If We Could Only Beat The Baggies Once This Week...

[Monty]

If/when we go down I don't know how much Premier League I'd watch. I'd probably go for more European football, though most leagues are in one-or-two club domination mode at the moment.

[Chico Hamilton III]

Lose tomorrow night and I've got a feeling that Sherwood's honeymoon period will be over.

[supertom]

If/when we go down I don't know how much Premier League I'd watch. I'd probably go for more European football, though most leagues are in one-or-two club domination mode at the moment.

I used to enjoy watching Prem games, even MOTD. But for the last 10 years or so I watch less and less. Now with the exception of occasionally peering over if a game is on TV somewhere, or sitting through matches to get to Villa's "highlights" I just watch Villa (which is, lets face it, painful enough). The vulgar amounts of money in the game have ruined it completely. 15 years ago you only really had to endure Utd and perhaps Arsenal bullying everyone out of their best players and monopolising the top 2 spots. Below that there would be a more genuine battle for top 6 finishes, of which we occasionally joined in.

A mate of mine supports QPR and hasn't enjoyed it under the last couple of chairman and particularly hasn't enjoyed their Premier League stints, entirely based on buying over the hill mercenaries who don't care about the club or at times even try. It might excite Tony Fernandes to sign Rio Ferdinand but it doesn't really excite his fans. My mate preferred the days of bouncing between The Championship and League 1, but doing so with players who gave their all for the club.

Now if they built in place a better plan to come up, stay up and progress it might be different. Same goes for us, if we had a decent plan of progression and could at least be on a keel with the likes of Southampton, and at least threat to upset the Sky 6 equilibrium that would be great. It just won't happen short of Randy getting a good offer (from someone with a brain). You can see the league shape changing in recent times. There's a bottom 12 forming. Largely it equates to money too. If you spend, you're generally in the top 8. If you don't you're generally in the bottom. In that bottom 12 you see 7-8 becoming adrift and always scrapping around the drop line. We've been in that too long and there's no signs we're going to change that, even if we stay up. It's a depressing existence.

[Lastfootstamper]

I'm not sure I wouldn't mind going down and staying.

Nah, give it a couple of years and you'd be getting all misty-eyed and rose-tinted about the pointlessness. Best bet's stay up and carry on thinking it matters. Look around you at the average age of us in the ground, we'll literally be extinct soon anyway.


Fk me, I'm a cheery bugger this morning.

[DB]

I can see some people starting to justify if it would be that bad going down as with each loss it gets closer. It would be a disaster, roll on 3 years when we have been stuck down there like Blues...there is nothing romantic about not playing in the PL. Yes it has it's issues with £££ etc but I would rather be in the train pissing out than running on the platform trying to piss in (yes, I nicked that).

We wont win the cup so 3 points please. Can't see them winning it either.

[Lee]

Considering our predicament, I'm sorry to say league.

[QBVILLA]

Whilst i fully understand the majority saying the league game it's the cup for me. I'm 37, too young to have taken any notice of our early 80s success so all i've seen is two league cup wins. I'd love to see us win the FA cup, highly unlikely I know but at least winning the FA cup is a semi realistic dream. I'll never see us win the league and to be perfectly honest i've become more and more disinterested in the league over the past five or so years.

[RussellC]

League, definitely. If I thought we had a genuine chance of wining the cup it'd be a tougher question, but we don't and relegation would be an unmitigated disaster, so it's a no-brainer in my opinion.

[PeterWithesShin]

League, definitely. If I thought we had a genuine chance of wining the cup it'd be a tougher question, but we don't and relegation would be an unmitigated disaster, so it's a no-brainer in my opinion.

Like Wigan didn't have a chance of winning it?

[martin o`who??]

Not fussy, Baseball Bat or Rice Flails, easy pleased.

[Tom_Mc9?]

Cup.

If we went down a division, we'd play different teams. So what? 'But what about the money?' I don't care - I don't watch Villa for how much money they've got. 'But we'd play worse teams if we went down.' I don't particularly like the teams we play - Chelsea, Liverpool, Man City, Man United, Spurs etc etc. Doesn't make a difference to me. 'It'd be embarrassing to go down.' Yes, but we'd get over it.

Going to Wembley and winning a cup would be the most memorable thing this club has done since 1982.

Cup every time.

[hilts_coolerking]

Getting relegated would be disastrous; getting knocked out of the FA Cup would not.  Having said that, we could win both and even if we lost the league game we'd still have 10 games to save ourselves.  But like Monty says relegation could set us back a decade or more.  And if we do go down Lerner will have wasted good will like no-one since Tony Blair; not much of a legacy other than terrible finances, mismanagement at every level and self-interest.

As imperfect as it is, I'd much rather be in the Premier League pissing out than be outside the Premier League pissing in.

League win please.

[Chico Hamilton III]

Cup please. I can't get up for tomorrow's game but I'll be up on Saturday. If we're only going to beat those rat-eating tatters once, I want to see it.

If we do get relegated, it won't be because of one result against the Clampetts

[OasisVillain]

League win all day for me, I was at Wembley in 2000 and while in one way it would be great to see us in the FA Cup final again, i'd trade that for staying in the top flight

[Chris Smith]

Considering our predicament, I'm sorry to say league.

My position too.

I spoke to a Stripey earlier who said the same but then, perversely, said he is going on Saturday but not tomorrow.