Relegation Possibility

[maigrait]

Look at Carroll for example, he'd have been better learning the ropes at his boyhood club but a bigger team flutters their eyelids and he's off.  On the flipside I wonder whether Curbishley regrets not leaving Charlton when he was highly regarded.  My guess is there are more Carrolls than Curbishleys in football.

I would say Carroll, even though he might want to leave due to increase money at Liverpool - I would say he was pushed out the door by Newcastle with the amount of money splashed around on his transfer. In the end he probably had very little option in not going to Liverpool. Your man Ashley wants to operate a lot like Randy does now...

[andrew08]

I'm quite relaxed about the relegation issue. If we go down from this position with the teams that are below us then we absolutely deserve to. If we can't get the 3 or 4 points from the games we have left then we will have no complaints.

The whole club will have to hang it's head in collective shame,  Randy will look the biggest prat in sports history for spending so much money and getting relegated and us lot will just have to lie low for the summer.

Great eh.

[Irish villain]

See, I think we could be down for a long time if we do drop. That's the worst thing about it. I can't see us bouncing back under the inept leadership of Randy Lerner. Our debts won't go away, we will lose our best players, gates will drop further and our brittle confidence will face stiff competition in a league that is very competitive.

Relegation would be an absolute disaster for us. Like Leeds or Sheffield Wednesday we could be looking at a decade out of top flight football.

As I said yesterday we simply have to galvanise. We as fans need to do out bit to keep the club up. Otherwise we're relying on Lerner and McLeish to do it. It's more our club than theirs. 

[Rip Van We Go Again]

. Otherwise we're relying on Lerner and McLeish to do it.

How frightening is that.

One is a disinterested invisible man and the other isn't fit for purpose.

[NeilH]

I honestly did not think that this was even a possibility and after the Fulham game I had pretty much said ‘right this miserable season is over, let’s try to look forward.’ However, the problem seems to be that everything is conspiring against us right now and as fans we are like rabbits in the headlights, with a juggernaut heading straight at us.

In all conceivable circumstances we should have just enough to pick up a result and steer clear. Despite the results of the other teams around us, who were always going to make a fist of it at the end of the season, our destiny lies firmly in our hands.

If, god forbid, we do go down then we will thoroughly deserve it given the players we have and the resources we have available. The buck stops well and truly at McLeish and Lerner, but even with the clown and the invisible man running things we still should not be where we are and the players ought to, as professionals, realise that.

Relegation for Villa would be catastrophic. It would be a press frenzy that will render the back pages unreadable for those of us who love the club. It would destroy our very proud record of playing in every premiership season. It would set the club back a decade, particularly as the very people that led to relegation would still be there. It would wipe our once great club off the radar and from a purely selfish ex-pat point of view would prevent me from ever seeing the team I love, other than visits to VP.

I have properly got the fear right now and am so damn angry that our club has been so utterly mismanaged that we are where we are.

[Risso]

The main point has always been to get the wages in order. Once they get a relationship between revenues and wages that they can live we will continue to operate accordingly. That still means that we can buy very good players, so the transfer money will be available, but it also means that the wages will not cripple us. No more Sidwell's/Beye's/Young's/Heskey's etc. Essentially bit part players soaking us dry. Surely even you can make the distinction?

The trouble is that I reckon we're a good couple of years from getting back on track financially, such has been the mismanagement.   Even if wages are slowly being bought under control, the amounts we owe short term (ie less than a year) outstrip debtors by £65m, so Lerner is going to have keep pumping money in just to pay the bills.  I really cannot stress enough what an utter mess the last accounts show the club is in financially. 

[NeilH]

The main point has always been to get the wages in order. Once they get a relationship between revenues and wages that they can live we will continue to operate accordingly. That still means that we can buy very good players, so the transfer money will be available, but it also means that the wages will not cripple us. No more Sidwell's/Beye's/Young's/Heskey's etc. Essentially bit part players soaking us dry. Surely even you can make the distinction?

The trouble is that I reckon we're a good couple of years from getting back on track financially, such has been the mismanagement.   Even if wages are slowly being bought under control, the amounts we owe short term (ie less than a year) outstrip debtors by £65m, so Lerner is going to have keep pumping money in just to pay the bills.  I really cannot stress enough what an utter mess the last accounts show the club is in financially. 

And say we go down Risso, what would it take to stop the club sinking into a Sheffield Weds size hole? Are we talking major costcutting and firesales?

[Merv]

I honestly did not think that this was even a possibility and after the Fulham game I had pretty much said ‘right this miserable season is over, let’s try to look forward.’ However, the problem seems to be that everything is conspiring against us right now and as fans we are like rabbits in the headlights, with a juggernaut heading straight at us.

Me too. But now we're seeing clubs below us fighting and getting points on the board - three in a row for Bolton, QPR beating both Liverpool and Arsenal, Wigan winning two on the spin. The gap is closing. We failed to make the most of winnable games earlier on in the season when we had pretty much a full squad to select from - for 3/4 of the season we've had barely any injuries.

Now we really do have injury woes - the bench on Saturday was amazing - and we've lost momentum.

That said, I think two wins would do it. Need to find them from somewhere.

[Concrete John]

Looking at the fixtures, I think we have three key games to finally put any relegation thoughts to bed.  Those are the home games against Stoke, Sunderland and Bolton.  Two wins from them, with preferrably one coming against Bolton, will see us OK.

[VillaAlways]

Have we ever had a season in the PL when we've gone a full season without back to back wins We must be the only team that hasnt I think even Wolves have. Shocking

[Concrete John]

I honestly did not think that this was even a possibility and after the Fulham game I had pretty much said ‘right this miserable season is over, let’s try to look forward.’ However, the problem seems to be that everything is conspiring against us right now and as fans we are like rabbits in the headlights, with a juggernaut heading straight at us.

Me too. But now we're seeing clubs below us fighting and getting points on the board - three in a row for Bolton, QPR beating both Liverpool and Arsenal, Wigan winning two on the spin. The gap is closing. We failed to make the most of winnable games earlier on in the season when we had pretty much a full squad to select from - for 3/4 of the season we've had barely any injuries.

Now we really do have injury woes - the bench on Saturday was amazing - and we've lost momentum.

That said, I think two wins would do it. Need to find them from somewhere.

We were looking pretty safe after Fulham, but we all knew that picture wouldn't be as pretty after the last two games, if we're being honest.  As I see it, the likes of QPR have had their best run of the season, but are more likely to be crap again than they are to continue it.  And as we've still got a 5 point lead, that's enough of a buffer to stumble our way to safety. 

[VillaAlways]

This thread is like a mirror image of the threads I took great pleasure in reading on the SHA messageboard last season
Never under estimate Mcleish He took Blues down from a similar position when the pundits were saying they were safe as houses with arguably a stronger side than ours at the moment

[andrew08]

And lets be sure about it, it will get worse before it get better. We will lose more than likely on Saturday and if Stoke don't score against us from their corner/throw in speciality then I'll be amazed. 

We have to beat Bolton that's about the size of it.

[Nastylee]

Our GD is worth a point so effectively we have a 6 point buffer for the others to overhaul. We need one win from somewhere to get us to 36 which is what I reckon will be the cut off point. Hopefully a couple of other results elsewhere will nudge us to 38+.

[pauliewalnuts]

This thread is like a mirror image of the threads I took great pleasure in reading on the SHA messageboard last season
Never under estimate Mcleish He took Blues down from a similar position when the pundits were saying they were safe as houses with arguably a stronger side than ours at the moment

Ah yes, but at Blues, he had a horrible injury crisis in the run-in.

Oh .......

FWIW, what will quite possibly bite us on the arse is our failure to harvest points (as in, three at a time) earlier in the season when we had no injury crisis, and had poor teams to play.

Two points from six against Wigan and Blackburn not that long ago doesn't help, either.