This is the season...

[KevinGage]

It looks like we won't be getting any new manager bounce. A sure sign the players aren't good enough. I dread to think how much money has been wasted on poor players while Lerner has been at the club.

Failing that, I would have settled for a bit more shape to the side and teams finding it harder to play through us. Small, incremental improvements.

But Everton opened us up at will last Saturday and Watford played quite poorly and still bagged three goals. If anything, we are looking worse in that department.

[itbrvilla]

What a time to go down.

[CJ]

No big TV deal money, Rotherham on a Friday night, no live match streams, and 30 seconds of highlights on that dreadful Channel 5 programme.  I'm shuddering at the thought of it already but this is the reality for next season

[Meanwood Villa]

In some ways I am accepting of our fate, it seems highly likely we're going which by its nature means a lot more misery to come this season. Is it the end of the world like some of the more apocalyptic posts on this thread suggest? No, of course it isn't. We'll still have a club to support, we'll still have games to go to, some in new or rarely visited places, unlike getting dicked at Old Trafford every year. Might it get better before it gets worse? Perhaps but it's not the end of days. Southampton, Leicester, Norwich, Stoke have all gone down to Div 3 and back in recent times. Swansea and Bournemouth have nearly dropped out of the football league not too long ago. Whatever happens it's just another stage of our club's history and we'll all be here next season to enjoy it, or not as is more likely!


P.S. despite all of that I still expect us to win every week and am pissed off when we don't. Any suggestions on a cure?

[oswald funkletrumpet]

No big TV deal money, Rotherham on a Friday night, no live match streams, and 30 seconds of highlights on that dreadful Channel 5 programme.  I'm shuddering at the thought of it already but this is the reality for next season

add to that more midweek games, teams that will kick the shit out of you, a half empty vp and teams raising their game as they play at one of the greatest grounds in england.  i cant wait

[Richard]

I agree with Meanwood having supported Villa since 1972 and seen a lot of ups and downs - am sure we will come back if the worst happens, just not sure when. And I'd hope we return a lot stronger.

Be prepared for the flak though until May. I am already getting pelters from the likes of Blues, Man Utd, Albion and even non league supporters at work. But that's the price you pay for following the biggest club in the region. It is a case of how the mighty have fallen but just smile and remember the good times.

[Clark W Griswold]

I think we're 1 of only 7 clubs to have been in the newly set up Premier League every season since it was created. The others are Man Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal (like any of those are ever going down), Chelsea (who have been down since we last came up), Everton (who have been shite quite a bit in the past and almost gone before) and Tottenham. A few clubs similar to us Newcastle, Man City have been out of it at times, and a lot of clubs of reasonable stature (Forest, Wolves, the Sheffields, Leeds, Sunderland) have been out of it quite a bit and in some cases years.
The point is, virtually every club has a shit spell, it's just gutting with the timing of it, but if we can come back strong like we did last time there is no reason to think that we can't be back where we should be in the next five years.

[TopDeck113]

Be prepared for the flak though until May. I am already getting pelters from the likes of Blues, Man Utd, Albion and even non league supporters at work.

I was messaged yesterday by my gloating cousin.  A guy who has never shown any interest in football (motorsport is his thing). So why now? Because he just happens to have lived in Watford for the last twenty-odd years.

[Chris Smith]

I think we're 1 of only 7 clubs to have been in the newly set up Premier League every season since it was created. The others are Man Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal (like any of those are ever going down), Chelsea (who have been down since we last came up), Everton (who have been shite quite a bit in the past and almost gone before) and Tottenham. A few clubs similar to us Newcastle, Man City have been out of it at times, and a lot of clubs of reasonable stature (Forest, Wolves, the Sheffields, Leeds, Sunderland) have been out of it quite a bit and in some cases years.
The point is, virtually every club has a shit spell, it's just gutting with the timing of it, but if we can come back strong like we did last time there is no reason to think that we can't be back where we should be in the next five years.

There is every reason to think we can't get back when those making the key decisions have such a poor track record.

[andyh]

the pundits and media have said that we will struggle this season because of the lack of premier league experience.
It's almost comical that the area of the team where we have (by miles) the most experience, the defence, is by far and away, the shittest.

[Stu]

We also have a worse home record than Sunderland over that same period and I'm sure they've held numerous half time walk outs and pitch invasions throwing season tickets at their manager.

And yet according to Keown own goal and many of the other knobhead pundits Villa fans are too demanding.

My expectations for Villa are not to be letting in farcical goals or lying cut adrift at the foot of the table.

That isn't too demanding.

[Eigentor]

7 points adrift, I still think we have a chance of staying up, maybe 30 to 40 per cent.

We have a very competent manager, and a midfield with potential. A starting point for improvement is our defence starting to do a few basics right, like clearing the ball, covering areas instead of ball-watching -- elementary things that shouldn't be impossible to implement with proper coaching. If, additionally, Garde can bring in a competent GK, reliable defender and a good finisher in January, we may have a basis for picking up some points. They don't need to be world beaters to be an improvement on the current lot.

The question is whether our players are good enough to accumulate the 30+ points needed to stay up. But if we go down, I think it will be because of our poor start of the season. I don't see us ending the season like a laughing stock with 10-15 points.

[Monty]

If we stay up we'll have been saved by the sheer awfulness of the teams just above us. To only be as far away as we are, given that we've not won since the opening day, testifies to an astonishingly level of shitness at the bottom of this league.

[Stirchley Villain]

7 points adrift, I still think we have a chance of staying up, maybe 30 to 40 per cent.

We have a very competent manager, and a midfield with potential. A starting point for improvement is our defence starting to do a few basics right, like clearing the ball, covering areas instead of ball-watching -- elementary things that shouldn't be impossible to implement with proper coaching. If, additionally, Garde can bring in a competent GK, reliable defender and a good finisher in January, we may have a basis for picking up some points. They don't need to be world beaters to be an improvement on the current lot.

The question is whether our players are good enough to accumulate the 30+ points needed to stay up. But if we go down, I think it will be because of our poor start of the season. I don't see us ending the season like a laughing stock with 10-15 points.

Keep taking the happy pills 😉

[Rudy65]

No big TV deal money, Rotherham on a Friday night, no live match streams, and 30 seconds of highlights on that dreadful Channel 5 programme.  I'm shuddering at the thought of it already but this is the reality for next season

F me. No streams. I had forgotten that