Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: Legion on October 27, 2014, 09:27:40 PM
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...where we go down?
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Could be, to be honest I am just tired and bored with how pathetic we have been for the last 5 years.
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Unless something quite radical happens, I really think it is.
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Fuck you Lambert and your glasses.
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Yep
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Yes even with that ten point headstart. We have to get rid of such a boring manager now he's had little money but so have many other clubs but, at least they look as though they can play football.
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You could be forgiven for thinking Lerner wants it to happen. We could lose 10 in a row without scoring and Lambert would still be here.
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No.
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No.
I so hope you are right.
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If I wasn't a Villa fan, I'd want us to go. We are a horrible team who offers nothing and hasn't done for a while.
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We are currently losing to the supposedly worst team in the PL.
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We are currently losing to the supposedly worst team in the PL.
Au contrarie, I think you'll find QPR are beating the worst team in the PL.
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Yep. We are Cov of 20nyears ago.
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Yes we fucking dreadful,about time our luck ran out
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Yes and Lerner will stand back and watch it happen
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4 goals in 9 games. Suggests 17 goals in the season total. Our lowest ever total is 36.
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4 goals in 9 games is fucking pathetic.
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Yes
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Yes
Seconded
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Yes I think we will go down this year.
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If we'd even drawn, I'd say no. Burnley are certainties, QPR would've been had they failed to win this evening. We've shot ourselves in the foot thirty seconds after loading our gun and deciding to take our shoes off.
If we change manager we could get a boost. It really can't hurt to try.
We won't though, so another season in which survival in May is the best we can hope for is ahead of us.
Oh joy.
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It's looking likely. Bizarrely I think the teams that we look like beating are the mid table ones. We struggle against teams at the bottom because we can't break them down. We struggle against the good teams because we are shit. The mid table teams dominate possession and attack us because they expect to beat us and that means we can counter attack
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The last nine games last season produced 1 win, 1 draw, 7 defeats. So even with our 10 point start in the first four games that's 14 points from the last 18 games. I can't see Lerner doing a thing but I really pray he does. There are one or two much better managers out there but they won't be free for long.
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We'll go down if Lambert remains in charge.
Get rid of him, his hirsute assistant and all the other vestiges of his time with us. He's had plenty of time to find the answers and has failed.
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YES :-(
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Yes.
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I'm just really jaded by it all. There was a time when a Villa defeat would eat at me for the following week, but now by the next morning I'm just apathetic to it.
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We won't go down - Benteke will scrape enough goals for us, we'll get an unexpected stretch of good form inspired by someone random, and that'll get us just enough points to be above the many other shit teams littering the landscape (Sunderland, Burnley, QPR, Newcastle if they keep Pardew).
I think Benteke going off in the summer (as you wouldn't begrudge him doing) will finally fuck us though.
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Unless Lambert goes, and we spend a bit of money, the yes.
I'd replace him with McLaren now.
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Unless Lambert goes, and we spend a bit of money, the yes.
I'd replace him with McLaren now.
Right now I'd replace him with McLeish to be honest, at least he had a plan, it was a shit plan but he had one and he could coach players to play to it.
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Unless Lambert goes, and we spend a bit of money, the yes.
I'd replace him with McLaren now.
Right now I'd replace him with McLeish to be honest, at least he had a plan, it was a shit plan but he had one and he could coach players to play to it.
Lambert makes McCleish look like a genius.
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We deserve to. And it hurts to say so.
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Unless Lambert goes, and we spend a bit of money, the yes.
I'd replace him with McLaren now.
Right now I'd replace him with McLeish to be honest, at least he had a plan, it was a shit plan but he had one and he could coach players to play to it.
Not sure what Plan TSM had. He was worse than PL
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The only way we will go down is if our injury curse keeps going. Which it has to be said it seems determined to do.
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4 goals in 9 games. Suggests 17 goals in the season total. Our lowest ever total is 36.
We are short odds I imagine to get lower than 36 this year
Really cant see goals in the side. Hutton and Cissokho are solid defenders but hopeless going forward so there is little chance of us getting behind teams.
I dont see any goals in our midfield or even assists. Maybe Westwood from set pieces.
Im not sure where we go from here really.
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A poll would be nice
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Yes
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We won't go down this season but we will eventually if this carries on.
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Is it heretical to suggest that it might just be more fun in the Championship, where at least we should meet sides who are more alike to ourselves?
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A poll would be nice
As if by magic the shopkeeper appeared.
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It is the season if Lambert remains.
We've got to take drastic action now like Palace did. The signs are all there. We're probably going to get trounced in the next three games and I don't see where the goals will come from. We're hanging on in the hope that we can beat Burnley who are all but down already. But they will win at some point, and Villa law dictates it could be us. I honestly don't see where our next point comes from, let alone our next win.
Sack Lambert. Have a pop at Moyes. If he doesn't want it, Pulis.
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Unless Lambert goes, and we spend a bit of money, the yes.
I'd replace him with McLaren now.
Right now I'd replace him with McLeish to be honest, at least he had a plan, it was a shit plan but he had one and he could coach players to play to it.
Lambert makes McCleish look like a genius.
At least McLeish's plan was actually working while Bent was fit. He lost our entire spine of Dunne, Stan and Bent within a month and it all went wrong. He may not have had a plan B, but Lambert doesn't even have a plan A.
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With how desperate Lerner has been to get Moyes in the past, it must have occurred to him that he would probably jump at the chance right now. The new 4-year deal is looking like another great piece of business.
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Unless Lambert goes, and we spend a bit of money, the yes.
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I'd replace him with McLaren now.
Right now I'd replace him with McLeish to be honest, at least he had a plan, it was a shit plan but he had one and he could coach players to play to it.
Not sure what Plan TSM had. He was worse than PL
Lambert equalled his points tally though and has smashed a lot of records in the last 3 yrs
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No.
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If Lambert stays we will go this time, although on paper we are stronger we have a soft underbelly and there is something very wrong, a manager who can inspire and motivate could easily keep us up, that man is not Paul Lambert, that new contract is the noose around our neck, feeling very sad.
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Its a real possibility. We have become the new Blackburn. From the very top down interest has waned and it shows. Over time almost we have become most peoples favorite team to play against. We have more become that "banana skin" club. You expect to beat us but occasionally we can nick a win against a team you don't expect.
I pick Blackburn rather than say Wigan, because no neutral enjoys seeing us play unless we are playing against them.
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If Lambert stays we will go this time, although on paper we are stronger we have a soft underbelly and there is something very wrong, a manager who can inspire and motivate could easily keep us up, that man is not Paul Lambert, that new contract is the noose around our neck, feeling very sad.
There's no pressure at all on Lambert. He's safe as houses. Redknapp was a dead man walking a couple of weeks ago. They were much improved and had plenty of fight against Liverpool and have just beaten us comfortably. That's a response you sometimes get from someone who knows they're right on the edge.
Likewise Newcastle's form has turned around of late after Pardew looked as good as gone.
When are we going to get a response like that from Lambert? Where he'll switch something around, show some guts, really have to get the all from his players to save his job?
win, lose or draw. It seems to be the same for Lambert. If he keeps losing he keeps his job, no matter how inept we look. I really hope Randy wakes the fuck up, but he seems like he's given up the ghost.
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You could be forgiven for thinking Lerner wants it to happen. We could lose 10 in a row without scoring and Lambert would still be here.
Which we will
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I went for the 3rd option but i'll add "really" before worried.
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Yes.
The reason is Paul Lambert is not up to the job and Randy Learner will not replace him. Which he should. Today.
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Terrible nights sleep and feeling like I could throw up, it does feel like this could be our year to go, it's possible that Lambert might fall on his sword if we lose 6 in a row (has the club ever lost 6 league games in a row?) But the trouble is Lerner would probably appoint Keane who is not the answer, I am certain Moyes or Pulis would save us, over to you Randolph.
Pissed off of Bartley Green
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We will finish bottom the way we're going, never mind go down. I don't mind being dull as long as its effective, but this is anything but.
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Strangely the only way we'll go down is if the sides who will finish below us; Burnley, QPR, Leicester, Sunderland and Palace, end up playing us every week.
At the moment I am revaluating my Moody rating, having us move from 12th to 15th. I think that is entirely unacceptable as there is a squad of players here capable of finishing in the top half if organised and set up correctly.
We have been beaten by an awful QPR side, who were absolutely awful last night and almost certain to be relegated. Yet we made it so easy for them.
The four games at the start are looking more and more like a blip when wheighed up against what's come after and what came at the end of last season.
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Theres a good chance . I'm definitely worried .
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I'm just really jaded by it all. There was a time when a Villa defeat would eat at me for the following week, but now by the next morning I'm just apathetic to it.
Sums it up for me as well. First Mcleish and Lerner, and now Lambert and Lerner are slowly choking the passion from me.
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Nearly a quarter of the way through the season and we've scored 4 goals. That is nothing short of pathetic. Think we'll be right down there with QPR, Burnley, Leicester & Sunderland and quite frankly we deserve to go down. We've become the new Wigan - flirting with relegation year after year until we finally drop.
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If we do drop, what do you think the current setup would do in the Championship? I'm really not convinced we'd come straight back up. I think we're more likely to do a Leeds.
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The only tactical approach that Lambert seems to have is to play deep and catch teams on the break. That works occasionally, when the opposition have a bit of an off day. But rocket science it ain't.
If Lerner sacked him and replaced him with a tub of lard, it'd be a couple of months at least before anyone noticed.
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we can't score and we nearly always concede so I'm really struggling to see how we can stay up.
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You can only play 'dare' for so long. If you keep running across main roads or railway tracks for long enough your luck will run out at some point.
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Nah, each season there will always be at least three sides who are far more inept than us. Its very difficult to get relegated in this league.
15th has our name all over it.
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You can only play 'dare' for so long. If you keep running across main roads or railway tracks for long enough your luck will run out at some point.
That's how I see it.
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Nah, each season there will always be at least three sides who are far more inept than us. Its very difficult to get relegated in this league.
15th has our name all over it.
Are you Randy Lerner Ads?
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To be honest, I've feared for us in each of the last four seasons and we've managed to avoid any real relegation dramas. I guess that is exactly what Wigan fans would have said up to a couple of years ago though.
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To be honest, I've feared for us in each of the last four seasons and we've managed to avoid any real relegation dramas. I guess that is exactly what Wigan fans would have said up to a couple of years ago though.
Wigna. No. They played good football.
More like Cov under Don Howe and Bobby Gould
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I'm with Ads, we'll do just enough again, 38-42 points and safe with a game or 2 to go, not good enough for Villa but good enough to stay in the league.
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Staying 15th won't let us hold onto Benteke, Delph etc. If they go, and we can't replace adequately, then we go next season. That's if we've managed to survive this.
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My blood is pulsing as we enter our annual race for 15th.
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My blood is pulsing as we enter our annual race for 15th.
Hold onto your seats!
Poor Seattle Villain.
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My blood is pulsing as we enter our annual race for 15th.
Hold onto your seats!
Poor Seattle Villain.
I suspect we'll come just short of our usual 15th placing. I think we'll end up 16th or 17th. Which at this point, with Lambert in charge, I'd take.
Who knows if QPR will turn it around. Austins a good finisher and they've a few half decent players that might keep them up. Leicester have a run coming up which will tell a lot about where they might finish. They've got 3 out of the next 4 games where you'd expect them to pick up points and if Ulloa keeps scoring, who knows.
Palace don't have any firepower and are worse with the ball than us. They've got spirit though, but Warnock isn't a Premiership manager, he's destined to take them where they belong I think.
Newcastle will be clear. West Brom will probably finish ahead of us. They're just building a head of steam now and Berahinho looks good.
Sunderland, who knows. They look disastrous, but Poyets shown an ability to string results together when he has to.
Burnley are gone. Plenty of fight but no quality.
A lot depends on January's window too. I don't envision us doing much. Other sides may well spend their way (or try) out of trouble.
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The run Leicester are on at the moment tells you where they will finish. I will be massively shocked if either of QPR or Burnley are still in the league next season, while Sunderland still seem to be as poor as they were last season.
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I'm in the 'Probably not, but worried' box.
I'm hanging on to once we get our full team back to fitness we'll have enough to make it safe.
With Benteke scoring them, Guzan saving them, Senderos to bolster defence & Delph the midfield, a fit Kozak giving an option and Sanchez finding his feet.
I also think the when Benteke's up to speed Weimann will rediscover his form
I'm sounding quite desperate ;D
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The thing that worries me is that we will manage to stay up and nothing will change....
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This is the kind of thing I think we need, I get the feeling there is a lack of motivational people in the dressing room. Especially when the chips are down.
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Do they do drugs tests in the NFL?
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I'm in the 'Probably not, but worried' box.
I'm hanging on to once we get our full team back to fitness we'll have enough to make it safe.
With Benteke scoring them, Guzan saving them, Senderos to bolster defence & Delph the midfield, a fit Kozak giving an option and Sanchez finding his feet.
I also think the when Benteke's up to speed Weimann will rediscover his form
I'm sounding quite desperate ;D
This is pretty much my take on it. I am convinced that no matter how piss poor coaching is that we clearly are getting, there's enough in the players to once more splutter over the line. I am convinced that there is far more in this squad, but given the Lambert clearly is bomb proof, bullet proof and probably ebola proof, I predict 15th once more.
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crap thread,
yes weve lost five on the bounce, against a bunch of no hopers and qpr
yes our best players out for a month or so
yes benteke isnt back to his best
But we are Villa and we will kick you up in the air just when you dont expect it.
Sunday tough one and a lot of you will be ticking the away box (shame on you) as a supporter of Villa when im pitch side i support the boys, i may slag them off on here and in the pub, but downward spirals are just that.
So please you that will be there Sunday; SUPPORT.
ITS BETTER THAN THE ALTERNATIVE.
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NO. Burnley will go, i would expect QPR to go as well.
I think if we changed manager we could finish 11/12/13th but as it stands i would expect 15/16th.
We are poor under Lambert but i think we have enough to stay up. The irony is i think we will Sunday then lose the following game as we seem to take one step forward then one step back again.
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The thing that worries me is that we will manage to stay up and nothing will change....
I'm much more worried about relegation than directionless meandering in the lower reaches of the Premier League.
Having lived until recently in Nottingham for 15 years, I know how former European Champions can become failed also rans indefinitely.
Even in the last 6 months we have seen Chief Exec replaced and a new Assistant brought it. Ok hasn't helped on the field as yet and may not but can but try.
I am hoping there is a performance release clause in the Lambert's contract as per Moyes last year.
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Disagree. For me it's like that film 127 hours, and the match on Sunday is the arm. I want maximum vitriol. I hate that it's got to that, and I will feel sorry for him (even though I think he's crap), but it's necessary. The bigger and sharper the knife to cut off the arm, then the quicker it will be.
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I also hope we get a decent FA Cup 3rd round draw and do well this year. Perhaps a extended cup run will held our league form?
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I also hope we get a decent FA Cup 3rd round draw and do well this year. Perhaps a extended cup run will held our league form?
I doubt it will have the slightest difference
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I also hope we get a decent FA Cup 3rd round draw and do well this year. Perhaps a extended cup run will held our league form?
I doubt it will have the slightest difference
It didn't help Wigan, in fact it probably contributed in part to them going down.
I'm all for a good cup run, but with Lambert in charge and a training set up that seems to increase injury probablity, the less games we have, the better.
Now if we have Moyes in charge next month, then I'm all for having a cup push because come March/April he'd have us home and dry in the league.
Lambert can't hack it.
As for what constitutes a good draw for Lamberk is another matter. We could get a non-league side on our own patch and go into the game as the underdog.
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I also hope we get a decent FA Cup 3rd round draw and do well this year. Perhaps a extended cup run will held our league form?
I'm struggling to think what a decent draw would be considering we've been knocked out by teams from the 3 divisions below us previously Liverpool or Norwich away maybe ?
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crap thread,
yes weve lost five on the bounce, against a bunch of no hopers and qpr
yes our best players out for a month or so
yes benteke isnt back to his best
But we are Villa and we will kick you up in the air just when you dont expect it.
Sunday tough one and a lot of you will be ticking the away box (shame on you) as a supporter of Villa when im pitch side i support the boys, i may slag them off on here and in the pub, but downward spirals are just that.
So please you that will be there Sunday; SUPPORT.
ITS BETTER THAN THE ALTERNATIVE.
So, to sum up, it's not OK for other people to "slag Villa off" on this "crap thread", but it's OK for you to slag them off, either here or at the pub?
Oh, and shame on us for thinking we'll lose (when we've just lost 5 games without scoring) against a decent side.
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I also hope we get a decent FA Cup 3rd round draw and do well this year. Perhaps a extended cup run will held our league form?
I'm struggling to think what a decent draw would be considering we've been knocked out by teams from the 3 divisions below us previously Liverpool or Norwich away maybe ?
I forgot our record to lower league teams. Man City away.
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I also hope we get a decent FA Cup 3rd round draw and do well this year. Perhaps a extended cup run will held our league form?
I'm struggling to think what a decent draw would be considering we've been knocked out by teams from the 3 divisions below us previously Liverpool or Norwich away maybe ?
I forgot our record to lower league teams. Man City away.
I honestly would rather we got a PL side in the Cup, as I think we'd actually be more likely to get a result than we would against dross of the order of Sheffield United.
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Burnley down
Villa palace Sunderland qpr Leicester to fight out for other two
Wba hull Newcastle be safe
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crap thread,
yes weve lost five on the bounce, against a bunch of no hopers and qpr
yes our best players out for a month or so
yes benteke isnt back to his best
But we are Villa and we will kick you up in the air just when you dont expect it.
Sunday tough one and a lot of you will be ticking the away box (shame on you) as a supporter of Villa when im pitch side i support the boys, i may slag them off on here and in the pub, but downward spirals are just that.
So please you that will be there Sunday; SUPPORT.
ITS BETTER THAN THE ALTERNATIVE.
So, to sum up, it's not OK for other people to "slag Villa off" on this "crap thread", but it's OK for you to slag them off, either here or at the pub?
Oh, and shame on us for thinking we'll lose (when we've just lost 5 games without scoring) against a decent side.
good retort,
really.
chalk board out!
negativity really helps = no
Support just might
on forums and other places people with interest meet imo its ok to talk the matter over.
Just saying please whilst in VP support the players wearing claret and blue.
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Burnley down
Villa palace Sunderland qpr Leicester to fight out for other two
Wba hull Newcastle be safe
There's a lesson for us all in here.
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crap thread,
yes weve lost five on the bounce, against a bunch of no hopers and qpr
yes our best players out for a month or so
yes benteke isnt back to his best
But we are Villa and we will kick you up in the air just when you dont expect it.
Sunday tough one and a lot of you will be ticking the away box (shame on you) as a supporter of Villa when im pitch side i support the boys, i may slag them off on here and in the pub, but downward spirals are just that.
So please you that will be there Sunday; SUPPORT.
ITS BETTER THAN THE ALTERNATIVE.
So, to sum up, it's not OK for other people to "slag Villa off" on this "crap thread", but it's OK for you to slag them off, either here or at the pub?
Oh, and shame on us for thinking we'll lose (when we've just lost 5 games without scoring) against a decent side.
good retort,
really.
chalk board out!
negativity really helps = no
Support just might
on forums and other places people with interest meet imo its ok to talk the matter over.
Just saying please whilst in VP support the players wearing claret and blue.
In fairness I'd say Villa fans are a lot more tolerant than most when it comes to supporting the team once they're in the ground. There comes a point however where disgruntled fans can voice their opinion. It's probably fair enough after 5 straight defeats without scoring a goal.
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Didn't an ex player (Heskey?) say something like VP didn't go hostile during games, it just went really quiet, which actually had more of an impact?
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He did yeah.
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Personell-wise we should be better off this season than the two previous ones. Our game play was better than QPR's, but they are dire, and will probably be relegated. However, it's not a big help that we knock it about a bit better if we are unable to score and prone to concede soft goals.
The big worry is that our key players are quite injury prone. The QPR game showed that without Delph, and with Benteke and Vlaar some way off their best form, our team isn't all that. I voted "Probably not, but I'm worried".
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I'm convinced we'll go down this season - as I was before the start of the season - but I continue to look for positives. Sadly I can't really see any and all I have are hopes, mainly that Benteke can find scoring form soon, and that Delph will make a faster than expected recovery. The only other hope - the main one - is that some mega-rich genuine football fan will buy the club, get rid of Lambert and bring the good times back. And let's face it, if no-one emerges soon while we're still a Premier League club then that's not very likely either.
This weekend we probably couldn't be meeting Spurs at a better time, considering how disappointing they've been recently. If we can beat them - somehow! - then that will give us a big lift and hopefully we can build on that and pick up some points in the next few weeks. However, I'm sure Spurs will be thinking just the same way - it's a great opportunity for them to get back to winning ways too. So it could be a great game, although I'm not sure I can bear to watch it.
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I think we'll be okay this season. Next season is a different matter unless things change. I doubt Benteke, Vlaar and Delph will be wearing Villa shirts this time next year, and that is the spine of the outfield gone.
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Didn't an ex player (Heskey?) say something like VP didn't go hostile during games, it just went really quiet, which actually had more of an impact?
To be fair there was a lot of stunned silence when Heskey played for us.
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I see Ivanhoe has spoken today and said there's no goals in the side and too many young players who aren't experienced at relegation battles. Is he as crap a pundit as he was a goalscorer?
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I see Ivanhoe has spoken today and said there's no goals in the side and too many young players who aren't experienced at relegation battles. Is he as crap a pundit as he was a goalscorer?
Well that statement is as wide of the mark as one of his wrong side of the corner flag shots. So probably yes.
We've got plenty of players experienced in relegation scraps. Too many. You can't move for the amount of relegation battlers we have in the side.
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Yes Emile should really check and will find that we have the most experienced squad in the League when it comes to relegation battles.
However on to the question posed teams that hover around relegation for more than a couple of season do end up going down. Experience of relegation scraps is a hinderance rather than a benefit. This will be our 5th season. Scary!
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With a bit of luck we might finish about 15th, but if our injury 'luck' continues we might just go this time. Which, aside from the witless piss-taking, money draining, better than bog-standard-or-below players leaving, take-over-likeliood-reducing aspects, would't be all that bad.
Lambert needs a win on the weekend. Villa need a win.
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We're doomed with him in charge.
In Lambert's 85 league games in charge the stats are:
Won 23
Drew 20
Lost 42
Scored 90
Conceded 144
Goal Difference - 54
Points 79.
A 50% defeat rate. Geez!
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We're doomed with him in charge.
In Lambert's 85 league games in charge the stats are:
Won 23
Drew 20
Lost 42
Scored 90
Conceded 144
Goal Difference - 54
Points 79.
A 50% defeat rate. Geez!
the revealing stat from that is that he averages just over a point 1.047 a game which indicates a less than 40 points over a season, this is constant relegation form and at some point he will get us relegated.
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If we were ever going to be relegated, it would have happened under McLiesh. Lambert has proved pretty clueless in setting us up, but there was something pretty special in playing 7 defenders at home.
We're bullet proof. There will always be a tranche of promoted clubs as poor as QPR, Burnley and Leicester and some turds that haven't quite flushed like Palace and Sunderland to keep us out the mire.
15th is our horizon for the foreseeable future. Aren't we lucky? Yes, 77 other clubs would say, but then they support Mickey Mouse outfits and not Aston Villa. Lucky we ain't. Or entertained.
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Can you see your reflection
False strength, hollow protection
Run from pain and rejection
The truth stabs again
Till the skin is broken
And the cut is open
And the words once spoken
Just fade away
Too late, standing on the trap door
Too late, standing on the trap door
Too late, standing on the trap door
Too late, standing on the trap door
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Break enough eggs you makes omelette .
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If we were ever going to be relegated, it would have happened under McLiesh. Lambert has proved pretty clueless in setting us up, but there was something pretty special in playing 7 defenders at home.
We're bullet proof. There will always be a tranche of promoted clubs as poor as QPR, Burnley and Leicester and some turds that haven't quite flushed like Palace and Sunderland to keep us out the mire.
15th is our horizon for the foreseeable future. Aren't we lucky? Yes, 77 other clubs would say, but then they support Mickey Mouse outfits and not Aston Villa. Lucky we ain't. Or entertained.
In the last 2 April's it's not felt like we were bullet proof. More like surviving by the 'skin of our teeth'. There's 2 things that need to be addressed - 1) the manager and 2) the funding.
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We are far from bullet proof . As things currently stand I'd say we are nailed on for 20th.
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We are far from bullet proof . As things currently stand I'd say we are nailed on for 20th.
Agree, we are far from bullet proof.
We are averaging a point a game, so only a slight reduction gets us relegated.
We have been lucky that the survival total has been low, we can not guarantee that will continue.
It only takes a few injuries for us to go from scraping to getting beat such is the weakness of the squad.
We are relying on players that are actually getting worse, Weiman and Gabby for starters.
The signs are that the team is in disarray and we have the prospect that our owner will not react in time having just given our record breaking manager a new contract.
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We are far from bullet proof . As things currently stand I'd say we are nailed on for 20th.
As bad as we are, we aren't finishing below Burnley at least.
Not sure on the other two yet....
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We will be safe, just need to get some confidence and a bit of Lady Luck.
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Can you see your reflection
False strength, hollow protection
Run from pain and rejection
The truth stabs again
Till the skin is broken
And the cut is open
And the words once spoken
Just fade away
Too late, standing on the trap door
Too late, standing on the trap door
Too late, standing on the trap door
Too late, standing on the trap door
Girls Aloud. Very underrated.
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We will be safe, just need to get some confidence and a bit of Lady Luck.
We've had that for the past 3 seasons. She's due a holiday and I think it's this year.
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If we were ever going to be relegated, it would have happened under McLiesh. Lambert has proved pretty clueless in setting us up, but there was something pretty special in playing 7 defenders at home.
We're bullet proof. There will always be a tranche of promoted clubs as poor as QPR, Burnley and Leicester and some turds that haven't quite flushed like Palace and Sunderland to keep us out the mire.
15th is our horizon for the foreseeable future. Aren't we lucky? Yes, 77 other clubs would say, but then they support Mickey Mouse outfits and not Aston Villa. Lucky we ain't. Or entertained.
Sadly I fear that's what Lerner thinks and that kind of complancey will lead to us going down eventually if we don't address our issues.
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If we were ever going to be relegated, it would have happened under McLiesh. Lambert has proved pretty clueless in setting us up, but there was something pretty special in playing 7 defenders at home.
We're bullet proof. There will always be a tranche of promoted clubs as poor as QPR, Burnley and Leicester and some turds that haven't quite flushed like Palace and Sunderland to keep us out the mire.
15th is our horizon for the foreseeable future. Aren't we lucky? Yes, 77 other clubs would say, but then they support Mickey Mouse outfits and not Aston Villa. Lucky we ain't. Or entertained.
Sadly I fear that's what Lerner thinks and that kind of complancey will lead to us going down eventually if we don't address our issues.
I'm waiting with baited breath for the first time this season that Paul Lambert will tell us he's not in the least bit worried about relegation. Could be on Sunday evening!
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We will be safe, just need to get some confidence and a bit of Lady Luck.
We've had that for the past 3 seasons. She's due a holiday and I think it's this year.
Have we? Was it lucky for Kozak and benteke to both pick up serious long term injuries? Was it lucky for Okore to start well and then miss a full season? Have we been lucky in losing Delph to a shoulder injury just before we got into a run of games where we could win.
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Far too early to predict anything at this stage of the season. On the form of the first few matches of the season, no way. On the form of the last few games, undoubtedly.
Too many games to go to accurately predict if we'll go down or stay up
The earliest you could call it is if we're significantly adrift at the bottom going in to new year having failed against a range of top middle and lower clubs. Even then, there's time to go on a run and claw it back.
I was more worried last season than this season and even more so the season before that and the season before that.
The worst thing for me is the wild swing between looking like we'd kicked on from last season to reverting to being utter gash in the space of a few weeks.
It's pretty clear in my mind now, only a change in ownership to someone or a consortium with serious financial backing and the nous to invest wisely will see us be anything other than also rans -and by that I mean about 9th - 17th place finishers. Honestly can't see us going down, but that's more hope than insight by and large.
Shit isn't it?
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Just done the poll. More than twice as many people think we'll go down than those that think we'll stay up. That's not good at all.
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We probably won't, but we might, and for the 5th season running that's not acceptable.
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Take your point risso, but acceptable to who? Supporters? No definitely not, given who we are. Lerner and lambert? Probably yes. An owner looking to sell with minimal further losses and a manager now all but guaranteed a decent payout should a buyer be found in the short to medium term who has a new broom.
The whole takeover situation is hugely impacting on us at the moment and anything that happens has to be viewed in the context of that. There'll be no no new manager and minimal transfer turnover until the club is sold. Whatever happens this season, stay up, go down, win the cup. That's the situation.
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We probably won't, but we might, and for the 5th season running that's not acceptable.
That's essentially the point.
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To those saying if you have loads of relegation scraps you end up going down.....true for Charlton, Luton and Wigan etc, but I'm sure Everton were in a similar predicament in the 90s and look at them now!
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After the last couple of seasons, I now think that Villa are un-relegatable. It appears that we can be unbelievably awful (remember losing 8-0 at Chelsea then to Wigan and Spurs in the next two home games, etc) and survive.
This season I think we will ultimately be slightly better than last because Senderos, Hutton and Cissokho are better defenders than Baker, Bacuna and Luna.
Hopefully we can go on a run of games for the next couple of months with the Vlaar and Senderos central defence pairing that was keeping clean sheets at the start of the season.
Also, I expect Benteke to hit form around late November once he has played a few more games (and got a few more weeks of training under his belt). In his first season with us, he assisted over 50% of our goals (I think) as well as scoring 19 in the league, so I'm hopeful that he will (ridiculously) turn out to be our missing creative spark.
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No, but I can see us scraping by again, it wouldn't surprise me if this was the season though.
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Break enough eggs you makes omelette .
Confucius would have been proud of that line.
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Break enough eggs you makes omelette .
Confucius would have been proud of that line.
So would Cantona for that matter.
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Maybe this is the wrong thread, but I don't think the QPR game was that bad. Yes, we conceded soft goals, and I would have liked to see us create more clear-cut chances against a team as poor as QPR. But no way did I see a match where QPR were better than us.
With our best players either injured (Delph) or just back from injury (Benteke, Vlaar) and an confidence-sapping run of games prior to the match, there was always a chance that things wouldn't go our way.
If one of QPR and Villa will be relegated this season, I'm 90 per cent sure it will be QPR.
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Im asking myself can I be arsed to go tomorrow night
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It won't be the season we go down, but it bloody should be. We're wank.
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We probably won't, but we might, and for the 5th season running that's not acceptable.
Yep agree with that,
It's torture watching Villa most weeks, I haven't a clue what the manager is trying to do, I thought I did in his first season, but it's impossible to know where he's trying to go now
The reason I don't think we will go down is our squad is actually stronger now than it was in previous seasons, unbelievable as that is, I think we will have enough over a few other teams to keep us safe.....again
It's still utterly crap though, and as Risso says unacceptable
But what you gona do (T Soprano)
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the problem is I think there might be three better 'teams' than us this season - our individual component parts are probably better than the likes of OPR, Leicester, Sunderland, Burnley, Palace etc., but we don't ever look like playing as a cohesive whole. Plus we can't score or defend very well.
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QPR weren't better than us, in fact they were atrocious, but it was very easy for them, as we were absolutely clueless as to how to break them down.
Chelsea will as much possession and bum them four or five. We couldn't muster anything more than two chances for Clark.
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I refuse to believe we'll go down. We'll struggle all season and it'll absolutely horrible but we'll find something from somewhere to stay up. Going down is unthinkable for a club like Villa.
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Maybe this is the wrong thread, but I don't think the QPR game was that bad. Yes, we conceded soft goals, and I would have liked to see us create more clear-cut chances against a team as poor as QPR. But no way did I see a match where QPR were better than us.
QPR were woeful but they still put two goals past us. That's the problem.
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QPR weren't better than us, in fact they were atrocious, but it was very easy for them, as we were absolutely clueless as to how to break them down.
Chelsea will as much possession and bum them four or five. We couldn't muster anything more than two chances for Clark.
Or not. QPR actually looked to give them a much better game than we managed to.
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Burnley, QPR and us.
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Tonight, I really think we'll drop. But the saving grace might be that we're in the doldrums now, rather than dropping like a stone later on. It's whether or not we're marooned by the time we rally that'll make the difference.
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Saving grace is it's November, not March or April where we've previously been on losing runs in recent seasons and the games are running out.
The situation looks pretty desperate now I agree and with no Benteke for the next three games we'll go back to scoring nil.
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Burnley, Palarse and then one from Olbiyun, Leicester, QPR and us.
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A week before the season started I said it would be Burnley, Southampton and us.
I reckon I'll get two from three there.
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Quite possibly as we continue to drift complacently down the table. If not this year then next year probably won't have Benteke, Delph or Vlaar and that'll kill us.
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A week before the season started I said it would be Burnley, Southampton and us.
I reckon I'll get two from three there.
You think Southampton will have that bad a collapse to join Burnley and QPR?
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A week before the season started I said it would be Burnley, Southampton and us.
I reckon I'll get two from three there.
I look at what they've done so far this season - despite selling all those players - and weep. If Lerner wanted austerity at Villa Park, at least deliver it as Southampton are managing with decent football and a creative managerial appointment.
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It feels like 1987, If Lerner doesn't act we will go down.
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The worry is that those defensive lapses have come back, our turn around last season started when we tightened up defensively.
It looks like we have a couple of mistakes in us every game and that is what really takes the moral out of a team.
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I can see us losing the next three games.
That's not me saying "we will lose the next three", but I honestly can't see us beating anyone at the moment. In fact, I can't see us taking a point, either.
So what would realistically happen if we did lose the next three?
This is hypothetical, but is there any amount of belief in manager from chairman that could allow that manager to stay in his job after nine defeats in a row?
I appreciate these are things that have not yet happened, but we've already reached six, and that is bad enough.
Surely, no matter how much Lerner loves Lambert, there has to come a point where, if nothing else, sheer pride kicks in and he has to do something? How could he have pride in a club and sit back and allow such dreadful failure to happen?
Surely at some point, even he has to get embarassed and realise it just isn't working?
So where does that happen?
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I'm not sure Randy would pull the plug if we lost every game until Easter.
I'm not even convinced he knows it's an option.
He's picked his man and he'll stick by him, the new contract was proof of that.
I'm very much afraid that he holds with the American political addage that you don't change jockeys half we through a race, even if the jockey doesn't really know what he's doing and is flogging a soon to be dead.horse.
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It has all the signs of the drop. Leaky defence, soft midfield which doesn't contribute any goals and inept attack. Horrendous home record, continuous injuries, error strewn players, 1 point per game average.
Just looked at other teams who lost 5 on bounce - derby, Ipswich, Sunderland and Watford. All relegated (although Newcastle survived last year after 7 I think).
4 defeats to the London teams already and west ham next up. What id do for a goalless draw. Bleak.
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I can see us losing the next three games.
That's not me saying "we will lose the next three", but I honestly can't see us beating anyone at the moment. In fact, I can't see us taking a point, either.
So what would realistically happen if we did lose the next three?
This is hypothetical, but is there any amount of belief in manager from chairman that could allow that manager to stay in his job after nine defeats in a row?
I appreciate these are things that have not yet happened, but we've already reached six, and that is bad enough.
Surely, no matter how much Lerner loves Lambert, there has to come a point where, if nothing else, sheer pride kicks in and he has to do something? How could he have pride in a club and sit back and allow such dreadful failure to happen?
Surely at some point, even he has to get embarassed and realise it just isn't working?
So where does that happen?
I was wondering that myself. What is the tipping point? When does even the most well laid intentions of stability come to an end and reality sink in. I know that's what they were aiming for with his contract but as so many things in the Randy era it has come back to bite him square in buttocks. Lambert's not walking so when does Fox go to Randy and say that things need to change or the worst scenario could very well take place.
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My guess is that we will lose to West Ham and Saints. I don't think he can survive 2 more defeats even with the most stubborn and out of touch owner that we have.
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I'd have liked to have thought he wouldn't have survived 6 defeats (5 without scoring) and going out of the LC at home to Orient and that's just this season - throw in all of the previous unwanted records.
I honestly think we're stuck with him, all the way to the Championship if that's what happens.
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After the last two games ,where we have lost to QPR and Spurs ,who lets be honest,were pretty poor ,i think if Lambert stays,this will be the season we are relegated.
In my opinion all the signs are there of a side who gets relegated.Firstly,we have a manager whose record is nothing short of awful,home and away.Secondly,we are prone to defensive lapses,weak in midfield with no creativity and struggle to score goals.
Another reason i think we will go,is that our better players are injury prone and we do seem to have awful bad luck,when it comes to sustaining serious injuries
Due to bad management, i also expect us to lose both Delph and Vlarr in January.Both have still not signed new contracts and are not likely to either.Rather than risk losing them for nothing at the end of the season,i fear Learner will order them to be sold
Lastly, i think the discipline,or rather lack it will come to bite us as the season develops and suspensions start to kick in. I think i am right in saying that under Lambert,we have picked up more yellow cards than any other Premier side.
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William Hill offering 3-1 on us going down - I don't think they are concentrating.
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I am beginning to think that it is. From the last 2 games we should have got a minimum of 4 points based on the balance of the play and we got nothing. Whilst you make your own luck the Gods are clearly against us and we have the look of the 86-87 team about us.
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Still lulled by our decent start probably.
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We cannot keep hoping every year there are 3 teams worse than us, I think this year will be the year when there will not be, as said above, I think Vlaar is a dead cert to be gone January, not as certain about Delph, but would not put any money on him staying.
Injuries , I think the last time Villa had a season without substantial injuries was 1980/81. More importantly this year they are happening to the players we can least afford them to happen to.
Disciplinary problems will around December start to kick in, we pick up far to many unnecessary bookings and to top all of that off, we are not very good.
The repercussions for this club will take years to get over and I have said it before, living abroad and have done for the last 8 years, when you drop out of the Premiere league, you literally drop off the world football map.
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Its interesting to note that from the corresponding fixtures last season we are three points better off
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well , let's not allow a statistic like that interrupt a tsunami of bed wetting.
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well , let's not allow a statistic like that interrupt a tsunami of bed wetting.
6 defeats on the bounce. I pissed the fucking bed last night, woke up in the shallow end
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I must admit my rubber under sheet is coming in handy at the moment
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well , let's not allow a statistic like that interrupt a tsunami of bed wetting.
6 defeats on the bounce. I pissed the fucking bed last night, woke up in the shallow end
I am with Chico on this one. Had to scoot off Dubai last Tuesday morning still ranting about our performance down the road from me at Loftus Rd, then get held up on the way back yesterday to miss our game. I felt like pissing the bed in protest (if I had still been in a hotel I probably would have done so).
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If we do go down, I reckon Lambert will still be kept on! Who are we realistically going to get as manager who has got a as good a chance of getting us straight back up as him? Names like Koeman and Klinsmann will be a thing of the past. It would probably be Roy Keane of course!
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Can we re-set the poll? i'm fucking shitting it
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If you think QPR, Burnley and Leicester will finish above us, then lump your money on it, I am sure the bookies will be glad for it.
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Yeah could do with a poll reset.
If we do go down, I really can't see us coming back up.
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If you think QPR, Burnley and Leicester will finish above us, then lump your money on it, I am sure the bookies will be glad for it.
Thing is, it will probably only require one of them if we keep this up.
We've taken 14 points from the last 19 games, and 10 of those came in the first 4 games. Even if we started picking up points at 50% of the rate we have been over that period, we're still going to struggle to get past 35 points.
We're so deep in the shit, we need one of those sewage workers from Mexico City that snorkel through the sewers keeping them from accumulating too much "solid waste" to help us back to the surface.
Google Worlds Dirtiest Jobs Mexico City if you want to be put off your evening meal.
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Much depends on what other clubs do in january too. We're probably going to do very little, if anything. We just have to hope that Sunderland, Leicester and QPR don't find anyone inspirational to sign. We'll just about finish ahead of them this season, as things stand. Just about.
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No I think we'll find that Sunderland begin a slow but steady improvement over the next few weeks while we move down into our final position, 18th.
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If you say so. They look utter wank to me, but still an hour in it.
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No I think we'll find that Sunderland begin a slow but steady improvement over the next few weeks while we move down into our final position, 18th.
For the fifth year in a row.
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If we finish below either of Sunderland or Palace then we want shooting.
It would be jolly sporting of Palace to fuck off back down the leagues so we don't have to visit Selhurst Park again.
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If we finish below either of Sunderland or Palace then we want shooting.
We finished below both of them last year, so it would hardly be a huge shock.
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What's last year got to do with it? I am watching them both now and they're abysmal. We will finish above both.
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What's last year got to do with it? I am watching them both now and they're abysmal. We will finish above both.
Have we got a 3-1 away in us? Don't think so.
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I thought a few weeks ago the usual 36 or 37 points would do the trick to stay up, not sure now as Newcastle have picked up big time and QPR are showing improved form.
It could be 40 + points for the 3rd relegation spot this year which dosen't bode well for us based on the last few seasons, two of which we haven't even reached that figure.
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Have we got a 3-1 away in us? Don't think so.
This is very silly. We may or may not but that doesn't mean that we will not win an away match again this season and this 3-1 for Sunderland said nothing more than a 1-0 or 2-1. They could have lost this game or a draw but ended up winning it however it says nothing absolutely zilch about them being better than us. More valid discussion is why we are around this area of the table again?
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I thought a few weeks ago the usual 36 or 37 points would do the trick to stay up, not sure now as Newcastle have picked up big time and QPR are showing improved form.
It could be 40 + points for the 3rd relegation spot this year which dosen't bode well for us based on the last few seasons, two of which we haven't even reached that figure.
This is a pointless discussion and no pun intended. Any time up to Xmas people will make this analogy about teams "picking up" and therefore 40+ however records show that 35+ has been more then enough because teams take points off each other. I have not checked but I would say that since 3 for win came about very few teams have been relegated with 35 points or more.
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We need to start winning against the teams in our league (basically anyone outside the top 8). I'm not sure we will beat as many top 5 teams as we did last season.
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We need to start winning against the teams in our league (basically anyone outside the top 8). I'm not sure we will beat as many top 5 teams as we did last season.
In the end it was those unexpected results that kept us up last season. As it stands, the three promoted clubs occupy the bottom three places and I think at least two of them (Leicester and Burnley) will stay there and Palace will soon join them as Warnock will drag them down.
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I tend to think Sunderland will be alright their squad isn't the best but I think Poyet is a solid manager and they have strong support and should have enough.
How good or bad our form is over Christmas could ultimately decide if we are going to be in serious danger. I still think there are three teams at least worse than use, but as normal it is a touch and go.
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I thought a few weeks ago the usual 36 or 37 points would do the trick to stay up, not sure now as Newcastle have picked up big time and QPR are showing improved form.
It could be 40 + points for the 3rd relegation spot this year which dosen't bode well for us based on the last few seasons, two of which we haven't even reached that figure.
This is a pointless discussion and no pun intended. Any time up to Xmas people will make this analogy about teams "picking up" and therefore 40+ however records show that 35+ has been more then enough because teams take points off each other. I have not checked but I would say that since 3 for win came about very few teams have been relegated with 35 points or more.
The point about 35 points is fair enough.
The worrying part of it is if you look across our last half seasons worth of results, 35 points is going to be a challenging target.
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I tend to think Sunderland will be alright their squad isn't the best but I think Poyet is a solid manager and they have strong support and should have enough.
How good or bad our form is over Christmas could ultimately decide if we are going to be in serious danger. I still think there are three teams at least worse than use, but as normal it is a touch and go.
They're a good striker away from progressing. And I'd guess he'll also bring in a new defensive lynch-pin in Jan too to try and avert the sort of implosion that happened to them in the previous weeks.
If we get left behind in the january window we could be in trouble.
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How depressing to have these conversations on hoping which teams are worse than us every friggin season.
This is Aston villa . Ffs so depressing
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How depressing to have these conversations on hoping which teams are worse than us every friggin season.
This is Aston villa . Ffs so depressing
A few weeks ago no one would have been worried about Sunderland, and they're no ahead of us in the league. A few don't seem worried about QPR, who actually beat us.
The only side I'd happily put money on us finishing above at the minute is Burnley.
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How depressing to have these conversations on hoping which teams are worse than us every friggin season.
This is Aston villa . Ffs so depressing
It's truly depressing. Probably not the darkest period in our history, granted, but I can't think of a more depressing time to be a Villa fan in the last quarter of a century. I think we always had hope that we would improve. Even in our darkest days under Billy McShit, we knew it would be a matter of time before Doug took him for "a walk in his garden". There's no hope of that these days, it seems
People say it's the hope that kills you. I'd say it's the lack of hope
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This season is the first season I've looked at the teams in the table and thought that we've had it. I can only see Burnley being adrift. The others (the Palaces, the QPRs, the Sun'lands) have the nous and bottle to rack enough points up.
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How much "bottle" did you see Palace and Sunderland display last night? Looked two awful teams to me. Can't say I would fear playing either of them.
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How much "bottle" did you see Palace and Sunderland display last night? Looked two awful teams to me. Can't say I would fear playing either of them.
Yep but QPR looked and are an awful side and they beat us. I don't think there is any team in the league at the moment we can look at and say yep that's 3 points in the bag.
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I think the key to success in terms of winning games again is to get Senderos back ASAP. He was a key man in that start to the season, he helped to make us tough to beat and helped us to nick a few 1-0s. If we can keep him and Hutton fit then we have a decent back 5, which allows the guuys in front a bit more freedom. I don't see us going down if we get our first choice back four together.
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How much "bottle" did you see Palace and Sunderland display last night? Looked two awful teams to me. Can't say I would fear playing either of them.
Absolutely - two poor teams without doubt.
But there isn't a single team in the division who won't be licking their lips at the prospect of facing us.
Burnley will have the game against us circled on the calendar as a 'MUST WIN'. Every other team will have us highlighted as well.
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How much "bottle" did you see Palace and Sunderland display last night? Looked two awful teams to me. Can't say I would fear playing either of them.
Yep but QPR looked and are an awful side and they beat us. I don't think there is any team in the league at the moment we can look at and say yep that's 3 points in the bag.
Fulham were awful, did the double over us last season and still went down..
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How much "bottle" did you see Palace and Sunderland display last night? Looked two awful teams to me. Can't say I would fear playing either of them.
Yep but QPR looked and are an awful side and they beat us. I don't think there is any team in the league at the moment we can look at and say yep that's 3 points in the bag.
Fulham were awful, did the double over us last season and still went down..
That Fulham away game was another one where Lambert buggered up. Herd at centre half and Baker at left back. We were woeful.
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It was probably our results against the better sides that kept us up last season. I'm thinking Arsenal, City, Chelsea, we took a point at Anfield, and we also got a really good and unexpected 3 points at Southampton.
I don't see us matching that this season. We've beaten a rapidly declining Liverpool, but I don't see us picking up too much in the other corresponding fixtures, as has proven so far. The big boys won't slip up against us again or take us lightly. Arsenal, City and Chelsea had it pretty easy this season.
Our results, particularly against the sides around us are what has to improve. If Last season is anything to go by, you'd probably expect us to balls it up against the likes of Leicester, Palace and Burnley. Games we've got to be, particularly at home, winning. Dropping 6 points against a team is wretched as Fulham didn't cost us last season. However, doing something similar this season could well do.
There aren't any games we can look at and genuinely expect to get 3 points. We've got to fight for everything and attack games because in terms of unexpected results, I don't see us matching what we did last season.
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How much "bottle" did you see Palace and Sunderland display last night? Looked two awful teams to me. Can't say I would fear playing either of them.
Yep but QPR looked and are an awful side and they beat us. I don't think there is any team in the league at the moment we can look at and say yep that's 3 points in the bag.
Fulham were awful, did the double over us last season and still went down..
That Fulham away game was another one where Lambert buggered up. Herd at centre half and Baker at left back. We were woeful.
Yep I was there , wasn't Bacuna RB aswell and have away a mad pen. Shocking times that are only getting worse.
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How much "bottle" did you see Palace and Sunderland display last night? Looked two awful teams to me. Can't say I would fear playing either of them.
Yep but QPR looked and are an awful side and they beat us. I don't think there is any team in the league at the moment we can look at and say yep that's 3 points in the bag.
Fulham were awful, did the double over us last season and still went down..
And I remember most people saying palace at home last season was s home banker.
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How much "bottle" did you see Palace and Sunderland display last night? Looked two awful teams to me. Can't say I would fear playing either of them.
Yep but QPR looked and are an awful side and they beat us. I don't think there is any team in the league at the moment we can look at and say yep that's 3 points in the bag.
Fulham were awful, did the double over us last season and still went down..
And I remember most people saying palace at home last season was s home banker.
It was until Pulis rocked up there...
Thing is Palace are on the decline right now, as are the Foxes, and QPR have been worse than us overall even if they have improved in the last few games. Of course as always January will be key.
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unless we start scoring more than we concede very quickly, January is going to be academic.
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To answer the title of this thread, yes, I think this will be the season we win the FA Cup again.
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To answer the title of this thread, yes, I think this will be the season we win the FA Cup again.
And all McGrath's people said Amen!
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To answer the title of this thread, yes, I think this will be the season we win the FA Cup again.
Only if we can play Norwich in every round.
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To answer the title of this thread, yes, I think this will be the season we win the FA Cup again.
Only if we can play Norwich in every round.
Given our record against lower league opposition in recent years, we would probably have our best chance ever of winning the FA Cup if we were drawn away in successive rounds to Man City, Chelsea, Man United and Liverpool.
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To answer the title of this thread, yes, I think this will be the season we win the FA Cup again.
Only if we can play Norwich in every round.
And Blackburn after we knock out Norwich.
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To answer the title of this thread, yes, I think this will be the season we win the FA Cup again.
Only if we can play Norwich in every round.
And Blackburn after we knock out Norwich.
Norwich are championship now
We can't be playing a championship side.
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To answer the title of this thread, yes, I think this will be the season we win the FA Cup again.
Only if we can play Norwich in every round.
And Blackburn after we knock out Norwich.
Norwich are championship now
We can't be playing a championship side.
Rather championship than League 1.
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In terms of the topic of this thread to state the bleeding obvious it's impossible to tell whether we'll go down or not this season. Much to the disgust of my family and friends I put some money on us to go down before the season started because I thought we'd ended last season terribly and hadn't improved our squad sufficiently over the summer. The first few weeks of the season led to visions of gleefully tearing up the slip when we were mathematically safe in March but unfortunately we're back to the usual position under Lambert which is not in the bottom 3 but looking over our shoulders nervously. Everything that everyone says about the appalling quality of our fellow relegation candidates is true. Sadly everything everyone says about our own appalling quality is also true. We could well stay up this year while being shit, after all it is what we've done the last three seasons so I don't buy all those who say we're guaranteed to go down and other such bollocks. One point I will make though is if we do stay up again, just, with 38-44 points it will have been yet another crap year.
Unless we win the FA Cup.
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Have the two points we have gained in our current unbeaten run removed relegation fears?
If so, why? Nothing has changed has it?
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What if you weren't worried about being relegated in the first place, but just concerned that 16th/15th for the forseeable is unacceptable?
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Have the two points we have gained in our current unbeaten run removed relegation fears?
If so, why? Nothing has changed has it?
Think Burnley will be a big game. A real 6 pointer.
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Have the two points we have gained in our current unbeaten run removed relegation fears?
If so, why? Nothing has changed has it?
Think Burnley will be a big game. A real 6 pointer.
And Palace and Leicester and Baggies. Our next 3 games after Burnley.
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Got to think 6 points is a minimum from those 4.
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I don't think we will go down this time. One of the things that is really helping us is the dip in form of Lecester. And how the other two newly promoted clubs have also struggled this season. Then when you add the likes of Sunderland, Palace and Hull to the mix then there should be at three or four worse teams than us come the end of the season. Also, although its not ideal and not pretty to watch you can see us scrapping 0-0's away from home in matches which many of others might lose. But as has been said the next three or four games are crucial if we pick up very little from those they I will really start to worry.
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I think you're right; it will be another scrape by finish when we should be doing better with what we have. I'm beginning to think that even relegation won't see off Mr Lambert, so for those of us wanting him gone, it's a takeover or as you are.
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Bump!
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We are right in it.
Amusingly we got six points from the next three fixtures last season, well we need something like that now.
Given West Brom will pick up now and probably Palace will aswell I think we'll be in the bottom three after the Chelsea game and it's going to be a struggle to get out of there.
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Palace beating Spurs, surprise surprise new manager effect.
We are right in this people.
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We are right in it.
Amusingly we got six points from the next three fixtures last season, well we need something like that now.
Given West Brom will pick up now and probably Palace will aswell I think we'll be in the bottom three after the Chelsea game and it's going to be a struggle to get out of there.
Totally agree, especially if we are still not scoring goals.
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Think we are the worst team in the league currently ..lack of goals if it carry on will send us down.
Watched our game and Palace game ,both Leicester and Palace much better than us currently.though to be honest all you need is an attacking threat to be better than us currently.
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Yes, we are right in it, deservedly so and deserve to go down frankly. We are the most boring and unexciting team in the league by some distance. We can't even win games playing shit but effective football like Stoke have done for the last god knows how many years. We are just shit full stop.
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Only Sunderland are as shit as us.
And we couldn't beat them.
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We are in it. Again. We desperately need some quality.
I fear Randy will roll the dice and not spend big this January though. You just can't play with relegation season after season and hope for the best.
It will catch up with you and this could be our year :(
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It's different this year. Lambert has hit a brick wall tactically but he looks as secure as ever. I think our downward slide will be dramatic over the next couple of months.
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It could well be and the fact that it's a genuine possibility is unacceptable.
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No, we will stay up. It's not enough though and the mind numbing dullness won't change either until Lerner is gone, which won't happen any time soon.
This is as good as it will get for the next 10 years.
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The worst part about today isn't the fact that we didn't score. Our lack of those has been evident for a good while. It's the very concerning fact that Leicester City FC should have scored 4 or 5 times but for some poor finishing and the brilliance of Guzan. Today wasn't a low attempts game between two poor teams. It was very much where one team that cannot score were massively fortunate to only lose by one.
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I think this is the season.
You can't have this sort of scoring record, not show signs of improving it, and hope to stay up.
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Chin up everyone. We are carbon neutral AND we have a lamp.
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I mean, look at this, for instance.
This shows how poor we are when it comes to scoring.
Miguel Delaney @MiguelDelaney · 3h 3 hours ago
Fewest goals scored in a PL season is 20 by Derby County in 2007-08, rate of 0.53. Villa currently have 11 in 21, a rate of 0.52.
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WBA and Palace getting new managers has worked against us. Agree with what was said on 606 than us not making a change and getting Pulis while he was free could come back to hunt us. Still think we stay up, but it will just be by the skin of our teeth once again. But then if you consider that we may lose certain key players in the summer, and if Lambert is again in charge next season then next season could be the year.
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When we dragged ourselves out of the mire in his first season, we could at least see that we were playing to win but the players lacked either the nous or experience to see out games. Once Benteke started firing, there was a confidence that was tangible. Last season, we needed a big result right at the last knockings and managed to get it against Hull, despite stinking up the league, but probably should have got better results than we did because we had two strikers with long-term injuries.
I don't see any signs of an upswing this season. I think we'll sink and be gone before the end of proceedings. 19th is my guess, and Lambert will be at the helm when we do, because it'll be too late to do the obvious thing.
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I don't think anyone can say we'll definitely stay up unless it's pure blind faith.
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I though the comments about Pulis were nonsense. We play mind numbing shite now with a manager in charge who seems to be able to do enough to keep is up. Why change that for more of the same?
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Problem is even Benteke looks fucking useless at the moment.
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I think a lot of people right now would take mind numbingly shit football and 3 points and worry about aesthetics another time.
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Problem is even Benteke looks fucking useless at the moment.
I totally agree, but he's not being given the chance to look anything different.
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Problem is even Benteke looks fucking useless at the moment.
I totally agree, but he's not being given the chance to look anything different.
Partially true, but even with his limited opportunities he's making a mardy hash of it.
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Yes bentekes the root cause of it all
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I though the comments about Pulis were nonsense. We play mind numbing shite now with a manager in charge who seems to be able to do enough to keep is up. Why change that for more of the same?
Ads, I would say it's because Pulis' teams play with passion, are well organised and hard to beat. Nothing loveable about them unless they are your team. They also win more than they lose. We are struggling to score more goals than games we lose. The major difference between Lambert and Pulis appears to be competence.
We are undoubtably the dullest team in the league, if not the entire cosmos. If we were winning 1-0 that would be fine, but we aren't.
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I though the comments about Pulis were nonsense. We play mind numbing shite now with a manager in charge who seems to be able to do enough to keep is up. Why change that for more of the same?
Maybe because he has been a success in the Prem.
Think where we are now. We can come up with the big club bollocks all day long, but it counts for nothing. Its the here and now that is important. Right now we need to be stabilised and ensure our prem status is maintained. Pulis was perfect for that. We will worry about playing like Barca circa 2011 when we are comfortably mid table
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I actually think unless we change manager we are going to now have Lambert's worst run since he's been here. We have no idea how to score, this is just adding pressure to the defence. The defence in which he fixed will then break.
From the time when Lambert started it's been one good thing followed by lots of bad.
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Can't blame Benteke. He needs service.
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WBA and Palace getting new managers has worked against us. Agree with what was said on 606 than us not making a change and getting Pulis while he was free could come back to hunt us. Still think we stay up, but it will just be by the skin of our teeth once again. But then if you consider that we may lose certain key players in the summer, and if Lambert is again in charge next season then next season could be the year.
It was the case the clubs Norwich , Cardiff and Fulham sacked their managers and were relegated last season.
Any manager situation is reviewed though but can be certain provisions
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Can't blame Benteke. He needs service.
Stop moaning and put in a shift would help
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If this is the season, I can't see us coming straight back up. No Delph, Vlaar, probably Benteke, some Championship players like Westwood, Wiemann, et al, who still won't be good enough. I wouldn't back us to even hit the play offs. Saying that, if we stay up, selling Benteke is possibly the only way of bringing any quality in, and his transfer fee is taking a week by week hit thanks to the tactics deployed. We really are that bad. Unless, of course, a new Manager can get more out of this current group.
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Averaging half a goal a game doesn't really bode that well.
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We will become fulham
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Boxing day Day 1986 to the last game in May 1987, 14 goals in 22 games, 16 points from a possible 66. Anything seem familiar?
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At our present rate of scoring (or should that be not scoring) we are nailed on to finish bottom never mind being in the bottom three.
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Need to change the formation, it's not working! Benteke is moaning but he's probably as frustrated as everyone else. I'd give Robinson some minutes, Gabby and Weimann need to stop playing every game and play with wingers. Going through the middle isn't working. Maybe cleverly could play in the hole or get him to sit and put Delph in the hole when he's back. At the minute whatever it is were doing (because I have no clue ) isn't working
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If we were to go down, outside of Villa fans, few would notice and even less would care.
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If we were to go down, outside of Villa fans, few would notice and even less would care.
Now that's plain not true*. Losing a Premier League 'founder member', as it were, would be huge news.
*amended to sound less mad.
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I don't agree. We are pretty much irrelevant as a force in this league.
It would be news for a day or two, but we'd soon be forgotten, like Wolves.
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I don't agree. We are pretty much irrelevant as a force in this league.
It would be news for a day or two, but we'd soon be forgotten, like Wolves.
Spot on. Like a Christmas jumper, king for a day, charity shop before you can say ho ho ho.
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If we were to go down, outside of Villa fans, few would notice and even less would care.
Now that's plain not true*. Losing a Premier League 'founder member', as it were, would be huge news.
*amended to sound less mad.
yes, for about 10 minutes
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Well nothing in football is wailed about forever. Even with Rangers going to Division 3 people got used to it fairly quickly. You expect commentators to still be wailing about Villa being relegated for years to come or 'we're now irrelevant'?
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The major difference between Lambert and Pulis appears to be competence.
This with bells on. I understand people saying he'd hardly have been an inspiring appointment but you can't deny he knows what he's doing.
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The thing is if we do go down then it will be fully deserved. We have stank up the league for a while and the club has consistently made terrible decisions. The most recent being continuing to employ a man who clearly isn't up to the job. It's just sad that the fans will suffer.
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WBA and Palace getting new managers has worked against us. Agree with what was said on 606 than us not making a change and getting Pulis while he was free could come back to hunt us. Still think we stay up, but it will just be by the skin of our teeth once again. But then if you consider that we may lose certain key players in the summer, and if Lambert is again in charge next season then next season could be the year.
It was the case the clubs Norwich , Cardiff and Fulham sacked their managers and were relegated last season.
Any manager situation is reviewed though but can be certain provisions
You could argue the difference is that we've got better players than those three clubs had. We've probably got better players than the clubs below us at the moment.
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I really think it all hinges on whether Lambert stays or not. Take your pick Lerner.
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Yep. We are Cov of 20nyears ago.
That is the most depressing statement I have seen for a long long time.
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Yep. We are Cov of 20nyears ago.
That is the most depressing statement I have seen for a long long time.
Don't worry. If we go down we'll be back.
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Chin up everyone. We are carbon neutral AND we have a lamp.
If there is a genie in the lamp we may have a chance. Maybe Randy knows what he is doing after all.
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Last season Norwich Fulham (more than once) and Cariff sacked managers but appointed poor replacements but two strugglers this season Palace and WBA have sacked and made strong appointments which I believe will keep them up, for me that means its us, Burnley, Leicester, Qpr and Sunderland for the 3 relegation spots, if we cannot find goals quickly we may well go down, we will know a lot more following the next 3 fixtures
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no.
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Well, I for one think it's time to make a stand. In the event that we either lose or don't score against Liverpool we should boycott the Bournemouth game. Fuck it, we won't win the cup anyway. See if Randolph takes notice when we are playing in front of 8000 at villa park, 4000 of which are away fans due to having to increase away allocation
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Last season Norwich Fulham (more than once) and Cariff sacked managers but appointed poor replacements but two strugglers this season Palace and WBA have sacked and made strong appointments which I believe will keep them up, for me that means its us, Burnley, Leicester, Qpr and Sunderland for the 3 relegation spots, if we cannot find goals quickly we may well go down, we will know a lot more following the next 3 fixtures
Burnley look ok to particularly as Ings is back scoring. I think they will stay up. I agree with the other 4 though inc us and also Hull
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Last season Norwich Fulham (more than once) and Cariff sacked managers but appointed poor replacements but two strugglers this season Palace and WBA have sacked and made strong appointments which I believe will keep them up, for me that means its us, Burnley, Leicester, Qpr and Sunderland for the 3 relegation spots, if we cannot find goals quickly we may well go down, we will know a lot more following the next 3 fixtures
Burnley look ok to particularly as Ings is back scoring. I think they will stay up. I agree with the other 4 though inc us and also Hull
Sorry I forgot Hull, I agree Burnley look ok at present but they will be right in the mix come the end of the season, interestingly they are our last game of the season at Villa Park.
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I think we'll probably be okay, possibly not. We don't deserve to be, though.
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We have had four years now were we have gone into April shitting our pants, and due to our lack of goals and chances created I really fear this is the year when it catches up on us.
We're are turning into a Fulham type of team, mid to lower table team and eventually these type of teams go down, basically because they are consistently not good enough.
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Need to change the formation, it's not working! Benteke is moaning but he's probably as frustrated as everyone else. I'd give Robinson some minutes, Gabby and Weimann need to stop playing every game and play with wingers. Going through the middle isn't working. Maybe cleverly could play in the hole or get him to sit and put Delph in the hole when he's back. At the minute whatever it is were doing (because I have no clue ) isn't working
I've not seen much of Benteke moaning. And I do think he puts in a shift on the pitch or at least does his best to. There is only so much a guy can do when the support has been useless and there has been no good service to him.
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we've had three "six pointers" in our last 3 games, and we've come away with 2 points and no goals scored.
relegation form.
if you can't score in this league, you're going down.
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Based on The last 4 games id say we will comfortably finish bottom .
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Probably not - we were just as shit in 12-13 and managed to turn it around.
There is so much dross in this league we could have been relegated each of the previous 4 seasons.
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I think we will finish with a few more points this year than last based on the defence being a hell of a lot better and there generally being more quality in the squad, despite the manager.
That doesn't escape the fact that people, for a fourth season running, will still more than likely be looking at the fixtures and doing calculations about how many more we need come April.
Its got beyond boring now.
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Our ability so far to not concede too many goals is keeping us above water. If that goes we are screwed. Lambert's last throw of the dice is somehow keep that the way it is and add players that even we scored 1 (more) goal a game improves our situation immeasurably. If his latest strategy is to make the defenders just defend and allow midfielders and forwards to attack and create then we should be fine.
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Not sure about the 'better defence' argument. What I saw on Saturday was the bottom of the table side ripping us apart. Should have been 4/5 but for woeful finishing.
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We need the Darren bent signing in the creative position to keep us up but its not going to happen
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/competitions/premier-league/11341843/Revealed-The-most-boring-sides-in-Premier-League-history-in-pictures.html?frame=3163132&page=1
Historically the teams who can't score have been relegated in majority of cases , does not make good viewing.We are keeping some very poor company currently.
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Good job our defense is working well.
(http://pbs.twimg.com/media/B7Tn-wECMAAR9S0.jpg)
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Good job our defense is working well.
(http://pbs.twimg.com/media/B7Tn-wECMAAR9S0.jpg)
Don't complain/protest at the Liverpool game though, it might affect the team's performance
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I'm worried.
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If Lambert stays in the job, that is it. We will go down this year.
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We're gone. I can't see any way out unless he resigns.... which he's not going to.
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We deserve to go down and can't see us mounting a come back from this point.
16 games to go so will be 38 points at best on this chronic form. The next few weeks are going to be very difficult to bear
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If something doesn't change quick it could well be.
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Unless something dramatic and totally unexpected happens, it is clear that Lambert is staying and it is also clear that we are sunk.
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Paul Simon. Slip Slidin' Away
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Yes it is, 11 goals in 22 and getting worse.
Surprised we aren't cut drift already with that stat alone.
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Paul Simon. Slip Slidin' Away
I do like that song.
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Yes it is, 11 goals in 22 and getting worse.
Surprised we aren't cut drift already with that stat alone.
To be accurate it's 11 in the last 24 PL matches .
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Yes it is, 11 goals in 22 and getting worse.
Surprised we aren't cut drift already with that stat alone.
To be accurate it's 11 in the last 24 PL matches .
Almost beyond belief. And very embarrassing.
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Absolutely fucking useless. That is all.
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It feels like it's going to be be. I can't see us turning it around at the moment or long enough while Lambert's in charge. Even if we eventually score and maybe actually win again we'll just go on anothe rotten run.
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Im lost right now and have so many contradictions about us these days, ones i never thought possible.
For instance, a tiny litte part of me almost wants us to go down. I know thats easy for me to say across the other side of the world but this is a miserable existence at the moment with little hope. The club would deserve relegation. I'm getting that Albion mentality where I'm starting to think it'd be better to win a few and be successful in the Championship than the death by a thousand cuts that the last 4 years in the PL have been like. How sad is that for a staunch Villa fan!
Surely football is about excitement, scoring goals, winning games - just occasionally. I know all the arguments about not coming straight back up and the examples of teams that have sunk down the divisions but there are other examples of clubs bouncing back stronger too.
Another contradiction is my contempt for Lerner is getting so strong I'd also love to see him lose a shit load of dosh (ok more than he has already) for his mismanagement. I know he'd only load that against the club but he deserves all he gets now in my book.
Its a real love/hate right now and I'm sure I'm not alone.
The only thing I'm not confused about is how utterly pissed off with it all I am.
MrsOzvilla asked this morning why I was still bothered, why I didn't get "in to" something else as this just put me on a downer. Because the Villa are part of who I am, I replied, part of my identity.
I wonder how many 'new' fans we've picked up lately...............
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No change in manager and we will go this season. I haven't come to that conclusion in any of our last few shitty seasons no matter how bad we have been. The fans have had enough. The players have had enough. You can't score as infrequently as we do and expect anything else. If we drop into the bottom 3 we won't get out again.
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Last season Benteke was firing and always a danger, not been the same since his injury, he is the only danger we have up front if he doesn't do the job none of the others will.
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If things stay the same we are definitely done for and if mr lambert stays in charge after that it will get very bad, probably Leeds/Sheff Wed/Southampton bad.
The annoying thing is it could easily be avoided as theres some decent players in that squad, could do with a few senior players coming out and saying they have no faith in managers methods and tactics, may be the only thing that tips the balance.
All a bit depressing really...
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I think we'll survive, but only because as in the past few seasons, there will be three other clubs who are shite enough to keep us up, while we'll pull out of our current malaise just enough to scrape by.
The next season is what I'm concerned over. Delph and Vlaar will be off (yeah, I know they haven't exactly played a lot this season either) and there's a fair possibility Benteke forces a move as well, and we don't sufficiently re-invest his fee on quality.
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Good post OzVilla and I think you are most definitely not alone in your thoughts. I was saying to a couple of people post match yesterday that at least relegation would be different. Every season's the bloody same at the moment and it's so boring and depressing.
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I think the bottom three as it stands will go.
I don't see how QPR can survive as their home form will inevitably let them down at some point, while Leicester look a Championship side and Hull are the only team we consistently beat with ease at home, so you know how poor they are.
We will run it close though. We only need five wins and a smattering of draws. A half decent manager would have us safe with this squad in February.
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We can't keep flirting with relegation - it'll get us, if not this season, then more likely next season.
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Still, trips to Rotherham, Huddersfield and Charlton will be nice.
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Still, trips to Rotherham, Huddersfield and Charlton will be nice.
As a resident of Yorkshire I'd like trips to Rotherham and Huddersfield. Who knows, we might even score a goal.
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Steady on now.
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Good post OzVilla and I think you are most definitely not alone in your thoughts. I was saying to a couple of people post match yesterday that at least relegation would be different. Every season's the bloody same at the moment and it's so boring and depressing.
I have felt that way for some time now. At least it would be fun taking some big away followings to places like Brighton in my case andd I'm so disinterested in football in general these days, I don't think I'd hardly notice we weren't in the premier league anymore. And that's all fucked up anyway with two clubs who buy it every year and the rest just making up the numbers. The likes of Liverpool and Arsenal have, when all is said and done, as much chance of winning the league as we do.
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I am sorry but I find this bizarre, relegation would be apocalyptic financially and the idea that it would be either fun or do us good is utter shite.
The people suggesting it weren't at Milwall in he cup. That's what being relegated would be like week in week out. Shit football, at small shitty clubs in a league nobody cares about, where the locals come out to, and I quote the Met verbatim, "to have a pop at the big club". At home, 23 cup finals for 23 Mickey Mouse teams. Great.
I have no idea what happens to people's sanity when they actually begin to think relegation would be a good idea. It's the equivalent of thinking that putting your cock in a food blender will be a good idea.
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Pull yourselves together and stop talking like maniacs. Relegation would be an unmitigated disaster, because this club does not have the balls for a scrap in the Championship, or any league, for that matter. Every club out there will be looking to take our scalp. We'll have a season of other clubs' cup finals.
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I am sorry but I find this bizarre, relegation would be apocalyptic financially and the idea that it would be either fun or do us good is utter shite.
The people suggesting it weren't at Milwall in he cup. That's what being relegated would be like week in week out. Shit football, at small shitty clubs in a league nobody cares about, where the locals come out to, and I quote the Met verbatim, "to have a pop at the big club". At home, 23 cup finals for 23 Mickey Mouse teams. Great.
I have no idea what happens to people's sanity when they actually begin to think relegation would be a good idea. It's the equivalent of thinking that putting your cock in a food blender will be a good
I want us to be successful and I want us to be in the highest division we can. Having said which the last 4 years have been so relentlessly awful that relegation would almost be like putting us out of our misery. The world won't end if we're in a different division. Of course the real problem is when we're as crap in the Championship as the Prem (see City, Coventry amongst others)
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I am sorry but I find this bizarre, relegation would be apocalyptic financially and the idea that it would be either fun or do us good is utter shite.
The people suggesting it weren't at Milwall in he cup. That's what being relegated would be like week in week out. Shit football, at small shitty clubs in a league nobody cares about, where the locals come out to, and I quote the Met verbatim, "to have a pop at the big club". At home, 23 cup finals for 23 Mickey Mouse teams. Great.
I have no idea what happens to people's sanity when they actually begin to think relegation would be a good idea. It's the equivalent of thinking that putting your cock in a food blender will be a good idea.
You mean it would be less fun than supporting us these last three or four years Ads?!? It certainly wouldn't do us any good but modern day football means we are going to win fuck all ever again so we might as well have a laugh and some black humour along the way. Football is on one long, extended downwards spiral in which every team bar the couple with huge amounts of money have become also rans including, as I said earlier, your Liverpools and Arsenals of the world. There's no real reason for anyone to be in the Premier League anymore bar Man City and Chelsea. It's just one long, endless bore fest in which the same clubs do the same thing every season with the odd exception thrown that - that odd exception happening to be right now, and very amusingly so, Man Utd. You're not wrong though, it would be a bloody disaster
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I was talking tongue-in-cheek. Of course it'd be cripplingly bad.
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got the feeling more than the previous seasons that this is the season.The whole atmosphere at the ground with the rendition of "we'll score again' which is really a corruption of the relegation song we sang to the Noses when they went,but also the team we were playing and all their tourist fans scattered around the ground lording it over us poor relations coupled with the scores on the screen like Swansea getting beat 5-0 by Chelsea makes you realise how poor we are and almost inconsequential.Sad.
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The past few years haven't been fun a all, but I don't see how making it even less fun by being relegated is a solution.
A very simple solution, with this squad that is quite easily capable of mounting the dizzying heights of 10th, is to put a manager in place with the ability to achieve that. The solution to a problem is never to set it on fire.
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got the feeling more than the previous seasons that this is the season.The whole atmosphere at the ground with the rendition of "we'll score again' which is really a corruption of the relegation song we sang to the Noses when they went,but also the team we were playing and all their tourist fans scattered around the ground lording it over us poor relations coupled with the scores on the screen like Swansea getting beat 5-0 by Chelsea makes you realise how poor we are and almost inconsequential.Sad.
Liverpool are inconsequential too these days. Just less so than us. We will eventually end up with a European Super League, I'm convinced of it, because everyone will get bored with how mind numbingly predictable the league is slowly becoming and tossers like Sky will have to invent something to keep anyone interested
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The past few years haven't been fun a all, but I don't see how making it even less fun by being relegated is a solution.
A very simple solution, with this squad that is quite easily capable of mounting the dizzying heights of 10th, is to put a manager in place with the ability to achieve that. The solution to a problem is never to set it on fire.
I know times have changed but the most fun I've ever had watching the Villa was the 87/88 promotion year. Some brilliant away games, great goals and we were winning. I didn't seem to enjoy the following seasons relegation battle half as much.
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We need to win minimum 4 out of remaing 16 and with a few draws that should do it. So it's not difficult to avoid relegation but only having won 2 out of 18 to do so we need change of management....now.
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It's fair to say that's it is unlikely we'll get anything from the next two games.
We are then well into February and the number of games left will be running out.
Coupled with the fact that we can't score ( what number will we be on when we play Hull away on February 10?) I think we are in deep shit.
And no, relegation can never,ever be a good thing, but we might as well start preparing ourselves for it under these fools.
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I agree andyh. My mindset is starting to shift into just getting used to the idea of us playing in the Championship.
Obviously I think of the best case scenario and it's not too bad. The worst case scenario is still too scary to contemplate.
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At our current ratio we are scheduled to score another 8 goals this season. Lets hope these are enough to secure three points. I think 38 will be the number needed this year.
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At our current scoring ratio I'd expect us to finish bottom quite frankly.
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I think the bottom three as it stands will go.
I don't see how QPR can survive as their home form will inevitably let them down at some point, while Leicester look a Championship side and Hull are the only team we consistently beat with ease at home, so you know how poor they are.
We will run it close though. We only need five wins and a smattering of draws. A half decent manager would have us safe with this squad in February.
That's the thing with this manager.
Every season we have a couple of half decent runs which leads you to think we can kick on into mid table....and we without fail stop winning and scoring.
I can't remember where we were in the league after beating Leicester six weeks ago but with the fixtures we had there was a good opportunity to pull away and be on 28/29 points and look to secure our safety next month by beating Hull and Stoke. Predictably we've blown it.
I actually think we just need 4 wins which would get us to 34 points as I imagine we'll draw a few more games between now and the end. We always stay up on 38 points nowadays so that's the figure I'm looking at.
16 more points under Lambert this season, I don't really see it tbh as he's lost the knack of getting enough points from the teams below us which he had in the previous two seasons.
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Just 4 wins.......it sounds so simple doesn't it?
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16 points should be doable before April if we had anybody half decent in charge. I wouldn't necessarily agree that we no longer get points from the sides around us; we're 7 up on Palace and Stoke. We are just dreadfully inconsistent and far too prone to go on head long sequences of poor results based on Lambert's inability to have us creating.
That 15 minutes when Gil came on is the most dangerous we have looked in a very long while, which does give me hope that if he can bring in another like Gil to play wide, we may start to look more effective.
As I say, I don't think we will go down, but it will be a struggle and the notion of us not hitting 40 points again, despite having a reasonable squad, would be another in a long line of Lambertisms.
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Just 4 wins.......it sounds so simple doesn't it?
Unfortunately it requires at least four goals for a start.
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It's gonna be tight Again I think. We absolutely wasted that pre Xmas run of sunderland / palace / Leicester back to back
We could have been pretty much safe after that
We've had one or two appalling runs in lambert's previous two seasons though and he has shown we can come out of it
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we will be fine. Burnley and QPR are certs, and one from Hull, Leicester, and Sunderland.
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Hull looked rubbish.
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We're going down with the Baggies.
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Hull looked rubbish.
I think they're in big trouble. They're light up front without Hernandez and Jelavic - who aren't too bad when fit - although, they're similar to Benteke in a way where there won't be much supply for them.
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I think the bottom three as it stands will go.
I don't see how QPR can survive as their home form will inevitably let them down at some point, while Leicester look a Championship side and Hull are the only team we consistently beat with ease at home, so you know how poor they are.
We will run it close though. We only need five wins and a smattering of draws. A half decent manager would have us safe with this squad in February.
That's the thing with this manager.
Every season we have a couple of half decent runs which leads you to think we can kick on into mid table....and we without fail stop winning and scoring.
I can't remember where we were in the league after beating Leicester six weeks ago but with the fixtures we had there was a good opportunity to pull away and be on 28/29 points and look to secure our safety next month by beating Hull and Stoke. Predictably we've blown it.
I actually think we just need 4 wins which would get us to 34 points as I imagine we'll draw a few more games between now and the end. We always stay up on 38 points nowadays so that's the figure I'm looking at.
16 more points under Lambert this season, I don't really see it tbh as he's lost the knack of getting enough points from the teams below us which he had in the previous two seasons.
Not sure he ever had that, Fulham and Palce did the double over us last year. It was the results against the big teams that kept us up.
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Lambert always used to have the knack of getting a result when we really needed it. However, that now seems to have deserted him. I don'tget that other teams are certain for relegation and are worse than us. We are down there with them
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Looking at the fixture list we need to get the majority of our points by the end of March as April & May offer only a couple of games where you expect to get anything...if this idiot stays in charge I really worry that this is the year!
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We have the lowest goals per game average of any side in Europe's major leagues. Only Granada has scored the same number of league goals (11) but in 4 less games. Now they appear as shit as us, maybe even worse given their goals output so no guarantee they will score again either. They also sit bottom of La Liga so we can give each other knowing we are not bottom of the PL...yet
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Worth noting of the serious chances we create yesterday a couple were from long high diagonal balls into the box.
I just don't see how we're going to create chances to win games playing the slow motion build up although Gil could perhaps help with that judging from his cameo.
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We have the lowest goals per game average of any side in Europe's major leagues. Only Granada has scored the same number of league goals (11) but in 4 less games. Now they appear as shit as us, maybe even worse given their goals output so no guarantee they will score again either. They also sit bottom of La Liga so we can give each other knowing we are not bottom of the PL...yet
Another revealing stat from the league table is that only Burnley and QPR have a worse goal difference than us. Hull are 4 goals better off and The Bitters 5.
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Hull are in the shit big time too. Granted they have had a lot of injuries but a lot of their main players are really struggling for form (McGregor, Davies, Dawson, Huddlestone, Livermore). Like us they are struggling to score. Bruce's public requests for more funds to buy forwards probably wearing a bit thin on the chairman after he brought in Hernandez, Ince, Ramirez and Ben Arfa already this season without much to show for it.
Any injury for Charlie Austin and QPR are gone. They are a midtable Championship side at best without him. Caulker, Ferdinand and Mutch have been diabolical signings.
Sunderland I think will do just about enough to stay up. Plucky side but Johnson is the only bit of quality they have. Rodwell another huge waste of money and a 3.5yr contract for Defoe is utter madness.
Burnley and Leicester are championship standard sides. Pulis will do enough to get West Brom over the line.
It wont take much improvement for us to survive again.
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Hull are in the shit big time too. Granted they have had a lot of injuries but a lot of their main players are really struggling for form (McGregor, Davies, Dawson, Huddlestone, Livermore). Like us they are struggling to score. Bruce's public requests for more funds to buy forwards probably wearing a bit thin on the chairman after he brought in Hernandez, Ince, Ramirez and Ben Arfa already this season without much to show for it.
Any injury for Charlie Austin and QPR are gone. They are a midtable Championship side at best without him. Caulker, Ferdinand and Mutch have been diabolical signings.
Sunderland I think will do just about enough to stay up. Plucky side but Johnson is the only bit of quality they have. Rodwell another huge waste of money and a 3.5yr contract for Defoe is utter madness.
Burnley and Leicester are championship standard sides. Pulis will do enough to get West Brom over the line.
It wont take much improvement for us to survive again.
A decent synopsis, then you mentioned improvement, its our momentum hat concerns me.
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Which is why Lambert must go soon so that the improvement can commence.
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Chicagolion has nailed it,it's momentum that's the problem, and we should be concerned.
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It's in our hands still at the moment but we are approaching some must win games . It's when it's out of your hands you have to really panic .
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Hull are in the shit big time too. Granted they have had a lot of injuries but a lot of their main players are really struggling for form (McGregor, Davies, Dawson, Huddlestone, Livermore). Like us they are struggling to score. Bruce's public requests for more funds to buy forwards probably wearing a bit thin on the chairman after he brought in Hernandez, Ince, Ramirez and Ben Arfa already this season without much to show for it.
Any injury for Charlie Austin and QPR are gone. They are a midtable Championship side at best without him. Caulker, Ferdinand and Mutch have been diabolical signings.
Sunderland I think will do just about enough to stay up. Plucky side but Johnson is the only bit of quality they have. Rodwell another huge waste of money and a 3.5yr contract for Defoe is utter madness.
Burnley and Leicester are championship standard sides. Pulis will do enough to get West Brom over the line.
It wont take much improvement for us to survive again.
I wouldn't have minded Defoe, TBH.
True, our main issue is creating chances and signing him alone wouldn't rectify that.
But Gabby and Weimann have never been prolific, and Benteke looks like he's going through the motions. With the limited chances we get, it would be great to have a forward more clinical than the current front three.
If signing Darren Bent for £18 million back in 2011 was great business, swapping Defoe for Altidore with only a bit extra on wages could be deal of the decade if they stay up.
It's not as if Defoe looked completely washed up when he was at Tottngham either, it was more the case that he was just offered a ridiculous deal to head to Toronto.
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And there was me thinking this thread was asking if this is the season we win the FA Cup for the eighth time. Yet another end of the world is nigh discussion.
The answer is YES, we will win the FA Cup.
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I was thinking about it a little this morning about what it would mean for Lerner. Given the chance that this continued lack of investment and poor choice of manager will eventually send us down by hook or crook, how much would it hit Randy in the pocket? The accepted notion is that Randy wants to do just enough to protect his investment and has no interest in us, providing we don’t go down; but were the unthinkable to happen, how much would it actually hit Lerner financially? He’s lost more than enough money as it is, he could flog off any players of any value and pocket the profits and then continue to search for a buyer. How much of the estimation of the club is based on the infrastructure and how much is the assets? I am sure that someone with a more detailed financial background than me could do the maths on this.
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And there was me thinking this thread was asking if this is the season we win the FA Cup for the eighth time. Yet another end of the world is nigh discussion.
The answer is YES, we will win the FA Cup.
I'm thinking there is every chance, as I fully expect the joy of actually winning the thing to come hand-in-hand with being relegated.
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I was thinking about it a little this morning about what it would mean for Lerner. Given the chance that this continued lack of investment and poor choice of manager will eventually send us down by hook or crook, how much would it hit Randy in the pocket? The accepted notion is that Randy wants to do just enough to protect his investment and has no interest in us, providing we don’t go down; but were the unthinkable to happen, how much would it actually hit Lerner financially? He’s lost more than enough money as it is, he could flog off any players of any value and pocket the profits and then continue to search for a buyer. How much of the estimation of the club is based on the infrastructure and how much is the assets? I am sure that someone with a more detailed financial background than me could do the maths on this.
The valuation will be based on 3 factors.
The value of the land Villa Park and Bodymoor Heath stand on, plus the utility value of the buildings / infrastructure.
The valuation of the squad contracts and any perceived variations against the "book value" of the contracts.
The intangible value of being a PL club instead of a championship club.
The first one is pretty fixed.
The second one is subject to a load of subjective valuations.
For example Benteke's book value will be something like 1/4 of the £7M transfer fee (1 year left of the original 4 year contract) + 2/4 of his new signing on fee when he agreed the new 4 contract 2 years ago, so his "book value" is probably around £3-5M. His actual value is probably £15-20M at the moment.
How much extra a new owner would be prepared to accept that valuation would be part of the negotiations.
Conversely, Lambert's contract will be on the books as 3/4 of his last signing on fee, when his real value is £- 3M if that's what it will cost to get rid.
The last bit us the real unknown. How much extra is it worth to have a club like us in the PL, instead of the Championship. Yes there's all the TV money, but as most of that goes straight to players and agents, how much extra added value is there comparative to the squad value it would be expected to fund.
That's where it probably becomes a question of ambition and ego v hard headed business acumen.
If you really wanted to make money out of running a club, I'd almost guess that plodding along in the Championship, developing younger players who might get a shot at a lower middle PL team would be your best bet.
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We have scored 11 goals and we aren't bottom of the league, but instead 14th. We're shit, but Christ, how bad do you have to be to one of the 6 teams below us?!
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It's not as if Defoe looked completely washed up when he was at Tottngham either, it was more the case that he was just offered a ridiculous deal to head to Toronto.
Three goals in his last thirty Premier League appearances for Tottingham.
Admittedly, that sounds like it would be enough to trouble the business end of our top scorers list - but I'm not upset that we've chosen not to pick him up.
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Won't he outscore Benteke between now and May? They've got Adam Johnson to supply him, we've got N'Zogbia...
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Not sure if he will outscore Benteke between now and May,but i would put money on him outscoring Gabby and Weimann
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A one-legged stool would have a good shot at outscoring Gabby and Weimann between now and May.
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I am very worried about how this season will end, I've never seen a Villa side full of so many players devoid of ideas in the opponent's half before.
We have to hope that we start to play more direct, Benteke gets on a roll, and Gil makes a big difference. That, and the defence needs to stay strong, as they've been good for 90% of the season.
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chin up mate, the talkshite supercomputer's final league table prediction sees us comfortably positioned in the lower reaches of the table.
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We need 5 wins, a draw and 10 defeats in the last 16 games to equal last year. I'm pretty sure we can get at least 10 defeats.
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Well I think we know the answer to this thread now, don't we?
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Close the thread, answer is obvious
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yes yes yes yes. championship here we come
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New poll please
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(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B8xrKTgCQAIu43X.jpg:large)
Sky Sports Football @SkyFootball 4h4 hours ago
Goal-shy Aston Villa in real relegation trouble, says @Carra23: SkyFootball (http://bit.ly/1zsyywc)
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Teams get relegated when players and the manager are fed up of fighting relegation. We are there now.
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We are now the lowest scorers in Europe's major leagues let alone in the UK.
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It's not looking very good, is it?
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If they do sack him, I wonder how many of the players will come out with the old "thank God he's gone" comments. They look positively clueless and don't appear motivated or bothered. I have never known a team to give the ball away so frequently, particularly when not under any pressure from the opposition. I urge people to rewatch the game to see how often it happened. Diabolical.
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Lambert's Norwich teams of unknowns were brilliant at an open, quick, slick, passing,attacking style.
We look like a bunch of blind elephants playing with a balloon.
He's surely doing this to us deliberately!
Yes....I fear it is.
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I think it is.
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If they do sack him, I wonder how many of the players will come out with the old "thank God he's gone" comments. They look positively clueless and don't appear motivated or bothered. I have never known a team to give the ball away so frequently, particularly when not under any pressure from the opposition. I urge people to rewatch the game to see how often it happened. Diabolical.
Sanchez was particularly poor today.
Worst game he's had for us.
But, I maintain that our main problem is that we are clearly not coached to give/go/look for opening/make self available. There are no "patterns" of play so players don't seem to know where to be when or why.
The one consistent thing with Lambert's Villa teams, imho, is that they don't seem to be part of a team with anything resembling a philosophy/system/main idea.
And I put that down to shite coaching at BH....for two and a half years!
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Lambert's Norwich teams of unknowns were brilliant at an open, quick, slick, passing,attacking style.
His Norwich would have been found out the following season. There is no plan B.
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If they do sack him, I wonder how many of the players will come out with the old "thank God he's gone" comments. They look positively clueless and don't appear motivated or bothered. I have never known a team to give the ball away so frequently, particularly when not under any pressure from the opposition. I urge people to rewatch the game to see how often it happened. Diabolical.
Sanchez was particularly poor today.
Worst game he's had for us.
But, I maintain that our main problem is that we are clearly not coached to give/go/look for opening/make self available. There are no "patterns" of play so players don't seem to know where to be when or why.
The one consistent thing with Lambert's Villa teams, imho, is that they don't seem to be part of a team with anything resembling a philosophy/system/main idea.
And I put that down to shite coaching at BH....for two and a half years!
Agree there is no discernable pattern or strategy. The only thing that has been consistent is the jumbled up excuse for a midfield, which I think is the main problem.
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The fact that there are 4 teams below us staggers me. And gives me some hope because at some point we will get better than this. i hope.
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What is criminal for a professional team is for a manager to play players totally out of position to fill a job he wants them to do.
Wiemann - goalscorer, often found in defence. Never allowed to turn and run at defences.
Hutton & all fullbacks - required to provide width. Sorry none of you are good enough to defend let alone feed crosses to Benteke.
I could go on.....
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Read 'em & weep.
Last 38 games.
Won 8 Drawn 9 Lost 21 For 24 Against 59 GD -35 Points 33
And all the trends show we're getting worse.
(http://i1113.photobucket.com/albums/k506/andykalundborg/Points%20Prediction_zps0xeezg8p.jpg)
(http://i1113.photobucket.com/albums/k506/andykalundborg/Goals%20Scored_zpssxccgkg7.jpg)
(http://i1113.photobucket.com/albums/k506/andykalundborg/Goal%20Difference_zpsz6wz93ek.jpg)
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Read 'em & weep.
Last 38 games.
Won 8 Drawn 9 Lost 21 For 24 Against 59 GD -35 Points 33
And all the trends show we're getting worse.
(http://i1113.photobucket.com/albums/k506/andykalundborg/Points%20Prediction_zps0xeezg8p.jpg)
(http://i1113.photobucket.com/albums/k506/andykalundborg/Goals%20Scored_zpssxccgkg7.jpg)
(http://i1113.photobucket.com/albums/k506/andykalundborg/Goal%20Difference_zpsz6wz93ek.jpg)
Just simply appalling ...
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Lambert's Norwich teams of unknowns were brilliant at an open, quick, slick, passing,attacking style.
His Norwich would have been found out the following season. There is no plan B.
They were, especially after he left to join us!
My point is: at Villa there doesn't seem to be a plan A!
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We have a plan Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
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Thanks ViD.
Just off to bed.
Nightmares guaranteed...esp after the stark and frightening reality of today!
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Thanks ViD.
Just off to bed.
Nightmares guaranteed...esp after the stark and frightening reality of today!
I think we've moved address to Elm Street-
Mind you, our football is even uglier than Freddy Kruger.
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It's not looking very good, is it?
No....but there are awful awful teams in the EPL. The bottom 8 sides are a league of their own, matching the standard of the top 8 of the championship.
If we somehow get out of the funk we are in, with the players we have we should survive reasonably comfortably.
34 points was enough to stay up last season, could be even lower this term.
Actually think Chelsea at home is a decent game for us next time out. Costa out is massive for them, thought they were dire against City.
Not Villa dire but very poor
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Teams get relegated when players and the manager are fed up of fighting relegation. We are there now.
I am certainly approaching that point. The thought of relegation has worried me sick at different times in each of the last four seasons, but I just can't let myself get that worked up about it again again. I'm now at the point of what will be, will be and I'll still be there supporting the club whatever happens.
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The reason I'm in the 'Probably not . . . ' category is that, even after this second abysmal run that we're on, there are still four teams below us.
Having said that, what I am confident of, is that by this time next week Burnley will be above us which should make Tuesday night at Hull nice and interesting.
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The depressing thing about this thread is whichever point you started on thinking we wouldn't go down, every new week brings you closer to those you think we will.
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I am running through the following thought process;
Yes, we will be relegated as I can't see how Lambert can turn us round. The last 38 games would have seen us relegated, while since Liverpool away we have played half a season and took 12 points and scored 7 goals, leaving us with a potential 24 points and 14 goals. Abysmal doesn't do it justice.
But then I look at Hull, QPR and Leicester and think they're just as bad, which leads us to the next five games after Chelsea. Fail to take 10 points and we are gone.
Can we do it? I am not sure, at the moment I am edging towards no. I have that hopeless feel post Norwich under McLiesh; we're going to be relegated. Crikey.
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I am running through the following thought process;
Yes, we will be relegated as I can't see how Lambert can turn us round. The last 38 games would have seen us relegated, while since Liverpool away we have played half a season and took 12 points and scored 7 goals, leaving us with a potential 24 points and 14 goals. Abysmal doesn't do it justice.
But then I look at Hull, QPR and Leicester and think they're just as bad, which leads us to the next five games after Chelsea. Fail to take 10 points and we are gone.
Can we do it? I am not sure, at the moment I am edging towards no. I have that hopeless feel post Norwich under McLiesh; we're going to be relegated. Crikey.
That would require averaging 2 points / game.
I'm pretty sure that the only time he's managed that kind of return was the 4 games at the start of the season, which can now be filed in the fluky things that give false hope pile along with all the other false dawns we've "enjoyed" over the last 2½ years.
To boil it down to one simple catchphrase
We're fucked.
His tactics more and more resemble Bingo Billy with each passing game.
I genuinely believe that he's clinically depressed, everything about his body language and the way he hops from one desperate hopeful solution to the next screams stress induced depression to me. He should probably being treated for something akin to post traumatic stress.
Mind you so should several thousand of us after the last few years.
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I think so but refuse to vote.
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We won't go down. We'll put together a mini run at some stage of the season and with that and the fact that the teams below us are so poor we'll be safe. Then the club will try and spin it into some kind of positive and we'll spend peanuts in the summer and it'll all start again next season.
Our only hope is that Lerner finds a buyer in the summer.
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We won't go down. We'll put together a mini run at some stage of the season and with that and the fact that the teams below us are so poor we'll be safe. Then the club will try and spin it into some kind of positive and we'll spend peanuts in the summer and it'll all start again next season.
Our only hope is that Lerner finds a buyer in the summer.
I keep hoping for this, recalling a far weaker and poorer squad than we have now coming out of the depths of his first season to club together results and football worthy of us.
But that was the last time we went on any sort of run, the four games from this season apart. We had a real collapse at the end of last season based on some pretty indifferent stuff before and that slide doesn't seem to have been arrested.
I actually think on balance that we will go this time.
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We won't go down. We'll put together a mini run at some stage of the season and with that and the fact that the teams below us are so poor we'll be safe. Then the club will try and spin it into some kind of positive and we'll spend peanuts in the summer and it'll all start again next season.
Our only hope is that Lerner finds a buyer in the summer.
My thoughts as well.
We'll luck through and get a few points at home to Burnley, home to QPR, home to West Brom much as we've done for the last couple of seasons.
16th place I reckon.
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The thing is, bar the 3-4 games at the beginning of this season the performances and results have been the same since the Chelsea game last season. That's the best part of a year.
There is no way on earth under the current circumstances this team will pull off the mini run of games needed to propel us towards the points total needed to stay up.
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We won't go down. We'll put together a mini run at some stage of the season and with that and the fact that the teams below us are so poor we'll be safe. Then the club will try and spin it into some kind of positive and we'll spend peanuts in the summer and it'll all start again next season.
Our only hope is that Lerner finds a buyer in the summer.
My thoughts as well.
We'll luck through and get a few points at home to Burnley, home to QPR, home to West Brom much as we've done for the last couple of seasons.
16th place I reckon.
I really don't see anything that suggests we can do that at the moment. Our recent run of scoring no league goals has included some fixtures against some pretty poor sides. We just look a side with no plan or belief.
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We won't go down. We'll put together a mini run at some stage of the season and with that and the fact that the teams below us are so poor we'll be safe. Then the club will try and spin it into some kind of positive and we'll spend peanuts in the summer and it'll all start again next season.
Our only hope is that Lerner finds a buyer in the summer.
My thoughts as well.
We'll luck through and get a few points at home to Burnley, home to QPR, home to West Brom much as we've done for the last couple of seasons.
16th place I reckon.
I really don't see anything that suggests we can do that at the moment. Our recent run of scoring no league goals has included some fixtures against some pretty poor sides. We just look a side with no plan or belief.
But variations of that have been said every year for the last four seasons. "we're not going to get another point this season", "everyone else is fighting and we're not".
We're absolutely rubbish at the moment, but so are lots of teams. QPR have lost every game they've played away and have a lot of difficult games at home. Burnley have used the same 14 or so players all season and are showing signs of being knackered. Leicester are so rubbish that they lost to us. Hull are in even worse form than we are.
That doesn't mean we don't need to be concerned about it, because we absolutely do. And should be sacking the manager as the first step to sorting out those concerns. But I don't think we might as well just assume we're going down, because the likelihood is that we probably won't.
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We won't go down. We'll put together a mini run at some stage of the season and with that and the fact that the teams below us are so poor we'll be safe. Then the club will try and spin it into some kind of positive and we'll spend peanuts in the summer and it'll all start again next season.
Our only hope is that Lerner finds a buyer in the summer.
My thoughts as well.
We'll luck through and get a few points at home to Burnley, home to QPR, home to West Brom much as we've done for the last couple of seasons.
16th place I reckon.
I'd like to agree, but I think we have had our luck over the last 3 seasons.
I think it's about to run out.
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The difference between recent seasons and now is that previously we could score goals. We have scored 11 all season, and that means you're going to struggle to pick up many wins. I'm just so sick of us being a terrible team run on a shoe string budget.
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Everything points to us going down, but we won't. Knowing us we'll beat Chavski at the weekend.
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We won't go down. We'll put together a mini run at some stage of the season and with that and the fact that the teams below us are so poor we'll be safe. Then the club will try and spin it into some kind of positive and we'll spend peanuts in the summer and it'll all start again next season.
Our only hope is that Lerner finds a buyer in the summer.
I keep hoping for this, recalling a far weaker and poorer squad than we have now coming out of the depths of his first season to club together results and football worthy of us.
This is what gets me and much as I've tried to work it out I just can't. We got out of trouble that season by playing football. In fact it was arguably the best we've played since the glory days of Brian Little. Since then we've had almost two years of boredom, even though we've got, as was said elsewhere, the best team we've had post-O'Neill. So what's gone wrong? Enlighten me please.
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Training,tactical planning, and lack of discipline!
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We won't go down. We'll put together a mini run at some stage of the season and with that and the fact that the teams below us are so poor we'll be safe. Then the club will try and spin it into some kind of positive and we'll spend peanuts in the summer and it'll all start again next season.
Our only hope is that Lerner finds a buyer in the summer.
I keep hoping for this, recalling a far weaker and poorer squad than we have now coming out of the depths of his first season to club together results and football worthy of us.
This is what gets me and much as I've tried to work it out I just can't. We got out of trouble that season by playing football. In fact it was arguably the best we've played since the glory days of Brian Little. Since then we've had almost two years of boredom, even though we've got, as was said elsewhere, the best team we've had post-O'Neill. So what's gone wrong? Enlighten me please.
Its probably easier to ask the meaning of life. I keep hoping that one day Lambert will wake up and go back to what he knows football wise; how to attack.
The only people probably more bemused by Lambert than us are Norwich fans.
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This thing about the teams being poorer than us. I wouldn't fancy us against any of them at this moment in time. We are an absolutely dreadful team, seemingly getting worse (or at least not improving). Let's not assume that 3 of the 4 teams below us won't overhaul us, because at this rate we'll be bottom of the league by the end of this month.
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Everything points to us going down, but we won't. Knowing us we'll beat Chavski at the weekend.
Every win earns the manager multiple months job security credit with the owner. Defeats only reduce that credit balance by minutes, not even days.
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I have just done the fixtures and have us on 39 points. That may well be us staying up on one point.
Somewhat of a disgrace that as a Villa fan, and one who looks on the bright side, doesn't think we will hit 40 points again under Lambert. It would also represent the third time in 4 seasons where we wouldn’t reach 40 points or more. But then we no Lerner is ambitionless and clueless in his running of affairs. We have Lambert as proof. But anyway…
I have us winning four more games, home ones against the Albion, Swansea, QPR and Burnley. It will be a last day nail biter! This includes draws at home to Stoke, Everton and West Ham, with points at Hull and Sunderland.
April looks a dog of a month. It takes us an age to get into any sort of “form” under this manager, so two points out of the next four is as probably as good as its going to get. I would love to be wrong and say we can look back in March at having beat Hull, Stoke and the Albion, while earning ourselves a crafty point at Newcastle.
Fingers crossed 39 will be enough!
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Whilst we have been in varying degrees of trouble in recent years, this is the first time I have been genuinely of the belief we might drop. I have been working on a number of questions for Tom Fox for the Trust evening to trap him into answering or those answers looking silly. Work comes in useful sometimes!
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We won't go down. We'll put together a mini run at some stage of the season and with that and the fact that the teams below us are so poor we'll be safe. Then the club will try and spin it into some kind of positive and we'll spend peanuts in the summer and it'll all start again next season.
Our only hope is that Lerner finds a buyer in the summer.
I keep hoping for this, recalling a far weaker and poorer squad than we have now coming out of the depths of his first season to club together results and football worthy of us.
This is what gets me and much as I've tried to work it out I just can't. We got out of trouble that season by playing football. In fact it was arguably the best we've played since the glory days of Brian Little. Since then we've had almost two years of boredom, even though we've got, as was said elsewhere, the best team we've had post-O'Neill. So what's gone wrong? Enlighten me please.
We have got used to mediocre players.
We have got used to good players underperforming.
We have got used to managers with poor records.
We have got used to losing often.
We have got used to relegation battles.
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We won't go down. We'll put together a mini run at some stage of the season and with that and the fact that the teams below us are so poor we'll be safe. Then the club will try and spin it into some kind of positive and we'll spend peanuts in the summer and it'll all start again next season.
Our only hope is that Lerner finds a buyer in the summer.
I keep hoping for this, recalling a far weaker and poorer squad than we have now coming out of the depths of his first season to club together results and football worthy of us.
This is what gets me and much as I've tried to work it out I just can't. We got out of trouble that season by playing football. In fact it was arguably the best we've played since the glory days of Brian Little. Since then we've had almost two years of boredom, even though we've got, as was said elsewhere, the best team we've had post-O'Neill. So what's gone wrong? Enlighten me please.
Its probably easier to ask the meaning of life. I keep hoping that one day Lambert will wake up and go back to what he knows football wise; how to attack.
The only people probably more bemused by Lambert than us are Norwich fans.
Maybe the Norwich fans were right when they claimed that Culverhouse was the footballing brains of the partnership.
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We've won 5 games all season. Hoping to win 4 more seems optimistic.
Our form is the worst I've ever known and really struggling to see how it will turn around. Confidence and morale is rock bottom
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No chance. We suck for sure, but the 3 going down are clear as day - QPR (in free fall), Burnley (vainly trying but they were certs on day 1), and one of Sunderland, Hull, Leicester (all of whom in my opinion are worse - yes I said worse - than us).
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We are also currently in free-fall.
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Has anyone bet on us to go down? What odds did u get?
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Has anyone bet on us to go down? What odds did u get?
My bro did before the season started. He put £50 on it at 5/1.
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At the moment we're 11/4 or thereabouts.
Burnley, Leicester, QPR and Hull are all more likely according to the betting.
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Has anyone bet on us to go down? What odds did u get?
My bro did before the season started. He put £50 on it at 5/1.
I only got 3/1! And only put a fiver on. That 20 quid is going to be so sweet.
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Rickie Lambert wasn't the answer to a prayer, but he might have helped. As it is, we've got a half decent squad in the hands of a man who can't manage. It's like giving a Rubik's Cube to a gorilla - it might get solved, but the odds appear astronomical.
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In what universe will we score enough goals to stay up.
I honestly believe we will finish bottom.
28 is the fewest goals scored by a team staying up.
Our goalscore record is nothing short of a disgrace. Its the first time in my life time that I almost feel embarrassed to tell people who I support.
Relegation an absolute certainty imo
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We won't go down. We'll put together a mini run at some stage of the season and with that and the fact that the teams below us are so poor we'll be safe. Then the club will try and spin it into some kind of positive and we'll spend peanuts in the summer and it'll all start again next season.
Our only hope is that Lerner finds a buyer in the summer.
I keep hoping for this, recalling a far weaker and poorer squad than we have now coming out of the depths of his first season to club together results and football worthy of us.
This is what gets me and much as I've tried to work it out I just can't. We got out of trouble that season by playing football. In fact it was arguably the best we've played since the glory days of Brian Little. Since then we've had almost two years of boredom, even though we've got, as was said elsewhere, the best team we've had post-O'Neill. So what's gone wrong? Enlighten me please.
It's a good question Dave. I would go even further and say that we actually built on the end of his first season at the start of his second, winning at Arsenal and then outplaying Chelsea and Liverpool for large parts of those games (although we did narrowly lose both). During that period we genuinely looked like we were able to compete with any side in the league, helped of course by having a striker who was in sensational form.
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I think the neglect that has been shown by the whole management team, Lambert, Fox and Lerner at not addressing through out the month of January, not just the last couple of hours of the Sky developed last day, to our chronic goal shortage will see this year being the year.
You do not win games if you do not score goals and the last couple of weeks in the league have shown that the players available to pick our defence from are also struggling.
A very strange way to look after a business or in Lerners case a rich mans plaything.
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We won't go down. We'll put together a mini run at some stage of the season and with that and the fact that the teams below us are so poor we'll be safe. Then the club will try and spin it into some kind of positive and we'll spend peanuts in the summer and it'll all start again next season.
Our only hope is that Lerner finds a buyer in the summer.
I keep hoping for this, recalling a far weaker and poorer squad than we have now coming out of the depths of his first season to club together results and football worthy of us.
This is what gets me and much as I've tried to work it out I just can't. We got out of trouble that season by playing football. In fact it was arguably the best we've played since the glory days of Brian Little. Since then we've had almost two years of boredom, even though we've got, as was said elsewhere, the best team we've had post-O'Neill. So what's gone wrong? Enlighten me please.
It's so frustrating and really does not make any sense at all. I then begin to think it's purely a management problem and maybe the players just do not want to be playing for Lambert and that's being expressed on the pitch. Maybe not intentionally meaning to lose but they just can not build the belief and play to their own strengths.
Then Delph signing his new contract throws a massive doubt over that theory, why would he have signed up for more of this knowing Lambert is still in charge?
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Why are we so shit? Zero pressure from above and total job security. We're in a kind of comfort zone. Even a manager with Lambert's intellectual shortcomings should get this squad into mid-table. Plus, I think when everybody can see how disinterested and detached the owner is, that lack of giving a shit trickles down. It's poisonous.
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I feel like I'm stuck in one of those nightmares where you are trying desperately to wake up but you can't.
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We certainly have a good chance of going down. Its pretty basic really. If you don't score goals to win fixtures you will go down. We have only
one player who is capable of doing this and he seems to be demoralised and not interested in putting himself about despite his physical attributes.
But,hey...er...guys. Randy is having fun with the club....and that's all that matters isn't it?
Its like the country being run by Nick Clegg!
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You could be forgiven for thinking Lerner wants it to happen. We could lose 10 in a row without scoring and Lambert would still be here.
By Good that was prophetic, have you got tonight's euro millions numbers?
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There is the saving grace of there actually being other teams poorer than us, but I cannot feel confident of us not being dragged down there. But still, there is this one crumb of comfort.
Without looking it up, since we beat Liverpool, we’ve played half a season, scored 7 goals and won just two games, drawing a further six. An awful record no doubt, yet despite that, we’re still not bottom and although we’re incredibly close to the bottom three, we still aren’t in there. Just how bad do you have to be to be below us in the league?
Leicester, QPR, Burnley and Hull must really be stinking the place out to be below us, as you’d think with that record we’d be bottom and well adrift.
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Even in the darkest moments of the last 5 years I never really honestly felt that we would go down, it was like a part of my brain refused to accept the possibility.
Now, though, I'm pretty sure we're done for. Simply put, to stay up we will need to improve significantly, and I can see absolutely no evidence whatsoever that Lambert is capable of doing it. There's always the possibility that we'll scrape together a few more 1-0s and stay up by virtue of the fact that there are 3 worse teams, but sooner or later Lambert will take us down.
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The fans don't deserve this
Lerner deserves it , if we go down and I seriously think we might .
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If we don't do the business in Feb and March we are gone as April is a write off bar the qpr game and may is too late
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There are actually four games in May, which seemes a lot.
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There are actually four games in May, which seemes a lot.
There are and you could argue Everton and West Ham will be comfortable mid table and on the beach so 6 easy points.
Saints will probably be out of the top4 race so there is 3 more
And burnley could be down already so there's 3 more.
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There are actually four games in May, which seemes a lot.
I am more worried about playing 46 games next season.
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There are actually four games in May, which seemes a lot.
There are and you could argue Everton and West Ham will be comfortable mid table and on the beach so 6 easy points.
Saints will probably be out of the top4 race so there is 3 more
And burnley could be down already so there's 3 more.
Or villa down already
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There are actually four games in May, which seemes a lot.
There are and you could argue Everton and West Ham will be comfortable mid table and on the beach so 6 easy points.
Saints will probably be out of the top4 race so there is 3 more
And burnley could be down already so there's 3 more.
Sillhillvilla you have lifted me, we are stopping up I said we are stopping up
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When I did the Football Predictor a few weeks ago I had some teams going down with very low points totals. It looks like I was right. From Everton in twelfth and downwards teams have to win one in three for the rest of the season to reach forty points. It is possible at least one team will fail to reach thirty points. I think Everton and Palace will be okay. It is interesting that Albion have the same points as us but don't get the criticism we do. Although admittedly much of that is down to our lack of goals. Leicester and Hull look in big trouble. We have to see how the managerial change effects QPR. Burnley are limited but will battle and probably pick up a few home points. Sunderland struggle for goals and points. I think Leicester and Hull will definitely drop along with possibly Burnley. It will be a close run thing for QPR, us, Albion and Sunderland I think.
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When I did the Football Predictor a few weeks ago I had some teams going down with very low points totals. It looks like I was right. From Everton in twelfth and downwards teams have to win one in three for the rest of the season to reach forty points. It is possible at least one team will fail to reach thirty points. I think Everton and Palace will be okay. It is interesting that Albion have the same points as us but don't get the criticism we do. Although admittedly much of that is down to our lack of goals. Leicester and Hull look in big trouble. We have to see how the managerial change effects QPR. Burnley are limited but will battle and probably pick up a few home points. Sunderland struggle for goals and points. I think Leicester and Hull will definitely drop along with possibly Burnley. It will be a close run thing for QPR, us, Albion and Sunderland I think.
How did you manage writing all that and not get to mention the most obvious candidate?
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Last day fixtures are Leicester v QPR and Villa v Burnley.
With Chelsea probably wrapping the title up early, Sky will be all over that as that has the ominous look of a Survival Sunday or whatever term they'd call it.
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There are actually four games in May, which seemes a lot.
There are and you could argue Everton and West Ham will be comfortable mid table and on the beach so 6 easy points.
Saints will probably be out of the top4 race so there is 3 more
And burnley could be down already so there's 3 more.
We're Aston Villa, we're clutching at straws..
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Just looking at the remaining fixtures, I think we may go down.
I'm sure we will win the odd game but not much more than that.
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I don't think the fixtures are too bad, in theory there are plenty of points there for us, especially at home after Chavski. Reality, who knows with us.
Aston Villa v Chelsea
Hull v Aston Villa
Aston Villa v Stoke
Newcastle v Aston Villa
Aston Villa v West Brom
Sunderland v Aston Villa
Aston Villa v Swansea
Man Utd v Aston Villa
Tottenham v Aston Villa
Aston Villa v QPR
Man City v Aston Villa
Aston Villa v Everton
Aston Villa v West Ham
Southampton v Aston Villa
Aston Villa v Burnley
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There's four games we definitely should win if we weren't absolutely incompetent.
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Four or five home six pointers there.
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Southampton, away, there's talk of a mass Villa fans' jolly up in Weymouth that weekend. Better place to have a relegation party than the one at Wigan a couple of years ago
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Has anyone bet on us to go down? What odds did u get?
My bro did before the season started. He put £50 on it at 5/1.
I'm on at the same price. Have backed us each year to go down under Paul Lambert. Certainly we give good value at that price for the last few years.
What saved us last year (our worst since the McNeill season) was how bad the sides under us were. An injury to Ings and Burnley are gone. They will struggle more the season goes on and reckon they will finish bottom well adrift. Looking through the QPR squad, it will be a fair achievement to keep them up. With the exception of Austin and possibly Fer, they really don't have another player that even we would look to buy if they went down. Their squad is full of slow has beens. Leicester are awful and won't improve. I reckon West Brom will be the mostly likely to trouble that trio. The way transfer deadline day fell apart for them doesn't bode well. The likes of Morrison, Segessnon don't really fit into a Pulis side and they will continue to struggle to score goals.
Hull like us should be doing better in the table. To be honest even at our worst I see us in the pile with Palace, Hull and Sunderland. Any decent improvement and honestly think we will cruise to safety.
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Southampton, away, there's talk of a mass Villa fans' jolly up in Weymouth that weekend. Better place to have a relegation party than the one at Wigan a couple of years ago
The "Weymouth wake"
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I don't think the fixtures are too bad, in theory there are plenty of points there for us, especially at home after Chavski. Reality, who knows with us.
Aston Villa v Chelsea
Hull v Aston Villa
Aston Villa v Stoke
Newcastle v Aston Villa
Aston Villa v West Brom
Sunderland v Aston Villa
Aston Villa v Swansea
Man Utd v Aston Villa
Tottenham v Aston Villa
Aston Villa v QPR
Man City v Aston Villa
Aston Villa v Everton
Aston Villa v West Ham
Southampton v Aston Villa
Aston Villa v Burnley
3 wins out of the 6 after Chelsea and we'd virtually be there (don't mention the 2 wins in the last 19)
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The way I see it unless something changes...or some kind of miracle happens:
Aston Villa v Chelsea - loss
Hull v Aston Villa - draw/win
Aston Villa v Stoke - loss
Newcastle v Aston Villa - loss
Aston Villa v West Brom - loss/draw
Sunderland v Aston Villa - loss
Aston Villa v Swansea - loss
Man Utd v Aston Villa - loss
Tottenham v Aston Villa - loss
Aston Villa v QPR - draw/win
Man City v Aston Villa - loss
Aston Villa v Everton - loss
Aston Villa v West Ham - loss/draw
Southampton v Aston Villa - loss
Aston Villa v Burnley - draw/win
...being realistic/optimistic that would give us 11 points and possibly relegated on 33 points.
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The way I see it unless something changes...or some kind of miracle happens:
Aston Villa v Chelsea - loss
Hull v Aston Villa - draw/win
Aston Villa v Stoke - loss
Newcastle v Aston Villa - loss
Aston Villa v West Brom - loss/draw
Sunderland v Aston Villa - loss
Aston Villa v Swansea - loss
Man Utd v Aston Villa - loss
Tottenham v Aston Villa - loss
Aston Villa v QPR - draw/win
Man City v Aston Villa - loss
Aston Villa v Everton - loss
Aston Villa v West Ham - loss/draw
Southampton v Aston Villa - loss
Aston Villa v Burnley - draw/win
...being realistic/optimistic that would give us 11 points and possibly relegated on 33 points.
thats almost identical to the results I guessed
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Being as harsh and critical as possible, I have gone with;
Aston Villa v Chelsea - Loss
Hull v Aston Villa - Draw
Aston Villa v Stoke - Draw
Newcastle v Aston Villa - Loss
Aston Villa v West Brom - Win (this win could actually saves Lambert's job)
Sunderland v Aston Villa - Draw
Aston Villa v Swansea - Win
Man Utd v Aston Villa - Loss
Tottenham v Aston Villa - Loss
Aston Villa v QPR - Win
Man City v Aston Villa - Loss
Aston Villa v Everton - Draw
Aston Villa v West Ham - Draw
Southampton v Aston Villa - Loss
Aston Villa v Burnley - Win
That would give us 17 points, which is only 1.13 a game, so not exactly title form, leaving us on 39 points and more than likely enough, although it would go down to the final day.
4 wins and 5 draws with 6 defeats.
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We've only scored 8 goals in 5 months ! Being realistic I can see 2 more wins and 3 draws
31 points and down .
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If we can take anything from chavski that's a bonus , but, we really need to start delivering results vs hull, Stoke, WBA , Newcastle and Sunderland .
Where the hell is Ron, Swiss Phil, Cole ?
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Agreed that the run in is not too bad post-this weekend. But the trouble is we have even struggled against the other bottom teams this season so you can't take anything for granted with us, not least on the back of a 5-0 loss at the weekend.
I still think we will stay up but don't see us improving our league position from the last two years, and there need to be a change in the summer.
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Gobby Cabbage has predicted us to stay up on the Beeb website today.
Bugger, we're doomed....
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Agreed that the run in is not too bad post-this weekend. But the trouble is we have even struggled against the other bottom teams this season so you can't take anything for granted with us, not least on the back of a 5-0 loss at the weekend.
I still think we will stay up but don't see us improving our league position from the last two years, and there need to be a change in the summer.
I reckon we have played 9 games so far against the other 7 teams at the bottom. Record is w3d3l3 so not so much struggling as average. We have 5 more fixtures against these teams, baggies, burnley, qpr at home plus Sunderland and hull away. I reckon we need 3 wins from these plus a couple of wins from our other 10 games. Not looking likely to me with the current form and player confidence but you have to hope.
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My best friend is a Burnley fan, he comes to Villa Park fairly frequently and does have a soft spot for us.
Neither of us are comfortable with the final day's fixture.
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I think the final day's fixture is irrelevant - we'll be down weeks before then.
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My best friend is a Burnley fan, he comes to Villa Park fairly frequently and does have a soft spot for us.
Neither of us are comfortable with the final day's fixture.
It might not come to that. Southampton might want to start getting worried about their cross bar again!
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I know it was Chelsea but it's still another defeat. Last season we scrambled an unlikely win, that's not in our locker this year. It looks ominous.
Did the predictor thing as optimistically and realistically as I could. We go down in 18th position. Hull stayed up in 17th with 29 points but a better goal difference.
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It simply is must win on Tuesday.
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Anyone doing a, 'We'll be back' banner?
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I know it was Chelsea but it's still another defeat. Last season we scrambled an unlikely win, that's not in our locker this year. It looks ominous.
Did the predictor thing as optimistically and realistically as I could. We go down in 18th position. Hull stayed up in 17th with 29 points but a better goal difference.
That's my major concern, last season we somehow beat City and Chelsea, if you took away those points we would have gone down. I just wonder how much stomach we have for a fight with the teams in and around us. We need to hit some form in Feb like we did in his first season, cant see it happening though.
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We need to start playing like we did second half today and v Liverpool in the games against bottom half teams.
Surely we'd score some goals and win a game or two that way rather than just sitting back and hoping for the best.
We've got Gil now who can glide past players.
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I know it was Chelsea but it's still another defeat. Last season we scrambled an unlikely win, that's not in our locker this year. It looks ominous.
Did the predictor thing as optimistically and realistically as I could. We go down in 18th position. Hull stayed up in 17th with 29 points but a better goal difference.
I'm glad you got some ridiculously low points totals on the predictor too. I thought it was just me.
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To me Leicester have gone. Even with 5 more wins this season they're only on 32 points.
I can't see QPR doing anything either, they're only on 19 and have just 6 home games left now and they're against West Ham, Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs and Everton which I wouldn't suggest is a winnable set of games.
Whisper it quietly but a West Brom win would do us the world of good as that's a very winnable game for Burnley and they have quite a tough sequence of games after tomorrow.
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There is zero chance anyone will stay up on 29 points.
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36-37 points will probably keep you up this season.
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I'm clinging to the hope that it's Leicester, QPR and Burnley that drop.
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When I did the Football Predictor a few weeks ago I had some teams going down with very low points totals. It looks like I was right. From Everton in twelfth and downwards teams have to win one in three for the rest of the season to reach forty points. It is possible at least one team will fail to reach thirty points. I think Everton and Palace will be okay. It is interesting that Albion have the same points as us but don't get the criticism we do. Although admittedly much of that is down to our lack of goals. Leicester and Hull look in big trouble. We have to see how the managerial change effects QPR. Burnley are limited but will battle and probably pick up a few home points. Sunderland struggle for goals and points. I think Leicester and Hull will definitely drop along with possibly Burnley. It will be a close run thing for QPR, us, Albion and Sunderland I think.
Don't like quoting myself but thought it was worth wheeling out again. Saunders Heroes says 36/37 points will probably keep you up this season. I reckon it would definitely be enough to keep you up the way things are going.
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I think it will be any 3 out of QPR, Leicester, Burnley and Hull.
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I think it will be any 3 out of QPR, Leicester, Burnley and Hull.
With the last five matches that they have, West Brom had better hope they've picked up all the points they need before May arrives.
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An Albion win tomorrow would be good.
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An Albion win tomorrow would be good.
Pipe down minion. ;)
You are correct though. That is a very winnable game for Burnley and they have a nightmare run of fixtures after that.
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An Albion win tomorrow would be good.
[/quoteAn Albion win tomorrow would be good.
I want a 0-0
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A draw might be better to keep as many teams in the crap as poss.
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Few rumours flying around twitter that Charlie Austin broke his foot for QPR today.
If that is true QPR have next to no chance of surviving.
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Charlie Austin and Richard Dunne could be out for the rest of the season after the Queens Park Rangers duo left Loftus Road on crutches on Saturday.
Austin, the club's top goalscorer, is understood to have broken a bone in his right foot following the 1-0 defeat against Southampton that left QPR second bottom of the Barclays Premier League.
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QPR receive boost as Richard Dunne is ruled out of the season is how it should read I think.....
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QPR receive boost as Richard Dunne is ruled out of the season is how it should read I think.....
Not sure their fans would read it that way, thankfully we didnt go for Caulker in the summer. Some waste he has been for QPR. Without a manager and with the goals drying up, QPR are looking doomed I reckon.
Leicester have just sacked that nutter Pearson. Not sure who they will replace him with at this late stage of the season but if there is a worse manager in the league than Lambert it was him. Had just given him 9m to spend on a centre forward so not the best timing. Tim Sherwood might have a choice of clubs to go to.
Burnley are starting to leak goals and give away leads regularly now. Their keeper isnt anywhere near good enough for this level. West Brom still well in the relegation dogfight, awful again today going on the report.
Great results for Hull and Sunderland at the weekend but they dont have much goals in them either.
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QPR striker Charlie Austin has revealed the injury he suffered during Saturday's 1-0 defeat by Southampton is not as bad as first feared.
The 25-year-old left Loftus Road on crutches after suffering a foot injury.
But on Sunday he tweeted: "Delighted to say I've not broken a bone in my foot! Hopefully back in a week or two!"
However, the club have said that defender Richard Dunne will be out for three months after he limped out of Saturday's game with a knee injury.
The 35-year-old Irishman sustained a medial cruciate ligament injury to his right knee.
QPR also revealed that defender Nedum Onuoha, 28, sustained a hamstring injury against the Saints and will be sidelined for approximately three to four weeks.
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The 140 years video is a nice piece but when they show it before the game I find it hard to watch, as a kind of sombre prediction we're leaving the top flight
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QPR and Leicester are managerless. Burnley's next eight games feature Chelsea, Man City, Southampton, ManU, Liverpool, Arsenal and Spurs. If only we could put some points on the board in the next month.
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Latest predictions
(http://i1113.photobucket.com/albums/k506/andykalundborg/Points%20Prediction_zps059rapnj.jpg)
Rolling 38 points total = 33
19 game roll up = 24 points (last 19 games x 2)
10 game roll up = 23 points (last 10 games x 3.8)
19 game form prediction = 31 points (points this season + prediction based on last 19 games through to the end of season)
10 game form prediction = 30 points (points this season + prediction based on last 10 games through to the end of season)
Conclusion = We're fucked
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In answer to the thread title, no i don't think it is actually .
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Just to clarify - Leicester haven't sacked their manager. They're probably too scared to because - as he said embarrassingly on MOTD - he can 'look after himself'. This probably also explains why the FA haven't brought any charges against him for pinning a Palace player to the floor by his throat, then preventing him going back onto the pitch by pulling his shirt. Any respect I had for Pearson evaporated in an instant
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If we don't get at least 9 points from our next 6 games then I think we're in massive trouble.
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Unless there is a change in how many attempts we get on goal we are down. I can't see it happening as Lambert doesn't believe there is a problem and 'the goals will come'. We're not just poor against the top sides remember. I'm resigned to it now and just hope we take albion with us.
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In the past few seasons there was always hope we'd cling on. Just can't feel it this time. Every time we play a team around us we give them a lifeline. 13 more games to endure of this humiliation. Please fox and randy eject the clown
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Is this? No, this is.
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Even i'm starting to think we are fucked.
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We're fucked. There's multiple things massively wrong with a team that can only score 12 goals by this stage of the season.
Manager, coaching, attitude, tactics, players to a large degree too. I can't see us getting out of this one, being a Wigan is catching up.
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Absolutely the worst team in the league with the worst ownership and management.
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We don't have the worst players in the league, but the management of them is so bad that we might as well.
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We don't have the worst players in the league, but the management of them is so bad that we might as well.
Couldn't have summed it up better myself.
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Yes, this is it. I never actually believed it would happen, but this it.
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We're gone if he sticks around. Was fine with holding back on making that claim in previous seasons, where we had decent head-starts (2012 and 2014) and had an attacking threat about us (2013), but we have neither.
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I think its over ...
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If it isn't, then I'm in The Matrix.
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Yes, it is.
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Yep.
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Yes.
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You have to wonder where the points are coming from. Very depressing
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Hard to accept but..........YES!
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Oh Yes.
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The only way out for us is a new manager. The whole footballing world can see it, but the most important guy has his head up his arse.
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A regular return of 0 goals and 0 points only has one ending.
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Without question.
I have tickets for Sunday and have no interest in it whatsoever. Absolutely zero, my enthusiasm for Professional Football has completely gone.
...and don't give me the FA Cup crap. I saw a virtually empty Stadium at Wigan the other week as they got knobbed again in the Championship and head for League 1. I wonder if their fans would have wanted to have stayed up instead given half a chance.
We'll be finding out how Wigan fans feel soon enough.
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We're down... and it was just left to happen.
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Without question.
I have tickets for Sunday and have no interest in it whatsoever. Absolutely zero, my enthusiasm for Professional Football has completely gone.
...and don't give me the FA Cup crap. I saw a virtually empty Stadium at Wigan the other week as they got knobbed again in the Championship and head for League 1. I wonder if their fans would have wanted to have stayed up instead given half a chance.
We'll be finding out how Wigan fans feel soon enough.
Will we bollocks. They won the FA Cup very recently.
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Yes.
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Yes. And can we have the old badge back please when we are?
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Which one of the half a dozen or so old ones do you want?
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The thing that hurts most. Is the performances are gutless. It's obvious we haven't been set out properly. These a severe lack of understanding what they are aupposed to be doing and confidence.
We need someone in that's up for the fight, and a motivator. I'm depressed as sin tonight, but I keep thinking that getting MON in for 13 games might give us a fighting chance.
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Which one of the half a dozen or so old ones do you want?
Any of them. The current one leaves a bad taste in there mouth. 80s\90s circular one will do.
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After tonight and for the first time I think 'Yes'.
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The thing that hurts most. Is the performances are gutless. It's obvious we haven't been set out properly. These a severe lack of understanding what they are aupposed to be doing and confidence.
We need someone in that's up for the fight, and a motivator. I'm depressed as sin tonight, but I keep thinking that getting MON in for 13 games might give us a fighting chance.
Totally agree. No fight whatsoever. No hope of scoring. Lambs to the slaughter
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Looking like our time is up dosen't it, the rot from the last four years really seems to have engulfed the team.
That and we still can't score despite signing creative players this window. 12 goals at this stage of the season is quite simply unbelievable.
Big thing for me is we're now losing relegation six pointers instead of even drawing them and are reserving our worst performances for the Leicester and Hull games.
There's no good playing well against Liverpool and Chelsea, games you can still lose even if you raise your game.
We've now lost our last 5 away without scoring. We are finished without our away form picking up as there's no chance of us winning 4 league games at VP between now and the end of the season.
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As I wrote on another thread. These stats are sending us one way only.
2 wins in 21 league games.
Our last 10 games:
W0 D3 L7 F2 A15 GD-13
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Without question.
I have tickets for Sunday and have no interest in it whatsoever. Absolutely zero, my enthusiasm for Professional Football has completely gone.
...and don't give me the FA Cup crap. I saw a virtually empty Stadium at Wigan the other week as they got knobbed again in the Championship and head for League 1. I wonder if their fans would have wanted to have stayed up instead given half a chance.
We'll be finding out how Wigan fans feel soon enough.
Well disagree here because right now the Cup is the only thing keeping our season alive. But the problem is playing the way we are right now, and with the manager there is no way we are going to wembley. We might reach the 1/4 finals but as soon as we play anybody with anything about them we will be out.
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Can we have a poll reset please?
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Can we have a poll reset please?
As if by magic the shopkeeper appeared.
Poll is reset.
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This was what the ratings were before the rest.
Yes 129 (44.3%)
No 39 (13.4%)
Probably not but i'm worried 119 (40.9%)
Vote none of the above 4 (1.4%)
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Without question.
I have tickets for Sunday and have no interest in it whatsoever. Absolutely zero, my enthusiasm for Professional Football has completely gone.
...and don't give me the FA Cup crap. I saw a virtually empty Stadium at Wigan the other week as they got knobbed again in the Championship and head for League 1. I wonder if their fans would have wanted to have stayed up instead given half a chance.
We'll be finding out how Wigan fans feel soon enough.
Well disagree here because right now the Cup is the only thing keeping our season alive. But the problem is playing the way we are right now, and with the manager there is no way we are going to wembley. We might reach the 1/4 finals but as soon as we play anybody with anything about them we will be out.
Agree with CT. the cup has no interest to me, if we are relegated. Its not as if we are going to win the bloody thing anyway
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Think we might scrap a couple of home wins, nick the odd ugly away point and that someone around us will hand us safety. I think it will be even closer than it was two seasons ago, but we will just about stay up. Which might be news as Lambert may get another year added to his contract for the effort :-[
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13/8 are the best odds you can get against us dropping now. Very generous, I would say.
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As I wrote on another thread. These stats are sending us one way only.
2 wins in 21 league games.
Our last 10 games:
W0 D3 L7 F2 A15 GD-13
Taking those stats in isolation is bad enough, but when you consider they have come on top of what has happened before then it indefensible.
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Can we have a poll reset please?
As if by magic the shopkeeper appeared.
Poll is reset.
Ta. Seems we all agree we are doomed.
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13/8 are the best odds you can get against us dropping now. Very generous, I would say.
Lump on as they say.
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There is not a cat in hell's chance of us staying up with the current manager. Not the slightest hope.
He has no idea how to get the team to score goals and that will not suddenly change.
If we sacked him I think we would stay up, pretty much regardless of who we appointed. Even Neil Warnock could keep this side up.
Lambert can't.
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13/8 are the best odds you can get against us dropping now. Very generous, I would say.
And there are still 3 teams with shorter odds incredibly.
Even more incredibly (or maybe depressingly) Lambert isn't the favourite to get the chop next!
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There is not a cat in hell's chance of us staying up with the current manager. Not the slightest hope.
He has no idea how to get the team to score goals and that will not suddenly change.
If we sacked him I think we would stay up, pretty much regardless of who we appointed. Even Neil Warnock could keep this side up.
Lambert can't.
Without question, at least he has a bit of passion about him.
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Lowest scorers in premiership history after 25 games even worse than derby.
I actually thought derby' record would never be beaten. I can't believe we are putting in a challenge for it.
How can anyone think we can possibly survive with a goalscoring record like our. Lets face it there has been no sign whatsoever of it improving.
As far as I'm concerned we're just waiting for the inevitable
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As I wrote on another thread. These stats are sending us one way only.
2 wins in 21 league games.
Our last 10 games:
W0 D3 L7 F2 A15 GD-13
Taking those stats in isolation is bad enough, but when you consider they have come on top of what has happened before then it indefensible.
Quite incredible that he's managed to achieve his worst run after building the squad over the past 3 years. All the evidence suggests that things get worse not better
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Without doubt.
We are the poorest side in this division and that is a fact. The annoying thing is, the quality of players that we have in this clowns 3rd season outweighs his previous 2.
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3 points from the last 30. Jesus.
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3 points from the last 30. Jesus.
And I bet we didn't take that many from the 30 before that, either.
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As I wrote on another thread. These stats are sending us one way only.
2 wins in 21 league games.
Our last 10 games:
W0 D3 L7 F2 A15 GD-13
Taking those stats in isolation is bad enough, but when you consider they have come on top of what has happened before then it indefensible.
Quite incredible that he's managed to achieve his worst run after building the squad over the past 3 years. All the evidence suggests that things get worse not better
Key point. Three years in and still no sign of an idea of a style of football. Players have stagnated or regressed under him (Clark aside, I can't think of one who has improved after playing for him for a decent period of time) to the point where some of them look disillusioned. That's before you even broach the subject of the coaching staff.
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To quote dear old Private Fraser from Dad's Army... "we're DOOMED!"
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I've stuck with 'no, but I'm worried'.
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We are going to be relegated. The only way to stand a chance of everything it is if Nero realises he has a responsibility to the club still.
The stentch of rot is overpowering at the club at the moment.
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Let's face it, we've had this coming. You simply can't be this dreadful for 3 years and get away with it. No one to blame but those in charge.
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And when we get relegated everyone else will be delighted.
Not just because we're a big club falling on bad times but because we've been absolutely dreadful to watch for half a decade now.
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And when we get relegated everyone else will be delighted.
Not just because we're a big club falling on bad times but because we've been absolutely dreadful to watch for half a decade now.
Longer. Try 15 years plus. False prophets with money to spend spent it unwisely and the wins were generally ugly.
We deserve so much better.
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And when we get relegated everyone else will be delighted.
Not just because we're a big club falling on bad times but because we've been absolutely dreadful to watch for half a decade now.
Longer. Try 15 years plus. False prophets with money to spend spent it unwisely and the wins were generally ugly.
We deserve so much better.
I disagree on the MON years - but then in the context of spending £200m it should've been better.
The Dolly era was bad but even then we had the likes of Merson and Lil Lee bringing a bit of flair to the team.
The last 5 years have been unremittingly tedious.
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I hate to say it but since '96, more often than not we've been pretty shit to watch footballing wise (even when results have been good). It's why our goals for record is so shit during the Premier League era. I think even Newcastle have scored more than us and they have spent 2 years less in the PL.
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This is the first time since Lambert's initial season that I genuinely fear for our league status. As woeful as he is, he used to have a knack of springing a victory (or two) after a bad run to keep our heads just above the water. However with this loss against a poor Hull side there for the taking, plus the inability to even fulfil the basics when it comes to offensive play, I am truly skeptical.
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We've completely lost our way and we aren't likely to miraculously find it again no matter what our manager says just by keeping the status quo.
If we don't sack Lambert within the week then good luck to Lerner, I hope you lose the whole fucking lot because you deserve it you ******.
If he has any pride, affinity or affection for the club he'd should do the one thing that can galvanise the team and fans, man up and sack dick brain.
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And when we get relegated everyone else will be delighted.
Not just because we're a big club falling on bad times but because we've been absolutely dreadful to watch for half a decade now.
Longer. Try 15 years plus. False prophets with money to spend spent it unwisely and the wins were generally ugly.
We deserve so much better.
I disagree on the MON years - but then in the context of spending £200m it should've been better.
The Dolly era was bad but even then we had the likes of Merson and Lil Lee bringing a bit of flair to the team.
The last 5 years have been unremittingly tedious.
Oh I agree the last five years have been hell but the ten years previous is certainly not where we should be aiming for.
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To stay up we need to score goals and win games, something we've not really managed all season. I can't see us suddenly start winning because we've lost the two cup finals we've had so far.
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The game last night reminded me of 87 and the 0-3 v Charlton at crystal palace. It was the same feeling of resignation from the players on both occasions.
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Unfortunately we've been the footballing equivalent of woodchip wallpaper for far too long now. Few will weep when we go down and few will want us to come back up once we've gone. I fear a long time in the wilderness and with the new obscene football deal, it just got even more difficult to compete on a level playing field.
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I think we will go down. The club are reluctant to change anything and that's going to cost us.
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Has the parachute payment for next season gone up as part of this new hyper deal ?
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No. The new deal isn't until the season after. We are more likely to be in the third division than to win promotion.
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We'll go down unless a change is made. The fans don't deserve the club going down, but the ownership and management of the club definitely do.
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No. The new deal isn't until the season after. We are more likely to be in the third division than to win promotion.
That's great. That's just great.
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Awful result for Sunderland at home to QPR. They are a Blues side too but have far more heart than ours
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We will go down under this manager! If we change now I'd give us a sniff
We need a lift the whole club and that is what a new manager would do
I am sick of listening to ppl say he hasn't had the money! He has had enough to keep us in the league! Every season we have got worse under him! I am genuinely broken this morning
Pulis has gone into Albion made them hard to beat that's the very least you can expect he will keep them up is someone telling me they have better players and squad than us no! It's down to the club it's rotten
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My name and address:
Mr Positive,
(Lucky) 7, Positive Close,
Positiveville,
Positivity Land.
... Even I'm beginning to fear the worse :'(
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I've gone beyond the question of whether we'll be relegated from the PL, now I'm fretting over whether we can hack it in the Championship.
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I've gone beyond the question of whether we'll be relegated from the PL, now I'm fretting over whether we can hack it in the Championship.
If you consider our recent games against Millwall, Bradford, Sheffield United, Leyton Orient and Blackpool you'll find your answer.
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Thank you Lerner your appalling ownership over the last few years is finally going to bury us now.
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Awful result for Sunderland at home to QPR. They are a Blues side too but have far more heart than ours
Two positives from that result for me 1) It drags Sunderland back into it 2) QPR's have registered some points away from home before they come to Villa Park.
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I've been in denial about relegation, always thought we'd survive because there should be 3 worse teams than us in the league but last night's results were terrible for us. Also, now we're in the bottom 3, our goal difference starts to take on a whole new significance. Absolutely frightening.
It seems the ultimate irony to me that we unveiled a new Commercial Officer yesterday, presumably with a brief to increase our revenue, (on the same day that the Premier League is handed a £5bn, 3 year deal) but we don't have a manager capable of doing the one thing that would guarantee this massive windfall - staying in the fucking league.
And I also reckon that, until the end of the season, we'd do better with no manager than with Lambert. Seriously.
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There comes a time when the presence of a manager becomes poisonous - among the staff, players and fans. I think we're at that point now. There's no way back for Lambert - he must go or our slide will quicken and life will become increasingly unpleasant for everyone. Why can't our absentee owner understand this, or have I answered my own question?
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I've been in denial about relegation, always thought we'd survive because there should be 3 worse teams than us in the league but last night's results were terrible for us. Also, now we're in the bottom 3, our goal difference starts to take on a whole new significance. Absolutely frightening.
It seems the ultimate irony to me that we unveiled a new Commercial Officer yesterday, presumably with a brief to increase our revenue, (on the same day that the Premier League is handed a £5bn, 3 year deal) but we don't have a manager capable of doing the one thing that would guarantee this massive windfall - staying in the fucking league.
And I also reckon that, until the end of the season, we'd do better with no manager than with Lambert. Seriously.
I think there are. I think are five or six teams worse than us in terms of quality. But nobody is playing as badly as we are.
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The Hull game proves, there are no winnable games under Lambert.
We are gone.
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I've been in denial about relegation, always thought we'd survive because there should be 3 worse teams than us in the league but last night's results were terrible for us. Also, now we're in the bottom 3, our goal difference starts to take on a whole new significance. Absolutely frightening.
It seems the ultimate irony to me that we unveiled a new Commercial Officer yesterday, presumably with a brief to increase our revenue, (on the same day that the Premier League is handed a £5bn, 3 year deal) but we don't have a manager capable of doing the one thing that would guarantee this massive windfall - staying in the fucking league.
And I also reckon that, until the end of the season, we'd do better with no manager than with Lambert. Seriously.
I think there are. I think are five or six teams worse than us in terms of quality. But nobody is playing as badly as we are.
I think there are at least 5 or 6 squads with lesser players, but we are out there on our own as the worst team in the league.
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Joe Cole has called on everyone of claret and blue persuasion to stick together as Villa look to move up the Barclays Premier League table.
Cole insists "the right results" will follow if the fans, players and staff stay tight for the common cause.
The former Chelsea and Liverpool midfield ace says the dressing room was "devastated" in the aftermath of the defeat at the KC Stadium - and was in no doubt that the travelling supporters felt the same.
But he says there's only one way to look now - forward - as Villa face their "thirteen cup finals."
He told AVTV: "We're devastated with the result. But we have to stick together.
"The fans have travelled up on a Tuesday night and it is difficult not to give them the result that they want.
"But we are where we are. We have to be men.
"We have to stand together and stick together - the fans, the players, the manager and the staff.
"If we all stick together we can get the right results.
"I take full responsibility for my role in the squad and the team. I've been working hard alongside all of the other boys trying to turn it round for us.
"There were a lot of disappointed lads in the dressing room and I'm sure there were a lot of disappointed Villa fans on the way home as well.
"But we've got to stick together and we are fully aware that they are thirteen cup finals for us now."
Cole insists that the FA Cup can play its part in galvanising the squad as they look for progress in the world's most popular domestic cup competition as well as the Barclays Premier League.
He added: "We've got the FA Cup on Sunday.
"I still believe the old adage that these games can be vital for your season in terms of confidence.
"We want to win and build some confidence, get the trust of the fans and create a brighter atmosphere.
"And in the next league game we need to be right on it.
"It is a massive three months for Villa. Personally I'm fit and I want to stay fit. I want to contribute in keeping this team in the Premier League and hopefully a nice run in the FA Cup as well."
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Piss off Cole, words are cheap
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Clearly devastaded....
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Joe Cole has called on everyone of claret and blue persuasion to stick together as Villa look to move up the Barclays Premier League table.
Cole insists "the right results" will follow if the fans, players and staff stay tight for the common cause.
The former Chelsea and Liverpool midfield ace says the dressing room was "devastated" in the aftermath of the defeat at the KC Stadium - and was in no doubt that the travelling supporters felt the same.
But he says there's only one way to look now - forward - as Villa face their "thirteen cup finals."
He told AVTV: "We're devastated with the result. But we have to stick together.
"The fans have travelled up on a Tuesday night and it is difficult not to give them the result that they want.
"But we are where we are. We have to be men.
"We have to stand together and stick together - the fans, the players, the manager and the staff.
"If we all stick together we can get the right results.
"I take full responsibility for my role in the squad and the team. I've been working hard alongside all of the other boys trying to turn it round for us.
"There were a lot of disappointed lads in the dressing room and I'm sure there were a lot of disappointed Villa fans on the way home as well.
"But we've got to stick together and we are fully aware that they are thirteen cup finals for us now."
Cole insists that the FA Cup can play its part in galvanising the squad as they look for progress in the world's most popular domestic cup competition as well as the Barclays Premier League.
He added: "We've got the FA Cup on Sunday.
"I still believe the old adage that these games can be vital for your season in terms of confidence.
"We want to win and build some confidence, get the trust of the fans and create a brighter atmosphere.
"And in the next league game we need to be right on it.
"It is a massive three months for Villa. Personally I'm fit and I want to stay fit. I want to contribute in keeping this team in the Premier League and hopefully a nice run in the FA Cup as well."
Bingo! I call Bingo in the "lazy cliché" game
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Fuck off Joe Cole you contract thief. You lot have had constant support for months now as the results go down the pan, put up or shut up, it's time for abuse if things don't improve.
The freekicks and corners were a disgrace last night and a sure sign that they are not training or practicing hard enough on even basics.
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I hate all this 'stick together' bollocks. The players and manager have done fuck all whilst they've had support, it's time they get the flak they deserve.
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I said if we lost to Hull we would go down.
It was one of those games we just could not afford to lose.
Pretty much everything that could go wrong has gone wrong and it is obvious that they will stick with Lambert because they have no idea what else to do.
Even a panic sacking and hope appointment will not save us now.
I will try and take some comfort from the fact that Randy has done his money and frankly he deserves that.
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We all know it's coming. If in doubt, blame the fans.
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Assuming Lambert is staying, for me the next 2 games will decide our season. If we don't get a response after last night against Leicester and Stoke then I think we are screwed. If that result/performance and getting dumped into the bottom 3 doesn't kick them up the arse I don't think anything will. Win them both and we are in the QF and out the bottom 3.
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Joe Cole , same fooking record just like your awful manager.
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Clearly devastaded....
thanks Joe, I didnt realise you were still here ?
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After tonight it's 3 of Leicester, Burnley, us, Hull, QPR and Sunderland.
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Agreed.
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No. I think we will bounce back now that Lambert has gone.
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Don't count out Everton. 1 win in 9 and they've failed to score in 6 of them.
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Right now I wonder what percentage of us doesn't have a clue which way to vote.
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I'm still firmly in "probably not but worried".
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Don't count out Everton. 1 win in 9 and they've failed to score in 6 of them.
When I posted on Other Games about the Palace, Albion and Burnley results I nearly included Everton's.
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Don't count out Everton. 1 win in 9 and they've failed to score in 6 of them.
When I posted on Other Games about the Palace, Albion and Burnley results I nearly included Everton's.
They've won 3 league games in over 3 months. I think they currently have to be included.
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More confident of staying up now he has gone , hopefully who ever comes in can have a new manager bounce the likes of WBA and Palace have had recently
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We do need an 'impact' manager who can hit the floor running and grind out some positive results.
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We do need an 'impact' manager who can hit the floor running and grind out some positive results.
I would have hoped someone could have been brought in for the game on Sunday, for as much as I want us to win it, it is a no pressure game really. If we lose, we're out of the cup for another year, but a good win could give us some momentum going into a fairly decent run of fixtures. It would have been the ideal fixture for a new manager.
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It's all too little, too late. This should have been done after our first shocking run, i.e. pre xmas.
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It's all too little, too late. This should have been done after our first shocking run, i.e. pre xmas.
why is it too late? There is a third of the season to go. We're not cast adrift at the bottom of the table 10 points off 17th place.
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quite right, let's get things into perspective; there are at least half a dozen club's that are in the mix, separated purely by the width of a gnat's cock. Sure we're one of them but we can get out of this.
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We'll have to reset this poll again once we know who the new guy is.
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It's hard to call. We're a team who've scored 12 in 25, but we do have goals in us, if the new manager (or M&M in the short term) can inspire even a modicum of positivity. We've got the quality to turn it. I just hope Lamberts removal gives the squad an instant lift. And I'd hope to see 4-5 players really up their game, if anything to impress their potential new boss.
If we can start simply creating and scoring at even a mediocre rate, I think we'll be alright.
In the next 3-4 games we need a couple of good results to lift the mood. A few goals. It would be nice to approach Sunday with a bit of freedom. It's a free game really. It won't fuck us up any more in the league if we lost it and we can really try and go for it against a brittle Leicester. I think we could see a turnaround right off the bat if we approach it right, and the players do too.
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It's hard to call. We're a team who've scored 12 in 25, but we do have goals in us, if the new manager (or M&M in the short term) can inspire even a modicum of positivity. We've got the quality to turn it. I just hope Lamberts removal gives the squad an instant lift. And I'd hope to see 4-5 players really up their game, if anything to impress their potential new boss.
If we can start simply creating and scoring at even a mediocre rate, I think we'll be alright.
In the next 3-4 games we need a couple of good results to lift the mood. A few goals. It would be nice to approach Sunday with a bit of freedom. It's a free game really. It won't fuck us up any more in the league if we lost it and we can really try and go for it against a brittle Leicester. I think we could see a turnaround right off the bat if we approach it right, and the players do too.
I am not convinced by the instant lift theory or argument that the team would be better without a manager, although I live in hope. The reason for my pessimism is that if we had intelligent leadership on the pitch, we would have seen evidence of it despite Lambert. We just do not seem to have that type of player. Too many robots. Gabby as captain sums it up.
Everything depends on the appointment and The Marshalls.
It all hinges on PLs replacement.
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looking very likely now
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looking very likely now
We're one point behind with twelve games to play, including both the sides immediately above us at home. How, by any definition of the phrase, is that "very likely"?
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I'd say we're more likely to go down than every team with the exception of Leicester. I hope we don't obviously, but Sherwood has a massive job on.
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Sherwood has to find some improvement in our play otherwise the number of games left is irrelevant.
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One win changes everything and can create a bit of momentum. It's getting the one win that Sherwood will find tough and needs to find it fast.
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One win changes everything and can create a bit of momentum. It's getting the one win that Sherwood will find tough and needs to find it fast.
Yeah and at least QPR's lose dragged them back into it. It is closer than ever that is the only positive to be taken from today.
Will stick with us to stay up for now, but many more weeks without any points then my thoughts will change.
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6 straight league defeats at this time of the season is a worry. We'll stay up though, just.
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I refused to have my first post as a negative one about the villa ...so after the long wait I can finally write!
I thought there was actually improvement in that game today, I'm still feeling like we will stay up.
Today's game we actually played some of the game in their half!
At 1-1 even with lack of shots our attempts at trying to cross made me feel like we could actually go on and nick it, and I've not felt like that in a long time!
Although I'm not saying a word about Mr Vlaar.
Also as it's the first post, HI ALL!!
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I think so. In previous seasons we have had a turn, some kind of little wrinkle which helped us stagger to safety. This season we seem to have momentum going downhill.
Lerner , Fox & Lambert decided to gamble on the clubs future by not panic spending or acting in January. Now we will pay.
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Very very poor teams survive. Teams who get relegated are not only poor but also have the worst luck going around. We seem to have both this season so if we can keep ourselves in and around escape point we may just do it in the last 2/3 games however we are in it now till the death.
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I think so. In previous seasons we have had a turn, some kind of little wrinkle which helped us stagger to safety. This season we seem to have momentum going downhill.
Lerner , Fox & Lambert decided to gamble on the clubs future by not panic spending or acting in January. Now we will pay.
Yes stable doors and horses come to mind. Leaving Lambert in situ for so long has left us in trouble with very few options to improve.
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If we reach the semis, our season will end with May having 4 home games out of our last 5 because of QPR game getting moved. Good job we can rely on our home form! It will also mean our league games in April will all be away, Manure, Spuds and Citeh. Squeaky bum time!
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I do think we will go down, because even if we do pick up form we're still relying on others losing it, or not getting those freak results that will keep them ahead of us. Burnley get a point at Stamford Bridge - it's not vital, but imagine getting a win at Old Trafford? We only seem a fair bet to take points off the teams around us, and we don't seem capable of doing that either. The change has come far too late, and any enthusiasm Sherwood garnered has been well and truly crushed by the last two-thirds of the game today.
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looking very likely now
We're one point behind with twelve games to play, including both the sides immediately above us at home. How, by any definition of the phrase, is that "very likely"?
I would hazard a guess that 3 of the current bottom 4 will go down, ie a 75% chance. I'd say that's at least "quite likely" if not exactly "very likely".
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A cliche I know but it is in our own hands. If we can't manage 15 points from our fixtures then we fully deserve to go. We may not even need that many.
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I feel more confident of staying up than I did when Lambert was in charge.
There were signs today, especially first half, of a change in mentality and we were undone by poor defending for their first goal and a calamity from Vlaar for the winner.
Lambert's negativity can't be undone in the space of a week. There was enough there for me to think we can still turn this around, especially as QPR lost again.
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looking very likely now
We're one point behind with twelve games to play, including both the sides immediately above us at home. How, by any definition of the phrase, is that "very likely"?
I admire the confidence, but you have to admit, it is looking more than a little bit likely given we're nineteenth and have just lost our sixth consecutive league match.
I'd feel more confident if I could see evidence that at least we were improving.
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looking very likely now
We're one point behind with twelve games to play, including both the sides immediately above us at home. How, by any definition of the phrase, is that "very likely"?
I admire the confidence, but you have to admit, it is looking more than a little bit likely given we're nineteenth and have just lost our sixth consecutive league match.
I'd feel more confident if I could see evidence that at least we were improving.
It's possible. It's not "very likely" yet.
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looking very likely now
We're one point behind with twelve games to play, including both the sides immediately above us at home. How, by any definition of the phrase, is that "very likely"?
I admire the confidence, but you have to admit, it is looking more than a little bit likely given we're nineteenth and have just lost our sixth consecutive league match.
I'd feel more confident if I could see evidence that at least we were improving.
It's possible. It's not "very likely" yet.
How many sides in our position in February have stayed up? Of course, it's all still in our own hands. but I think it's more likely that we'll go down than stay up.
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I can understand nerves while leading. What I can't understand is why we came out after half time looking like the last thing we wanted to do was win a football match. Before they scored we had that one final chance which could have done so much for our run-in. We wouldn't have 'deserved' the win, but screw it, teams rarely do. As it stands, it's one of the more obvious turning points for a team's future I've seen in a while: Begovic doesn't get fingertips to it, we probably stay up based on the momentum it engenders.
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looking very likely now
We're one point behind with twelve games to play, including both the sides immediately above us at home. How, by any definition of the phrase, is that "very likely"?
I admire the confidence, but you have to admit, it is looking more than a little bit likely given we're nineteenth and have just lost our sixth consecutive league match.
I'd feel more confident if I could see evidence that at least we were improving.
It's possible. It's not "very likely" yet.
How many sides in our position in February have stayed up? Of course, it's all still in our own hands. but I think it's more likely that we'll go down than stay up.
How many teams a point from safety three months from the end of the season have stayed up? I've not got the facts to hand but I would imagine there's one almost every year.
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All the other teams are fighting hard.
We aren't.
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Sunderland looked nailed on relegation certainties last season I guess there's always hope.
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I'd vote probably.
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So many players lack form and/or confidence that it is difficult to see anything other outcome than relegation or almost-relegation. However, almost a third of the season is left, so a lot can happen.
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If I am reading the form table correctly, we're the only team who hasn't won in our last ten games.
Statistically, we should win soon.
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No wins in 10 League games
Drawn 3 - [2 of which were 0-0] Lost 7.
Scored 3 Conceded 16.
Is this the year? Sad to say I think it will be.
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Just to add, if you think we're dead certs, very likely, or have any similar level of confidence that we'll go down, get yourself down the bookies and make a killing. They reckon we're still odds against with Leicester, Burnley and QPR odds on.
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It takes one win for us for fans of other teams to be thinking exactly like we are right now. It's looking bleak, no doubt, but not over by any stretch.
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If I am reading the form table correctly, we're the only team who hasn't won in our last ten games.
Statistically, we should win soon.
Not having a pop but isn't that the gambling addicts logic?
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I hate to say it but it's looking more likely by the game.
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To be safe now we need to be 4 points clear of Burnley going into the final day, I think even the most optimistic fan on here would struggle to come up with a formula of results that has that.
Results like today indicate to me our time is up this year....new manager effect, Stoke missing near enough half a team, we take the lead.....and still we lose the game.
Our only hope is it's a really low points tally to stay up this year, if we need 37-38 points we have no chance of getting that with the games left imo.
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We have Newcastle and Sunderland away with Albion and Swansea at home in March and we just have to pick up a decent points return in those matches as April looks horrific, unfortunately this Villa team has forgotten how to win in the league, I wont give upon us just yet but after today it kind of feels like this this may finally be our year.
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Last game of the season. Aston Villa v Burnley. Winner stays up.
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Where are the 13 points going to come from? Can't see us getting to 30. Today was a crossroads for us and we blew it big time.
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Last game of the season. Aston Villa v Burnley. Winner stays up.
I would take that now
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Last game of the season. Aston Villa v Burnley. Winner stays up.
I'd take that scenario right now
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Where are the 13 points going to come from? Can't see us getting to 30. Today was a crossroads for us and we blew it big time.
It's not beyond the realms of possibility that we could get that from the next 4 games.
Apart from the 3 in April, all the other 9 should be games we look to get points from. Most teams have a good run at some point and I firmly believe our lot have it in them.
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Where are the 13 points going to come from? Can't see us getting to 30. Today was a crossroads for us and we blew it big time.
It's not beyond the realms of possibility that we could get that from the next 4 games.
Apart from the 3 in April, all the other 9 should be games we look to get points from. Most teams have a good run at some point and I firmly believe our lot have it in them.
Presume you mean 8 points from the next 4 games?! That would be a turnaround. 2 points per game on average. If we take 6 I'll be ecstatic
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Where are the 13 points going to come from? Can't see us getting to 30. Today was a crossroads for us and we blew it big time.
It's not beyond the realms of possibility that we could get that from the next 4 games.
Apart from the 3 in April, all the other 9 should be games we look to get points from. Most teams have a good run at some point and I firmly believe our lot have it in them.
Presume you mean 8 points from the next 4 games?! That would be a turnaround. 2 points per game on average. If we take 6 I'll be ecstatic
I was actually thinking 3 wins and a draw but that doesn't make my maths any better! A draw up at Newcastle isn't beyond reason and if these players were playing to a plan and hit a bit of form the other three teams are there for the taking.
Yes it would be a turnaround but that's exactly what we need. Look at Hull - they're awful and have just taken 7 from their last 3 games. Palace did 12 from 5 after Pardew was appointed and the Olbiyun have lost once in 9 games since Pulis went there.
We are no worse than any of those 3.
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I hope you are right Adam . I'm pessimistic about it. We haven't had a good run in 5/6 months and all this strong squad stuff is proving to be tosh.
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What's your job again Adam?! ;)
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Despite everything, I actually thought we'd stay up the last couple of seasons. This season I'm really not so sure. It was obvious at the end of last season that we needed a new manager and a big investment in the squad. We got neither. Lerner left it far too late to get rid of Lambert and I'm underwhelmed by Sherwood so it's fingers crossed.
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Confidence is what will save us, but it's breeding that after it's been drained from the players. We need a win, flukey, ugly or whatever and it will start something positive.
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I think we will stay up but a lot depends on whether he can galvanise a backs to the wall fighting ethic amongst the players, looking at the bottom clubs run in they all have very difficult games. You would say Leicester are gone,Burnley have a horror run of matches and QPR are finding it just as hard as us. Sherwood has to look for players who are willing to show some spirit, Gabby has to go,Weimann as well a player who has no control and cannot cross a ball is no good to us. I don't know what we do with Benteke he was our saviour last season but he is being outjumped and out muscled what has happened to him?
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We've taken 3 points from the last 30.
We have lost six league games in a row - that's 18 points on offer, from which we have taken zero.
We've scored 13 goals all season. The next team up from that figure has scored 22. We have got the worst goal difference in the league.
We are 19th with 12 games left, and having just notched up our sixth consecutive loss, are showing pretty much no discernible sign of getting better. Not only that, but we are actually starting to look more and more dispirited. Like not only are we missing ability or organisation, there isn't even any spirit.
13 goals all season. Fuck me, that isn't just "bad", that is shockingly bad.
That's not just a pointer to a relegation, its a pointer to a pathetic, Derby County, Sunderland or Wolves style relegation.
I appreciate there is a bit of football still to play, and I understand why people try to be hopeful, but I read people saying we need four or five wins, and really, on the basis of the last 26 league games (and, if you like the 76 before this season, too), I find that pretty much impossible to imagine.
Does anyone think we'll win four or five games between now and the end of the season? Really?
We look utterly feeble and like we're never going to win a league game again.
I am no fan of the Sherwood appointment. It looks to me another hopelessly romantic decision by this cabal of incompetent dreamers who run us - just like the "young and hungry" (and cheap) policy they had. If they think it'll work, if they imagine it will work, if they hope it'll work, then it'll just .... work.
Same with Sherwood. Not got his coaching badges yet, management record which consists of, what, 22 league matches taking over a team which was in sixth position, but hey, he's young, and he believes that youth thing, and he does "good media", he's our man.
Meanwhile Tom Fox is talking amazing commercial deals, and chief commercial officers, and building structures to support the manager - director of football, stats analysts, a proper modern team around the manager, while we chase sponsors who realise the potential of this club, in this league, totally and utterly unaware of the fact that the entire thing is going to shit around them.
One thing that struck me today was that, really, it doesn't matter who the manager is. So, in that sense, Sherwood gets a pass from me, fuck it, I'll give the guy a go, and the reason is because ultimately, we are not going down because of anything Sherwood will do, we are going down because the people running this club, from the chairman sat 3000 miles away, flying in for three or four hours every now and then and otherwise running the club by email, down, the lot of them have managed to make such a gigantic pigs ear of it all that Lerner is now staring at turning hundreds of millions of pounds of his own money into a Championship club.
These are the people who put up with that absolute chancer Lambert for two years of absolute guff then gave him a new four year contract on the basis of four acceptable results, then sat their umming and aahing when everyone with even a passing interest could spot it all going to shit, and did nothing about it, nothing, until it was too fecking late.
So, basically, I'm not massively optimistic.
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Bravo!
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Sunderland failing to score in their last three games (home to QPR and West Brom) and cup defeat to Bradford is pretty shocking. Fans on Poyet's back, Danny Graham back in the side... they will be dragged back into it.
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Sunderland failing to score in their last three games (home to QPR and West Brom) and cup defeat to Bradford is pretty shocking. Fans on Poyet's back, Danny Graham back in the side... they will be dragged back into it.
...and then we roll into town for another 6 pointer
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Sunderland failing to score in their last three games (home to QPR and West Brom) and cup defeat to Bradford is pretty shocking. Fans on Poyet's back, Danny Graham back in the side... they will be dragged back into it.
Maybe , but I can't see us catching them.
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We've taken 3 points from the last 30.
We have lost six league games in a row - that's 18 points on offer, from which we have taken zero.
We've scored 13 goals all season. The next team up from that figure has scored 22. We have got the worst goal difference in the league.
We are 19th with 12 games left, and having just notched up our sixth consecutive loss, are showing pretty much no discernible sign of getting better. Not only that, but we are actually starting to look more and more dispirited. Like not only are we missing ability or organisation, there isn't even any spirit.
13 goals all season. Fuck me, that isn't just "bad", that is shockingly bad.
That's not just a pointer to a relegation, its a pointer to a pathetic, Derby County, Sunderland or Wolves style relegation.
I appreciate there is a bit of football still to play, and I understand why people try to be hopeful, but I read people saying we need four or five wins, and really, on the basis of the last 26 league games (and, if you like the 76 before this season, too), I find that pretty much impossible to imagine.
Does anyone think we'll win four or five games between now and the end of the season? Really?
We look utterly feeble and like we're never going to win a league game again.
I am no fan of the Sherwood appointment. It looks to me another hopelessly romantic decision by this cabal of incompetent dreamers who run us - just like the "young and hungry" (and cheap) policy they had. If they think it'll work, if they imagine it will work, if they hope it'll work, then it'll just .... work.
Same with Sherwood. Not got his coaching badges yet, management record which consists of, what, 22 league matches taking over a team which was in sixth position, but hey, he's young, and he believes that youth thing, and he does "good media", he's our man.
Meanwhile Tom Fox is talking amazing commercial deals, and chief commercial officers, and building structures to support the manager - director of football, stats analysts, a proper modern team around the manager, while we chase sponsors who realise the potential of this club, in this league, totally and utterly unaware of the fact that the entire thing is going to shit around them.
One thing that struck me today was that, really, it doesn't matter who the manager is. So, in that sense, Sherwood gets a pass from me, fuck it, I'll give the guy a go, and the reason is because ultimately, we are not going down because of anything Sherwood will do, we are going down because the people running this club, from the chairman sat 3000 miles away, flying in for three or four hours every now and then and otherwise running the club by email, down, the lot of them have managed to make such a gigantic pigs ear of it all that Lerner is now staring at turning hundreds of millions of pounds of his own money into a Championship club.
These are the people who put up with that absolute chancer Lambert for two years of absolute guff then gave him a new four year contract on the basis of four acceptable results, then sat their umming and aahing when everyone with even a passing interest could spot it all going to shit, and did nothing about it, nothing, until it was too fecking late.
So, basically, I'm not massively optimistic.
Excellent. Nothing to disagree with their and really sums up my feeling. Call me pessimistic but to me, it's clear we're fucked.
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We've taken 3 points from the last 30.
We have lost six league games in a row - that's 18 points on offer, from which we have taken zero.
We've scored 13 goals all season. The next team up from that figure has scored 22. We have got the worst goal difference in the league.
We are 19th with 12 games left, and having just notched up our sixth consecutive loss, are showing pretty much no discernible sign of getting better. Not only that, but we are actually starting to look more and more dispirited. Like not only are we missing ability or organisation, there isn't even any spirit.
13 goals all season. Fuck me, that isn't just "bad", that is shockingly bad.
That's not just a pointer to a relegation, its a pointer to a pathetic, Derby County, Sunderland or Wolves style relegation.
I appreciate there is a bit of football still to play, and I understand why people try to be hopeful, but I read people saying we need four or five wins, and really, on the basis of the last 26 league games (and, if you like the 76 before this season, too), I find that pretty much impossible to imagine.
Does anyone think we'll win four or five games between now and the end of the season? Really?
We look utterly feeble and like we're never going to win a league game again.
I am no fan of the Sherwood appointment. It looks to me another hopelessly romantic decision by this cabal of incompetent dreamers who run us - just like the "young and hungry" (and cheap) policy they had. If they think it'll work, if they imagine it will work, if they hope it'll work, then it'll just .... work.
Same with Sherwood. Not got his coaching badges yet, management record which consists of, what, 22 league matches taking over a team which was in sixth position, but hey, he's young, and he believes that youth thing, and he does "good media", he's our man.
Meanwhile Tom Fox is talking amazing commercial deals, and chief commercial officers, and building structures to support the manager - director of football, stats analysts, a proper modern team around the manager, while we chase sponsors who realise the potential of this club, in this league, totally and utterly unaware of the fact that the entire thing is going to shit around them.
One thing that struck me today was that, really, it doesn't matter who the manager is. So, in that sense, Sherwood gets a pass from me, fuck it, I'll give the guy a go, and the reason is because ultimately, we are not going down because of anything Sherwood will do, we are going down because the people running this club, from the chairman sat 3000 miles away, flying in for three or four hours every now and then and otherwise running the club by email, down, the lot of them have managed to make such a gigantic pigs ear of it all that Lerner is now staring at turning hundreds of millions of pounds of his own money into a Championship club.
These are the people who put up with that absolute chancer Lambert for two years of absolute guff then gave him a new four year contract on the basis of four acceptable results, then sat their umming and aahing when everyone with even a passing interest could spot it all going to shit, and did nothing about it, nothing, until it was too fecking late.
So, basically, I'm not massively optimistic.
Good stuff. I suggest you send that into the Evening Mail for the comments section (sans the one or two choice words of course!). Changing the manager was akin to giving a house a new coat of paint when the foundations are giving way.
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Agree Paulie. We're an awful side with a group of players who are performing disgracefully poorly. It'll take a lot to save us from here.
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Evertonian flatmate of mine reckons it's Leicester and QPR + 1, with the final spot being decided on the last day of the season.
I would snap your hand off now, if you offered us the chance to take it to the 38th game. To do that will require something approximating an upturn in form, at least 3-4 wins between now and the end of the season to keep us in contention.
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We're not adrift. A couple of results can put you away from it, that's how tight it is.
I appreciate what people are saying about awful records, but that's true of any club until it changes. Under Lambert it wasn't going to, at least we have finally done something, although we have given him much time.
Four points from the next two will see us out the bottom three and hopefully breathe some confidence back into the side. The belief must come from the players and they have to take responsibility as well for once.
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The bookies still think we'll stay up. The three favourites are Leicester, QPR and Burnley.
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Great rant Paulie and so right.
As for Four points from the next two. We've been saying that pretty much consistantly since Christmas.
It ain't going to happen because we've no quality and no heart.
I didn't want Tim Sherwood but its really not his fault.
Can't really think of a single Villa player ive got any time for these days tbh.
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The fear has spread like a cancer throughout the side and Sherwood has to hack it free so some confidence can grow. It has festered too long and spread too wide, giving the bloke a much harder job than he would have had should he have take the reigns in November or August.
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We've taken 3 points from the last 30.
We have lost six league games in a row - that's 18 points on offer, from which we have taken zero.
We've scored 13 goals all season. The next team up from that figure has scored 22. We have got the worst goal difference in the league.
We are 19th with 12 games left, and having just notched up our sixth consecutive loss, are showing pretty much no discernible sign of getting better. Not only that, but we are actually starting to look more and more dispirited. Like not only are we missing ability or organisation, there isn't even any spirit.
13 goals all season. Fuck me, that isn't just "bad", that is shockingly bad.
That's not just a pointer to a relegation, its a pointer to a pathetic, Derby County, Sunderland or Wolves style relegation.
I appreciate there is a bit of football still to play, and I understand why people try to be hopeful, but I read people saying we need four or five wins, and really, on the basis of the last 26 league games (and, if you like the 76 before this season, too), I find that pretty much impossible to imagine.
Does anyone think we'll win four or five games between now and the end of the season? Really?
We look utterly feeble and like we're never going to win a league game again.
I am no fan of the Sherwood appointment. It looks to me another hopelessly romantic decision by this cabal of incompetent dreamers who run us - just like the "young and hungry" (and cheap) policy they had. If they think it'll work, if they imagine it will work, if they hope it'll work, then it'll just .... work.
Same with Sherwood. Not got his coaching badges yet, management record which consists of, what, 22 league matches taking over a team which was in sixth position, but hey, he's young, and he believes that youth thing, and he does "good media", he's our man.
Meanwhile Tom Fox is talking amazing commercial deals, and chief commercial officers, and building structures to support the manager - director of football, stats analysts, a proper modern team around the manager, while we chase sponsors who realise the potential of this club, in this league, totally and utterly unaware of the fact that the entire thing is going to shit around them.
One thing that struck me today was that, really, it doesn't matter who the manager is. So, in that sense, Sherwood gets a pass from me, fuck it, I'll give the guy a go, and the reason is because ultimately, we are not going down because of anything Sherwood will do, we are going down because the people running this club, from the chairman sat 3000 miles away, flying in for three or four hours every now and then and otherwise running the club by email, down, the lot of them have managed to make such a gigantic pigs ear of it all that Lerner is now staring at turning hundreds of millions of pounds of his own money into a Championship club.
These are the people who put up with that absolute chancer Lambert for two years of absolute guff then gave him a new four year contract on the basis of four acceptable results, then sat their umming and aahing when everyone with even a passing interest could spot it all going to shit, and did nothing about it, nothing, until it was too fecking late.
So, basically, I'm not massively optimistic.
My thoughts exactly and when you spell it out, like you have done, it makes grim reading.
I remember our absolute surrender at Spurs at the end of the season and the matches after the Chelsea win, and confidently thinking Lambert would be sacked last summer.
I think the problem is that we sort of give Lerner some credit for being rich, and therefore intelligent and having some business acumen The point is that he inherited his wealth and and seemingly has no business know how whatsoever. Everything has been done on the cheap since 2010. Ultimately we only did well from 2006 to 2010 due to spending,and wasting, large amounts of cash
Im sure in 10 years time, Harvard will be using Lerner's ownership as a great example of how to run a business into the ground and lose millions in the process
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Not sure about Harvard: the basic Business Studies qualification for the remedial kids could use it because it is so easy to understand and so bloody obvious for the duration.
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Given how shite everyone down there is, I'd say 13 will do it.
Any way, if you want a positive straw to cling to, we've scored 3 goals in our last 2 games. How often have we managed that?
I reckon Hull and Liverpool at the start of the season, then Palace and Leicester just before Christmas have been the only times this season.
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The bookies still think we'll stay up. The three favourites are Leicester, QPR and Burnley.
very surprising when you look at our inability to score or at least see games out.
Paulie: take a bow.
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We've taken 3 points from the last 30.
We have lost six league games in a row - that's 18 points on offer, from which we have taken zero.
We've scored 13 goals all season. The next team up from that figure has scored 22. We have got the worst goal difference in the league.
We are 19th with 12 games left, and having just notched up our sixth consecutive loss, are showing pretty much no discernible sign of getting better. Not only that, but we are actually starting to look more and more dispirited. Like not only are we missing ability or organisation, there isn't even any spirit.
13 goals all season. Fuck me, that isn't just "bad", that is shockingly bad.
That's not just a pointer to a relegation, its a pointer to a pathetic, Derby County, Sunderland or Wolves style relegation.
I appreciate there is a bit of football still to play, and I understand why people try to be hopeful, but I read people saying we need four or five wins, and really, on the basis of the last 26 league games (and, if you like the 76 before this season, too), I find that pretty much impossible to imagine.
Does anyone think we'll win four or five games between now and the end of the season? Really?
We look utterly feeble and like we're never going to win a league game again.
I am no fan of the Sherwood appointment. It looks to me another hopelessly romantic decision by this cabal of incompetent dreamers who run us - just like the "young and hungry" (and cheap) policy they had. If they think it'll work, if they imagine it will work, if they hope it'll work, then it'll just .... work.
Same with Sherwood. Not got his coaching badges yet, management record which consists of, what, 22 league matches taking over a team which was in sixth position, but hey, he's young, and he believes that youth thing, and he does "good media", he's our man.
Meanwhile Tom Fox is talking amazing commercial deals, and chief commercial officers, and building structures to support the manager - director of football, stats analysts, a proper modern team around the manager, while we chase sponsors who realise the potential of this club, in this league, totally and utterly unaware of the fact that the entire thing is going to shit around them.
One thing that struck me today was that, really, it doesn't matter who the manager is. So, in that sense, Sherwood gets a pass from me, fuck it, I'll give the guy a go, and the reason is because ultimately, we are not going down because of anything Sherwood will do, we are going down because the people running this club, from the chairman sat 3000 miles away, flying in for three or four hours every now and then and otherwise running the club by email, down, the lot of them have managed to make such a gigantic pigs ear of it all that Lerner is now staring at turning hundreds of millions of pounds of his own money into a Championship club.
These are the people who put up with that absolute chancer Lambert for two years of absolute guff then gave him a new four year contract on the basis of four acceptable results, then sat their umming and aahing when everyone with even a passing interest could spot it all going to shit, and did nothing about it, nothing, until it was too fecking late.
So, basically, I'm not massively optimistic.
Unfortunately, this excellent missive wins post of the month for February.
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We've taken 3 points from the last 30.
We have lost six league games in a row - that's 18 points on offer, from which we have taken zero.
We've scored 13 goals all season. The next team up from that figure has scored 22. We have got the worst goal difference in the league.
We are 19th with 12 games left, and having just notched up our sixth consecutive loss, are showing pretty much no discernible sign of getting better. Not only that, but we are actually starting to look more and more dispirited. Like not only are we missing ability or organisation, there isn't even any spirit.
13 goals all season. Fuck me, that isn't just "bad", that is shockingly bad.
That's not just a pointer to a relegation, its a pointer to a pathetic, Derby County, Sunderland or Wolves style relegation.
I appreciate there is a bit of football still to play, and I understand why people try to be hopeful, but I read people saying we need four or five wins, and really, on the basis of the last 26 league games (and, if you like the 76 before this season, too), I find that pretty much impossible to imagine.
Does anyone think we'll win four or five games between now and the end of the season? Really?
We look utterly feeble and like we're never going to win a league game again.
I am no fan of the Sherwood appointment. It looks to me another hopelessly romantic decision by this cabal of incompetent dreamers who run us - just like the "young and hungry" (and cheap) policy they had. If they think it'll work, if they imagine it will work, if they hope it'll work, then it'll just .... work.
Same with Sherwood. Not got his coaching badges yet, management record which consists of, what, 22 league matches taking over a team which was in sixth position, but hey, he's young, and he believes that youth thing, and he does "good media", he's our man.
Meanwhile Tom Fox is talking amazing commercial deals, and chief commercial officers, and building structures to support the manager - director of football, stats analysts, a proper modern team around the manager, while we chase sponsors who realise the potential of this club, in this league, totally and utterly unaware of the fact that the entire thing is going to shit around them.
One thing that struck me today was that, really, it doesn't matter who the manager is. So, in that sense, Sherwood gets a pass from me, fuck it, I'll give the guy a go, and the reason is because ultimately, we are not going down because of anything Sherwood will do, we are going down because the people running this club, from the chairman sat 3000 miles away, flying in for three or four hours every now and then and otherwise running the club by email, down, the lot of them have managed to make such a gigantic pigs ear of it all that Lerner is now staring at turning hundreds of millions of pounds of his own money into a Championship club.
These are the people who put up with that absolute chancer Lambert for two years of absolute guff then gave him a new four year contract on the basis of four acceptable results, then sat their umming and aahing when everyone with even a passing interest could spot it all going to shit, and did nothing about it, nothing, until it was too fecking late.
So, basically, I'm not massively optimistic.
My thoughts exactly and when you spell it out, like you have done, it makes grim reading.
I remember our absolute surrender at Spurs at the end of the season and the matches after the Chelsea win, and confidently thinking Lambert would be sacked last summer.
I think the problem is that we sort of give Lerner some credit for being rich, and therefore intelligent and having some business acumen The point is that he inherited his wealth and and seemingly has no business know how whatsoever. Everything has been done on the cheap since 2010. Ultimately we only did well from 2006 to 2010 due to spending,and wasting, large amounts of cash
Im sure in 10 years time, Harvard will be using Lerner's ownership as a great example of how to run a business into the ground and lose millions in the process
After the surrender at Spurs last season, I walked out the ground thinking that Lambert would never be in a our dugout again. That's the reason for our ultimate demise and why we will be relegated.
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Setting points targets for ourselves isn't the be all and end all at this point, we just have to make sure we finish above three other teams. I get the sense that players, fans and everyone connected with the club are mentally fatigued after four years of this and with the fatigue comes a willingness to throw in the towel; we just can't allow ourselves to do that. It's time to dig in to all remaining wells of belief to get the players over the line.
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We've taken 3 points from the last 30.
We have lost six league games in a row - that's 18 points on offer, from which we have taken zero.
We've scored 13 goals all season. The next team up from that figure has scored 22. We have got the worst goal difference in the league.
We are 19th with 12 games left, and having just notched up our sixth consecutive loss, are showing pretty much no discernible sign of getting better. Not only that, but we are actually starting to look more and more dispirited. Like not only are we missing ability or organisation, there isn't even any spirit.
13 goals all season. Fuck me, that isn't just "bad", that is shockingly bad.
That's not just a pointer to a relegation, its a pointer to a pathetic, Derby County, Sunderland or Wolves style relegation.
I appreciate there is a bit of football still to play, and I understand why people try to be hopeful, but I read people saying we need four or five wins, and really, on the basis of the last 26 league games (and, if you like the 76 before this season, too), I find that pretty much impossible to imagine.
Does anyone think we'll win four or five games between now and the end of the season? Really?
We look utterly feeble and like we're never going to win a league game again.
I am no fan of the Sherwood appointment. It looks to me another hopelessly romantic decision by this cabal of incompetent dreamers who run us - just like the "young and hungry" (and cheap) policy they had. If they think it'll work, if they imagine it will work, if they hope it'll work, then it'll just .... work.
Same with Sherwood. Not got his coaching badges yet, management record which consists of, what, 22 league matches taking over a team which was in sixth position, but hey, he's young, and he believes that youth thing, and he does "good media", he's our man.
Meanwhile Tom Fox is talking amazing commercial deals, and chief commercial officers, and building structures to support the manager - director of football, stats analysts, a proper modern team around the manager, while we chase sponsors who realise the potential of this club, in this league, totally and utterly unaware of the fact that the entire thing is going to shit around them.
One thing that struck me today was that, really, it doesn't matter who the manager is. So, in that sense, Sherwood gets a pass from me, fuck it, I'll give the guy a go, and the reason is because ultimately, we are not going down because of anything Sherwood will do, we are going down because the people running this club, from the chairman sat 3000 miles away, flying in for three or four hours every now and then and otherwise running the club by email, down, the lot of them have managed to make such a gigantic pigs ear of it all that Lerner is now staring at turning hundreds of millions of pounds of his own money into a Championship club.
These are the people who put up with that absolute chancer Lambert for two years of absolute guff then gave him a new four year contract on the basis of four acceptable results, then sat their umming and aahing when everyone with even a passing interest could spot it all going to shit, and did nothing about it, nothing, until it was too fecking late.
So, basically, I'm not massively optimistic.
Great post, and "too fecking late" is the most crucial part. I believe this situation was avoidable had we acted in December but the numerous warning signs were ignored for far too long and we are crippled now. Other clubs did the right thing and will survive. We are left with appointing Sherwood who may turn out to be a good manager in time but could equally not be manager standard at all.
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It's incredibly inept to take 3 points since we beat Leicester on December 7th. Since then we've played Stoke, Swansea, Palace, Sunderland, WBA, Leicester and Hull.
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It's incredibly inept to take 3 points since we beat Leicester on December 7th. Since then we've played Stoke, Swansea, Palace, Sunderland, WBA, Leicester and Hull.
Exactly why we will be playing in the championship after the summer . The club is a feckin shambles .
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The April fixtures look horrendous. We need to get at least 10 points from the next 4 games to even have a prayer. It's not going to happen is it?
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Since we won at Anfield our record is
PL22 W2 D6 L14 F9 A35 GD-26 Pts12
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The April fixtures look horrendous. We need to get at least 10 points from the next 4 games to even have a prayer. It's not going to happen is it?
If we reach the semis, May will be Everton, West Ham, QPR and Burnley at home and Saints away.
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QPR would be played on 21st/22nd April if we make the Semis, wouldn't it?
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Spot on Mr Walnuts as usual. It's hard to fathom how Team Lerner could have fucked things up more if they were a bunch of billionaire bluenoses and boggies with a fiendish plan to destroy Villa for ever. That's how incompetent they have been. They seem to forget that relegation exists here and that achieving a decent sale price, and securing all these fancy commercial deals and sponsorships they are busy chasing, depend on one thing - maintaining PL status. If we do go down I can just imagine Lerner and Fox sitting there looking at each other with totally bemused slack-jawed looks on their faces and going "Oh!" as the penny drops. If it wasn't our club being shafted it would be almost funny.
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If we do go down I can just imagine Lerner and Fox sitting there looking at each other with totally bemused slack-jawed looks on their faces and going "Oh!" as the penny drops.
Via Skype.
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QPR would be played on 21st/22nd April if we make the Semis, wouldn't it?
Not if there's champions league that week as Uefa have put in a bizarre rule you can't play Premier league games on CL nights anymore.
It will be the next free midweek after that.
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Is there a legal term whereby someone can be held accountable for driving someone to suicide? Because Paulie and PWS' posts with the stats and cold hard facts have really got to me. They might as well have taken it in turns beating me over the head with a blunt instrument.
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What I find so maddening (to put it extremely mildly) about Lerner is that he manages to assemble a team of Fox and all these forward thinking people just at the time we are staring down the barrel. He could have tried to get this calibre of personnel in at the beginning of his ownership. He could have tried to bring such people in when O'Neill's reign ended.
Lerner's leadership and thinking is so all over the shop that I wonder how on earth he manages to get up in the morning and dress himself. He is, without doubt in my mind, the reason why we are in this situation again. Lambert had about nine million quid to put right our squad last summer - nine million quid to pad out a squad that was already desperately short on quality and numbers. The writing was on the wall when Senderos, Cole and Richardson were signed up.
It's desperate stuff of clusterfuck proportions BUT we aren't down yet. The figures Paulie has cited above are bone-chillingly bad yet, somehow, we are still around, not cut adrift. It's going to take a real dogs of war spirit to get us through this - that and an all new karma-busting orange megadot.
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What I find so maddening (to put it extremely mildly) about Lerner is that he manages to assemble a team of Fox and all these forward thinking people just at the time we are staring down the barrel. He could have tried to get this calibre of personnel in at the beginning of his ownership. He could have tried to bring such people in when O'Neill's reign ended.
He did. We had those slick American marketing people such as Bob Kain - I remember serious discussions about IMG bringing in players such as Ronaldo and whether we should bother trying to sign Theirry Henry - then they all disappeared without trace and for no reason.
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Its no so much that they disappeared as that happens, it's the speed that they disappeared with. one minute we were hearing about our future and then one by one people we heard were great were disappearing. The early years now seem to be summed up with Nike. It sounded great and a real coup at first but late kits and peeling logos showed that it was all thrown together and not part of a masterplan to really propel us forward.
i feel cheated.
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Given how shite everyone down there is, I'd say 13 will do it.
Any way, if you want a positive straw to cling to, we've scored 3 goals in our last 2 games. How often have we managed that?
I reckon Hull and Liverpool at the start of the season, then Palace and Leicester just before Christmas have been the only times this season.
I think that is one of the major things we are now relying on. We need QPR, Burnley, Leicester and maybe even Sunderland to keep losing and take some heavy beatings on the way, as yet again our goal difference is a problem.
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What I find so maddening (to put it extremely mildly) about Lerner is that he manages to assemble a team of Fox and all these forward thinking people just at the time we are staring down the barrel. He could have tried to get this calibre of personnel in at the beginning of his ownership. He could have tried to bring such people in when O'Neill's reign ended.
He did. We had those slick American marketing people such as Bob Kain - I remember serious discussions about IMG bringing in players such as Ronaldo and whether we should bother trying to sign Theirry Henry - then they all disappeared without trace and for no reason.
Yep, I remember those people, too, but like you say, they didn't stick around for some reason. Maybe Lerner knew he needed top level people from the start but either they sussed him out early on and bailed or he realised he didn't have the backing to match their vision so he let them go without any idea of where to go next. Either way, Lerner took on Aston Villa with no firm fixed plan in his head and, as a result of such poor leadership, fuzzy-thinking and decision-making, the club has started to drift and let in water.
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What I find so maddening (to put it extremely mildly) about Lerner is that he manages to assemble a team of Fox and all these forward thinking people just at the time we are staring down the barrel. He could have tried to get this calibre of personnel in at the beginning of his ownership. He could have tried to bring such people in when O'Neill's reign ended.
He did. We had those slick American marketing people such as Bob Kain - I remember serious discussions about IMG bringing in players such as Ronaldo and whether we should bother trying to sign Theirry Henry - then they all disappeared without trace and for no reason.
Yep, I remember those people, too, but like you say, they didn't stick around for some reason. Maybe Lerner knew he needed top level people from the start but either they sussed him out early on and bailed or he realised he didn't have the backing to match their vision so he let them go without any idea of where to go next. Either way, Lerner took on Aston Villa with no firm fixed plan in his head and, as a result of such poor leadership, fuzzy-thinking and decision-making, the club has started to drift and let in water.
Tom Fox made a good point on Thursday night when he said in not so many words that Randy thought he could bankroll success himself, but then the game changed and he couldn't.
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When the poll started I said 'probably not but I'm worried'. My worries increased a hell of a lot yesterday when the new manager bounce didn't work and we lost a game in a way that smacks of a team going down. Turning victory into defeat and all that.
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What I find so maddening (to put it extremely mildly) about Lerner is that he manages to assemble a team of Fox and all these forward thinking people just at the time we are staring down the barrel. He could have tried to get this calibre of personnel in at the beginning of his ownership. He could have tried to bring such people in when O'Neill's reign ended.
He did. We had those slick American marketing people such as Bob Kain - I remember serious discussions about IMG bringing in players such as Ronaldo and whether we should bother trying to sign Theirry Henry - then they all disappeared without trace and for no reason.
Yep, I remember those people, too, but like you say, they didn't stick around for some reason. Maybe Lerner knew he needed top level people from the start but either they sussed him out early on and bailed or he realised he didn't have the backing to match their vision so he let them go without any idea of where to go next. Either way, Lerner took on Aston Villa with no firm fixed plan in his head and, as a result of such poor leadership, fuzzy-thinking and decision-making, the club has started to drift and let in water.
Tom Fox made a good point on Thursday night when he said in not so many words that Randy thought he could bankroll success himself, but then the game changed and he couldn't.
What was it about the game that changed, I wonder? The arrival of FFP or Man City? If it was the former it makes me wonder how on earth we have made such a poor fist of adapting to it when other established clubs seem to have taken it in their stride. A litany of poor decision-making, bad appointments and no tangible solid plan is what has taken us here. Maybe Bob Kain and co could see this type of thing a mile off.
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Evertonian flatmate of mine reckons it's Leicester and QPR + 1, with the final spot being decided on the last day of the season.
I would snap your hand off now, if you offered us the chance to take it to the 38th game. To do that will require something approximating an upturn in form, at least 3-4 wins between now and the end of the season to keep us in contention.
It is quite obvious that our form needs to improve significantly if we are going to have any hope of staying up. Extrapolating from 22 points from 26 games (which have been our points haul so far this season), we'll end up with 32 points, unlikely to be enough to avoid relegation. If we only look at our previous 13 games (approximately 1/3 of a season), we have won 9 points; that implies 8 more points in the coming 12 matches and only 30 points at the end and certain relegation. Judging by our previous 10 matches, where we have won a meagre 3 points, we can only expect four more points, which will leave us with 26 points and hopelessly adrift.
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It's one thing not to gorge the club with money to bring us success - that ship has certainly sailed - but why starve us of money to bring us ruin? He could have definitely contributed a bit more just to keep the club safe. We would hardly be forcibly demoted by FFP for spending an extra £10m last summer - had we miraculously qualified for Europe we might have been barred, but that's an amazing luxury to consider at this point.
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It's one thing not to gorge the club with money to bring us success - that ship has certainly sailed - but why starve us of money to bring us ruin? He could have definitely contributed a bit more just to keep the club safe. We would hardly be forcibly demoted by FFP for spending an extra £10m last summer - had we miraculously qualified for Europe we might have been barred, but that's an amazing luxury to consider at this point.
Exactly.
Not spending £30m in the summer window is totally forgivable and understandable. Spending just the £9m or whatever it was, though, that's a different matter.
Even then, though, I don't think money is the main problem here. The problem strikes me more as one of incompetence plus lack of interest.
Whoever buys us next, I'd rather we had someone with less cash but who was significantly more clued up and knew what they were doing. The whole detached approach of the last few years has been pretty depressing, really.
What sticks in the craw is looking back at all that stuff for four years from them - "don't worry about the money, we know what we're doing", plus the "we will be here through thick and thin", whereas actually, it turned out they didn't know what they were doing (and those of us who raised the wage bill years ago were exactly right to do so), and their interest disappeared abruptly at the very first sign of thin.
I don't go into that whole "he's taking money out of the club" thing, it is demonstrably untrue, he has spent a lot of money. it is just that sometimes you need to do more than throw money at something
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I agree Paulie. He had no plan beyond 'give Martin loads of money'. He certainly didn't have any footballing wisdom around him to ask if, maybe, Martin was the right guy to keep giving that amount of cash. If you compare how we're run to how, again, Swansea and Southampton are run, it's absolutely staggering. We do practically nothing that they do, and we continue to fail while they succeed beyond all expectations, and we act all surprised that it's not working out! It would be funny, actually, were we not Villa fans.
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Whoever buys us next, I'd rather we had someone with less cash but who was significantly more clued up and knew what they were doing. The whole detached approach of the last few years has been pretty depressing, really.
I don't go into that whole "he's taking money out of the club" thing, it is demonstrably untrue, he has spent a lot of money. it is just that sometimes you need to do more than throw money at something
On the first point, I've been saying that for two or three years, usually in response to the 'better the devil you know' argument. It's difficult to see how the decision-making at the club could possibly have been worse over the last few years. That terrible management has cost the club an awful lot of money that could otherwise have been spent on the team.
On the second point, I don't think for a moment that Lerner is trying to make money from the club, and I don't think many people really do believe that. What I do think is that he has long since decided to cut his losses and spends the barest minimum. In that sense I think it's fair to say the we're being run not in the best interests of the team, or even the club, but in the best interests of Randy's bank account. That would account for Monty's point about starving us of money to bring us to ruin. Randy no longer cares about us as much as he cares about saving money.
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At best I think it could well go to a final day decider with Burnley & at this moment in time I'd take that. Because no matter how I look at it I do not see us pulling ourselves away from it.
Shit teams know to defend deep, crowd Benteke & wait for us to make a fuck up. All too often over the last 4 seasons we've obliged.
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I agree Paulie. He had no plan beyond 'give Martin loads of money'. He certainly didn't have any footballing wisdom around him to ask if, maybe, Martin was the right guy to keep giving that amount of cash. If you compare how we're run to how, again, Swansea and Southampton are run, it's absolutely staggering. We do practically nothing that they do, and we continue to fail while they succeed beyond all expectations, and we act all surprised that it's not working out! It would be funny, actually, were we not Villa fans.
I was going to post about Swansea. Well run by people who, as far as I'm aware, are not rich by the standards of PL football owners. And Southampton, who appear to be well run despite being owned by a woman who supposedly inherited something she had little or no interest in. But clearly somebody at both clubs is making more good decisions to bad ones.
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With the amount of money we have blown on management pay-offs or killer wages to players who barely make the starting XI, you'd think we'd have looked at the possibility of headhunting the likes of Huw Jenkins at Swansea or Cortese or Rogers at Southampton.
Paying them double or even treble what they're on at present and not spunking the ridiculous sums we have since 2011 (nevermind the MON years) would have left us in far better shape.
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What I find so maddening (to put it extremely mildly) about Lerner is that he manages to assemble a team of Fox and all these forward thinking people just at the time we are staring down the barrel. He could have tried to get this calibre of personnel in at the beginning of his ownership. He could have tried to bring such people in when O'Neill's reign ended.
He did. We had those slick American marketing people such as Bob Kain - I remember serious discussions about IMG bringing in players such as Ronaldo and whether we should bother trying to sign Theirry Henry - then they all disappeared without trace and for no reason.
Yep, I remember those people, too, but like you say, they didn't stick around for some reason. Maybe Lerner knew he needed top level people from the start but either they sussed him out early on and bailed or he realised he didn't have the backing to match their vision so he let them go without any idea of where to go next. Either way, Lerner took on Aston Villa with no firm fixed plan in his head and, as a result of such poor leadership, fuzzy-thinking and decision-making, the club has started to drift and let in water.
Tom Fox made a good point on Thursday night when he said in not so many words that Randy thought he could bankroll success himself, but then the game changed and he couldn't.
What was it about the game that changed, I wonder? The arrival of FFP or Man City? If it was the former it makes me wonder how on earth we have made such a poor fist of adapting to it when other established clubs seem to have taken it in their stride. A litany of poor decision-making, bad appointments and no tangible solid plan is what has taken us here. Maybe Bob Kain and co could see this type of thing a mile off.
At the time of Bob Cain and IMG talk, Man City were not yet mega rich and FFP was not on the horizon. A certain manager with what appears to be an all-consuming ego was around at the time. If he demanded total control, as is likely, no need or place for anyone else to be looking at bringing players in, and no place for anyone that might cramp his style and dilute his control and influence. That's my take on it. And even after City got rich, that's just one additional club that we couldn't compete with. The fact that we've been unable to compete with the likes of Stoke, Swansea and Southampton over recent seasons has nothing to do with FFP and everything to do with having Terry Fuckwit's American cousin in charge.
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It's looking like a 4 team shoot out and we seem to be the only one incapable of getting any points.
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Its no so much that they disappeared as that happens, it's the speed that they disappeared with. one minute we were hearing about our future and then one by one people we heard were great were disappearing. The early years now seem to be summed up with Nike. It sounded great and a real coup at first but late kits and peeling logos showed that it was all thrown together and not part of a masterplan to really propel us forward.
i feel cheated.
The day the money tap was turned off was the day MON walked or maybe a week or two before
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It's looking like a 4 team shoot out and we seem to be the only one incapable of getting any points.
I wouldn't say that regarding four teams. The Albion for example have Southampton at home next. If we can finally stop the rot and pick up a win, then we go into our game knowing we can move above them if we're able to beat them at home, which we need to do.
It's very tight, which is why dropping a point yesterday is all the more annoying.
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Oh to know exactly what (1) the terms of MON's engagement with regard to spending were; and (2) the conversations that were had in the weeks leading up to his resignation.
Napoleon's retreat from Moscow looks like an orderly, well-managed withdrawl compared to what the Villa have done since throwing in the towel on the UEFA Cup tie in the same city.
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Our biggest problem is that all the other teams are capable of winning and we just aren't at the moment.
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Thugs change. You're on a bad run until you're not. Hull looked like they were taking the plunge but have managed to get a confidence boosting point and now have 7 from 9.
We have better quality than the others down there, they just need to believe in themselves.
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Thugs change. You're on a bad run until you're not. Hull looked like they were taking the plunge but have managed to get a confidence boosting point and now have 7 from 9.
We have better quality than the others down there, they just need to believe in themselves.
Yeah but we seem to go on runs of 5, 6 or 7 games without a win quite regularly. That may change under Sherwood, but it has change very very fast.
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Squeaky brum time
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It's looking like a 4 team shoot out and we seem to be the only one incapable of getting any points.
I wouldn't say that regarding four teams. The Albion for example have Southampton at home next. If we can finally stop the rot and pick up a win, then we go into our game knowing we can move above them if we're able to beat them at home, which we need to do.
It's very tight, which is why dropping a point yesterday is all the more annoying.
Think we need Albion to continue to have a good run. They have QPR and Leicester back to back at home at the start of April after all.
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Its no so much that they disappeared as that happens, it's the speed that they disappeared with. one minute we were hearing about our future and then one by one people we heard were great were disappearing. The early years now seem to be summed up with Nike. It sounded great and a real coup at first but late kits and peeling logos showed that it was all thrown together and not part of a masterplan to really propel us forward.
i feel cheated.
The day the money tap was turned off was the day MON walked or maybe a week or two before
We paid big money for Bent the following January.
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It's looking like a 4 team shoot out and we seem to be the only one incapable of getting any points.
I wouldn't say that regarding four teams. The Albion for example have Southampton at home next. If we can finally stop the rot and pick up a win, then we go into our game knowing we can move above them if we're able to beat them at home, which we need to do.
It's very tight, which is why dropping a point yesterday is all the more annoying.
Think we need Albion to continue to have a good run. They have QPR and Leicester back to back at home at the start of April after all.
Don't they have a really bad run-in at the end of the season?
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We are down, and Lerner is to blame. Lambert should have been fired and a new manager bought in the autumn. Too little too late sadly. I feel sorry for Sherwood in honesty
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Last night I felt quite ill as reality dawned that we are down. I felt bad walking away from the KC after the 0-2 but yesterday after all feb positivity of the week prior was an absolute massive kick in the balls. I think it's terminal.
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Last night I felt quite ill as reality dawned that we are down.
But we're not are we?
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Last night I felt quite ill as reality dawned that we are down.
But we're not are we?
Honestly I think so yes.
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Semantically, we are not relegated. Yet. I still hope to be wrong and have a forfeit to perform at work if we do stay up.
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Last night I felt fucking great as reality dawned that unleaded petrol will be down to 15p a litre in May.
I honestly think it will.
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Last night I felt fucking great as reality dawned that unleaded petrol will be down to 15p a litre in May.
I honestly think it will.
Hmmm , I was in France earlier today and it was running at 140/litre
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We are down, and Lerner is to blame. Lambert should have been fired and a new manager bought in the autumn. Too little too late sadly. I feel sorry for Sherwood in honesty
Yes but they're ahead of us now and I'd prefer teams around us like Burnley and QPR to win as few games as possible.
Looking at the run ins Sunderland only have 5 home games left and their away games are Man. United, Arsenal, Chelsea, West Ham, Hull, Stoke and Everton so if there's one above to be dragged in it's them.
ALthough of course they hit amazing form last season when they looked dead and buried.
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I still think it will go to the Burnley home game. Don't forget teams with small squads suffer at the end with injuries/ suspensions coming into play. At least we have decent numbers in the sqad, even if there's little quality.
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I really hope, for whatever reasons it doesn't go to the last day. I've seen a hell of a lot more fight in Burnley this season compared to the Villa team. I'd rather not have to go through a final day ordeal.
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Holding on to Lambert for so long has probably done for us, the only hope is that the teams around us continue the poor form.
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Probably the worst thing is seeing Sandwell FC slowly inch away from us - now 5 points in front. I think they will survive now. A good signing in Lescott - can't believe we let him join them. I think him and Okore would've been great.
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Every other team seems more capable of scoring and battling harder than us. I still don't trust us that we will run for every lost cause, think quicker, be organized quicker than the teams around us. I really hope that the players watch a video of the game yesterday and learn from it. Like many people on here, I have been thinking that we are too good to go down, but I am fast losing faith in these players.
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The lack of a consistent long term plan by Lerner and by the managers is where we are doomed to fail.The appointment of Sherwood is a classic example of fire fighting.Its too late now but we needed to be proactive as opposed to reactive quite some time ago.
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Last night I felt fucking great as reality dawned that unleaded petrol will be down to 15p a litre in May.
I honestly think it will.
Hmmm , I was in France earlier today and it was running at 140/litre
UL 95 E10 is €1.28 per litre where I am.
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I'm sure there have been many instances in the past where a team in utterly dire form, with seemingly no way out of it, do exactly that (as opposed to never, ever winning again.) I think that applies to us: while at this moment, things look completely bleak, we'll improve, but not in the sort of linear manner that makes sense (i.e. a small steps forward sort of thing.) I reckon it'll be more of a scrappy win, a couple of strong performances, a freak result at one of the four remaining toughies, mixed with a few extremely shite performances.
I think it ultimately comes down to the fact that there are four or five teams around us who, for all their alleged "fighting quality" which we apparently don't have, are still far too shit to pull away from our own brand of shittiness. I suspect that even an underwhelming run of results could leave us with all to play for on the final day against Burnley.
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Every other team seems more capable of scoring and battling harder than us. I still don't trust us that we will run for every lost cause, think quicker, be organized quicker than the teams around us. I really hope that the players watch a video of the game yesterday and learn from it. Like many people on here, I have been thinking that we are too good to go down, but I am fast losing faith in these players.
I genuinely think some of them couldn't care less to be honest. I'd even go as far as saying some of them wouldn't mind going down as they would get more opportunities to play and the others probably think they'll get a move anyway.
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Given how flakey most of our squad seem to be I'm praying we get safe before the final day. They just can't cope with pressure.
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I think after we lose our next league game I will give up what little hope I have left. We have circled the drain for what feels about the usual amount of seasons. Lerner didnt spend big in January to try and keep us up. The players simply may be what we paid for , cheap or championship level quality. Surprisingly I don't feel nervous about relegation like I did the previous seasons. I have just come to accept it as a consequence of the clubs decisions. We can't argue bad luck has done us in. Even in a game where we got rid or dropped almost all our scapegoats we still lost. We have been sinking up the league all season. Probably time to go.
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I won't give up hope until it's mathematically impossible but That hope just keeps getting chopped away at week by week, game by game....
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The counter argument to anything said on here as 'pointing to relegation' is that we're level on points with a side outside the relegation zone. Forget about 38 points or 5 wins, all we need to focus on is getting 1 point more than Burnley and QPR over the next 12 games, they're both just as bad as we are except they've scored more goals but so far under Sherwood we have 1 in 1. On top of that the goal difference isn't as debilitating as some make it seem, we're 5 behind QPR that's 1-2 heavy defeats for a side who's next 2 games are against arsenal and tottenham. Burnley are 4 ahead but have Liverpool, Man City and Southampton as 3 of their next 4. In that time we play an unpredictable Newcastle and then relegation rivals West Brom and Sunderland. If' we're still bottom 3 after that then we need to be worried but right now we're not cast adrift and favourites for the drop as some seem to think.
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The counter argument to anything said on here as 'pointing to relegation' is that we're level on points with a side outside the relegation zone. Forget about 38 points or 5 wins, all we need to focus on is getting 1 point more than Burnley and QPR over the next 12 games, they're both just as bad as we are except they've scored more goals but so far under Sherwood we have 1 in 1. On top of that the goal difference isn't as debilitating as some make it seem, we're 5 behind QPR that's 1-2 heavy defeats for a side who's next 2 games are against arsenal and tottenham. Burnley are 4 ahead but have Liverpool, Man City and Southampton as 3 of their next 4. In that time we play an unpredictable Newcastle and then relegation rivals West Brom and Sunderland. If' we're still bottom 3 after that then we need to be worried but right now we're not cast adrift and favourites for the drop as some seem to think.
It's a straw and I'm clinging to it....
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The counter argument to anything said on here as 'pointing to relegation' is that we're level on points with a side outside the relegation zone. Forget about 38 points or 5 wins, all we need to focus on is getting 1 point more than Burnley and QPR over the next 12 games, they're both just as bad as we are except they've scored more goals but so far under Sherwood we have 1 in 1. On top of that the goal difference isn't as debilitating as some make it seem, we're 5 behind QPR that's 1-2 heavy defeats for a side who's next 2 games are against arsenal and tottenham. Burnley are 4 ahead but have Liverpool, Man City and Southampton as 3 of their next 4. In that time we play an unpredictable Newcastle and then relegation rivals West Brom and Sunderland. If' we're still bottom 3 after that then we need to be worried but right now we're not cast adrift and favourites for the drop as some seem to think.
Quite right Paul. Except if you think West Brom are relegation candidates with Pulis at the helm you are sadly deluded. We should be capable of staying up with ease if Sherwood has anything about him and Delph starts showing again.
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The counter argument to anything said on here as 'pointing to relegation' is that we're level on points with a side outside the relegation zone. Forget about 38 points or 5 wins, all we need to focus on is getting 1 point more than Burnley and QPR over the next 12 games, they're both just as bad as we are except they've scored more goals but so far under Sherwood we have 1 in 1. On top of that the goal difference isn't as debilitating as some make it seem, we're 5 behind QPR that's 1-2 heavy defeats for a side who's next 2 games are against arsenal and tottenham. Burnley are 4 ahead but have Liverpool, Man City and Southampton as 3 of their next 4. In that time we play an unpredictable Newcastle and then relegation rivals West Brom and Sunderland. If' we're still bottom 3 after that then we need to be worried but right now we're not cast adrift and favourites for the drop as some seem to think.
We were ahead of those teams not long ago by quite some points, now we're below. That to me suggest they are not as bad as we are.
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Despite the FA cup win the team still looks fragile.Only really Clark ,Hutton and the 2 new guys are looking at it currently.Gabby and Benteke as a front 2 offered nothing and the 2 CM's whilst they were outnumbered in general they were both poor.
The other issue is for the 3rd time this season we are trying to adopt a new system and tactics , but this point we should have something settled but we don't.I do worry that Sherwood long term could be good for us but in our position an experienced head to ground out results might have been a better option.Have to say it is worrying that we played a pretty poor threadbare Stoke side and didn't get a new manager bounce.WBA and Palace both got that and have built from there.
Newcastle has to be a must win now we need something on the board and quick.They were evidently very poor Saturday (didn't watch any football once we lost ) and safe in midtable with a caretaker manager so we need to go up there and get a result.
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All we need to happen is for Burnley, Leicester and QPR to lose every game from now on. Then we'll definitely stay up.
Sorted.
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The counter argument to anything said on here as 'pointing to relegation' is that we're level on points with a side outside the relegation zone. Forget about 38 points or 5 wins, all we need to focus on is getting 1 point more than Burnley and QPR over the next 12 games, they're both just as bad as we are except they've scored more goals but so far under Sherwood we have 1 in 1. On top of that the goal difference isn't as debilitating as some make it seem, we're 5 behind QPR that's 1-2 heavy defeats for a side who's next 2 games are against arsenal and tottenham. Burnley are 4 ahead but have Liverpool, Man City and Southampton as 3 of their next 4. In that time we play an unpredictable Newcastle and then relegation rivals West Brom and Sunderland. If' we're still bottom 3 after that then we need to be worried but right now we're not cast adrift and favourites for the drop as some seem to think.
Quite right Paul. Except if you think West Brom are relegation candidates with Pulis at the helm you are sadly deluded. We should be capable of staying up with ease if Sherwood has anything about him and Delph starts showing again.
Everyone from Everton down is in the relegation battle, the chances of the top 2 or 3 sides being drawn in are much slimmer but if, for example, Berahino got injured I'm not sure West Brom have that many goals in them and they're still not great in defence so it could easily happen. That's what happened to us last year remember, we were looking safely mid-table until we lost Kozak and Benteke and ended up with nothing up front. I know Pulis is decent at getting a team organised but he's really not deserving of the god-like status some on here give him.
As I said, the next 3 league games are important, there are points there for us and the team need to stand up and show what they're capable of. Newcastle are in poor form themselves so we need to, for once, not be the side that teams beat to get their season back on track.
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All we need to happen is for Burnley, Leicester and QPR to lose every game from now on. Then we'll definitely stay up.
Sorted.
thats the easiest scenario, I'll take that
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The gutting thing is at one point Saturday we had 5 teams below us if we could of just hung on..
Newcastle one win in 8 nothing to play for need to make that count.
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Given how flakey most of our squad seem to be I'm praying we get safe before the final day. They just can't cope with pressure.
...same can be said of me when I'm watching them!
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I'm sure there have been many instances in the past where a team in utterly dire form, with seemingly no way out of it, do exactly that (as opposed to never, ever winning again.) I think that applies to us: while at this moment, things look completely bleak, we'll improve, but not in the sort of linear manner that makes sense (i.e. a small steps forward sort of thing.) I reckon it'll be more of a scrappy win, a couple of strong performances, a freak result at one of the four remaining toughies, mixed with a few extremely shite performances.
I think it ultimately comes down to the fact that there are four or five teams around us who, for all their alleged "fighting quality" which we apparently don't have, are still far too shit to pull away from our own brand of shittiness. I suspect that even an underwhelming run of results could leave us with all to play for on the final day against Burnley.
I think its going to go to the final day aswell. Think we are going to be very reliant on Scott Sinclair for the rest of the season. He was a passenger at Hull but that was a genuine quality header at the weekend. Finally one of our forward players actually moving in the box. Gabby finished the 12/13 season very strongly but I have no faith in Benteke, Weimann or himself at the moment. Each one as bad as the other really. Have to get a result at Newcastle, a win would be some boost but a point would stop the rot. It wont take much to pull clear but not sure we have it in us.
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I think after we lose our next league game I will give up what little hope I have left. We have circled the drain for what feels about the usual amount of seasons. Lerner didnt spend big in January to try and keep us up. The players simply may be what we paid for , cheap or championship level quality. Surprisingly I don't feel nervous about relegation like I did the previous seasons. I have just come to accept it as a consequence of the clubs decisions. We can't argue bad luck has done us in. Even in a game where we got rid or dropped almost all our scapegoats we still lost. We have been sinking up the league all season. Probably time to go.
I think the two Albion games could be the pivotal ones. If we were to lose both of those then it would be a massive blow which would be hard to recover from.
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Gallingly, I can't think of two sets of fans who'd like to relegate us more than the two Stripeys.
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Finished with the Villa 'cos they make me want to end my life,
People think I'm insane because I watch s**t football all the time.
Sherwood help me.
Please just win a game.
Oh yeah
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The algos have us doomed.
REVEALED: How Chelsea will end champions, Arsenal fourth, Man Utd fifth, Liverpool sixth (http://www.dailystar.co.uk/sport/football/427171/Final-predicted-Premier-League-table)
REVEALED: How Chelsea will end champions, Arsenal fourth, Man Utd fifth, Liverpool sixth
THIS is how expert number crunchers think the Premier League table will end up
By Jack Wilson / Published 23rd February 2015]
(http://images.dailystar-uk.co.uk/dynamic/58/photos/965000/200965.jpg)
Despite Jose Mourinho's claims of a campaign against his side, it's predicted that Chelsea will become champions in May.
Manchester City are on course to finish second - six points adrift of top spot -- with Southampton in third.
Arsenal come home fourth, Manchester United fifth and Liverpool sixth in the table devised using a series of complex algorithms.
The stats geeks take into account every result this season - home and away.
They then and work out the percentages of each team getting results in the remaining games of the season.
The table makes grim reading for Aston Villa fans, whose side are predicted to finish bottom by a point.
Burnley and QPR are also set for the drop while Leicester stay up on goal difference.
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We're only going to score 2 goals and still get 8 points? And a team will stay up on 31 points. The nerdlingers should stick to dongle jokes.
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Two 1-0 wins and two 0-0 draws? No chance.
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We're only going to score 2 goals and still get 8 points? And a team will stay up on 31 points. The nerdlingers should stick to dongle jokes.
(http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/06/22/article-2163111-13BBE510000005DC-589_306x423.jpg)
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We're only going to score 2 goals and still get 8 points? And a team will stay up on 31 points. The nerdlingers should stick to dongle jokes.
I think some team or teams will stay up with a very low points total.When I did the predictor a couple of weeks back I'm sure I had a team or two staying up on not much more than 32 points. I still think QPR, Leicester and Burnley will drop, although the last two put on decent performances at the weekend. It will be a very close call for us, Sunderland and Hull I reckon.
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Those are my three for the drop too, Damo.
Since November, with the exception of Arsenal away, we've only lost by a single goal. It doesn't take much to improve and start picking up points.
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Only once since the league went to 20 teams has 31 points been enough to stay up.
From 2000 onwards the sides in 18th have had 33, 34, 36, 42, 33, 34, 34, 38, 36, 34, 30, 39, 36, 36, 33.
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Only once since the league went to 20 teams has 31 points been enough to stay up.
From 2000 onwards the sides in 18th have had 33, 34, 36, 42, 33, 34, 34, 38, 36, 34, 30, 39, 36, 36, 33.
I think 34 might do it. If I remember right my predictor 'proved' it.
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Problem for me this year is our GD is so awful and the worst in the league on account of hardly scoring any goals.
In previous seasons when we've been down there our GD has been worth an extra point so unless we get a big win or two which looks very unlikely then 34 points is too low for me to be confident we'll stop up.
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Problem for me this year is our GD is so awful and the worst in the league on account of hardly scoring any goals.
In previous seasons when we've been down there our GD has been worth an extra point so unless we get a big win or two which looks very unlikely then 34 points is too low for me to be confident we'll stop up.
Our GD was terrible in Lambert's first season, mainly due to our 'happy christmas'.
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Only the bottom 3 had a worse GD than us last season, and Lambert's first season it was the bottom 3 and Newcastle who were worse. The Sunderland game was what swung our GD as I think ours was the worst around this time that season. Quite simply we need to win, do that and the GD takes care of itself.
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I can't see QPR, Leicester or Burnley getting much more than 30 points to be honest. They're all absolute dross. We are of course just as bad, but the key think will be how Benteke responds for the remainder of the season. I honestly thing 12 more points would do it. It's not a huge figure, but it does seem a long way off.
We'll see. They key games are those against the sides around us, as well as the Newcastle game, as they're in a bit of mess lately.
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With every defeat it feels more and more like we may be finally relegated however although the Villa as a patient are critical there is still time to recover, in Lamberts first season we were on 30 points after 31 games and in the bottom 3 but somehow made it to safety and a points total of 41, not saying for one minute we will get close to that tally but 35/36 may still be possible which I think will be enough, I think the first league win under Sherwood will galvanise the players but that win has to come very soon.
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Realistically 4 games are write offs leaving -
Newcastle a - loss
WBA h draw
Sunderland a draw
Swansea h loss
QPR h win
West ham h loss
Everton h draw
Burnley h win
32 points
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We're only going to score 2 goals and still get 8 points? And a team will stay up on 31 points. The nerdlingers should stick to dongle jokes.
And Southampton 3rd? That table is bollocks.
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Realistically 4 games are write offs leaving -
Newcastle a - loss
WBA h draw
Sunderland a draw
Swansea h loss
QPR h win
West ham h loss
Everton h draw
Burnley h win
32 points
As bad as we are, we could get something from the West Ham and Swansea home games.
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Realistically 4 games are write offs leaving -
Newcastle a - loss
WBA h draw
Sunderland a draw
Swansea h loss
QPR h win
West ham h loss
Everton h draw
Burnley h win
32 points
Who we beat comes into it too. Four wins over Albion, Sunderland, QPR and Burnley might do it.
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Only once since the league went to 20 teams has 31 points been enough to stay up.
From 2000 onwards the sides in 18th have had 33, 34, 36, 42, 33, 34, 34, 38, 36, 34, 30, 39, 36, 36, 33.
From those figures, on average 36 points keeps you up. This season ourselves, QPR, and Burnley are set to get 32 points at our current rates. Allow for a slight improvement as the crunch really kicks in and I'm concluding that somewhere between 34-36 will be the safety mark this season.
We need a minimum of 4 wins, with a draw or 2 also.
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At the end of the day irrespective of where the points need to come from if we cannot achieve 15-16 points between now and the end of the season we will deserve exactly what will happen to us. I don't look at any game as being anymore winnable/loseable than the other because quite frankly we have looked abysmal for the most part yet are capable of pulling off the odd shocker. But however we do it, we just need to and not rely on the help of any other side.
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At the end of the day irrespective of where the points need to come from if we cannot achieve 15-16 points between now and the end of the season we will deserve exactly what will happen to us.
It's even simpler than that in my mind. All we need is to better the results of Burnley, QPR and Leicester over 12 matches. If we can't do that we really do deserve relegation.
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What are their run-ins like compared to ours?
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What are their run-ins like compared to ours?
Much, much worse. All of them.
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Trying to find lists that are copy and paste friendly so as to provide a comparison.
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February 28: Burnley v Swansea City
March 3: Liverpool v Burnley
March 14: Burnley v Manchester City
March 21: Southampton v Burnley
April 4: Burnley v Tottenham Hotspur
April 11: Burnley v Arsenal
April 18: Everton v Burnley
April 25: Burnley v Leicester City
May 2: West Ham United v Burnley
May 9: Hull City v Burnley
May 16: Burnley v Stoke City
May 24: Aston Villa v Burnley
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February 28: Leicester City v Chelsea
March 4: Manchester City v Leicester City
March 14: Leicester City v Hull City
March 21: Tottenham Hotspur v Leicester City
April 4: Leicester City v West Ham United
April 11: West Bromwich Albion v Leicester City
April 18: Leicester City v Swansea City
April 25: Burnley v Leicester City
May 2: Leicester City v Newcastle United
May 9: Leicester City v Southampton
May 16: Sunderland v Leicester City
May 24: Leicester City v Queens Park Rangers
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February 28: Queens Park Rangers v Tottenham Hotspur
March 3: Queens Park Rangers v Arsenal
March 14: Crystal Palace v Queens Park Rangers
March 21: Queens Park Rangers v Everton
April 4: West Bromwich Albion v Queens Park Rangers
April 11: Queens Park Rangers v Chelsea
April 18: Aston Villa v Queens Park Rangers
April 25: Queens Park Rangers v West Ham United
May 2: Liverpool v Queens Park Rangers
May 9: Manchester City v Queens Park Rangers
May 16: Queens Park Rangers v Newcastle United
May 24: Leicester City v Queens Park Rangers
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Ignore the dates.
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February 28: Newcastle United v Aston Villa
March 3: Aston Villa v West Bromwich Albion
March 14: Sunderland v Aston Villa
March 21: Aston Villa v Swansea City
April 4: Manchester United v Aston Villa
April 11: Tottenham Hotspur v Aston Villa
April 18: Aston Villa v Queens Park Rangers
April 25: Manchester City v Aston Villa
May 2: Aston Villa v Everton
May 9: Aston Villa v West Ham United
May 16: Southampton v Aston Villa
May 24: Aston Villa v Burnley
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What are their run-ins like compared to ours?
Much, much worse. All of them.
I see what you mean.
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The key thing is, they've all got tough games in the next month, whereas we've got a fairly 'nice' month, if we can get something against Newcastle and take confidence from that we could put a few points between us and those 3 by the end of easter. As important as anything else I can see all of them taking a bit of a kicking once or twice so I expect goal difference to not be such a big issue by then either.
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We're traditionally quite shit in March, aren't we?
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While watching Citeh get a lesson from Barca, I decided to watch the 82 Super Cup against them...great days, oh how times have changed.
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As important as anything else I can see all of them taking a bit of a kicking once or twice so I expect goal difference to not be such a big issue by then either.
I can't imagine that our trip to the Etihad will be anything other than our usual annual kicking either though, which will take it back to it's current level.
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February 28: Newcastle United v Aston Villa. 0-2
March 3: Aston Villa v West Bromwich Albion. 2-0
March 14: Sunderland v Aston Villa. 0-2
March 21: Aston Villa v Swansea City. 2-0
April 4: Manchester United v Aston Villa. 0-2
April 11: Tottenham Hotspur v Aston Villa. 2-0
April 18: Aston Villa v Queens Park Rangers. 4-0
April 25: Manchester City v Aston Villa. 6-0
May 2: Aston Villa v Everton. 2-0
May 9: Aston Villa v West Ham United. 2-0
May 16: Southampton v Aston Villa. 0-2
May 24: Aston Villa v Burnley. 4-0
So that's 36 points.
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Going to be an "interesting" last day.
I didn't realise that QPR v Leicester was also last day.
We could end up with any 3 from 4 on the last day and even a win not being certain of keeping us up. Is there a shitting yourself smiley?
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We're traditionally quite shit in March, aren't we?
And that's different from the other 8 months of the season how?
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February 28: Newcastle United v Aston Villa. 0-2
March 3: Aston Villa v West Bromwich Albion. 2-0
March 14: Sunderland v Aston Villa. 0-2
March 21: Aston Villa v Swansea City. 2-0
April 4: Manchester United v Aston Villa. 0-2
April 11: Tottenham Hotspur v Aston Villa. 2-0
April 18: Aston Villa v Queens Park Rangers. 4-0
April 25: Manchester City v Aston Villa. 6-0
May 2: Aston Villa v Everton. 2-0
May 9: Aston Villa v West Ham United. 2-0
May 16: Southampton v Aston Villa. 0-2
May 24: Aston Villa v Burnley. 4-0
So that's 36 points.
Can I have some of what you are on please? ???
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7 wins In 12 games ? Simply won't happen .
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All we need is more points than three others, looking at how many points we need is purely hypothetical as we don't know how many our apponents will get.If we do survive Randy Lerner will be one lucky man.
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I think the number we will need is 36 {+1 point due to our GD} so 37 points .
15 points needed , 4 wins and 3 draws
Wins - QPR burnley Sunderland Everton
Draws - Newcastle Swansea WBA
It's do-able but there is so little margin for error now .
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Newcastle is all important. Awful as we are, we have the ability to win this one. If Sherwood picks Delph (and he may not) our midfielder needs to up his game to the levels of earlier this season. He needs to shoot from distance and be positive. A win here and Sherwood has a chance.
A bad loss,say 3-0, and people will start questioning why, exactly, Fox decided he was so good!
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Whatever happens on Saturday we will need to regroup very quickly for Tuesday night v smethwick. I'd be happy with 4 points from the 2 games .
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Villa's website has gone down so that's not a good sign.
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Whatever happens on Saturday we will need to regroup very quickly for Tuesday night v smethwick. I'd be happy with 4 points from the 2 games .
i`d be frikkin delirious at the moment.
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12 games to go. Makes me think of the McLeish season. If i remember rightly we didn't win any of the last 12 games.
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12 games to go. Makes me think of the McLeish season. If i remember rightly we didn't win any of the last 12 games.
Bent got injured (Wigan a) and Robbie Keane went home. Then the wheels were off .
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Another cup final gone.
It gets worse but I think we'll reach rock bottom against Smethwick x2. Nothing will seem as bad after that.
Will look forward to Fulham away - always a great fixture.
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We wont even be able to bounce back with this shit.
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I slept through the second half. Well, I thought if the players could...
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If there was a button I could press that said "finish season now", I'd press it even though we'd go down. I'm so utterly sick of this shit that I'd like a few weeks of absolutely nothing before I had to start caring again.
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I have not seen a single glimmer of anything to give us hope that we can avoid the drop. If we go down then there is no-one else to blame. The football has been dreadful for several seasons and the warnings have not been heeded. The stats don't lie and simply put we have not been anywhere near good enough. These players are paid £1000's a week and should be ashamed to collect their pay packets. I'm bloody sure many will be quick to head for the exit if we do drop and good riddance.
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What is amazing is that, months ago, we were saying "Wow, we have set some truly amazingly bad records or statistics this season" and assuming that they'd have to stop at some point.
Yet, fast forward to now, and we've just notched up our seventh consecutive league defeat - SEVEN FFS - and we haven't won any of our last TWELVE league matches.
I honestly think the question has stopped being "will we go down" and started being "how many more awful records will we break before the season ends".
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How many awful records have we got left to break Paulie? We will get most of them.
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How many awful records have we got left to break Paulie? We will get most of them.
I thought we'd already got them all a while back, but it seems to be neverending.
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You know when Southampton sank like a stone, then tore back up the leagues with players they picked up for a song and then managed to sell for silly money?
Villa have tried that, and managed to find the shittest budget options they could. What depresses me is the thought that even if we did manage to get some great young players who would wreck the Championship, they'd be off within three months of getting back into the Premier League.
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I have seen nothing in the last 7 games to suggest we deserve to play in The Premier League next season. We're gone. Sad times ahead.
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You know when Southampton sank like a stone, then tore back up the leagues with players they picked up for a song and then managed to sell for silly money?
Villa have tried that, and managed to find the shittest budget options they could. What depresses me is the thought that even if we did manage to get some great young players who would wreck the Championship, they'd be off within three months of getting back into the Premier League.
You are getting ahead of yourself there. Other club records to go for this season yet.
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We just simply look done at premier league level.
Managerial change was just cosmetic as there's been no change in the last two games to how we've played all season.
We also have hardly any injuries, that was pretty much a full strength squad out there today and we still don't have a clue how to score goals or create chance.
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You know when Southampton sank like a stone, then tore back up the leagues with players they picked up for a song and then managed to sell for silly money?
Villa have tried that, and managed to find the shittest budget options they could. What depresses me is the thought that even if we did manage to get some great young players who would wreck the Championship, they'd be off within three months of getting back into the Premier League.
You are getting ahead of yourself there. Other club records to go for this season yet.
The fewest amount of goals scored will certainly be smashed. Most losses? No goals in the last fifteen? No penalties? I also think the red cards record, whatever it is, will probably be the preserve of the 14/15 vintage.
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Managerial change was just cosmetic as there's been no change in the last two games to how we've played all season.
One of the most sought after managers in Britain apparently.
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I never wanted Sherwood, but the Baggies were a gnat's wing away from having him. Even though it wouldn't have benefitted us, that's a frustrating fact.
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I never wanted Sherwood, but the Baggies were a gnat's wing away from having him. Even though it wouldn't have benefitted us, that's a frustrating fact.
I think he would have done just fine there tbh and Pulis would also struggle here. Our players are just naff or have conspired to have terrible form at the same time. Either way Lerner chose not to address it in January by spending real money. His club, his choice, but now we pay for it.
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I never wanted Sherwood, but the Baggies were a gnat's wing away from having him. Even though it wouldn't have benefitted us, that's a frustrating fact.
I think he would have done just fine there tbh and Pulis would also struggle here. Our players are just naff or have conspired to have terrible form at the same time. Either way Lerner chose not to address it in January by spending real money. His club, his choice, but now we pay for it.
I just don't think that's true. Granted our players are not exactly good at much, but Baggies looked totally aimless before Pulis and now they look compact and organised. We looked stodgy and constipated, now we're slurrying all over the place. Managers really can have short term impacts, and I've not been impressed by ours.
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Whatever happens, if Lerner is still here we need to hound him out in the summer.
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I think a lot of the optimism, for what there was of it, was based on Benteke finding joy in playing football again under a different manager. That hasn't happened, and so there has been no momentum. It could still happen, and should it happen Tuesday that could put a whole different slant on this relegation thing, but games are running out for Benteke to remember what he's good at. I thought Stoke was make or break for it to happen, and as it didn't happen again today, it's getting to be very unlikely he'll end the season like he did a couple of years ago.
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I never wanted Sherwood, but the Baggies were a gnat's wing away from having him. Even though it wouldn't have benefitted us, that's a frustrating fact.
I think he would have done just fine there tbh and Pulis would also struggle here. Our players are just naff or have conspired to have terrible form at the same time. Either way Lerner chose not to address it in January by spending real money. His club, his choice, but now we pay for it.
I just don't think that's true. Granted our players are not exactly good at much, but Baggies looked totally aimless before Pulis and now they look compact and organised. We looked stodgy and constipated, now we're slurrying all over the place. Managers really can have short term impacts, and I've not been impressed by ours.
Maybe you are right but I think the manager impact at Villa is pretty limited in its upside. We are like a Reliant Robin in a Formula 1 race. A good driver might be able to get 86MPH out of her instead of the 70MPH we are currently cruising at but its just not equipped for the race we are in.
Because we are the graveyard of managers reputations the one upside of Pulis would have been we could have wrecked his anti-football career when he took us down which would have been nice :)
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I don't think Pulis is even that good a manager, but he obviously sounds like a manager and talks to players like a man who's been around the block. Lambert, despite his experience, was not inspiring and could you imagine his team talks? Pulis probably isn't Kenneth Branagh, but I'd imagine he's simple, direct and sounds like what British players expect - a few swearwords, an off-colour joke and clattering his muddy training boots on the changing room wall.
I have no idea how Sherwood operates, but I can't imagine the squad feels like a cohesive unit like they probably do at West Brom. Never overestimate a footballer's intelligence: treat them like a kid and tell them exactly what to do and they'll follow you anywhere.
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I never wanted Sherwood, but the Baggies were a gnat's wing away from having him. Even though it wouldn't have benefitted us, that's a frustrating fact.
I think he would have done just fine there tbh and Pulis would also struggle here. Our players are just naff or have conspired to have terrible form at the same time. Either way Lerner chose not to address it in January by spending real money. His club, his choice, but now we pay for it.
I just don't think that's true. Granted our players are not exactly good at much, but Baggies looked totally aimless before Pulis and now they look compact and organised. We looked stodgy and constipated, now we're slurrying all over the place. Managers really can have short term impacts, and I've not been impressed by ours.
I'm with Monty on this. Look how shit Palace were last season and within a couple of weeks he had them taking the piss out of us at Villa Park, and they finished very comfortably mid table.
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When you score as few as we do you need a really good, bordering on faultless, defence. We haven't got that.
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I've committed and voted yes. When/how are we going to win again? Remember these are the "winnable" games. I'm shitting it at possibility of double humiliation at the hands of those ****** this week.
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It probably is the season but I cling onto the fact that even with picking up 12 points from the last 69 since that 4 game great start we had we are still amazingly ahead of 1 club and level with 2 more, while we are in touch with Qpr and Burnley I cant quite give up.
"You may say I'm a dreamer but I'm not the only one" maybe I am?
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It probably is the season but I cling onto the fact that even with picking up 12 points from the last 69 since that 4 game great start we had we are still amazingly ahead of 1 club and level with 2 more, while we are in touch with Qpr and Burnley I cant quite give up.
"You may say I'm a dreamer but I'm not the only one" maybe I am?
That's the spirit Steve Kirk!
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I'm already practicing the 'we'll support you evermore' song
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Whatever happens, if Lerner is still here we need to hound him out in the summer.
Hound him out from afar, I doubt he'll even bother popping over between now and the start of the new season away at Fulham.
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It feels really real now. It really feels like were just playing out the games now until the end of the season, the fight just isn't there.
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Keep the faith people. It's gonna be a helluva run in for us.
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The thing that really worries me is that I don't think we will trouble many sides in the championship.
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I don't think we will be, but if we are relegated, it is probably the only way he would spend any money again. I think he would drop £25million to blitz the second division to get back onto the gravy train before the extra couple of billion kicks in.
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Why do you think Lerner cares about the TV deal? If he did, Lambert would've been sacked a long time ago and we would've spent a bit of money in January.
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He clearly doesn't know what he's doing when it comes to sports teams, we kept on thinking the Browns demise was a one off, clearly not, the man is an arse.
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I don't think we will be, but if we are relegated, it is probably the only way he would spend any money again. I think he would drop £25million to blitz the second division to get back onto the gravy train before the extra couple of billion kicks in.
Are you on glue? Pretty much everything we've seen in the last three seasons points massively against the two things you've predicted there.
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Managerial change was just cosmetic as there's been no change in the last two games to how we've played all season.
One of the most sought after managers in Britain apparently.
Shame Albion didnt think so
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Of course Lerner cares about the TV deal. Making a bad decision not to sack Lambert in May doesn't alter that. I think he'd chuck money at promotion, because there would be no Man City et al to temper the market.
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No way Lerner will spend a significant amount on us again. He's just doing the bare minimum till he finds a buyer.
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Of course Lerner cares about the TV deal. Making a bad decision not to sack Lambert in May doesn't alter that. I think he'd chuck money at promotion, because there would be no Man City et al to temper the market.
Wrong
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How can something that might never be put to proof in the future be wrong?
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Lerner, for whatever reason, has been too remote from the dire situation we find ourselves in. Call it neglect if you want, but he's balanced the too important books and sacrificed our PL status and will lose millions....nice decision making Randy!
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I don't think we will be, but if we are relegated, it is probably the only way he would spend any money again. I think he would drop £25million to blitz the second division to get back onto the gravy train before the extra couple of billion kicks in.
edit: Ok I looked. I am wrong. There is simply no way for a club like ours to be profitable in the Championship. Maybe you are right, maybe he will have to spend... hmm.
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Well if we go down we'll be selling 4-5 players, including Benteke. So we'd likely have at least 25 million from that and would hopefully re-invest that in a squad capable of getting us back up.
Sherwood, or any other manager who might be here in the near future won't work without some kind of rebuilding budget. And lets face it, Lambert wasn't given chicken feed to work with either.
I think we'd need about 8-10 new players in the summer if we went down.
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Well if we go down we'll be selling 4-5 players, including Benteke. So we'd likely have at least 25 million from that and would hopefully re-invest that in a squad capable of getting us back up.
Sherwood, or any other manager who might be here in the near future won't work without some kind of rebuilding budget. And lets face it, Lambert wasn't given chicken feed to work with either.
I think we'd need about 8-10 new players in the summer if we went down.
we'd need about ten if we stay up
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A reminder of the financial disaster area that is the Championship.
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/may/22/championship-club-accounts-profit-loss-and-the-wage-bill
4 clubs (count em) made a profit before tax.
Combined that before tax profit was 8.3M with Blackpool being the big "winner" accounting for 4.6M of that so thats the "winners".
The losers? Bloody hell its incredible. There is no way a club of our size could be even close to profitable down there, our losses would surely skyrocket.
Lerner may well regret his lack of spending this January.
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I'm with Steve Kirk on this, we've been utterly dire since mid december and are we're still only in the bottom 3 on goal difference, I'm a long way from accepting that we're relegated. If we start to see a gap of 4-5 points then I'll join with the rest of you planning for life in the championship but it's nothing like that desperate yet.
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Well if we go down we'll be selling 4-5 players, including Benteke. So we'd likely have at least 25 million from that and would hopefully re-invest that in a squad capable of getting us back up.
Sherwood, or any other manager who might be here in the near future won't work without some kind of rebuilding budget. And lets face it, Lambert wasn't given chicken feed to work with either.
I think we'd need about 8-10 new players in the summer if we went down.
Let's not forget you can use the loan market all season down there, Rotherham have used something ridiculous like 30 loans this season.
When West Ham went down they used the loan market quite well so it dosen't have to be about signing permanent players.
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I'm not worried about relegation. Not because I don't think it'll happen and not because I don't think it will be financially ruinous. But simply because it can't be any worse than this.
We last won a league game almost 3 months ago. That is truly pathetic. For all the lack of TV exposure and the financial difficulties down there at least we might win some games. That's not something to be feared.
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Well if we go down we'll be selling 4-5 players, including Benteke. So we'd likely have at least 25 million from that and would hopefully re-invest that in a squad capable of getting us back up.
Sherwood, or any other manager who might be here in the near future won't work without some kind of rebuilding budget. And lets face it, Lambert wasn't given chicken feed to work with either.
I think we'd need about 8-10 new players in the summer if we went down.
we'd need about ten if we stay up
True, though I suspect we'd be less likely to make the wholesale changes we desperately need. Benteke I think will go regardless and we'd be reliant on what he raises.
We've just got too many players with losing ingrained into them now. I think it'd be easier to sweep the place clean if we went down than stay up.
Unless of course Randy decides to speculate a little, with the TV windfall not far off...
...but he won't.
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I'm with Steve Kirk on this, we've been utterly dire since mid december and are we're still only in the bottom 3 on goal difference, I'm a long way from accepting that we're relegated. If we start to see a gap of 4-5 points then I'll join with the rest of you planning for life in the championship but it's nothing like that desperate yet.
That's my view too. Seeing Burnley and Hull lose with QPR and Leicester not playing were good for us. If nothing changes we'll go down but if there's a catalyst that breeds confidence, good work on the training pitch and finding the players and/or set-up that works can be enough. Hopefully a full Villa Park in a local derby environment can be that catalyst.
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The ONLY positive about going down would be the financial kick in the bollocks Lerner (the ******) would feel.
Good, fuck him.
Unfortunately, that would be minuscule in comparison to the pain that the fans would feel.
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I bet Lerner's not 'having fun' at the thought if his investment going through the floor next season. Well it serves the bloke right. His negligence in the last 3 years has been scandalous.
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We're still 4th favourites with the bookies to go down considering QPR and Leicester have a game in hand and you can more than double your money if you want to.
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The ONLY positive about going down would be the financial kick in the bollocks Lerner (the c***) would feel.
Good, fuck him.
I shake my head at people's comments sometimes.
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The ONLY positive about going down would be the financial kick in the bollocks Lerner (the c***) would feel.
Good, fuck him.
I shake my head at people's comments sometimes.
How about making a point rather than this type of shit and why not quote the whole post?
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The ONLY positive about going down would be the financial kick in the bollocks Lerner (the c***) would feel.
Good, fuck him.
Unfortunately, that would be minuscule in comparison to the pain that the fans would feel.
I shake my head at some people's comments sometimes.
(is that better)?
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But other than having a wobbly head, you haven't got a point to make?
Fair enough.
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But other than having a wobbly head, you haven't got a point to make?
Fair enough.
I think my point was clear enough.
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Looking at the fixtures Burnley and QPR have a shocking run of games while leicester and Sunderland have similar to us, relegation isn't a formality a win on Tuesday night and we are with a good chance.
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Out of the next few fixtures, the one I can see us getting 3 points from is Sunderland. I'm not sure why, just a gut feeling.
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Well if we go down we'll be selling 4-5 players, including Benteke. So we'd likely have at least 25 million from that and would hopefully re-invest that in a squad capable of getting us back up.
Sherwood, or any other manager who might be here in the near future won't work without some kind of rebuilding budget. And lets face it, Lambert wasn't given chicken feed to work with either.
I think we'd need about 8-10 new players in the summer if we went down.
Let's not forget you can use the loan market all season down there, Rotherham have used something ridiculous like 30 loans this season.
When West Ham went down they used the loan market quite well so it dosen't have to be about signing permanent players.
I'm just not sure players of the quality of Steve Sims, Mark Lillis, David Hunt and Malcolm Allen would be prepared to play in the championship these days.
Actually, I quite liked Mark Lillis. As I proved by giving him a 'ticker tape' welcome as he emerged from a Bradford hotel before our away game there. Unfortunately I had the ripped up paper in my sweaty fist inside my pocket and so ended up basically throwing a ball of paper mache at him. An intended tribute turned into what legally could have been deemed an attack.
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Looking at the fixtures Burnley and QPR have a shocking run of games while leicester and Sunderland have similar to us, relegation isn't a formality a win on Tuesday night and we are with a good chance.
Burnley got a point against Chelsea and QPR won away for the first time recently. It's alright saying their fixtures look tough, but they seem capable of getting a result from games they should lose. We don't.
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We're definitely going down.
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I think we've blown our last best chance with the appointment of nice but Tim.
We've gone all in in a poker game and we're only holding a pair of 2s.
If we get out of this it will be more by luck than judgement.
Positives.
We're not cut adrift
We appear to be trying to play more on the front foot.
Negatives.
Still can't buy a point, let alone a win
Our new managers tactical overview appears to be based on a copy of the Kevin Keegan book of tactics with the chapter on tactics ripped out.
If he plays that kind of wide open 442 he seems to prefer we're going to struggle more often than not, including against that bunch of whinging shitbags from Smethwick.
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This is what's known as the gambler's fallacy, but seven losses in a row has to turn around sometime.
This is why I don't gamble.
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This is what's known as the gambler's fallacy, but seven losses in a row has to turn around sometime.
This is why I don't gamble.
I quite often used to include a hopelessly out of form team in my betting accumulators. 'Law of averages' was my logic behind this. Let's just say I rarely bother with that tactic any more.
My misguided faith in this 'system' particularly cost me when I continuously applied it to Brian Little's Stoke team one season.
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It is true, we have been awful for months now, but are still not dead and buried statistically.
However, the awfulness since December doesn't tell anything like the whole story, for that you need to look at the current situation and the way the momentum is. Seven consecutive defeats and not showing any real fight is the important part
I look at Burnley and Leicester, for example, and I see fight. Leicester were unlucky last week at Everton. I look at us and I don't see any fight just a sort of apathetic slump vibe.
Regardless of how the league looks now, we are going to have to start to win the occasional game. We've won one in, what, 13 games now?
Does anyone think we look like winning a couple of games any time soon? I don't. We just look wretched.
Even if you look at things like yesterday and say it was not such a bad performance, how many times have we said that this season? Plenty. The problem is, we put in "less bad" showings and *still* don't win.
If we are going to survive, we are going to have to start to turn things around ourselves. I hope that happens, but there is zero sign of it at the moment.
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We're definitely going down.
Get down the bookies then - you'll make a fortune.
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A reminder of the financial disaster area that is the Championship.
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/may/22/championship-club-accounts-profit-loss-and-the-wage-bill
4 clubs (count em) made a profit before tax.
Combined that before tax profit was 8.3M with Blackpool being the big "winner" accounting for 4.6M of that so thats the "winners".
The losers? Bloody hell its incredible. There is no way a club of our size could be even close to profitable down there, our losses would surely skyrocket.
Lerner may well regret his lack of spending this January.
Blackpool are the most hopelessly run club in the league and will be in league one next season.
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Sooner or later our luck was going trun out, and with each passing week it looks like this will be the year. The legacy of Lerner and his poor decisions are coming home to roost.
Ian Holloway got loads of stick when he called us a half arsed place which used to be famous, but the truth is he was 100% correct. We are no longer a big club, we're a joke looked upon with contempt as more progressive clubs like Swansea, Southampton and even West Brom leave us trailing in their wake.
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We're definitely going down.
Get down the bookies then - you'll make a fortune.
You would have to have a fortune to make a fortune. We are odds on to go down with most bookies. Only BetFred Fred and Billy Hill at 11/10 think we will stay up at the expense of Burnley, Leicester and QPR.
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Sooner or later our luck was going trun out, and with each passing week it looks like this will be the year. The legacy of Lerner and his poor decisions are coming home to roost.
Ian Holloway got loads of stick when he called us a half arsed place which used to be famous, but the truth is he was 100% correct. We are no longer a big club, we're a joke looked upon with contempt as more progressive clubs like Swansea, Southampton and even West Brom leave us trailing in their wake.
When Albion are struggling they are a joke club whose chairman changes managers every five minutes and even then has another bloke telling the manager what to do. When they are doing (relatively) well they are 'progressive'. Personally I rate Pulis because he gets results but if we had appointed him I wonder how many posts would have used the word 'progressive' to describe his appointment?
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Sooner or later our luck was going trun out, and with each passing week it looks like this will be the year. The legacy of Lerner and his poor decisions are coming home to roost.
Ian Holloway got loads of stick when he called us a half arsed place which used to be famous, but the truth is he was 100% correct. We are no longer a big club, we're a joke looked upon with contempt as more progressive clubs like Swansea, Southampton and even West Brom leave us trailing in their wake.
When Albion are struggling they are a joke club whose chairman changes managers every five minutes and even then has another bloke telling the manager what to do. When they are doing (relatively) well they are 'progressive'. Personally I rate Pulis because he gets results but if we had appointed him I wonder how many posts would have used the word 'progressive' to describe his appointment?
It would have been a Red Adair appointment. I would have been a little disappointed but I'd have understood the logic.
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Sooner or later our luck was going trun out, and with each passing week it looks like this will be the year. The legacy of Lerner and his poor decisions are coming home to roost.
Ian Holloway got loads of stick when he called us a half arsed place which used to be famous, but the truth is he was 100% correct. We are no longer a big club, we're a joke looked upon with contempt as more progressive clubs like Swansea, Southampton and even West Brom leave us trailing in their wake.
When Albion are struggling they are a joke club whose chairman changes managers every five minutes and even then has another bloke telling the manager what to do. When they are doing (relatively) well they are 'progressive'. Personally I rate Pulis because he gets results but if we had appointed him I wonder how many posts would have used the word 'progressive' to describe his appointment?
It would have been a Red Adair appointment. I would have been a little disappointed but I'd have understood the logic.
The clever (or obvious, even) thing to do would have been to make an appointment which could be considered progressive and something to work long term with, but *also* highly likely to keep us up.
That opportunity disappeared, though, because Lerner and Fox spent far too long just watching Lambert fuck it up week after week, they left it far too late to have any hope of that sort of appointment.
It's not even as if they'd not seen numerous extended spells of awfulness over more than two seasons (for which Lerner was here - at least in spirit and able to write emails - even if Fox wasn't) which would have had pretty much every other club making a change.
Instead, it took a run of five consecutive defeats, of 11 hours without scoring a single goal, and well into February, with us in the bottom three until they finally did something about it.
And even then they managed to appoint a manager who doesn't look particularly well qualified in either of those camps (progressive or "will keep us up), and has a management CV which not only consists of just 20 odd matches, but all at a team in the European places rather than one struggling for its life.
I don't like the Sherwood appointment, but if we do go down, I won't apportion any of the blame to him.
That has to go to Lerner and Fox whose management of the club has not only got us into this pathetic state in the first place, but also allowed it to go on for so long it'd take some sort of magician to keep us up.
Truly unforgivable.
We've had plenty of evidence of Lerner's total inability to run a sporting institution already, but I'd never have thought he could manage to be quite so inept as to bring about this situation.
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You can't apportion *none* of the blame to a man in charge of a third of the league games. If we continue to be as bad as we were last week and yesterday then some responsibility will absolutely go to him, just as credit will go to him if we somehow turn it around. No doubt, however, that the malaise at the club runs a lot deeper than him, and even a lot deeper than Lambert.
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You can't apportion *none* of the blame to a man in charge of a third of the league games. If we continue to be as bad as we were last week and yesterday then some responsibility will absolutely go to him, just as credit will go to him if we somehow turn it around. No doubt, however, that the malaise at the club runs a lot deeper than him, and even a lot deeper than Lambert.
Well, if some blame, not a great deal.
it's also not as simple as "in charge of a third of the league games", either, as these 12 games don't just start on a clean slate as if it were the start of the season.
He's come in to a club which is basically a juggernaut of grimness heading straight toward a cliff edge. He's lost his first two league matches, but what about the five consecutive games before that? Or the entire season of shitness in which we'd managed to score a total of 12 goals?
It was all so late that really, it'd take something pretty spectacular to stop it going totally to shit.
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True, but if he makes mistakes in his team preparation/tactics/selections etc that's no-one's fault but his. He can't take the blame for the poor bunch at his disposal, but Cleverley as a wide midfielder? Gabby for so long in both matches? N'Zogbia coming on instead of Gil? He could have helped those. I'm not sure how much difference other decisions would have made, but we might have had a better chance.
But again, obviously, not all his fault. I just want to ascribe the blame where it's due. Lack of confidence and misery? Lambert. Cheap as shit squad? Lerner. Seasons of stagnation? Lerner. Poor appointment/timing of sacking? Fox. Poor tactics last two games? Sherwood.
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We're definitely going down.
Get down the bookies then - you'll make a fortune.
You would have to have a fortune to make a fortune. We are odds on to go down with most bookies. Only BetFred Fred and Billy Hill at 11/10 think we will stay up at the expense of Burnley, Leicester and QPR.
11/10 is pretty spectacular odds for something that is 'definitely' going to happen.
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Sooner or later our luck was going trun out, and with each passing week it looks like this will be the year. The legacy of Lerner and his poor decisions are coming home to roost.
Ian Holloway got loads of stick when he called us a half arsed place which used to be famous, but the truth is he was 100% correct. We are no longer a big club, we're a joke looked upon with contempt as more progressive clubs like Swansea, Southampton and even West Brom leave us trailing in their wake.
When Albion are struggling they are a joke club whose chairman changes managers every five minutes and even then has another bloke telling the manager what to do. When they are doing (relatively) well they are 'progressive'. Personally I rate Pulis because he gets results but if we had appointed him I wonder how many posts would have used the word 'progressive' to describe his appointment?
It would have been a Red Adair appointment. I would have been a little disappointed but I'd have understood the logic.
The clever (or obvious, even) thing to do would have been to make an appointment which could be considered progressive and something to work long term with, but *also* highly likely to keep us up
That opportunity disappeared, though, because Lerner and Fox spent far too long just watching Lambert fuck it up week after week, they left it far too late to have any hope of that sort of appointment.
In our current situation (up for sale and massive new TV deal on its way) we didn't even need that. We just needed someone who was going to keep us up. You're right about leaving it so late though - it was going to be difficult for anyone coming in at that stage.
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He could have helped those. I'm not sure how much difference other decisions would have made, but we might have had a better chance.
The strong second half against Leicester was attributed to his tactics and motivation. So rather than build on that confidence and that result he decides to change half the team.
It's all just a bit odd.
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I don't want to sound like some sort of apologist for Sherwood because believe me it is the last thing I want to come across as. But to think he was going to come in a fix things this quickly isn't realistic. I think there is a rot that will take a lot more time to get out, but short term the players need to follow basic instruction which they seem incapable of doing. Listen to what he said yesterday how they reverted to something that he and the coaches didn't ask them to do. There is only so much he can do from the touchline. What we saw was the spectre of Lambert's Villa fighting to stay alive. That's the problem. The negativity is so ingrained the players fall back on it like comfort food.
He might not be the answer as manager long term but he's got an uphill battle trying to rid the malaise while at the same time providing enough instruction to get that all important first win.
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I think a manager more experienced in successful relegation battles would have had a plan for a quick fix that was enough to keep us up (here is that name again...Pulis did it with a Palace side that looked dead certs for relegation even halfway through the season they were so poor) and a longer term plan for the future. To be honest, even without the second you can worry about that when you have succeeded in the first plan.
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He's done ok in the two matches but luck deserted him against Stoke when Richardson went off just before their equaliser and Vlaar's gift at the end.we go 1-0 up against the Geordies and we would have won yesterday but we didn't then Okore misses the ball and that's it.I think Gil isn't fully fit plus he's give. The senior players first stab at sorting it but he must know now how poor we really are.Give him a break.
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Maybe the timing is significant for instant recovery or 'the bounce' to take effect, whoever takes over.
Like, it would be more likely to happen before or just after Christmas, rather than in February.
He is having some effect, now we just need some luck as well.
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He's done ok in the two matches but luck deserted him against Stoke when Richardson went off just before their equaliser and Vlaar's gift at the end.we go 1-0 up against the Geordies and we would have won yesterday but we didn't then Okore misses the ball and that's it.I think Gil isn't fully fit plus he's give. The senior players first stab at sorting it but he must know now how poor we really are.Give him a break.
He was fully responsible for the Stoke game, it was his pathetic instruction to hoof it up to Benteke. It wasn't working and he had no Plan B to change it and the players looked lost and confused. That was irresponsible especially as the points were there for the taking. Yesterday was exactly what I hoped he'd have approached the Stoke game. There was urgency to our play, we passed it around but with speed, the obvious ingredient Lambert's 'new style' missed. Yes, we went long ball in the last few minutes but we were desperate.
I agree a win can change so much for us and despite losing yesterday, I really hope Sherwood can give the lads the confidence to go out and keep improving. We're running out of games but if we are to start picking up points it won't be by hoofing it. Benteke looked far happier than he has in ages as he was finally getting some service. If we can build on that we're still in with a chance.
Sherwood needs to do just three things now; keep heads and confidence up, get them believing they can do it, not mess about tactically. All three are within his capability.
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I agree a win can change so much for us and despite losing yesterday, I really hope Sherwood can give the lads the confidence to go out and keep improving. We're running out of games but if we are to start picking up points it won't be by hoofing it. Benteke looked far happier than he has in ages as he was finally getting some service. If we can build on that we're still in with a chance.
Sherwood needs to do just three things now; keep heads and confidence up, get them believing they can do it, not mess about tactically. All three are within his capability.
I agree. Had we won 4-2 yesterday then it wouldn't have been an unfair scoreline.
It doesn't help how the table looks, but I'd rather yesterday's 1-0 defeat than the 1-0 defeat that we would have had yes there yesterday under Lambert.
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If we do go, and i fear we will, i get the feeling we may become a Yo-Yo club like the noses were a few years back, too good to stay down there but not good enough to stay up. The much-vaunted youth policy will probably be all we`ll have because what few quality players we have are probably already on the phone to their agents, and we just don`t have the financial muscle anymore to attract replacements. Years of mis-management are about to bring a once-great sporting institution to its knees, and anyone who thinks it will be good for the club is deluded.
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I really feel we're going
But then that would mean one of QPR or burnley staying up. Which doesn't seem convincing
Would watching a villa team in the championship with Gardner, grealish, Robinson, Clark, okore etc really be worse than what we've had for the last few years?
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I really feel we're going
But then that would mean one of QPR or burnley staying up. Which doesn't seem convincing
Would watching a villa team in the championship with Gardner, grealish, Robinson, Clark, okore etc really be worse than what we've had for the last few years?
Yep, it would be worse!
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We are not gone yet. I will give 3 reasons why.
1. There are signs that our football has improved under Sherwood.
2. There are 6 teams still in the fight.
3. This could require a very low total to retain PL status.
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We are not gone yet. I will give 3 reasons why.
1. There are signs that our football has improved under Sherwood.
2. There are 6 teams still in the fight.
3. This could require a very low total to retain PL status.
Point 3 is the important one, loads of people keep commenting on how many points we need but the truth is it's all guess work, the only truth is that we need to get more points than Leicester, QPR and Burnley between now and the end of the season (or at least get the same amount and hope that we do much better with our goal difference). If that means we stay up on 32 points then so be it.
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We are not gone yet. I will give 3 reasons why.
1. There are signs that our football has improved under Sherwood.
2. There are 6 teams still in the fight.
3. This could require a very low total to retain PL status.
Point 3 is the important one, loads of people keep commenting on how many points we need but the truth is it's all guess work, the only truth is that we need to get more points than Leicester, QPR and Burnley between now and the end of the season (or at least get the same amount and hope that we do much better with our goal difference). If that means we stay up on 32 points then so be it.
To stay up, we need to start scoring goals. Just one or two, but we need to do so without conceding.
Lerner and Fox have taken a massive gamble on not offloading TSMII earlier - foolish and headstrong - which would have enabled them more choice of manager. If you look at Pulis and the way that the Bitters are playing; if you look at the effect that Pardew has had .... We could have bought ourselves some time if they had taken a more decisive action earlier.
I think we'll drop, just because we cannot buy a goal.
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32 is very unlikely to survive. But I would take 34 now, and cross my fingers.
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We need to win on Tuesday, then smash Sunderland, I'd accept a draw v Swansea.
Then you're looking to those qpr and burnley home games, with also a hope that West Ham and Southampton hit the beach early. Plus the Everton home game.
It's do-able .
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We need to win on Tuesday, then smash Sunderland, I'd accept a draw v Swansea.
Then you're looking to those qpr and burnley home games, with also a hope that West Ham and Southampton hit the beach early. Plus the Everton home game.
It's do-able .
... until you look at recent form.
Form says we're dead meat.
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Form is temporary. Class is permanent.
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From what I've seen we didn't deserve to lose v Stoke or Newcastle . I think we are close to turning this around.
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32 is very unlikely to survive. But I would take 34 now, and cross my fingers.
that's the point though, I'll take the exact number of points we need to stay up, if that's 32 then great, if it's 36 then that's what we need. Trying to predict it now and say we need at least 5 wins and X draws is just creating a situation where you're disappointed, this weekend was shit because we could've got something from the game but it's less shit because at least the teams we're competing with (the ones that played at least) dropped points as well.
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I agree a win can change so much for us and despite losing yesterday, I really hope Sherwood can give the lads the confidence to go out and keep improving. We're running out of games but if we are to start picking up points it won't be by hoofing it. Benteke looked far happier than he has in ages as he was finally getting some service. If we can build on that we're still in with a chance.
Sherwood needs to do just three things now; keep heads and confidence up, get them believing they can do it, not mess about tactically. All three are within his capability.
I agree. Had we won 4-2 yesterday then it wouldn't have been an unfair scoreline.
It doesn't help how the table looks, but I'd rather yesterday's 1-0 defeat than the 1-0 defeat that we would have had yes there yesterday under Lambert.
Saturday made me feel much better than I had in a while. It was a decent performance, an unlucky goal conceded. Lowton did well at left back too and Benteke looked lively. The last 10 Sherwood even said after the game they went too long, and I got the feeling the tactical instruction against Stoke was nothing close to what we saw on the pitch.
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Last 38 league games W8 D8 L22 F22 A61 GD-39 Pts32
When your goals for column matches the games lost one, then that really isn't good!*
/understatementoftheyearwinner
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We will turn it around though. By Tuesday we will be out the bottom three, by Saturday night, we'll be at Wembley. By the start of April we will be six clear. By the end of the West Ham game in May, we will be safe. By the end of the Burnley game, we will be convincing ourselves that we can beat Man United in the FA Cup final.
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We will turn it around though. By Tuesday we will be out the bottom three, by Saturday night, we'll be at Wembley. By the start of April we will be six clear. By the end of the West Ham game in May, we will be safe. By the end of the Burnley game, we will be convincing ourselves that we can beat Man United in the FA Cup final.
BELIEVE
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We will turn it around though. By Tuesday we will be out the bottom three, by Saturday night, we'll be at Wembley. By the start of April we will be six clear. By the end of the West Ham game in May, we will be safe. By the end of the Burnley game, we will be convincing ourselves that we can beat Man United in the FA Cup final.
I would love it, love it if that is the most prophetic post in the history of this place.
But I am currently reading an article about good league 1 strikers for our Championship recruitment drive.
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We will turn it around though. By Tuesday we will be out the bottom three, by Saturday night, we'll be at Wembley. By the start of April we will be six clear. By the end of the West Ham game in May, we will be safe. By the end of the Burnley game, we will be convincing ourselves that we can beat Man United in the FA Cup final.
I love you, man.
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We will turn it around though. By Tuesday we will be out the bottom three, by Saturday night, we'll be at Wembley. By the start of April we will be six clear. By the end of the West Ham game in May, we will be safe. By the end of the Burnley game, we will be convincing ourselves that we can beat Man United in the FA Cup final.
Careful driving home today Ads. The Police now have new powers for testing for hallucinatory drugs.
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I was thinking, would it be an idea to play five at the back away from home? I know we need to win games, but we can't really afford to lose too many more either.
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Form is temporary. Class is permanent.
Does 4 yrs class as temporary?!
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We will turn it around though. By Tuesday we will be out the bottom three, by Saturday night, we'll be at Wembley. By the start of April we will be six clear. By the end of the West Ham game in May, we will be safe. By the end of the Burnley game, we will be convincing ourselves that we can beat Man United in the FA Cup final.
Ads that is a fuckin brilliant post, thank you.
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If our boys cannot get up for the two games this week given how significant both are for different reasons then we are in really big trouble. This is a huge test of their desire to make a real change to our season.
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Sunderland losing Adam Johnson - arguably their best player - for the foreseeable future could see them pulled further into the mire - Johnson arrested (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-31702374)
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Sunderland losing Adam Johnson - arguably their best player - for the foreseeable future could see them pulled further into the mire - Johnson arrested (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-31702374)
Johnson is a pile of crap. Like Gabby rated by fans of other teams.
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Incredible how one win changes everything...
I'm looking at the run in now and reckon 4 points from Sunderland and Swansea and wins v QPR and Bunrley and that could be enough on its own, would take us to 35 points and you'd think we could nick a draw or two from the other games at least.
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What is key is that we still have to play a number of teams around us so that could put it in our hands at least. If we can win the games against QPR and Sunderland for example, and pick up the odd point elsewhere then we should do it. I just hope we don't need a result going into that Burnley game :-\
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2 wins and 2 draws would give us 33 points. Anything more than that could see us safe this season.
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2 wins and 2 draws would give us 33 points. Anything more than that could see us safe this season.
Yeah no we will need a bit more than that lol. But I do expect someone to have a nightmare around us too.
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Incredible how one win changes everything...
I'm looking at the run in now and reckon 4 points from Sunderland and Swansea and wins v QPR and Bunrley and that could be enough on its own, would take us to 35 points and you'd think we could nick a draw or two from the other games at least.
Our remaining league home games flashed up one of the advertising hoardings during the game today. Swansea, QPR, Everton, West Ham and Burnley. It's not too daunting really.
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It's vitally important we have a buffer between us and the bottom 3 going into April as I don't expect a lot from that.
Tonight was vital and really 4 points from the next two should be very achievable.
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Incredible how one win changes everything...
I'm looking at the run in now and reckon 4 points from Sunderland and Swansea and wins v QPR and Bunrley and that could be enough on its own, would take us to 35 points and you'd think we could nick a draw or two from the other games at least.
Our remaining league home games flashed up one of the advertising hoardings during the game today. Swansea, QPR, Everton, West Ham and Burnley. It's not too daunting really.
Our remaining away games are largely horrible though (including both Manc clubs, Spurs, Southampton) so winning our home games would be very handy. I've seen enough from Sherwood so far to think we could easily get something from all of them.
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You can get 7/4 now on Bet Victor, the other 3 are odds on. Everton are 3 points above us and are 50/1 !
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You can get 7/4 now on Bet Victor, the other 3 are odds on. Everton are 3 points above us and are 50/1 !
I had barely noticed how low they were in the table until this evening.
They have got to play QPR, Burnley and Sunderland. It's a long shot, but lose two or three of those and things start to look a bit interesting.
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You can get 7/4 now on Bet Victor, the other 3 are odds on. Everton are 3 points above us and are 50/1 !
I had barely noticed how low they were in the table until this evening.
They have got to play QPR, Burnley and Sunderland. It's a long shot, but lose two or three of those and things start to look a bit interesting.
True, but I think I'd rather they twated all 3 out of sight, knackering their goal difference in the process.
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After last night it's really important we win the next couple of league games to give us some margin for error in April.
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Excellent results for us tonight. Provided Liverpool maintain the Burnley score, then everything has gone our way. Our goal difference won't even be much worse than Burnley or QPR.
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I'm now starting to believe we can do this...
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I'm now starting to believe we can do this...
After losing 7 games straight, we win 1 and suddenly there's a 3 point gap above the relegation zone. With a run like that we should be cast adrift if the other sides had anything about them. All our home games are winnable so we've got a great chance. It was the turning point that we needed and Baggies fans might be left realising that at the end of the season and knowing that they had a chance to bury us.
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I'd laugh if Everton got sucked into this. They really don't like us do they.
Couldn't care less who goes down, as long as it's not us. And as long as it includes QPFR.
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Excellent results for us tonight. Provided Liverpool maintain the Burnley score, then everything has gone our way. Our goal difference won't even be much worse than Burnley or QPR.
That's the point I was making a week or so ago, our goal difference wasn't so terrible that we were never getting back up with them, if we'd scored the goals we could've in the first half we'd be better than burnley already.
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I'd laugh if Everton got sucked into this. They really don't like us do they.
Couldn't care less who goes down, as long as it's not us. And as long as it includes QPFR.
This list of clubs that don't like us is ever growing
Everton
Newcastle
Sha
Smethwick
Qpr
Coventry
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I'd laugh if Everton got sucked into this. They really don't like us do they.
Couldn't care less who goes down, as long as it's not us. And as long as it includes QPFR.
This list of clubs that don't like us is ever growing
Everton
Newcastle
Sha
Smethwick
Qpr
Coventry
Great! Hopefully soon all 91 will hate us, and with good reason!
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I'd laugh if Everton got sucked into this. They really don't like us do they.
Couldn't care less who goes down, as long as it's not us. And as long as it includes QPFR.
This list of clubs that don't like us is ever growing
Everton
Newcastle
Sha
Smethwick
Qpr
Coventry
Great! Hopefully soon all 91 will hate us, and with good reason!
Agree
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I think Sherwood will really emphasize home form in his strategy. They are all winnable games and the Villa Park crowd in full voice is a tremendous asset.
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There's life in the old Lion yet. 5 pts would have been a fair return over the last 3 games, we could have had 2/3 at Newcastle and should have had 3 against Albion, that's a damn sight better that the previous games.
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I'd laugh if Everton got sucked into this. They really don't like us do they.
Couldn't care less who goes down, as long as it's not us. And as long as it includes QPFR.
This list of clubs that don't like us is ever growing
Everton
Newcastle
Sha
Smethwick
Qpr
Coventry
What's QPR's beef with us? Because we dumped that fat f**k Dunne on them?
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They lost £56m last season, £42m of it was Dunnes canteen costs.
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I think Sherwood will really emphasize home form in his strategy. They are all winnable games and the Villa Park crowd in full voice is a tremendous asset.
Sherwood was in BT's studio after the game yesterday talking to them. They started looking at the home games and then the away and Sherwood was talking about the importance of getting the home fans on board because of how important those home games will be.
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Sunderland away, Swansea at home is a genuine opportunity of 6 points. If we do that we'll be well on the way to survival.
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We will turn it around though. By Tuesday we will be out the bottom three, by Saturday night, we'll be at Wembley. By the start of April we will be six clear. By the end of the West Ham game in May, we will be safe. By the end of the Burnley game, we will be convincing ourselves that we can beat Man United in the FA Cup final.
Think this needs bumping up. I must admit I thought you were on drugs but two out of two so far.
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We will turn it around though. By Tuesday we will be out the bottom three, by Saturday night, we'll be at Wembley. By the start of April we will be six clear. By the end of the West Ham game in May, we will be safe. By the end of the Burnley game, we will be convincing ourselves that we can beat Man United in the FA Cup final.
Think this needs bumping up. I must admit I thought you were on drugs but two out of two so far.
Fair play to Ads, although I don't think we will be playing Yanited in the final.
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Yes, just need to edit that to Arsenal.
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It's really important we get some form of positive result this weekend to keep the momentum going.
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Would be a good time for Lowton to do another one of his specials.
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I'd laugh if Everton got sucked into this. They really don't like us do they.
Today's fun fact: Bradford have more wins against Premier League opposition this year than Everton do.
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I'd laugh if Everton got sucked into this. They really don't like us do they.
Today's fun fact: Bradford have more wins against Premier League opposition this year than Everton do.
Another fun fact: today I visited a school in East London that has a link to Everton FC's official website on the home page of its own website. Nobody in the office could or would tell me why.
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I have stuck with 'probably not but I'm worried'. Although I am slightly less worried than I was. I still think Burnley, QPR and Leicester will go. Sunderland are also poor. I think that is at least four clubs we are better than. Hull look decent on paper but less decent on an actual football pitch. I posted before that Everton have to be careful not to sleepwalk there way to relegation. It seems to be creeping up on them and I am not sure to what extent they realise the danger.
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It's really important we get some form of positive result this weekend to keep the momentum going.
That's what Lambert failed to do time and time again. A couple of good results, then we'd lose four on the trot. If Sherwood can put that right, we should be ok.
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When Sherwood took over I was fairly confident we'd stay up. After the Newcastle match I was convinced we'd go down. After last week I now think we have enough to stay up.
Booking flights back to uk tonight for end of May. Will cross the bridge of FA cup final tickets later if we get there.
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The game against Sunderland is all important. If we can keep the recent improvement up we have a decent chance of winning it. Which will be a huge step in our fight for survival. I hope Carlos Sanchez plays and Sherwood gives Carles Gill 20 mins or so to showcase his skills.
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I'm a lot more confident now. I think tomorrow is arguably the major game for us this season, much like Stoke away in Lamberts first season. We're playing a club in a bit of a state. It's a game we've got to be looking to get something from, and ideally a win. A win does us the world of good and allows us to possibly get a gap on the bottom 3. A draw aint the end of the world, but a defeat just knocks a little stuffing out of us going into a difficult run.
If we can go unbeaten in the next two, get at least 4 points, I think we'd be nicely on course to stay up. April will be difficult.
I actually think something as low as 32-33 points will be enough to survive, although I think we'll get beyond that. Particularly now that we seem to be more of an effective attacking unit. We're not too shabby defensively. If we continue scoring goals we'll pick up wins.
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The game against Sunderland is all important. If we can keep the recent improvement up we have a decent chance of winning it. Which will be a huge step in our fight for survival. I hope Carlos Sanchez plays and Sherwood gives Carles Gill 20 mins or so to showcase his skills.
This for me, Drag Sunderland and hopefully Everton in
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Interesting on Sherwoods press conference yesterday, he wanted us to attack as a team and defend as a team, something we've been lacking for quite a while
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I'm a lot more confident now. I think tomorrow is arguably the major game for us this season, much like Stoke away in Lamberts first season. We're playing a club in a bit of a state. It's a game we've got to be looking to get something from, and ideally a win. A win does us the world of good and allows us to possibly get a gap on the bottom 3. A draw aint the end of the world, but a defeat just knocks a little stuffing out of us going into a difficult run.
If we can go unbeaten in the next two, get at least 4 points, I think we'd be nicely on course to stay up. April will be difficult.
I actually think something as low as 32-33 points will be enough to survive, although I think we'll get beyond that. Particularly now that we seem to be more of an effective attacking unit. We're not too shabby defensively. If we continue scoring goals we'll pick up wins.
I agree on the points, 2 wins in the next 2 games and we could be pretty much over the line, if you look at Burnley's next 4 they could very easily be 9 behind us going into the last 6 games, which looks too big a gap for them to close. Then whilst QPR have a decent run for the next 3 after that they a bad run from the middle of April to mid May that will see them play Chelsea, West Ham, Liverpool, Man City and us (sometime in that run) that doesn't look like many points to me which puts a lot of pressure on their 3 now, which still includes Palace and West Brom who aren't giving away many points (except to us in the latter case).
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I'm still voting yes. Ask me again after Sunderland and Swansea.
Lose those two and Villa are right back in the shit. At that point I would see the FA Cup semi as a liability/distraction.
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Well we have a massive chance of staying up now. If we can actually win tomorrow it will help remove the mindset through the club from that we can put together a run of form. I think the players, not just the fans have been in that zone for so long now we do not believe winning a game can be followed up with another win. It's been a long long time of poor displays and terrible losing streaks we all need to believe again.
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The joy needs to be maintained! Scrap out results now and grit our teeth during April before powering over the line in the last few games. Still worried but feel we may have more of a chance now...
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The game against Sunderland is all important. If we can keep the recent improvement up we have a decent chance of winning it. Which will be a huge step in our fight for survival. I hope Carlos Sanchez plays and Sherwood gives Carles Gill 20 mins or so to showcase his skills.
I would personally stick with the midfield three of Westwood, Cleverley and Delph. I still hold out hope for Sanchez, but I think he's going to need a bit more time to adjust.
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The game against Sunderland is all important. If we can keep the recent improvement up we have a decent chance of winning it. Which will be a huge step in our fight for survival. I hope Carlos Sanchez plays and Sherwood gives Carles Gill 20 mins or so to showcase his skills.
I agree but thought he was excellent in the cup game when he came on
I would personally stick with the midfield three of Westwood, Cleverley and Delph. I still hold out hope for Sanchez, but I think he's going to need a bit more time to adjust.
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Amazing how two wins can give the fans and players a lift, after definitely expecting relegation under PL I am now a lot more optimistic with the way we are now attacking and creating a lot more chances. Win today and other clubs around us will be more anxious.
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I agree but thought he was excellent in the cup game when he came on
Up to now his substitutions have been pretty good. Sensible players at sensible times.
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Best odds on us to go down are now 13/2.
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A bit of breathing space is lovely.
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Not out of the woods yet, especially with our horrible fixtures in April, but I think we'll be fine.....
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Absolutely no chance. The confidence is sky high and our home games aren't frightening at all. We could very conceivably win 4 of the remaining 5 games at VP.
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After today there's next to no chance Sunderland will claim 3 more points than us in the run in.
I think the bottom three will be Sunderland, Leicester and QPR.
Once we get clear I'll be rooting for Burnley to stay up. Think it would be great for football as look at what they've spent compared to even the two other promoted clubs.
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A little less daylight now.
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Yeah that's mildly annoying but we need to take care of ourselves.
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Correct. Don't look down, look up. Hull and Sunderland should be the ones bricking it now. We look after our own business there will be nothing to worry about. We are easily the most confident of any of the sides in the lower half of the table. That's going to be critical.
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I mentioned before that the bad atmosphere there seems to be at both Leicester and Sunderland will hinder them both. The Hull and Burnley fans seem to be keeping their heads because they both probably expected to struggle and staying up is success for them. I can't tell what the atmosphere is like at QPR. Obviously we have had the boost of some wins. It seems to be getting a bit moody at Everton, which is nice.
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I thought we were bad, Sunderland fans were actually trying to get into the dugout to fight today. Even women.
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I thought we were bad, Sunderland fans were actually trying to get into the dugout to fight today. Even women.
They need some fight on the pitch. They should get a game. Including the women.
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I thought we were bad, Sunderland fans were actually trying to get into the dugout to fight today. Even women.
They need some fight on the pitch. They should get a game. Including the women.
I like them and I hope they stay up.
I hope they stuff Newcastle on April 5th too.
Proper club and fans.
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I thought we were bad, Sunderland fans were actually trying to get into the dugout to fight today. Even women.
They need some fight on the pitch. They should get a game. Including the women.
I like them and I hope they stay up.
I hope they stuff Newcastle on April 5th too.
Proper club and fans.
I have always liked them in a 'big support that deserves a bit of success' way. Same as Sheffield Wednesday. Although they were a bit moody the one time I went to Roker Park in the Dr Jo season. But I do like it when they beat Newcastle.
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I thought we were bad, Sunderland fans were actually trying to get into the dugout to fight today. Even women.
They need some fight on the pitch. They should get a game. Including the women.
How could you tell it was a woman? is there a difference in that part of the world?
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3 points are vital next week against Swansea. All out attack I say. The Baggies beat them 2-0 recently, but they can be awkward as Southampton found out a few weeks back - at least we don' t have worry about Bony.
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I thought we were bad, Sunderland fans were actually trying to get into the dugout to fight today. Even women.
They need some fight on the pitch. They should get a game. Including the women.
I like them and I hope they stay up.
I hope they stuff Newcastle on April 5th too.
Proper club and fans.
I've always liked tham as well, and I've got a couple of very good friends who support them.
But if it's us or them - fuck 'em.
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Still pisses me off that we stuck with useless Lambert for so long; the 4 year contract decision by Lerner was ridiculous - that caused him to delay firing Lambert for so long. Sherwood should' ve been appointed at the end of December. I think we'll survive, just. This last 5 years of struggle are bad for your stress levels - hopefully, we'll be more top 10 next season.
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I am obsessed by the notion that Burnley's result has relegated us. I know, I need to grow a pair.
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I am obsessed by the notion that Burnley's result has relegated us. I know, I need to grow a pair.
It's not us or them.
They seem to be have had incredible luck with lack of injuries, the opposite of us.
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I am obsessed by the notion that Burnley's result has relegated us. I know, I need to grow a pair.
Kind of get what you're saying, but there's 27 points to be played for and still plenty of turns left. I think if Burnley survive it will be at the expense of Sunderland or Hull. Have you seen Hull's run in? If it were ours I'd be shitting myself.
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The bookies are never wrong...:-) and they have Leics, QPR, Burnley, Sunderland and Hull all at shorter odds than us to drop..
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Thanks all.
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2 weeks ago a lot on here were convinced we'd gone after the Stoke and Newcastle games. Now most of think we'll be fine. Shows how quickly things can change. We aren't out of the woods yet but i'd much rather be us than any of the other clubs around us.
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One game at a time is all we can do. Let's put Swansea to the sword next .
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The bookies are never wrong...:-) and they have Leics, QPR, Burnley, Sunderland and Hull all at shorter odds than us to drop..
The bookies aren't the ones setting the odds. It is the customers doing that.
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2 weeks ago a lot on here were convinced we'd gone after the Stoke and Newcastle games. Now most of think we'll be fine. Shows how quickly things can change. We aren't out of the woods yet but i'd much rather be us than any of the other clubs around us.
I'm a lot happier about it having won a couple of league games (and a cup match as a bonus) than i was a few weeks ago, but there's still a way to go. As silhillvilla says above, step by step, match by match is the sensible way to do it.
Let's focus on beating Swansea.
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Yeah I think there's still quite a lot of work to do yet. Start by beating Swansea. We haven't gone behind in a game since Sherwood took over, so I hope we can respond when that does happen.
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We haven't gone behind in a game since Sherwood took over, so I hope we can respond when that does happen.
The Stoke and Newcastle games panned out differently to how I remember them then!
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We haven't gone behind in a game since Sherwood took over, so I hope we can respond when that does happen.
The Stoke and Newcastle games panned out differently to how I remember them then!
Yep my mind must have gone there for a second! But it kind of supports my point anyway. We need to see how we respond to adversity now that we've recovered some confidence. I hope that confidence isn't too fragile, because we still have work to do to be safe.
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The bookies are never wrong...:-) and they have Leics, QPR, Burnley, Sunderland and Hull all at shorter odds than us to drop..
The bookies aren't the ones setting the odds. It is the customers doing that.
Well hopefully there's something in the fact that the majority of punters believe we'll stay up. For what it's worth I think we will too and I predicted we'd batter Sunderland, so I must be right. (I'll ignore all the other games I went in with foolish optimism over the last few months to be proved horribly wrong)
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Look at this way, under Lambert we'd probably have lost the last two matches and would be 19th, 6 points away from safety.
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And Burnley winning means that players can't get carried away with themselves and Saturday's win. However unlikely we could be back in the bottom 3 next weekend so we need to approach the game with positivity but with a bit more caution.
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I am obsessed by the notion that Burnley's result has relegated us. I know, I need to grow a pair.
Burnley's next 3 games are tough. Southampton away and Spurs and Arsenal at home. We should have a clearer idea if your notion bears any fruit after then. There's no doubt Saturday was a massive confidence boost for them and I can see why you think it may be a defining moment in their season.
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Look at this way, under Lambert we'd probably have lost the last two matches and would be 19th, 6 points away from safety.
Very true and that's why I think Sherwood has done a hell of a job to turn us round.
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I am obsessed by the notion that Burnley's result has relegated us. I know, I need to grow a pair.
If we do go down it won't be because of Burnley turning Man City over, it will be because we were shit for 6 months!
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I am obsessed by the notion that Burnley's result has relegated us. I know, I need to grow a pair.
If we do go down it won't be because of Burnley turning Man City over, it will be because we were shit for 6 months!
and it will be because we didn't look after our own business from now until the end of the season. We've gone from a situation a couple of weeks back where we needed a bit of help from others screwing up, to now being in a position to look after ourselves with some decent results. We'll only have ourselves to blame now if it goes shit shaped, something that I don't think at all will happen.
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If we go down from here - and Hull stay up - I'll be calling for an investigation into doping because I can't see them getting another 6 points.
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Look at this way, under Lambert we'd probably have lost the last two matches and would be 19th, 6 points away from safety.
I'd rather not, I'll start to come out in a rash.
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If we go down from here - and Hull stay up - I'll be calling for an investigation into doping because I can't see them getting another 6 points.
Just looked at their run in and they could easily lose 8 out of those 9.
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Looking at April and where the QPR game has been put I think we really need to beat Swansea this weekend.
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I actually like our remaining fixtures. I think we've got a chance in all of them, Man City away aside.
We can beat Man Utd, they've not been playing well all season. As for Spurs, if we're scared of playing them, we might as well just pack it in.
Only other one I'm worried about, aside from Man City, is Southampton away, but they might be "on the beach" by then.
If we beat QPR, Swansea, and Burnley, that puts us on 37 pts. I think that will be enough, but I expect us to get a few more points from the other games too.
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Man City just lost to Burnley with everything still to play for. By the time we play them, they'll be out of the CL and Chelsea could be out of sight. All of a sudden instead of playing a very motivated group, we'll be playing a bunch of talented but exorbitantly paid players thinking more about the beach rather than the importance of finishing 2nd or 3rd. If that's the case we will still have a lot more to play for than them, so we will have a good chance of getting something from that game. Our attitude needs to be right. We know Sherwood won't go there waving a white flag like Lambert.
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Plus I doubt Milner will be trying too hard against the club he's about to re-join on a Bosman.
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I think 9 more points will get us over the line.
We have a chance in all 5 of our home games - Swansea, QPR, Everton, West Ham and Burnley; 3 wins or 2 wins and 3 draws out of that lot will do - especially if we can avoid defeat against QPR and Burnley.
Anything we get from our away games will be a bonus.
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I think 9 more points will get us over the line.
We have a chance in all 5 of our home games - Swansea, QPR, Everton, West Ham and Burnley; 3 wins or 2 wins and 3 draws out of that lot will do - especially if we can avoid defeat against QPR and Burnley.
Anything we get from our away games will be a bonus.
Stating the obvious time - if we can't get nine points from those five we deserve to go down.
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I don't even think we need 9. Leicester and QPR will struggle to make it to 30 and having seen Hull's fixtures they won't get much higher.
Two wins from 9 matches will do us. We'll stroll it!
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I actually like our remaining fixtures. I think we've got a chance in all of them, Man City away aside.
We can beat Man Utd, they've not been playing well all season.
On current form (last 8 games) Man United are 3rd with 19 points W6 D1 L1 and Man City are 9th with 11 points W3 D3 L3. Man United have been getting points without playing that well (except for their last match where they battered Spurs which some of their fans have been saying was their best performance in 4 years).
We're currently in 16th place with 6 points L6 D0 W2
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I actually like our remaining fixtures. I think we've got a chance in all of them, Man City away aside.
We can beat Man Utd, they've not been playing well all season.
On current form (last 8 games) Man United are 3rd with 19 points W6 D1 L1 and Man City are 9th with 11 points W3 D3 L3. Man United have been getting points without playing that well (except for their last match where they battered Spurs which some of their fans have been saying was their best performance in 4 years).
We're currently in 16th place with 6 points L6 D0 W2
Is a game that happened 2 months ago, under a different manager, really representative of 'current form'? Because that's how far back 8 games go.
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http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/matchday/form-guide.html
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Interesting Southampton have wobbled a bit at home. Against a very positive Villa they could struggle.
The home games with QPR, West Ham and Burnley should be enough for 9 points and safety, but I have a nagging feeling that the Burnley game we will still need a result from.
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We need to make sure Burnley at home is a non event for us. It can mean whatever it needs to be for Burnley as it did for Newcastle a few years back. Hopefully we are sitting safe by then looking forward to the FA Cup final.
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My West Ham supporting mate suggests they've been absolutely rubbish since Christmas with a total of 9 points since then.
3 points for the taking for us.
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We've won 4 out of last 6 v PL opposition haven't we?
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We've won 4 out of last 6 v PL opposition haven't we?
Very weak Premier League opposition, but Premier League opposition nevertheless.
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We've won 4 out of last 6 v PL opposition haven't we?
Very weak Premier League opposition, but Premier League opposition nevertheless.
On current form West Brom don't count as weak opposition (it pains me to say).
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I actually like our remaining fixtures. I think we've got a chance in all of them, Man City away aside.
We can beat Man Utd, they've not been playing well all season.
On current form (last 8 games) Man United are 3rd with 19 points W6 D1 L1 and Man City are 9th with 11 points W3 D3 L3. Man United have been getting points without playing that well (except for their last match where they battered Spurs which some of their fans have been saying was their best performance in 4 years).
We're currently in 16th place with 6 points L6 D0 W2
Is a game that happened 2 months ago, under a different manager, really representative of 'current form'? Because that's how far back 8 games go.
A valid point. I notice that we're now up to 13th place in the updated current form league table following Sundays games. The main point I was trying to make was that Man City's form was not that great (although I think it's mainly their away form that's been the problem whilst Man United who are perceived by many to be not that good and playing badly are actually in a good vein of form). Quite a few people seem confident of getting something from the United game but are writing us off against City - you never know. Obviously I hope we beat them both. I wonder what the odds would be on a Manchester double?
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If City go out tonight then lose further ground in the league in the next couple of games, I can see Peligrini getting the bullet in time for us to go there and spring a surprise.
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We've won 4 out of last 6 v PL opposition haven't we?
Very weak Premier League opposition, but Premier League opposition nevertheless.
You could spin that into a positive and say we are winning the six pointers. With QPR and Everton to come. I refuse to count the Burnley game as I refuse to accept it will go to the last day. This sticking my head in the sand trick worked a while back when we had to go to Wigan on the last day.
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We've had a good run and it's great to see, but we're a long way from being safe. It's vital we win against Swansea at the weekend to ease some of the pressure in April. April is going to be very tough and we're probably going to have to do very well not to find ourselves right in it going into May.
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We've won 4 out of last 6 v PL opposition haven't we?
Very weak Premier League opposition, but Premier League opposition nevertheless.
You could spin that into a positive and say we are winning the six pointers. With QPR and Everton to come. I refuse to count the Burnley game as I refuse to accept it will go to the last day. This sticking my head in the sand trick worked a while back when we had to go to Wigan on the last day.
Pulis had lost just once for West Brom before we played them. They were a form side. They won last week to bounce back. I don't think they should be considered poor by any means. I think beating them twice in a week (convincingly) was good going. They'll still finish ahead of us and they'll be as safe as houses, but I do think the biggest factor in our wins was that we were playing to our potential and on paper we've got better players than West Brom. They're a lower mid-table side (11-13th). We should be a lower end of the top half side (8th-10th) with the players at our disposal.
I think we're simply now winning games we ought to be winning. If we can keep doing that and pick up some surprise results along the way, we'll be safe as houses.
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I find it slightly frustrating that, because we've had such a dreadful season there's so much pressure to win the next game. This weekend is a good example, we've been on a good run but if we lose on Saturday and results go against us we could be back in the bottom three on Sunday. Then we're facing a trip to Old Trafford to try and drag ourselves out again. That's why it's so important that we beat Swansea.
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We've had a good run and it's great to see, but we're a long way from being safe. It's vital we win against Swansea at the weekend to ease some of the pressure in April. April is going to be very tough and we're probably going to have to do very well not to find ourselves right in it going into May.
I think vital is overstating it, a draw would not be the end of world.
That said, I think we now will go into games where the opposition have to worry about us a little more due to a couple of strikers who found a bit of form and a set of players who have shown themselves able to make chances for them. I don't think that is the case for many of the other relegation contenders.
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Any chance we could reset the poll?
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We've had a good run and it's great to see, but we're a long way from being safe. It's vital we win against Swansea at the weekend to ease some of the pressure in April. April is going to be very tough and we're probably going to have to do very well not to find ourselves right in it going into May.
I think vital is overstating it, a draw would not be the end of world.
That said, I think we now will go into games where the opposition have to worry about us a little more due to a couple of strikers who found a bit of form and a set of players who have shown themselves able to make chances for them. I don't think that is the case for many of the other relegation contenders.
A draw wouldn't be a disaster, dependant on how the other teams around us get on. April looks pretty rough though and other than QPR at home(which will be high pressure), there don't appear to be many obvious opportunities for points. Clearly we might get a surprise result, but at the moment Swansea at home looks like a pretty important game.
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Any chance we could reset the poll?
It was reset after the Albion games.
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Any chance we could reset the poll?
It was reset after the Albion games.
I know I was one of the 10 people that voted Yes but I'm now in the Probably not but still worried camp after the dizzy heights of the Sunderland match.
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Fortunately every other result went our way this weekend, so in spite of losing we're now in a better place as teams have less games available to overhaul us.
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These may be famous last words, but I can't see Leicester catching us at this point and if we are both still on the same points and we beat QPR in a couple of weeks, it will be in a similar situation with them. It is still very tight for that last spot though, but Hull have got a terrible run-in. I think they have to play all the teams currently in the top 7 in their remaining 8 fixtures.
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Of all the teams in danger i would rather be in Villas position than any of the others, Leicester are too far back QPR are hopeless at the moment and have difficuly games and Sunderland may suprise but i doubt it.
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Problem is that we have little margin for error in the remaining games. Leicester, Hull and Burnley have all played against the top sides in recent weeks and given them almighty scares, and in Burnley's case beaten them. I just don't see us being able to do that even under Sherwood. We can't just keep relying on other teams to constantly do us favours...we need to start helping ourselves.
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What the weekend shows is that a team that can get a win can really improve its position immeasurably. All of the teams in the bottom 6 found ways to lose, whether or not they played well or played poorly. We need to get that next win, or even a point cause the chance of every team on the same weekend doing the same is basically zero. It will not only ease the pressure on ourselves but increase it on the others as games remaining gets lower.
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What the weekend shows is that a team that can get a win can really improve its position immeasurably. All of the teams in the bottom 6 found ways to lose, whether or not they played well or played poorly. We need to get that next win, or even a point cause the chance of every team on the same weekend doing the same is basically zero. It will not only ease the pressure on ourselves but increase it on the others as games remaining gets lower.
Agree TV. The upcoming games against the so called big teams" will be another test of Sherwood. I often got the impression with previous managers that those types of games were just written off as losses before we even got on the coach and that all involved were content with simply avoiding a serious hiding.
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When we play at Manure, Spurs and Citeh we will have to be less open than we were at the weekend. One concern is that Sherwood did struggle against the 'big teams' when at Spurs.
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When we play at Manure, Spurs and Citeh we will have to be less open than we were at the weekend. One concern is that Sherwood did struggle against the 'big teams' when at Spurs.
He also won at OT with Spurs.
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When we play at Manure, Spurs and Citeh we will have to be less open than we were at the weekend. One concern is that Sherwood did struggle against the 'big teams' when at Spurs.
He also won at OT with Spurs.
Let's hope he does the same for us.
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When we play at Manure, Spurs and Citeh we will have to be less open than we were at the weekend. One concern is that Sherwood did struggle against the 'big teams' when at Spurs.
Agree PW. Making us harder to beat in those type of games is one of his biggest challenges. We have been pretty pathetic in them in the past few seasons.
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Funny how this thread has been relegated (no pun intended) to page 3. What's happened that makes relegation less likely?
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People have been posting on the Plot to Escape Relegation thread instead. But in any case we could really do with a win this weekend and everyone else around us losing.
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35 points will be enough I reckon. 2 wins. If we can't get 2 wins from the last 6 games, we deserve to go down.
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Agreed. Problem is I thought many of us agreed that the QPR match was a must win should win and we were lucky to get away with a point.
I just hope we haven't lost the ability to win a game. A few returning injured players would help - anything thanhaving to rely on the hopeless Richardson.
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QPR was a must win. We didn't. I think that this is finally when our reaper finds us.
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QPR was a must not lose rather than a must win. If we get another 2 wins we are probably safe and it won't matter that we did not beat QPR.
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As RE said QPR was must not lose and we didn't and we were not lucky.
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It probably wasn't even strictly speaking a must not lose game. Psychologically we needed to get something from it but in reality a game is only "must win" if you are mathematically down if you don't.
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My only problem with us needing 2 wins from the fixtures left, is that the most winnable game is the final game of the season. That will be a real pressure situation and I'm worried about how the lads will handle that, whereas for Burnley it's more of a nothing to lose game and everyone expected them to go down at the start of the season, still does now, and they are a really small club.
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My only problem with us needing 2 wins from the fixtures left, is that the most winnable game is the final game of the season. That will be a real pressure situation and I'm worried about how the lads will handle that, whereas for Burnley it's more of a nothing to lose game and everyone expected them to go down at the start of the season, still does now, and they are a really small club.
Completely agree
We had two remaining games against sides you might expect us to beat. Winning any of our other games would be a minor or major surprise and we've not pulled many of those out of the bag this season. Not since that weird spell at the start that might still be our saviour.
I'd love to think we could beat Spurs or Everton for the first time in ages. But I'm not expecting it. So the West Ham game will be crucial and much will depend on whether we give a stupid goal away in that game
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QPR was a must win. We didn't. I think that this is finally when our reaper finds us.
No matter how positively I try to look at the remaining fixtures, that feeling just won't go away. Every result throughout the season counts, but getting one point from the 12 available at Hull, QPR, Burnley and Leicester has really cost us.
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Teams that survive sometimes mess up when they're expected to win but equally pick up results when they're not expected to. We've had the former, I'm just hoping for the latter.
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15 Sunderland 37 -25 34
16 QPR 37 -22 33
17 Aston Villa 37 -27 33
18 Burnley 37 -26 32
19 Hull 36 -19 29
20 Leicester 37 -23 28
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That's what I just got on predictions going into the last games- two defeats in the next games followed by a win draw and loss in the following three.
I reckon it will be around as close as that
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Just asked my wife (who knows the square root of f**k all about football) to call out the scores for the Sky Saturday Super 6 or whatever it's called. She had Sunderland, Leicester, Burnley and Hull all to lose. Unfortunately she had us to lose 3-1 too. Sadly I'd probably take that now.
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15 Sunderland 37 -25 34
16 QPR 37 -22 33
17 Aston Villa 37 -27 33
18 Burnley 37 -26 32
19 Hull 36 -19 29
20 Leicester 37 -23 28
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That's what I just got on predictions going into the last games- two defeats in the next games followed by a win draw and loss in the following three.
I reckon it will be around as close as that
If it's going into the last game, why have Hull only played 36 games?
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15 Sunderland 37 -25 34
16 QPR 37 -22 33
17 Aston Villa 37 -27 33
18 Burnley 37 -26 32
19 Hull 36 -19 29
20 Leicester 37 -23 28
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That's what I just got on predictions going into the last games- two defeats in the next games followed by a win draw and loss in the following three.
I reckon it will be around as close as that
I'd snap your hands off if offered as a final day scenario.
Yes anything can happen last game but going into that knowing you only have to avoid defeat to stay up rather than winning is what I want.
As hard as their run in is I can't quite believe Hull will only take one more point this season though.
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We will beat Spurs tomorrow. We will lose the semi-final though.
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If it all goes to plan, we will survive due to the shiteness of others (again).
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If it all goes to plan, we will survive due to the shiteness of others (again).
We can never be better than anyone in your world can we? They always have to be worse than us.
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If it all goes to plan, we will survive due to the shiteness of others (again).
No, if we stay up its because we are better than others. Again.
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If it all goes to plan, we will survive due to the shiteness of others (again).
We can never be better than anyone in your world can we? They always have to be worse than us.
You must be quite content then with how the last 3 or 4 years have been ? Especially this one
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If it all goes to plan, we will survive due to the shiteness of others (again).
We can never be better than anyone in your world can we? They always have to be worse than us.
You must be quite content then with how the last 3 or 4 years have been ? Especially this one
Did I say that? Ever?
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33 points will be enough this season, one of the lowest points tallies ever, that kind of tells you the tale.
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We will beat Spurs tomorrow. We will lose the semi-final though.
Pathetic defeatist post edited. Man up, Desmond
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33 points will be enough this season, one of the lowest points tallies ever, that kind of tells you the tale.
Sorry, I missed that Premier League proclamation.
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I sense a Vidic moment next week, but we will have Spurs tomorrow.
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If it all goes to plan, we will survive due to the shiteness of others (again).
On that basis Chelsea will only win the League because of how shit Man City and Arsenal are.
If Arsenal win it, it will only be because Chelsea flattered to deceive for 85% of the season.
We only won the league in 80-81 because Ipswich were wank and the following year won some tin pot trophy due to some foreign tossers not being much cop.
Over 38 games you finish where you deserve, and if that says we were the 17th best team then fair enough. 2 months ago I'd have been worried they would have had to invent a 21st spot for us.
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We have been crap but boy how bad must some of the other teams be, we don't get to watch them week in and week out but we've scored a tiny amount of goals, gone on massive winless runs and been boring but still only spent a week or two in the bottom 3.
If we stay up it's because we finally made the decision to sack the boring one, albeit at least 7 months too late, arguably a lot longer. We have decent players in some positions but as we all know they've been very poorly coached and motivated for a long time and it does take its toll.
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That's exactly my point. This has to be one of the poorest PL seasons ever in terms of the quality of the bottom 5 or 6 sides. Utter gash.
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That's exactly my point. This has to be one of the poorest PL seasons ever in terms of the quality of the bottom 5 or 6 sides. Utter gash.
Undoubtedly. Chelsea have been the only side to have any semblence of consistency, and even they got thoroughly shown up in the Champs League.
Utd being third despite playing pretty poorly all season and defending abysmally, also says a lot. Moneybags City have looked shockingly average at times given the money spent, and find themselves with a squad filled with too many declining players. They're paying the price for operating like a fantasy football manager, rather than building something. There's no youth there.
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My brother in law is a Hull fan, so we talk about relegation struggles a lot.
After the QPR match, I was feeling pretty downhearted.
He made s good point about the match, which was 'two teams battling and fighting to avoid relegation. We can't summon up anywhere near that spirit and fight ".
Which struck me as something to be positive about. We are at least showing spirit and bottle, something we clearly lacked in the later Lambert period.
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That's exactly my point. This has to be one of the poorest PL seasons ever in terms of the quality of the bottom 5 or 6 sides. Utter gash.
I agree with this and would say that the PL has been pretty woeful for the last three seasons at least. And I also do think that we will stay up but once again only because we are not quite as poor as those around us. And the problem with relieing on that every season is that in the end it will catch up with us. Besides with some of the players we have we should be targeting 12th or 11th at least.
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My brother in law is a Hull fan, so we talk about relegation struggles a lot.
After the QPR match, I was feeling pretty downhearted.
He made s good point about the match, which was 'two teams battling and fighting to avoid relegation. We can't summon up anywhere near that spirit and fight ".
Which struck me as something to be positive about. We are at least showing spirit and bottle, something we clearly lacked in the later Lambert period.
I work with a Hull fan and he's completely oblivious to how much shit they're in.
After today's results I think Burnley and QPR are going to escape and QPR were shocking on Tuesday.
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I listened to the Saints v Hull game and the commentators are convinced Hull are going they are so bad.
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I listened to the Saints v Hull game and the commentators are convinced Hull are going they are so bad.
Hulls biggest problem is their run in from Hell!
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Well we've done ourselves a massive favour there. Delighted to say that Albion could now be in real trouble with their run-in.
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Little bit of breathing space. Hope Arsenal and Chelsea can do the business.
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Big step towards safety today. Hopefully Burnley and QPR will lose too.
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Is it fuck the season. UTV
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Well we've done ourselves a massive favour there. Delighted to say that Albion could now be in real trouble with their run-in.
Sadly they're already out of reach of Leicester, Hull and Sunderland.
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Table
13 Newcastle 31 -16 35
14 West Brom 32 -16 33
15 Aston Villa 33 -21 32
16 Sunderland 32 -23 29
17 Hull 32 -16 28
18 QPR 32 -20 26
19 Burnley 31 -23 26
20 Leicester 31 -19 25
Remaining fixtures
West Brom
Crystal Palace v West Brom
West Brom v Liverpool
Man Utd v West Brom
Newcastle v West Brom
West Brom v Chelsea
Arsenal v West Brom
Sunderland
Stoke v Sunderland
Sunderland v Southampton
Everton v Sunderland
Sunderland v Leicester
Arsenal v Sunderland
Chelsea v Sunderland
Hull v Liverpool
Crystal Palace v Hull
Hull v Arsenal
Hull v Burnley
Tottenham v Hull
Hull v Man Utd
Aston Villa
Man City v Aston Villa
Aston Villa v Everton
Aston Villa v West Ham
Southampton v Aston Villa
Aston Villa v Burnley
Burnley
Burnley v Arsenal
Everton v Burnley
Burnley v Leicester
West Ham v Burnley
Hull v Burnley
Burnley v Stoke
Aston Villa v Burnley
QPR
QPR v Chelsea
QPR v West Ham
Liverpool v QPR
Man City v QPR
QPR v Newcastle
Leicester v QPR
Leicester
Leicester v Swansea
Burnley v Leicester
Leicester v Chelsea
Leicester v Newcastle
Leicester v Southampton
Sunderland v Leicester
Leicester v QPR
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Looking at the fixtures, it's good to see so many games between relegation rivals, which minimises the ability of all of the teams below us from picking up points. Also, never mind Hull's run in, west brom's is a bit of a shocker too.
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I think we'll be safe by the end of the West Ham game. Today was such a great result for us. It's always good to get one you're not expected to.
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Not safe yet but today's result showed how it was a bit ridiculous of those people who claimed that we should have just penned in zero points across all four of United/Spurs/City/Southampton away.
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Not safe yet but today's result showed how it was a bit ridiculous of those people who claimed that we should have just penned in zero points across all four of United/Spurs/City/Southampton away.
One could almost say that it was laughable.
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Well we've done ourselves a massive favour there. Delighted to say that Albion could now be in real trouble with their run-in.
Sadly they're already out of reach of Leicester, Hull and Sunderland.
Looking at their remaining fixtures they could well have declared on 33, unless they snatch something at the barcodes.
I still think 35 will be the magic number so there's hope yet.
Anyway breathing much easier tonight after that result.
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Looking at the fixtures, it's good to see so many games between relegation rivals, which minimises the ability of all of the teams below us from picking up points. Also, never mind Hull's run in, west brom's is a bit of a shocker too.
Leicester v QPR on the last day might be a bit tasty.
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I'm glad that we've got less league games than the rest now. The onus is on them now to win those games in hand. It puts a bit of pressure on those sides. 3-5 points probably sees us over the line now.
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Getting less worried with each passing week. More sides getting dragged into it, and we're slowly but steadily heading in the opposite direction. TS seems the type that'll make sure the players keep at it, I have every confidence in that.
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Here's hoping Liverpool and Chelsea do the business this coming week. Getting a little too close for comfort.
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Indeed.
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No way. As i have said on numerous topics, this will be our most successful season in ages.
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Looking at the fixtures, it's good to see so many games between relegation rivals, which minimises the ability of all of the teams below us from picking up points. Also, never mind Hull's run in, west brom's is a bit of a shocker too.
Leicester v QPR on the last day might be a bit tasty.
So might Aston Villa v Burnley if were not careful, and, as i`ve stated elsewhere, with a certain fixture only SIX days later, genuinley doesnt bear thinking about.
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Getting even more concerned now.
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No, as long as Sunderland remain utterly bollocks they will take that last spot.
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No, as long as Sunderland remain utterly bollocks they will take that last spot.
Point at Stoke wasnt bad
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There's more chance of Leicester winning two more games in the run in than Sunderland.
I'm honestly not bothered by Leicester losing tonight as I see them beating Newcastle and QPR at home in the run in which will take them to 37 points and safety.
It's very important for us they get something away to Sunderland aswell which on present form you'd expect them to do.
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No, as long as Sunderland remain utterly bollocks they will take that last spot.
They have been, but they've got enough quality there to get one or two results which may just be enough. We aren't talking about teams going on winning runs at this stage, one flukey win and a draw might well be enough. I think Sunderland and Hull probably have enough decent players to manage that.
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Since winning at Palace on Nov 3rd, Sunderland have won 3 league game. Newcastle twice and Burnley. They are fucked.
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But it does take just one lucky goal sometimes
I don't think Leicester are at all safe yet. Can't see them sustaining recent form
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Since winning at Palace on Nov 3rd, Sunderland have won 3 league game. Newcastle twice and Burnley. They are fucked.
Before they went on that little run Leicester had only won 3 or 4 games all season.
Anything can happen and we won't be safe until the points are on the board.
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Important win for chavski last night, first time I have celebrated a John terry goal and hopefully the last, Just hope Southampton aren't on the beach come saturday but our fate is in our own hands..Beat Everton and West Ham and were sound
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Since winning at Palace on Nov 3rd, Sunderland have won 3 league game. Newcastle twice and Burnley. They are fucked.
Before they went on that little run Leicester had only won 3 or 4 games all season.
Anything can happen and we won't be safe until the points are on the board.
The difference is Liecester seemed to always be in games. Sunderland have been clattered on several occasions by sides around them, at home. You get the impression hat if you score twice against them, then you'll win the game.
If we can take four points from our next two then I'd fancy us to be 5 clear of Sunderland with them having three to play. That would mean they'd have to win two out of their last three which include Arsenal and Chelsea away, while we would have to lose both our last games.
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If Southampton don't lose to them this weekend then we're in business
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Important win for chavski last night, first time I have celebrated a John terry goal and hopefully the last, Just hope Southampton aren't on the beach come saturday but our fate is in our own hands..Beat Everton and West Ham and were sound
Just to add a little balance, we have won 3 home league games all season and only once under Sherwood.
We have to play with more conviction at home in the next 10 days to get the four points we need to get some breathing space.
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To write Sunderland off as having no chance is a huge mistake in my book.
Look at the run they went on last season when they were written off. Didn't they win at Chelsea, Man City and Man Utd or something like that.
I know it'll highly unlikely to happen again but what we should bare in mind is that by the time Sunderland come to play Arsenal and Chelsea. Arsenal may well be guaranteed CL spot and have nothing to play for as well as possibly resting players ahead of the FA Cup final and Chelsea will more than likely be on the beach having been crowned Champions two weeks ahead of their game with Sunderland.
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To write any team off as having no chance is nonsense given what Leicester have done. It's up to us to save ourselves and win a couple of games.
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Important win for chavski last night, first time I have celebrated a John terry goal and hopefully the last, Just hope Southampton aren't on the beach come saturday but our fate is in our own hands..Beat Everton and West Ham and were sound
Just to add a little balance, we have won 3 home league games all season and only once under Sherwood.
We have to play with more conviction at home in the next 10 days to get the four points we need to get some breathing space.
The QPR game is the attacking template for a home game under sherwood. Not the defensive one tho, to say the least
We might go for a more possession based approach v Everton perhaps. But if we leave ourselves open at the back they showed v Man U they've the ability to cut through us easily.
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Since winning at Palace on Nov 3rd, Sunderland have won 3 league game. Newcastle twice and Burnley. They are fucked.
Whilst I agree in part, they are only two points behind us. I think it's a bit early to completely write them off.
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Think if we win tomorrow and Sunderland lose its more or less job done.
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To write any team off as having no chance is nonsense given what Leicester have done. It's up to us to save ourselves and win a couple of games.
Absolutely
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Since winning at Palace on Nov 3rd, Sunderland have won 3 league game. Newcastle twice and Burnley. They are fucked.
Whilst I agree in part, they are only two points behind us. I think it's a bit early to completely write them off.
I'm not totally writing them off, we all know anything can happen. But it makes it very unlikely that side that has beaten just 2 clubs in nearly 6 months, the bottom club and Newcastle, winning 3 of their last 5. As long as we get the points we've been saying we need, 4-6 I'd prefer 6, then I just don't see them catching us. And if we get 6 points both Burnley and QPR need to win every remaining game to catch us.
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You've also got to look at the Sunderland squad. It's really weak all over.
If Southampton utilise their pace tomorrow they can give them a shoeing
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...where we go down?
No. Thank McGrath for that. I also hope it will be the last time for a while that we flirt with relegation. Five seasons in a row is ridiculous.
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I think we'll all take a bit of pleasure in seeing this thread despatched to the land of the dead threads.
*presses big red button*
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Likes, big style.
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A bit more of a subtle ending than my farewell to the relegation thread!