Where will we be in a decade's time?

[Fernando Partridge]

I was thinking with the crux of these villa players there's potential to win a cup within next 5 years let alone 10!  and be in the upper echelons of league. However continued sales of players will see us flirt with relegation and mid table obscurity  but still a potential cup win.. I mean we virtually got there this season and in seasons past been close!  UTV 

[Steve R]

Competing in the North Sea section of the European B-League along with clubs from Holland and Belgium.

If we're lucky we'll play in a qualifying group with winners of other regional leagues for the right to play the bottom team from the European Premier League for a place in next year's competition.

Fortunately, thanks to the marvel of 4-d television, we will already be watching the following years fixtures, safe in the knowledge that we will have won our way through.

[tomd2103]

I think we will see a major change in the football landscape over the next decade.  I can definitely see the formation of a European Super League (foreign TV rights will be the issue that paves the way for it) leaving behind a more competitive if not as high profile top flight in England. 

[Tokyo Sexwhale]

Same as for most of the last 30 years or so.  Middling team in the top division, making up the numbers.  Occassional glimmer of a top 6 league placing, and a cup run here and there.


Or Randy could lose interest completely, we're in constant relegation crises, we sack Lambert, appoint someone like Tim Sherwood who somehow keeps us up and gets us to an FA Cup Final (which we obviously lose); we have a promising transfer window where we buy loads of young French-based talent, but also some over the hill English players looking for a last payday, like Micah Richards and Joelon Lescott.

This doesn't go well,  we sack Sherwood and appoint a low energy French manager  - maybe Remi "Chocolate Fire" Garde and then get relegated.  Lerner sells us to a Chinese billionaire who sounds like a supervillain, who likes tweeting cryptic messages about our transfers. He appoints someone like Roberto DiMatteo who doesn't last long, then maybe someone like Steve Bruce who will give some brief stability then get to a playoff final and lose.

This Chinese billionaire turns out to be a conman, and not getting promoted means we're now going out of business. That is averted by a last-minute sale to an Egyptian billionaire and his American business partner.  They sack Bruce, and appoint a Villa fan as manager.  Weirdly, Jack Grealish comes back from an injury and emerges as a superhuman, super-consistent player, and we win a shitload of games to take us from near relegation to the playoffs.  We'll probably beat some wanky team managed by Frank Lampard, and thus return to the Premier League after about 3 seasons in the wilderness losing to Brentford and Millwall.

Our first season probably won't go well, but we'll stay up by the skin of our teeth even though we haven't got a striker for most of it.  We'll probably get to a League Cup Final and lose to Man City; though everyone will immediately forget about it because there's bound to be some massive world wide disaster, which though bad for the world works out in our favour, as we'd probably be getting relegated.  We'll probably get the odd break like the only recorded failure of goal line technology going in our favour.

The world disaster will mean a interruption to the season, but it has to be played without fans, which means no one will see us batter Liverpool 7-2, and go on to have an otherwise boring midtable finish. The next season doesn't start so good, and after a few bad games our Villa fan manager will get sacked and replaced by an England footballing legend; who isn't quite as a good at managing as he was at playing, having no man management or tactical skills.  He also "slips" up and costs his favourite team another title on the last day.

After some rousing speeches to stir the players and fans like "we can't expect to come to places like Chelsea and win", it'll prove another wasted appointment, another ex-player who can't coach. 

Then someone will have a brainwave, and do something that no Villa Chairman has considered doing for awhile.  They could appoint a manager with a long track record of success, who is also a serious coach, tactician and manager.  This amazing alchemy has the effect of achieving amazing results, and in around 11 years time, we'll probably be back in Europe, and challenging for a Champions League spot, with our best squad of players since 1982.

Wild speculation, I know.

[Mister E]

I think we will see a major change in the football landscape over the next decade.  I can definitely see the formation of a European Super League (foreign TV rights will be the issue that paves the way for it) leaving behind a more competitive if not as high profile top flight in England. 

I agree that this is a strong possibility. Villa can then re-emerge as a strong domestic club, albeit  selling its best to the Euro-dollar League teams.
Maybe the EPL and the Scottish Premier will have merged by 2023, too, to offset the loss of the "Sky Five" to Europe.

[NiiLamptey]

We may go down, Randy decides to cut his losses at the start of summer and we are purchased by a billionaire with money to burn and a desire to compete with the best in the world... we bounce back gunning for the champions league

As a statement of intent he signs the likes of Messi, Xavi, Ronaldo and  Van Persie to join us in the championship

BTW Dont see the point in this thread

[Meanwood Villa]

I don't see why people are so convinced a European super league will happen. The domestic leagues now are still a big enough cash cow, particularly for those countries without collective rights. The powers that be at Man Utd etc don't want competitive fixtures week in week out. They want to spend most of their time smashing weaker and poorer opponents so we can marvel at the talents of RVP, Rooney et al with perhaps 5 or 6 genuinely competitive tussles a season on Sky super duper Sunday. Never underestimate our appeal as an also ran. Someone's got to be.

[Ads]

Top flight, mid-table.

[UK Redsox]

BTW Dont see the point in this thread

This is the internet, its meant to be mostly pointless.

[Ads]

Within the next three years, we'll be in the top six again, under Lambert.

So within ten years we will be 16th again for a season or two!

[Brend'Watkins]

I don't know why people continually go on about a European super league being the future when for all intents and purposes we have one already called Champions league. 

[Dave Cooper please]

This was always a fairly pointless thread (with respect to the otiginal poster of course) as it was always going to be a split between the pessimists (League One at best) and the optimists (Premier League and back where we should be), which is going on in just about every single thread in HD at the moment.

Carry on if you like but I'm getting mightily bored with thread after thread of "We're shit", "No we're not".

[Irish villain]

We seem to think of ourselves as a 'mid-table', top half club. But if you look at our history since 1987 it is very odd! We tend to either challenge at the very top (today's top six) or struggle against relegation. We can be second one year, relegation strugglers the next, escape artists one season top four the following year. We have rarely been a genuine 'mid table' team that finished 12th to 8th. We've either been very good or very shit. We'll also have about three to four European campaigns every decade or so with a couple of cup finals thrown in.

Therefore, let me predict:
By 2023 we will have played in Europe again a few times and will have flirted with the top four for a few seasons. We might add a cup (probably a League Cup). We will also come very close to the drop a couple of times (and may even drop for a year or two) but because of our size recovery will happen organically. Our average league position for that decade will be about 11th but, as with the pattern of the past 25 years, the reality will be more complex as there will have been more 6th and 16th placings than actual 11th.

Does that make any sense?

[Jimbo]

I don't see why people are so convinced a European super league will happen. The domestic leagues now are still a big enough cash cow, particularly for those countries without collective rights. The powers that be at Man Utd etc don't want competitive fixtures week in week out. They want to spend most of their time smashing weaker and poorer opponents so we can marvel at the talents of RVP, Rooney et al with perhaps 5 or 6 genuinely competitive tussles a season on Sky super duper Sunday. Never underestimate our appeal as an also ran. Someone's got to be.

Is the correct answer. The lesser clubs are needed to top up the brand, because otherwise people would get bored of seeing Arsenal and Man City looking ordinary in the European Super League every week.

[Drummond]

I don't think I'll be bothered, I'll have a nine year old who will probably be a Sheffield United fan and I'll have lost the will to live following Villa for all those years.

We will probably have been relegated and won our first piece of silverware (the Championship title or Play-Off Final), we'll have a season where we dare to dream and then fall off and finish 9th. Then a season where we thought we'd be relegated and finish, 9th. Then a season where we think we'll finish 9th and finish 9th. And we'll all be arguing the same old shit on here for days, weeks and months on end.

Plus we'll remember the 40th anniversary of having won the European Cup, which will have returned as a splinter tournament run by the teams that haven't defected from their own countries to form the Blatter Trophy sponsored by Ford/Amstel/Continental.