How much will Coronavirus (COVID-19) impact Aston Villa's season?

[BoVillan esq]

Not for me. Play the whole season, or void it. No cutting it off when everyone has played different teams and have differing home and away matches remaining. I would also say it should wait until you can have proper home matches in front of fans, but the league don't seem to care about fucking us over on that front.

This, all day long, in fact I would go further, much further, the season is dead and buried, and games played now have no relevance to the season just past other than playing out the remaining games in order to justify financial woes, for a start you already have a number of players tested positive so there is one disadvantaged side, or more, you have a number of players who are voicing there concerns about playing and don't want to train, another reason, management staff have tested positive and above all else can the FA give an absolute guarantee that no player is going to suffer because of the virus, due to the resumption of the Premier League season, no way can they.

Season is dead, everything stays as it is, hopefully the season can start in August although I would doubt that.     

[Steve67]

The FA are hellbent on finishing the season.  Therefore, we have to play our way out of relegation. There is lots of unfairness about it with Friend, VAR and having to play away more times than at home in front of opposition fans.  It's crap and I want them to void, although it looks like that shags us as well.  It looks like we have to play our way to safety and Dean Smith does his job properly. The break might do us good as we were in the slumpiest of slumps. I don't like it, it's about money, but if we have to play, at least it's in our hands.

[rougegorge]

As the season will clearly not be voided, I do think we will go down whichever route is taken.

After the bad run of results and the absolute debacle at Leicester I think we would have struggled to stay up even under normal circumstances.

Maybe we'll come back better as it will have been a very long break,  but with a preponderance of opponents in the top half to play,  I fear we may just not be good enough, fans or no fans.

[BoVillan esq]

The FA are hellbent on finishing the season.  Therefore, we have to play our way out of relegation. There is lots of unfairness about it with Friend, VAR and having to play away more times than at home in front of opposition fans.  It's crap and I want them to void, although it looks like that shags us as well.  It looks like we have to play our way to safety and Dean Smith does his job properly. The break might do us good as we were in the slumpiest of slumps. I don't like it, it's about money, but if we have to play, at least it's in our hands.

Personally I think the FA are really struggling to justify the restart, as each day goes by, the more it looks crazy to restart, put it this way, if they don't have a start date for June end, within the next week, 10 days, it just can't happen, each day is now decisive in decision making terms for the FA, think of it this way, next week players may, only might, be allowed to make contact, we are miles of in comparison to the German model and there preparation for there restart, plus we could be restarting at just the point that infection could be increasing, the problem here is you have the government and then you have the FA and both look poles apart.

rougegorge:  I'm not so sure its nailed on we would be relegated, I don't think Smith is the right manager, I think had we got rid of him, we would have had a much better chance, I'm convinced we are 20% below par in performance terms with the squad we have, could have done way better with these lads and that would have been enough to enable us to survive, you could say, ''own worst enemy'' that said, Villa historically always do it the hard way, I think we would scrape 17th place even on restart, we've got enough, sure of it.   

[PeterWithesShin]

If they try to relegate anyone based on PPG all clubs have to do is point to Leicester in 2015. Bottom of the table at the same stage of the season and would be relegated if this had happened then. We all know what happened over the last 9 games of the season. W7 D1 L1.

[BoVillan esq]

If they try to relegate anyone based on PPG all clubs have to do is point to Leicester in 2015. Bottom of the table at the same stage of the season and would be relegated if this had happened then. We all know what happened over the last 9 games of the season. W7 D1 L1.

Exactly correct there are so many nuances, so many pointers, I still can't see how they can restart, think we are getting lip service, mitigation firewall.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

If they try to relegate anyone based on PPG all clubs have to do is point to Leicester in 2015. Bottom of the table at the same stage of the season and would be relegated if this had happened then. We all know what happened over the last 9 games of the season. W7 D1 L1.

Ouch!

[cdbearsfan]

Your assertion seems to be that they will listen to any sort of logic. I've seen no evidence of that whatsoever, so far. They would rather risk players dying than cancel the season.

[Singapore Villa]

At least we can point out to league executives that we are well prepared for social distancing..

We have been practicing it whilst defending corners for several seasons....

[Mister E]

The problem with PPG is that there's no way it can account for all the variables over the next 9/10 games...

As an example of how bad it is I took a 2 recent seasons, 1 where the top 4 and bottom 3 didn't change (16/17) from mid march to the end of the season and one where it did (17/18).

Great work, Paul. Ihope you're going to send that analysis to the tw*ts at the EPL and FA. And to all the main media outlets.

[old man villa fan]

The problem with PPG is that there's no way it can account for all the variables over the next 9/10 games...

As an example of how bad it is I took a 2 recent seasons, 1 where the top 4 and bottom 3 didn't change (16/17) from mid march to the end of the season and one where it did (17/18).

Great work, Paul. Ihope you're going to send that analysis to the tw*ts at the EPL and FA. And to all the main media outlets.

Add in the fact that over the last 10 seasons, 10 clubs have escaped relegation after being in the bottom three after 29 matches.  PPG over the first 29 matches does not represent how seasons finish on the run in and there is factual evidence to support that.

[old man villa fan]

Personally I think the FA are really struggling to justify the restart, as each day goes by, the more it looks crazy to restart, put it this way, if they don't have a start date for June end, within the next week, 10 days, it just can't happen, each day is now decisive in decision making terms for the FA, think of it this way, next week players may, only might, be allowed to make contact, we are miles of in comparison to the German model   

Rather than becoming more decisive on how the season will finish, things are becoming more vague.  They know if they commit to dates, things will not be achieved and they will have to abandon the season.  Even on the current course, it is becoming doubtful that the season will be complete by the end of July, compared with when they were talking about the end of June not so long ago.  So, we are going to see them cutting short the training period.  Completing 9 matches, playing weekend and midweek, will take 4 weeks to complete and that does not factor in the two additional matches that have to be factored in.

No comments have been made about how many players in each team will be allowed to go down with the virus before they say that team has to stop playing.  Why is this?  Probably so they can make it up as they go along to suite the agenda of 'Project Restart at any costs'.  There is talk of limiting squad sizes during training, so what happens when injuries start to deplete squads?  You cannot just bring in U21s as they will not have been training or followed testing regimes.  Where are they on venues for matches?

This is all b*******.

[old man villa fan]

What is happening about next season?  What planning is going into playing out next season and under what conditions.  A new season does not just happen.  No mention yet about a date for the start of next season.  A minimum two month break is required between seasons for transfers, contract discussions, commercial sponsorship, training etc.  All the talk has been about completing the leagues, what about the FA Cup and European matches?  Earliest restart for the EPL on this basis will be October.

The transfer window is due to open 10th June, with contracts starting 1st July.  This does not fit with the EPL timetable for completing this season but what about other countries that abandoned their seasons who are ready to start making preparations for next season.

People are talking about cancelling next season so as to complete this season but we could possibly be in a situation early next year of being able to attend matches again but with no football to watch.

Failing to sort out next season is going to have more of an impact on clubs than completing this season.  Going to hell in a handcart all for the sake of letting Liverpool win the title and promoting Leeds (West Brom are just riding the coattails, nobody is interested in them!)

[tony scott]

Maybe play just 19 games next season, giving plenty of time and space for proper Organisation.

[cdbearsfan]

If they do end up playing an odd number of games next year they better make sure we have an extra home game, after this season's shenanigans.