How many points will keep us up?

[avfc_1874]

I think West Ham, Stoke, Southampton & Sunderland will be the ones who will be battling with us. Fulham, Newcastle & Norwich have enough in them to survive imo.

[peter w]

One will but I think a couple out of WHAM, Stoke, and Sunderland will win 2  games or so to get themselves moving again. our position means that that is all it takes to put us back up against it.

[Brend'Watkins]

One will but I think a couple out of WHAM, Stoke, and Sunderland will win 2  games or so to get themselves moving again. our position means that that is all it takes to put us back up against it.

peter, you had us down last week to only get 5 points from a remaining 27.  We've got 3 of those already.  Even in your most pessimistic of hearts do you not think we can get another win or two and a couple of draws from the remaining 24?

[MoetVillan]

Peter, have you seen the "highlights" of Stoke and Sunderlands last ten games?  They have ugly runs coming up, and one team defends quite well, but is bereft of ideas going forwards.  The other one, if memory serves only won their first two games of the season against ten men, and cant even beat ten men now.  I think Wet Spam can get the points, I think the other two could well be right in the dark and stinky stuff over the next few weeks. 

[Matt Collins]

Sunderland does seem a key game. If we can put some daylight between us and them before that, we could go into the game in a really strong comparative position. I'd take 6 points from the next four games I think, putting us on 36. I reckon they may still be stuck on about 31-33 at that point.

[peter w]

One will but I think a couple out of WHAM, Stoke, and Sunderland will win 2  games or so to get themselves moving again. our position means that that is all it takes to put us back up against it.

peter, you had us down last week to only get 5 points from a remaining 27.  We've got 3 of those already.  Even in your most pessimistic of hearts do you not think we can get another win or two and a couple of draws from the remaining 24?

We could. we could also only get two more points. Or 5. Or 7. With our goal difference it won't be enough.

[Des Little]

Bloody hell Peter W I thought I was pessimistic! I'd lock the knife drawers if I were you

[Matt Collins]

At absolute most goal difference can be worth one additional point in effect. So it doesn't make any sense to assume this will be the thing that sends us down. It clearly doesn't help of course.

[peter w]

Bloody hell Peter W I thought I was pessimistic! I'd lock the knife drawers if I were you

In 30 games we've beaten Reading twice, QPR, West Ham, Swansea, Sunderland, and Liverpool. A couple of good performances. We shipped 8 atChelsea, 5 at ManCity, thumped by Tottenham at home and Wigan, thrown away two goal leads against WBA, Everton, and Man U, and we always concede. You know if a result starts with Aston Villa 1 you know that we'll have drawn at best. We've won 3 in 6 which is cause for optimism, but in every game we've conceded. All poorly defended goals.

[Matt Collins]

I'm getting a bit obsessed with the bbc predictor!

I did it as objectively as possible based on current home and away form. On that basis, it works out very tight indeed for us. I had us going into the last game of the season in 18th place, and staying up by the skin of our teeth with a draw at Wigan as Sunderland lose at spurs.

Clearly results are never that predictable. That assumes Sunderland and stoke in particular continue their abysmal form. And for villa it meant drawing most of our away games, beating Sunderland only, and losing against the big 3 sides.

I still think it will probably come down to whether we can get at least 7 points from the stoke, norwich, Fulham and Sunderland games; or a massive game at Wigan on the last day

The most promising signs for us are 3 wins out of 5 and the fact we've averaged two goals per game in our away games since Xmas. There's only the arsenal game we haven't managed that.

You'd have to hope that we could nick a win at either norwich or stoke. Both are really struggling to score.

[Ads]

If you base it off current form then we finish 14th on 43 points.

[JUAN PABLO]

43 points for us

sunderland  37
west ham    37
wigan          37
qpr             33
reading        27

[Ads]

I think Sunderland will do well to get six points given their form and fixtures.

[Des Little]

16th - Villa 39
17th - Sunderland 36
18th - QPR - 30
19th - Wigan - 30
20th - Reading 24

[jonzy85]

Watching the Sunderland Norwich game gave me a lot of hope. They look like 2 teams who have ran out of ideas and are just stumbling towards the end line, hoping they will have enough points. I haven't seen Stoke of late, but it seems they are quite similar.

We on the other hand seem to have found a settled enough team that is scoring goals and don't look as much if a shambles defensively, as a few weeks ago. I have to say Vlaar's presence has been crucial for me. While he is a step down from the legends we have been accustomed to over the last 20 years at Centre Back, I think the players around him play with more confidence and we seem a lot more solid. We don't look like we are going to concede from every corner anymore. There is still a long way to go before they are anything like a defensive unit you could be happy with, but if you cut out the individual errors (Baker o.g.), we should be able to score more than we will concede in most of our remaining games.