The rapid decline of the 92/93 team

[eamonn]

Paul was trained as a midfielder.

[Villan82]

The 89-90 team was like a machine. I do, genuinely, believe it looked more like a team of 'champions' than the more entertaining 9-93 team.

It is a real shame one of those two teams didn't bring home the championship.

[Damo70]

Paul was trained as a midfielder.

He was a midfielder in the Irish league and originally bought as a midfielder by BFR for Manure.

[Damo70]

Graham Taylor took a lot of stick for bringing Cowans into the England team, was it for Gazza or Platt at one time in the early 90s? Perhaps Cowans reputation outside of Villa suffered for things like that.

That was for a Euro 92 qualifier in Dublin in October 1990 when SGT put Sid in for Gascoigne. It was a really awful game despite Platt scoring for England  and Cascarino equalizing for Ireland.

SGT got pelters from the media for dropping Gascoigne and replacing him with Sid. I think that was when he retorted to the press regarding his concern about Gascoigne's  "refuelling habits".

[RamboandBruno]

Personally I always saw 1990 as more of a missed opportunity to 1993. I came out of White Hart Lane in late February convinced we would win the title. But instead of kicking on we immediately lost at home to Wimbledon and away to Coventry (I think Mountfield got injured at Coventry and was out for a while). We dropped points at QPR and lost to poor Palace and Man City sides. We relied too much on Platt for our goals, Ian Olney was young and knackered after leading the line all season and Cascarino didn't hit the ground running. 1992-1993 was our Ipswich season. We played Manure three times and beat them twice and drew once. It was looking good when we won at Forest but the next week we drew with Coventry whilst Bruce scored those late goals for Manure against Wednesday. We then lost our last three games which made United's triumph look far more emphatic then it was prior to the last but one game.

I’ve been off H&V for most of lockdown, so cone to this late, and this point may have already been made in the other 14 pages after this (sorry attention span twindling the more it goes on). Anyway, I totally agree with this. 89/90 expected not much at the beginning as we nearly got relegated the season before, but as it went on it really felt like the title was coming. I was at Chelsea away as a 16 on NYD 1990 when we tonked them 3-0c& Liverpool only drew with forest away later that day. At that point I think (and I may be wrong without checking) we were a few points ahead with a game in hand. But Wimbledon in Mid Feb changed everything. They were our bogey side at the time, but we got a 1st min pen, Platt never missed..but did and they done us 3-0 and the wheels started to fall off.

92-93 felt to me more of a fantastic indulgence, beautiful football for most of the season, but the only time I really believed we were gonna do it, was when Staunton scored that screamed at Old Trafford to put us one up in March 93. I loved Atkinson side that year though and I know Saunders and Atkinson didn’t score loads but there were some great goals amongst them....and a defence of McGrath, Teale, Barrett and Staunton (though Bryan small played his part when Stan moved into left mid).

Have them days back tomorrow

[Damo70]

After an uninspiring start to the season in 1989 in September we lost 1-3 at home to QPR thanks to a Trevor Francis hat-trick and the knives were out in the media for SGT, bearing in mind we only stayed up by the skin of our teeth the previous season. I think a lot of fans lost their bottle and were bombarding BRMB with criticism. I remember one Saturday night out with the mates I went home and away with and there was a heated exchange between two of us who backed SGT (I think it was me and Nev) and two other mates who were calling for change. We then got battered by Derby in the next game but managed to nick a 1-0 win against the run of play. We went on a run of eight wins on the bounce - Derby, Luton on the plastic pitch, Man C away, Palace, Everton (6-2 and I think they would have gone top if they had beaten us), Coventry 4-1, Wimbledon away and Forest at Villa Park. We then drew at Anfield before losing at Millwall. We then went on another run beating Manure, Arsenal, Chelsea, Charlton, Southampton, Wednesday and Spurs before the defeat at home to Wimbledon. From September to February including four FA Cup games we won fifteen games drew two and lost one.

[PeterWithesShin]

We won 5 in a row, we lost 2-0 at Norwich.

[eamonn]

Hah, I knew PWS would be one-hand to out-statto you, Damo 

I guess those sequence of results show that the hallmark of champions is to stop a couple of bad results turning into a run of them. Momentum either way is a powerful force.

[Exeter 77]

We won 5 in a row, we lost 2-0 at Norwich.

The same result in the same fixture cost us a lot in 1992/93 as well.

[cdbearsfan]

I remember Norwich killing themselves against us and absolutely rolling over when they played Man U. Think they had already lost the match after about ten minutes. Have never liked them since, carrot chomping twats.

[LeeB]

We won 5 in a row, we lost 2-0 at Norwich.

The run from the Millwall defeat till the Wimbledon game was 7 in a row, and matched the best run in 80-81.
We were magnificent in the last game of that run, Spurs away, probably the best we played that season, which made what followed so surprising.

[cdbearsfan]

We started off well against Wimbledon and always think if Platt had scored that penalty we would have won comfortably and who knows what might have happened after that.

[usav]

Wasn't there a shit defeat at Coventry in there somewhere as well?  Seem to remember a Sunday game on TV that I went to with my brother.

[London Villan]

Boxing day. Didnt mountfield go off injured?

[London Villan]

It was March!