Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: andyh on September 27, 2023, 11:06:37 PM
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As a club, what actually is our priority?
We aren’t going to win the league and so the best we can hope for is to finish a couple of places higher than last season.
We went all out to qualify for Europe, and then put out a poor, second string that cost us the game in Poland.
We get a decent home tie in the league cup, massacre the team and formation and get dumped out with barely a whimper.
I love Emery, I really do.
But I’m struggling to understand what the club is prioritising this year.
Any ideas anyone ?
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Corporate hospitality.
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There are five Champions League places available this season, and it's not completely out of the question that we could challenge for one of them - especially now Chelsea and Man United look vulnerable.
Perhaps Emery and the Board - "The Emery Board!" thought that too at the start of the season; though it's now apparent that we simply cannot rotate our defence and midfield too much.
I think it should be to win SOMETHING with the order of priority (writing off the possibility of winning the PL) - FA Cup >>>>Conference League >>>>Carabao
If we had a recent history of winning trophies, then I'd be saying we should prioritise the League; but we haven't.
We've gone potless for 27 years, which is ridiculous for a club of our size - you'd have to be in your early mid 30s to be able to remember that - and we must have lost thousands of potential fans in that time.
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I'd say the FA Cup.
Well aside from the league. League is always priority for every club really.
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It’s obvious that the PL is the priority.
Maybe not for all the fans but without doubt it is fir the club.
They want CL football and with that they get to do more corporate,merchandise, TV, sponsorship and ultimately more money.
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Commercial revenue.
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It’s obvious that the PL is the priority.
Maybe not for all the fans but without doubt it is for the club.
They want CL football and with that they get to do more corporate,merchandise, TV, sponsorship and ultimately more money.
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Corporate hospitality.
Money money and more money. Football is all about money.
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As a club I think the priority is to break the top-4.
Much as we joke about corporate hospitality, if we are going to try to compete it will have to be an integral part of us getting there. Looking at Man Citiy's offerings compared to ours was an eye-opener. We're going to have to start bridging that gap one way or another.
I still think there's a right and a wrong way of doing it. The Terrace View was the wrong way, but I guess we are desperately tight on space in our ground given the size of the stands, so on reflection I understand the thinking. The Holte Suite was inevitable. It may not have been handled or communicated well, but even so I think it's reasonable for the club to try to make money from that space.
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5th place or above. And if we don’t do it now, it’s hard to see a future where we ever will.
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It has to be the League for the long term future of the Club!
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I'm pretty sure there's an Unai soundbite from the close season saying he wanted a cup. The Carabao or Conference League would lead to UEFA Cup qualification, so surely a step in the right direction.
I fully understand everything he said about fitness & rotation, but putting square pegs in round holes never works. Still have nightmares trying to see Heskey defend. If he'd have not been loaned out given Moreno's delicate fitness Revan could have filled in admirably with less risk.
I've nothing to add to the GK situation that's not been said already. Everyone can see he's a liability.
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Improvement on last season.
And we lost by one less goal in the 3rd Round this year.... But we're 6th in the League.
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As mentioned above by a few people, our priority appears to be money...
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My own priority would be to win something at long last, but it looks like the club are chasing Champions League qualification over trophies.
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Winning a Cup is the first step for any club.
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Getting Olsen a new club would be mine.
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Continuous improvement. It’s not one thing that is exclusive or emotional the day after a cup defeat. It should be all across the club. I’m sure next year if Emery, Monchi, Heck, the owners etc get it right, then we will be further ahead in a number of areas than we are today.
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Continuous improvement. It’s not one thing that is exclusive or emotional the day after a cup defeat. It should be all across the club. I’m sure next year if Emery, Monchi, Heck, the owners etc get it right, then we will be further ahead in a number of areas than we are today.
That's a big 'if' to be fair. Heck doesn't appear to be making too many friends, and I think with the benefit of hindsight that the summer recruitment has left the squad really undercooked, and has hamstrung Emery to a certain extent.
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It will be interesting to see how the club reacts to the attendance. A 3rd round FA Cup Tie at home would be another game you'd imagine they'd target for a big ticket fee.
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The league is any clubs priority. I suspect Europe is probably second and we lack the capabilities to compete on anymore fronts.
The clubs ambition is to generate more cash; we agree with them. We lag behind significantly in commercial revenue with not just the top earners, but some real average fare too. We don't like what they're doing, but I suspect the Upper Holte will be remedied, as they're after every pound and they're currently leaving a couple of thousand pockets fuller than they'd like and actually, even us as the consumer would like.
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Continuous improvement. It’s not one thing that is exclusive or emotional the day after a cup defeat. It should be all across the club. I’m sure next year if Emery, Monchi, Heck, the owners etc get it right, then we will be further ahead in a number of areas than we are today.
That's a big 'if' to be fair. Heck doesn't appear to be making too many friends, and I think with the benefit of hindsight that the summer recruitment has left the squad really undercooked, and has hamstrung Emery to a certain extent.
Heck has been here two seconds as has Monchi. Emery only a little longer than that. I’d give them a minute more to get it right. The getting there is going to have some things that go wrong on the road to getting it right. And at least on the pitch Emery has got way more right than wrong.
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The problem is, first impressions are actually important & Heck in particular comes across as a bit of a dickhead...
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I’m a “legacy fan” who has my first season ticket in the mid 80s.
I think I’m in a minority of this group in that I’d probably take top 4 over winning the ECL or Carabao (and fairly close even to winning the FA Cup, which I know is sacrilege).
I want to see a successful Villa challenging for the very top honours over a number of years, and really establishing ourselves in that group. I think champions league qualification is a more likely route to doing this than winning a cup.
I would take one cup win over one year of champions league; it’s more the future that one year of champions league could open up.
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If we were genuine top four contenders I could happily take inglorious exit from the cups, however even though the stats say we are the third best team in the league in 23 I dint believe the squad has enough in the tank to actually make a CL place. Europa is the realistic target therefore we should absolutely take the cups seriously. It always rankles seeing man city out and easy pathways to wembley when you're eliminated.
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As I’ve said on another thread the Premier League is king
Thing is if you read on here people talking about how important it is to them to win the FA Cup or winning silverware is what we should be about
I know they’ll be a few exceptions including the post above but I can guarantee most will be 40-50 age group and above, I fall into the above bit
Why, because we remember what it was like to win stuff
We were there standing on the terraces of Highbury, Rotterdam, Old Trafford and Wembley, we know what it feels like, and we want to feel it again
That’s why to a big group on here cups will always be priority, we grew up winning them, not as many as we would like but we had a fair few good days between say 1975-1996
Now believe me I’m not having a go I could almost cry when I write this but if you fall into the younger category you’ve seen us win nothing
You don’t know what it feels like and you’ve been conditioned into believing that the team we put out last night albeit not too weak is worth it because three points on Saturday is far more important
brainwashed if you like into thinking that cups are worthless, compared to finishing a bit higher in the Premier League
As I’ve said before that’s where we are there’s nothing I can do about it it’s the new reality
For me if the team whatever it is on Saturday was the team we put out last night and the team we put out against Everton was the team we play on Saturday it would be fine with me
But then I just want that feeling again, it’s the best feeling in the world
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I definitely think our younger fans have much lower expectation level than us oldies.
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I fit into your category. I suppose the thinking is, if we can establish ourselves as a regular top 4 club the trophies will follow (I know this isn't the case for Spurs, but they are just Spursy). I'd love an FA cup. But right now I'd rather see Emery's long-term project succeed and for us to be firmly at the top table again. The alternative is Emery moves on and we start again, probably with someone far less qualified to take us to where we want to be.
So I want it all. But first, I want Emery to turn us into a formidable team that expects to be top 4-5 and going deep into Europe and cup competitions. Top players won't hang around or join us if we finish 12th but win the Carabao cup. Finish 4th and the game's afoot.
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Would be brilliant if we could win something.
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I think after the last 4 games it might be the league. Just a guess.
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The league. Always the league.
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A decent backup keeper. Even Joe Cole made the point as to the unfamiliarity about a back up keeper giving the wrong vibes.
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This is the year we qualify for the (modern) CL. It has to be too, because we have a few players who will be high on other clubs shopping lists.
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5th could well be CL. However it does mean wanting all English clubs to do as well as possible, which is shit as I usually want them all to be shit in Europe.
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5th could well be CL. However it does mean wanting all English clubs to do as well as possible, which is shit as I usually want them all to be shit in Europe.
Most of them will do well without wanting it to happen. It would brilliant to get in even if it is by way of 5th spot.
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The only time in the last 7 seasons when England didn't finish top 2, which is what's needed for a 5th spot, was the last time 8 English teams were in Europe as it means every win by an English club will be worth slightly less to the coefficient score because it's an average of eight clubs rather than seven.
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Our priority is winning the league...
the FA Cup,
The conference league and ensuring we go unbeaten for the rest of the season.
Anything less and Unai out.
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Total and utter world domination forever is our priority.
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I'm convinced that 5th and champions league is the ambition. If going out of all the cups with a whimper enables that to happen then I'm sure the owners would snatch your hand off.
I think I would too, tbh. There's always next year for the league/FA Cup when we've got some semi competent back up players and our injured ones back. Champs league money would help that enormously.
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I don’t ever think Emery wants to lose, but of the ones he gives least of a shit about it would be the LC.
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Today told you what our priority is.
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So is there any point watching the cup games?
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5th could well be CL. However it does mean wanting all English clubs to do as well as possible, which is shit as I usually want them all to be shit in Europe.
How does it actually work? We finish 5th and then we could be potentially waiting a few weeks on English clubs to win CL and Europa?
I can remember in the 90s needing Chelsea to win old Cup Winners cup for us to make europe. John Gregory told a funny story on one of the podcasts of them watching the guy on end of season tour and the old kitman Jim Paul slagging off Zola when he came on and of course he scored the winner a few minutes later.
Let's just win the europa coference to make sure.
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FA Cup please🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼