Anyone starting to get worried?

[curiousorange]

This is the thing I don't get about Villa - I don't see the head-dropping during defeat that was present in 2016, but it's arguably worse to just take it on the chin. It feels like Steve Martin coaching his son's baseball team in 'Parenthood' - "never mind, lads, we'll have pizza anyway."

[ez]

One thing this season that reminds me of the relegation one was that back then, every week, I'd find myself thinking "maybe this is the week that we turn it around and start to show a bit of quality" but it never happened.

In that season it was a little different in that the entire club had pretty much accepted relegation by January (in which we did nothing to try to stop it).

However, I've found myself thinking the same thing this season, week after week there is either no improvement at all, or we look better and worth a win and throw it away needlessly (which is even more frustrating).

We are just so flat, paceless and predictable every week. Even when we don't lose, we never really look like we know what it takes to win matches at this level, and that for me is the fault of the manager. As someone else mentioned, his game management has been directly responsible for losing points which would have seen us far more likely to stay up now.

He sounds really plausible when you hear him speak, and it is very hard not to like someone with the sort of background he has got, but sometimes i find myself thinking back to the play off win and the feeling then, and I look at where we are now, and it is just so, so disappointing to think we have allowed things to spiral so awfully out of control.

Agree with every word.  It’s just typical Villa again if we go down.  We’ve finally got some owners that mean business, we were given the platform to kick on massively and instead appear to have allowed someone completely out of this depth to trawl the minor leagues of Europe and land us with a very average squad of players at this level. 

I just hope they stay with us if the worst happens.

There's the thing. You say they mean business but they have stood by and watched this happen.

[Luke8]

We actually had a reasonable start, but that just shows how bad we've been ever since.

Since we beat Brighton at VP with Targett's last minute winner, we've played 20 league games with a record of W4, D2, L14.  That is desperately poor.

We've kept saying it would change when we had an easier run of fixtures but nothing did. I simply can't see it changing now.

On that basis we have nothing to lose. I'd rather see us get relegated having a go, than get relegated trying to draw our final 9 games 0-0.

Just for context, West Ham and Bournemouth’s record over the same period is identical. If you assume Norwich are gone, at least one of those two and us must stay up. It’s certainly not a given, but I don’t see any reason to believe it’s not possible for us to finish above the two of them.

[OzVilla]

One thing this season that reminds me of the relegation one was that back then, every week, I'd find myself thinking "maybe this is the week that we turn it around and start to show a bit of quality" but it never happened.

In that season it was a little different in that the entire club had pretty much accepted relegation by January (in which we did nothing to try to stop it).

However, I've found myself thinking the same thing this season, week after week there is either no improvement at all, or we look better and worth a win and throw it away needlessly (which is even more frustrating).

We are just so flat, paceless and predictable every week. Even when we don't lose, we never really look like we know what it takes to win matches at this level, and that for me is the fault of the manager. As someone else mentioned, his game management has been directly responsible for losing points which would have seen us far more likely to stay up now.

He sounds really plausible when you hear him speak, and it is very hard not to like someone with the sort of background he has got, but sometimes i find myself thinking back to the play off win and the feeling then, and I look at where we are now, and it is just so, so disappointing to think we have allowed things to spiral so awfully out of control.

Agree with every word.  It’s just typical Villa again if we go down.  We’ve finally got some owners that mean business, we were given the platform to kick on massively and instead appear to have allowed someone completely out of this depth to trawl the minor leagues of Europe and land us with a very average squad of players at this level. 

I just hope they stay with us if the worst happens.

If we went down it would be primarily due to Smith doing a poor job as opposed to Suso or anyone else. He’s made so many mistakes this season that have cost us points I think he’s lucky to still be in the job quite frankly.

[Damo70]

I can't deny the fact that before lockdown I was calling for us to approach Big Sam to keep us up.

[Luke8]

Average players can be made to look better with decent coaches. Take a look at Adama or even Ayew. But an average coach won't get anything more out of them.

I’d say Smith has improved Grealish and Mings at the very least.

[Ian.]

I really hope to see Davies and Samatta up front together tomorrow, I just don’t think Smith will try it. He’s tried a couple different systems this season and nothing has quite worked out consistently enough.

[curiousorange]

If we don't want to break the Villa fan/manager link, reminder that Prandelli's an admirer of the claret and blue...

[PaulWinch again]

Overall two very good results this afternoon/evening.

[villa `cross the mersey]

Overall two very good results this afternoon/evening.

only if Smith can get a tune out of this underwhelming squad of players

[curiousorange]

Yet another massive opportunity just begging to be spurned.

[PaulWinch again]

That’s the spirit.

[curiousorange]

That’s the spirit.

Just a little bit of reverse psychology.

[OzVilla]

The point is we are 3/4 of the way through the season and we still don’t know our best 11 or our best formation. That’s down to Smith and his team.

[curiousorange]

I'm hoping this season is like 2010-11. Tough run in including a six pointer away at West Ham. In the end, we cruised it. Of course, we had a proper striker then.