Relegation?

[Le Lapin]

It's going to very tight, but I think we will stay up. It's not acceptable though for a club like Villa to be teetering on the ledge of relegation for so long. How many seasons has it been since O'Neill left, we should have had this sorted and restructured at this stage. This all goes back to the top. Whether Lambert is the problem or not I don't know, but as it looks, at the moment, the playing squad are not up to the task. I said it on some tread at the time when the transfer window shut after Christmas that we are only a few injuries and a few bad results away from being relegation-run-in fodder. Unfortunately what I had predicted is coming through now. I know I wouldn't have been the only one that would have thought the same at the time as well, the vast majority of us had foresaw this outcome. How come our management and owner can't see the blindingly obvious.

[ez]

Probably why Paulie said vast majority rather than everyone. I wasn't exactly thrilled when he was appointed.

I didn't know much about him apart from he finished about halfway up the table with Norwich. I bought into other people buying into him. There did seem to be a lot. Mark Hughes was my preference though.

[ozzjim]

Who plays who?

[PeterWithesShin]

Ozz, on my mobile so this is the easiest way to copy this. Includes who plays who of the bottom 4.

Despite how shit we are we won't drop. To catch us

Sunderland need at least 9 points from away Chavski, Citeh and Manure, home Cardiff, Bitter, Swansea. And they currently have 1 point in their last 8 games.

Cardiff need at least 6 points from home, Stoke & Chavski, away Sunderland & Newcastle. They've won 3 of their last 18.

Fulham, are one that could catch us, but they still need at least 5 points from Spurs and Stoke away, Hull Palace home.

Norwich need (barring a big GD swing) 3 points from Liverpool & Arsenal (home), Manure & Chavski (away).

So i'm confident we'll stay up, i'm also as sure as I can be we'll win at least one game before the end of the season, but I repeat, it's just not sodding good enough to be in this position again

[Toronto Villa]

We were linked to all kinds of people before McLeish and before Lambert. The truth is the board needed someone to go along with the wages cutting/limited transfer funds plan and that seriously limits your options in attracting managers. For Lambert it was a big step up to come to Villa so he took it on happily. Same for McLeish who spoke glowingly about the club because frankly it is the biggest job (with all due respect to Scottish football and Rangers) that he'll ever have.

[Ads]

I think we will stay up, but the fact we are merely thinking this is completely unacceptable.

[dicedlam]

Despite how shit we are we won't drop. To catch us

Sunderland need at least 9 points from away Chavski, Citeh and Manure, home Cardiff, Bitter, Swansea. And they currently have 1 point in their last 8 games.

Cardiff need at least 6 points from home, Stoke & Chavski, away Sunderland & Newcastle. They've won 3 of their last 18.

Fulham, are one that could catch us, but they still need at least 5 points from Spurs and Stoke away, Hull Palace home.

Norwich need (barring a big GD swing) 3 points from Liverpool & Arsenal (home), Manure & Chavski (away).

So i'm confident we'll stay up, i'm also as sure as I can be we'll win at least one game before the end of the season, but I repeat, it's just not sodding good enough to be in this position again

Sunderland could well win there home games (9pts).
Cardiff could well beat Stoke at home and either one of Sunderland or Newcastle away (6pts).
Fulham could well catch us with there run in (hull & palace at home 4pts and stoke away 1pt).
I don't see Norwicjh picking up more than a point at home to probably Arsenal.

Where that would leave us if the above happened, Christ knows?

I'm scared to look..

[rob_bridge]

When we got successive hammerings against Stoke and Manure I said if we  lose to Fulham we would definitely be in a relegation scrap. And we are. Except most of the others are scrapping - we are one of 3 who are doing it very well along with Narwich and the Mackems.

Even Cardiff after a desperate result last week have showed some spunk.

Lambert is at the end regardless of when he leaves.

Our incompetent board get to pick the one to take us down in the event Lambert doesn't this season.

[PeterWithesShin]

Despite how shit we are we won't drop. To catch us

Sunderland need at least 9 points from away Chavski, Citeh and Manure, home Cardiff, Bitter, Swansea. And they currently have 1 point in their last 8 games.

Cardiff need at least 6 points from home, Stoke & Chavski, away Sunderland & Newcastle. They've won 3 of their last 18.

Fulham, are one that could catch us, but they still need at least 5 points from Spurs and Stoke away, Hull Palace home.

Norwich need (barring a big GD swing) 3 points from Liverpool & Arsenal (home), Manure & Chavski (away).

So i'm confident we'll stay up, i'm also as sure as I can be we'll win at least one game before the end of the season, but I repeat, it's just not sodding good enough to be in this position again

Sunderland could well win there home games (9pts).
Cardiff could well beat Stoke at home and either one of Sunderland or Newcastle away (6pts).
Fulham could well catch us with there run in (hull & palace at home 4pts and stoke away 1pt).
I don't see Norwicjh picking up more than a point at home to probably Arsenal.

Where that would leave us if the above happened, Christ knows?

I'm scared to look..

They could, but Sunderland with 1 point from 8 games don't look very likely to win 3 out of the last 6. Same for 3 wins in 18 Cardiff. And all that is based on us picking up zero points from our last 5 anyway. Even just 1 point for us fucks them all a lot more.

[Richard]

And tbh if we did lose the last 5 to make it 9 in a row we would totally deserve to go down

[Steve67]

We might just escape by the skin of our teeth but how any manager allowed to spend 40mill can't get a club this size to 40 points, is a complete disgrace.  It's way too close for comfort. Those 4 points will erode very quickly. Other clubs seem to have some fight in theme, Villa don't.

[Damo70]

Forgetting about everyone else's fixtures I have just looked at the table and it doesn't look good. Out of form and out of confidence and we have one game against a team below us, And they are only just below us and we are away.

[olaftab]

I really don't think it matters whether we are playing teams above or below us. The way we have played lately.......

[Matt Collins]

I'm making the dangerous assumption that as a worst case scenario we manage to get one more point this season.

I can't see Sunderland staying up.

- Cardiff - I'd have said were down till yday. But now I am concerned. They would however have to win two of their last four games minimum; better than that even if we only manage to get one more point this season. If we assume Villa can get one more point, is it likely that Cardiff will finish with 2 wins a draw and a defeat in their final 4 games (including v Stoke and Chelsea)? Possible, but pretty unlikely.

- Fulham are coming into form. They're effectively five points behind us. I can see them getting 6-9 points at most. So I think it is possible they'll finish above us now. They've got winnable games, though I hope Spurs can do us a big favour. We really could have done with playing out a draw against them last week.

- Norwich need three points to get above us. So even if we only manage to get one more point, they'd have to beat one of their final opponents (say Arsenal on the final day being most likely) PLUS get at least a draw from their other games. It's obviously possible, but I wouldn't be at all confident if I were them.

Swansea I assume will finish above us.

West Brom have got a pretty tough run in - I hadn't realised. But I assume they'll pick up a few points

[Damo70]

So basically Sunderland, Cardiff and Fulham all have to take half of the points possible from their last games. Unlikely but far from impossible. As for us I always think people who say they can't see where the next point is coming from are being over dramatic, but at the moment I can't.