I know this is REALLY fucking stupid, however...

[eamonn]

We should be looking to finish this season in the top 8.

Agreed. As we have said for years the quality outside the top 6 is rubbish.

It's not though. Leeds, Leicester, Everton, Southampton and West Ham are all as good as us on their day. 10th would be a decent achievement.

[SoccerHQ]

We should be looking to finish this season in the top 8.

Agreed. As we have said for years the quality outside the top 6 is rubbish.

It's not though. Leeds, Leicester, Everton, Southampton and West Ham are all as good as us on their day. 10th would be a decent achievement.

We should be looking to finish above likes of Palace and Newcastle at this point, that would get us to about 12th in league. Then it's a case of doing better than a couple of West Ham, Southampton etc to get top half.

Everton looked good earlier this season but they're on an identical run to us currently, lost 4 out of last 5 which includes defeats to Leeds and Southampton so going by that they aren't that much better despite another summer of huge investment.

Forgot about Arsenal aswell. They're the one traditional top 6 team I think we have a very realistic chance of finishing above this season given how mediocre they've looked so far and we match up pretty well v them so could beat them at VP again.

[Mister E]

A pleasing thing about last night's game was the way we moved the ball around. We look like a decent team now, whereas last season was a bit hurly-burly and random.
As I said earlier, put some physicality into MF alongside Luiz (in fact, allowing Luiz more of a playmaker role) and we'll get and look even better.

[pauliewalnuts]

We have got to accept we'll have some infuriatingly bad results and some unexpectedly good ones, we're inconsistent and we're going to remain that way for a while yet.

Not a chance in hell that we get relegated, though, which is already an improvement.

[Drummond]

if we won last night we'd be top six.  We should have won even with the players we had playing last night.  Our propensity for making mistakes at the back or up top is well ingrained.  I know all teams make mistakes we just make more and more often.  I will believe we will be getting towards some form of a swagger as a team when we actually can play the ball out from a goal kick rather than pretending to as we did.

Top 4 with a game in hand to take us joint top.

I was disappointed last night, and pissed off with the goals conceded. We could and should have won. Which makes a big difference. We go into every game knowing we could win, which is what hurts. We're not shit, and the players aren't shit either, despite what some would say.

I like what we have and we're only going to get better.

[SamTheMouse]

Not stupid at all. I feel similar. I think it's got a lot to do with the owners. They not only have a stupid amount of wealth, they are clearly ambitious, albeit cautiously so and they seem a lot more savvy than their predecessors. In the later years of the Lerner era and under the clown he sold us to, it felt like the club was rudderless and there was an element of making it up as we went along.

Now the professionalism and gravitas has returned, both on and off the pitch, and everything seems much more reassuring, more worthy of an old and stately club. It feels like Villa is meant to feel.

[Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air]

I always think third Division to league champions, European champions and back to the second Division in fifteen or so years is one of the most insane journeys in English football.
 

Insane journeys #2 . Northampton Town. 1960/61 Division Four, 1965/66 Division One, 1969/70 Division Four.

[eamonn]

Blimey! Must have been exciting to be a cobbler in the 60's.

[Steve67]

Go and win the FA Cup please.

[nordenvillain]

The big difference for me this season is whenever we go a goal behind, I believe that we can come back. So do the players.

Not borne out by results - We've lost every game in which we have conceded first.

[eamonn]

True but apart from Leeds, the heads haven't gone down - we played WHam off the park last night and scored three against Southampton.

[Risso]

The end result is the same though.  If you give away two or three easy goals a game as we have been doing, chances are you'll lose.

[Pat Mustard]

It's understandable given the last 10 years that some fans are wary when we don't win games like Monday where we were clearly the better team, but this is a very different team.  I would much rather be in our position where we look threatening in every game and lose due to unforced errors or bad luck than someone like Newcastle, where they constantly look second best but somehow just about manage to scrape enough results to stay safe.  This is a young team, and eventually those errors will be eliminated - once that happens, we will be a real force.

[Small Rodent]

The whole club is undeniably going places and while I love that, for some reason it's making defeats harder to take. I'm used to us being crap and accepting defeats as par for the course. Now that we're actually good, I'm either absolutely gutted or really pissed off after defeats. I need to figure out how to accept losses better.

The same here. In my head...Liverpool, Leicester, Arsenal were nice surprises. Leeds, Brighton, Southampton, West Ham; we should be beating these minnows.

[ChicagoLion]

Keeping Grealish is fundemental t any ambition we have.