To What End?

[PaulWinch again]

I hope the quality of player we sign improves in the summer. Villa have been stripped right down over the last few years and we really need to start building back up now. I hope that good football and entertainment comes with that.

[Concrete John]

I think we will get 3 better quality players in the summer Brian, I really do. I have a bit of optimism on that. I agree on Jan 15, but think there was money this winter, just getting targets did not happen.

We need to get players like Bertrand to sign long term with us and then target players of similar quality to him and build our first team up. I think a fair few will leave too, and it will be a different squad next season. Lambert has form for brining in 6 plus players a summer, and although I think 3 will be more quality I reckon we will get a few more Bacuna type punts too.

As for the league, I think we will draw the next 2. Leaving us on 29 and still involved, probably in about 12th. I would sooner win one, lose one. Which I don't know.

I fancy a point tomorrow and then beating Cardiff away.  That should see us maintain 10th position.

I have no problem with the punts on players like Bacuna, or even Bowery for that matter, but they now need to happen alongside some more higher level signings of the Benteke or Okore variety.

[ClaretAndBlueBlood]

I think we will get 3 better quality players in the summer Brian, I really do. I have a bit of optimism on that. I agree on Jan 15, but think there was money this winter, just getting targets did not happen.

We need to get players like Bertrand to sign long term with us and then target players of similar quality to him and build our first team up. I think a fair few will leave too, and it will be a different squad next season. Lambert has form for brining in 6 plus players a summer, and although I think 3 will be more quality I reckon we will get a few more Bacuna type punts too.

As for the league, I think we will draw the next 2. Leaving us on 29 and still involved, probably in about 12th. I would sooner win one, lose one. Which I don't know.

I fancy a point tomorrow

I'll have a point of bitter thanks

[brian green]

I started this thread so I might as well tie it up before it sinks.   What I think that the future holds if the current manager, board, owner and policies remain unchanged and I think they will remain unchanged because both Lambert and Faulkner have mastered the art of saying what the owner wants to hear, is relegation.   I think we are the worst team I have seen this season and relegation will come with the game at Tottenham.   If it does not and we scrape clear again it will come next year as our inexorable decline under the current regime and policies continue.

Once relegated Lambert will be retained as "the best man to get us back into the premiership".  He will fail at that just as he has failed at everything else at Villa in his tenure and four or five months into our first championship season he and his equally inept staff will be sacked.   At that point with anybody else, anybody, the losing at Villa Park monkey will fall off our backs and we will start to win games and slowly but surely start the long hard process of trying to put behind us all the self inflicted damage done to the club since the departure of O'Neill.   We will rise again but not just yet.

[ROBBO]

No Brian i think the change will happen when Lerner sees how far season ticket sales have fallen.

[eastie]

I think you are spot on brian, if we go down they will see lambert as a man who has 2 promotions on his cv and keep him , and I don t think he would get us back up either to be honest .

[brian green]

Rob I think they would even spin the numbers when the early bird ST sales fall off a cliff.   The best performances being put in at Villa Park currently are by the ticket sales staff.   Randy Lerner would be told that the fall off in sales is "only to be expected" and that a marketing push will soon have things tickety boo and he will say "Er..okay."

[Richard E]

"We remain convinced that Paul Lambert is the right man to begin the long climb back from League One to the Premiership where we belong." - Paul Faulkner, August 2015

[Mister E]

I started this thread so I might as well tie it up before it sinks.   What I think that the future holds if the current manager, board, owner and policies remain unchanged and I think they will remain unchanged because both Lambert and Faulkner have mastered the art of saying what the owner wants to hear, is relegation.   I think we are the worst team I have seen this season and relegation will come with the game at Tottenham.   If it does not and we scrape clear again it will come next year as our inexorable decline under the current regime and policies continue.

Once relegated Lambert will be retained as "the best man to get us back into the premiership".  He will fail at that just as he has failed at everything else at Villa in his tenure and four or five months into our first championship season he and his equally inept staff will be sacked.   At that point with anybody else, anybody, the losing at Villa Park monkey will fall off our backs and we will start to win games and slowly but surely start the long hard process of trying to put behind us all the self inflicted damage done to the club since the departure of O'Neill.   We will rise again but not just yet.

Or,
Lambert keeps them up, the board begin to release funds for more expansive but still sensible signings and the team starts winning games, climbing the table and competing for trophies. Grealish, Robinson and Donacien are joined by more experienced players alongside the likes of Okore, Vlaar, Betrand, Delph, Guzan and  Benteke and the squad begins to look like a real force.

How many other scenarios are there? - probably several!

[Jon Crofts]

"We remain convinced that Paul Lambert is the right man to begin the long climb back from League One to the Premiership where we belong." - Paul Faulkner, August 2015

Where we belong right now is the Championship, with a championship squad, a championship manager & championship leadership.

[brian green]

In a few minutes I will start to write my weekly newsletter to the people who look to me to give them advice on sports betting.   I bet on sport.   I have bet on sport since I was old enough to write out a betting slip.   I have made a lot of money out of sports betting.

There are indeed several scenarios of the way forward for Villa and as a Villa fan for seven decades I hope desperately that we stay up and all our chickens start to lay golden eggs.   I can only call it how I see it dispassionately and I see inexorable decline without major change and I do not see that change coming in the next year and a half.

[Mister E]

In a few minutes I will start to write my weekly newsletter to the people who look to me to give them advice on sports betting.   I bet on sport.   I have bet on sport since I was old enough to write out a betting slip.   I have made a lot of money out of sports betting.

There are indeed several scenarios of the way forward for Villa and as a Villa fan for seven decades I hope desperately that we stay up and all our chickens start to lay golden eggs.   I can only call it how I see it dispassionately and I see inexorable decline without major change and I do not see that change coming in the next year and a half.

I didn't show any interest in how RL stewarded the Cleveland Browns but IIRC he allowed the team to atrophy ....
... Which would certainly support your scenario.

I certainly do not have a particularly optimistic outlook on things but would prefer to see what happens this Summer, which I think will be the pivotal time to determine whether the Chairman and his manager have got what it takes to steward this club back into the limelight.

[brian green]

I hope you are right Mr E   I am running out of years.

[levico]

In a few minutes I will start to write my weekly newsletter to the people who look to me to give them advice on sports betting.   I bet on sport.   I have bet on sport since I was old enough to write out a betting slip.   I have made a lot of money out of sports betting.

There are indeed several scenarios of the way forward for Villa and as a Villa fan for seven decades I hope desperately that we stay up and all our chickens start to lay golden eggs.   I can only call it how I see it dispassionately and I see inexorable decline without major change and I do not see that change coming in the next year and a half.

Absolutely spot on. Our departure from the PL is inevitable in my opinion and despite our improved points tally I think we are closer to going down this season than many fans think.

The huge drop off in ST sales is more likely to because of relegation rather than poor performances.

[saunders_heroes]

I started this thread so I might as well tie it up before it sinks.   What I think that the future holds if the current manager, board, owner and policies remain unchanged and I think they will remain unchanged because both Lambert and Faulkner have mastered the art of saying what the owner wants to hear, is relegation.   I think we are the worst team I have seen this season and relegation will come with the game at Tottenham.   If it does not and we scrape clear again it will come next year as our inexorable decline under the current regime and policies continue.

Once relegated Lambert will be retained as "the best man to get us back into the premiership".  He will fail at that just as he has failed at everything else at Villa in his tenure and four or five months into our first championship season he and his equally inept staff will be sacked.   At that point with anybody else, anybody, the losing at Villa Park monkey will fall off our backs and we will start to win games and slowly but surely start the long hard process of trying to put behind us all the self inflicted damage done to the club since the departure of O'Neill.   We will rise again but not just yet.

Or,
Lambert keeps them up, the board begin to release funds for more expansive but still sensible signings and the team starts winning games, climbing the table and competing for trophies. Grealish, Robinson and Donacien are joined by more experienced players alongside the likes of Okore, Vlaar, Betrand, Delph, Guzan and  Benteke and the squad begins to look like a real force.

How many other scenarios are there? - probably several!

"More sensible signings"? That sounds suspiciously like an updated "young and hungry", and we all know what that really meant...
Cheap lower league bargain basement crap.