have to explain that one to me.
So we weren't in a relegation battle under GH in 2010/11, when we only guaranteed safety on the second last weekend of the campaign.
But we were when we finished 7th under JG and qualified for Europe?
We were something like 14th when BL left. Not great, but his departure wasn't entirely down to results. We won the next game against Liverpool and moved up to mid table by the end of Feb.
If that was aimed at me, I didn't say we weren't in a relegation battle under Houllier. We quite clearly were. As we were when John Gregory took over from Brian Little.
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We were 15th and had won 1 in 7 when Brian left. Beating Liverpool took us 14th. We're currently 13th but a number of people think we are in a relegation battle.
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No, it was at PWS.
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Three. We were in the shit when Gregory took us over in Feb.
We finished 7th in '98. I defy anyone to claim finishing 7th is a relegation battle.
Are you being serious?
So if we are 15th in feb and on a run of 1 win in 7 you won't be worried and call it a relegation battle?
And I'm pretty sure you class finishing 9th under GH as a relegation battle season.
We finished 17 points above the relegation zone in '98 and finished 7th. That is not a relegation battle no matter how dress it up.
We rallied at the end of the Houllier season, I'll give you that, but for most part we struggled and we've continued to struggle from then on.
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We were 15th and had won 1 in 7 when Brian left. Beating Liverpool took us 14th. We're currently 13th but a number of people think we are in a relegation battle.
Do you think we're in a relegation battle this season?
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Less of one than I did in 98 when Brian lost at Wimbledon.
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The difference was in 1998 (and in 2011, to an extent) was we looked like a big club underperforming, a side who were out of place at that end of the table.
Now we quite comfortably look like one of the worst sides in the division.
Also, In Gregory's first season we were nowhere near relegation concerns in March and April. Under Houllier, there was a nervousness and general shiteness to our play right up until the end of April.
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The difference was in 1998 (and in 2011, to an extent) was we looked like a big club underperforming, a side who were out of place at that end of the table.
Now we quite comfortably look like one of the worst sides in the division.
Also, In Gregory's first season we were nowhere near relegation concerns in March and April. Under Houllier, there was a nervousness and general shiteness to our play right up until the end of April.
Spot on.
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Less of one than I did in 98 when Brian lost at Wimbledon.
This team is comfortably worse than the Little team of '98. As kevingage just said, we were underperforming back then. Now though it's sad to say, we have a team full of players who are not PL standard and there is a genuine fear of relegation about the place.
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So to sum up - if we take out all the good years, and take away all the teams who are worse than us, we're at the bottom.
If you took out the 3 or so good years we'd be bottom of the ever present table and not 2nd bottom.
Now matter how you try, Dave, you'll struggle to find a positive with this topic.
I'm sure this has been responded to in the next few pages but it's such a bizarre comment that I couldn't ignore it.
How about the positive that we haven't been relegated? That big one, which 20 of the 30 clubs in the table would love to be able to say?
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You can draw up a table over any period in the last thirty years for definite and probably longer than that and our home form will look comparatively poor. We've never been particularly good at home.
Maybe there's a gypsy's curse. Maybe we need Lambert to wee in each corner of the ground to help lift it.
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So to sum up - if we take out all the good years, and take away all the teams who are worse than us, we're at the bottom.
If you took out the 3 or so good years we'd be bottom of the ever present table and not 2nd bottom.
Now matter how you try, Dave, you'll struggle to find a positive with this topic.
I'm sure this has been responded to in the next few pages but it's such a bizarre comment that I couldn't ignore it.
How about the positive that we haven't been relegated? That big one, which 20 of the 30 clubs in the table would love to be able to say?
We haven't been relegated. That's wonderful!
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I think the time to discuss whether we're in a relegation battle or not is in March.
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I think the time to discuss whether we're in a relegation battle or not is in March.
Honestly, do you really think this team isn't relegation battle material?
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I think the time to discuss whether we're in a relegation battle or not is in March.
Honestly, do you really think this team isn't relegation battle material?
It could well prove to be judging by the way we're playing but i'm not going to start worrying just yet.
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I think the time to discuss whether we're in a relegation battle or not is in March.
Honestly, do you really think this team isn't relegation battle material?
It could well prove to be judging by the way we're playing but i'm not going to start worrying just yet.
Good god!
This team is relegation battle material make no mistake. Get some Premier standard players in January and we can pull away from the bottom. If not we are going to be in trouble. You must have your head firmly buried in the sand not to see just how dreadful this squad of players are.
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I think the time to discuss whether we're in a relegation battle or not is in March.
Honestly, do you really think this team isn't relegation battle material?
It could well prove to be judging by the way we're playing but i'm not going to start worrying just yet.
Good god!
This team is relegation battle material make no mistake. Get some Premier standard players in January and we can pull away from the bottom. If not we are going to be in trouble.
Well lets see what happens in January then shall we.
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If you take out the teams that have collected more points than us and ignore all the games we have lost, then we are top of that table.
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I think the time to discuss whether we're in a relegation battle or not is in March.
Honestly, do you really think this team isn't relegation battle material?
I think the time to discuss whether we're in a relegation battle or not is in March.
Honestly, do you really think this team isn't relegation battle material?
I think the time to discuss whether we're in a relegation battle or not is in March.
Honestly, do you really think this team isn't relegation battle material?
It is really if you consider that half of the teams could still go down. That said I've a feeling the 2nd half of the season will mirror last season with players like Benteke coming back into form. 15th finish and all cracks papered over once more.
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We haven't been relegated. That's wonderful!
Considering there's only nine other teams that can say it and the majority of those have got considerably more money than we have then it's pretty good, yes.
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We haven't been relegated. That's wonderful!
Considering there's only nine other teams that can say it and the majority of those have got considerably more money than we have then it's pretty good, yes.
Only 8 actually. Could be 7 if/when Fulham drop this year.
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We haven't been relegated. That's wonderful!
Considering there's only nine other teams that can say it and the majority of those have got considerably more money than we have then it's pretty good, yes.
Only 8 actually. Could be 7 if/when Fulham drop this year.
I thought it was 7 or 8.
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We haven't been relegated. That's wonderful!
Considering there's only nine other teams that can say it and the majority of those have got considerably more money than we have then it's pretty good, yes.
Only 8 actually. Could be 7 if/when Fulham drop this year.
I thought it was 7 or 8.
I make it seven who have been in the league permanently since 92/93 and two others who have never been relegated from the Premier League (Swansea and Fulham). You could add Cardiff, but that would probably be cheating as they've not had the chance to be relegated yet.
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I was just going from the table in the OP which had 9 (including us) who had been in the top flight for the past 10 years.
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I think the time to discuss whether we're in a relegation battle or not is in March.
Honestly, do you really think this team isn't relegation battle material?
It could well prove to be judging by the way we're playing but i'm not going to start worrying just yet.
Good god!
This team is relegation battle material make no mistake. Get some Premier standard players in January and we can pull away from the bottom. If not we are going to be in trouble. You must have your head firmly buried in the sand not to see just how dreadful this squad of players are.
And yet after playing the worst football of all time and having not a single player of any quality we're 4 points above the relegation places with 2 of our most important players due back from injury. Did you think the squad was relegation material when we beat Arsenal because it hasn't changed much since then (Kozak in and a few guys who were never going to get a kick out). We've got a midtable squad that's currently under-performing but getting enough points to keep us around midtable.
You're once again mistaking form for ability. A new midfielder with a the ability to close the chasm between the midfield and attack should come in next month and will be enough to nudge us up to 8-12 in the league where I'd expect us to finish this season.
Before you ask, yes I've watched every game, and yes I think we've been poor, but there's no need to get carried away and start demanding the entire squad be replaced because their all shit and it's all Lerner's fault because he won't spend any money. These players have the ability to create chances, we all saw that from Feb to May this year. We've also seen that, with Vlaar in, we can grind out scrappy wins. Goals like we scored against Swansea show that we can find a way through teams we just need to work to make that happen regularly.
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That's where we differ because I don't think this squad of players have the ability at all. I've said it many times, most of them aren't Premier League quality and that's why we've become perennial relegation battlers. Until Lerner invests in quality players we'll continue to struggle.
Hopefully he'll come to his senses next month and signs some players fit to play for Aston Villa.
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That's where we differ because I don't think this squad of players have the ability at all. I've said it many times, most of them aren't Premier League quality and that's why we've become perennial relegation battlers. Until Lerner invests in quality players we'll continue to struggle.
Hopefully he'll come to his senses next month and signs some players fit to play for Aston Villa.
We have to hope that any new players will bring the best out of those who have struggled to shine so far. The ability to seek out those players is one of the things that the Manager and his cohorts are paid to do.
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Small Heath will be wanting an open top bus parade for finishing that high.
and West Barcelona Albion have released a DVD!
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All the table shows is that we've been a midtable club for the last 10 years, on average, which is really any shock, our average finishing position in that time is 10th, if averaging 10th is a terminal decline then I clearly missed all the title challenges in the 90s.
The 90s gave us two title challenges, a fourth place finish, a fifth place finish and lets not forget never out of the top eight between 1996 and 2002. The 90s also delivered two trophies. So we finished 2nd twice, fourth once, fifth once and regularly sixth.
The following decade has been considerably less successful. Saunders_heroes might be a bit extreme to say we are in decline but can anybody argue we have not been regressing?
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The goalposts moved and sadly we haven't been able to compete since.
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All the table shows is that we've been a midtable club for the last 10 years, on average, which is really any shock, our average finishing position in that time is 10th, if averaging 10th is a terminal decline then I clearly missed all the title challenges in the 90s.
The 90s gave us two title challenges, a fourth place finish, a fifth place finish and lets not forget never out of the top eight between 1996 and 2002. The 90s also delivered two trophies. So we finished 2nd twice, fourth once, fifth once and regularly sixth.
The following decade has been considerably less successful. Saunders_heroes might be a bit extreme to say we are in decline but can anybody argue we have not been regressing?
Decline is exactly the word I took objection to. We've had some decent cup runs with semi-finals and finals since the turn of the millenium, we've been in europe, we looked like outside challengers for the champions league places for a couple of years.
What the direct comparison ignores as well is the widening of the gap between the top of the table and the rest and the fact that 2 sides who were non-entities for much of the 90s are now 2 of the richest clubs in the world who've bought their way to the top table. all of that has shifted the goalposts a little so that our average finish is 2-3 places lower but to call it a decline over the last 10-13 years (because he said decade and since 2000) is just wrong. We've had a slump for the last 3 years and I could live with someone saying we've been in decline since 2010 but to go back to 2000 is wrong for me, there were only 2 seasons between 2000 and 2010 which would be counted as genuinely poor as far as I'm concerned (gt mk2 and dolly's last), we had a poor spell in MONs first season but that 11th was a decent finish given the circumstances.
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its like owning a 5.2 jag why buy if you cannot afford the fuel