Fans Worried Over Villa Future

[Legion]

Such as?

[ROBBO]

Such as?

The fact that no one voted for me on who would you miss thread but found a place for you. I am easily upset.

[ROBBO]

Your obviously irreplaceable and i'm not, wouldn'y you be upset?

[Dave Clark Five]

Go to the 'snookering the threads' thread and vent your spleen there.

[OCD]

Go to the 'snookering the threads' thread and vent your spleen there.

Why would you want to do that?

[peter w]

Okay. So what am I really worried about at the moment? Mainly that this is going to be harder to achieve than the board think. 'This' being getting out of the middle-tier malaise and breaking through to Europe. And we have to do it regularly. I think this is the bit that is difficult. Once we are in Europe regularly the money and ambition will give us the impetus to break into the top 4 very quickly. I think this season is pivotal. You can't have an ambitious club that is not moving as quickly as ambitious players. We currently have a set of ambitious players and the club has to deliver what is trying to promise - Europe and success.

[ROBBO]

I agree that although we seem to have improved the gap between us and the top four is as big as ever. The signal of intent by buying a couple of already established top class players hasn't materialised in fact a couple of players we have bought in would seem to determine us as a battling club.
Beating the dire will comfort some but I look at the bigger picture and we have not looked impressive over the last few weeks.

[peter w]

I agree we haven't looked impressive but as I've said previously I think we'll click at some point. Last season we only did it in the last 9 games, and in some of those we looked very very good. We haven't looked as good yet but I think we will go on a run of winning games. We're still a relatively young side that will be prone to inconsistency. We will get better. This season even.

[Chris Smith]

I agree that although we seem to have improved the gap between us and the top four is as big as ever. The signal of intent by buying a couple of already established top class players hasn't materialised in fact a couple of players we have bought in would seem to determine us as a battling club.
Beating the dire will comfort some but I look at the bigger picture and we have not looked impressive over the last few weeks.

The top 4 are the top 4 because they hardly ever lose to anyone except each other. Between them they've played 50 games this season and only lost 3 and one of those was us beating Chelsea. At the moment I don't think it's particularly relevant or helpful to measure ourselves against those sides as they've had years of champions league money to bolster them. We need to walk before we can run.

The teams we should be comparing ourselves against are those in the next tier - Everton, Newcastle, Spurs, West Ham etc. So far we've done fairly well against them and we're well placed to challenge for 5th or 6th place. We've become a team that is generally difficult to beat and although not prolific in front of goal have failed to score in only two games this season. We've lost at home against 2 of the top 4 but other than that have won the other 5 conceding only 1 goal in the process. We've only lost once away from Villa Park.

We struggle to dominate teams for 90 minutes at the moment but there have been periods in most games where we have looked impressive and other times when we've looked less so but the good is outweighing the bad by a considerable distance at the moment.

The bigger picture is we're better than we were this time last years and as a club we're clearly going forward and it is, in my opinion, only impatience stopping some people from seeing this.

[villa `cross the mersey]

A measured view Chris - most fans are impatient, however from my point of view we have seen great strides taken by the club to improve things off the pitch - those on the pitch will evolve in time when our manager knits together a blend of youth and experience.

Like many (I hope) visiting VP on match days is once again an enjoyable experience rather than a chore.

[peter w]

Disregarding the fact that I go once or twice a season it is never a chore for me. For those that go regularly it does not seem to be a chore. We've added 3 or 4 thousand onto our average gate. You can put some of it down to just blind optimism, a lot of it down to the board/MON, and even more down to the team looking like they could develop into something special.

There is still a lot of work to do and the difficulty is keeping the team together before we make a tilt at the top 4. Which is not a million miles away. Most seasons the team in 4th are not that far away from the team in 5th. What is needed is what we don't have at the moment and thats consistency. age will improve that. So, will buying better players. But for that to happen we need to be challenging for Europe first, and then challenging in Europe.

[OCD]

I think I've taken a wrong turn, I thought this was the 'Fans Worried Over Villa Future' thread.

[JD]

Disregarding the fact that I go once or twice a season it is never a chore for me. For those that go regularly it does not seem to be a chore. We've added 3 or 4 thousand onto our average gate. You can put some of it down to just blind optimism, a lot of it down to the board/MON, and even more down to the team looking like they could develop into something special.

There is still a lot of work to do and the difficulty is keeping the team together before we make a tilt at the top 4. Which is not a million miles away. Most seasons the team in 4th are not that far away from the team in 5th. What is needed is what we don't have at the moment and thats consistency. age will improve that. So, will buying better players. But for that to happen we need to be challenging for Europe first, and then challenging in Europe.

We can't let another transfer window go by without signaling our intent. Sign Carson, sign a classy right back, sign Riquelme and sign Huntelaar. That will do to kick us onwards and upwards.  O:)  O:)

[ROBBO]

My point exactly, yes it will take time to get among the elite but apart from Young all our buys have been unimpressive to say the least, buy a couple of great players and get us all exited and stop me from worrying.

[VillaVA]

I am still worried.  I am worried about Gabby's knee, Laursen's contract,  McLaren's shelflife, MON's ego, the General's back, Ashley Young's sinuses, and a whole bunch of other things which will keep me worried for quite a while to come.