last season 7 points of 8th place , so it is quite tight , I do not think we are a million miles away with a bit more consistency and cohesion . However not seen anything of that yet
Quote from: RamboandBruno on August 17, 2022, 10:43:46 AMQuote from: coreyfeldman on August 17, 2022, 10:21:02 AMQuote from: kippaxvilla2 on August 17, 2022, 09:45:45 AMWithout any evidence or rationale for my view but I’m wondering if this is the man Citeh moment all over again. This time Newcastle. Add to that Grealish going when he did knocked the stuffing out of us to the degree where the ambitions may have been downgraded. The squad is not as good as it appears. I think the squad is pretty decent, the main problem at the moment is that very few players ever seem to be in great form and too infrequently do we look better than the sum of our parts. The teams with similar squad quality to us have a more clear identity/style, which is either because their managers have been there for much longer, or because they have better managers, or both. I'm referring to Palace/Brentford/Brighton and probably Newcastle as well, but obviously Howe came in at the same time as SG.And yet we took 6 points off Brighton and 4 points off Palace last season. Brentford are Brentford to us, which hopefully we’ll correct this season. Im not saying we don’t need to continue to improve our squad, i think we need to add a couple more players to try and break that top 8/top 6 this season, but God we really do like to talk other clubs up sometimes. Those couple of players are going to need to be world class to break the top six.We haven't broken the top half of the table for over a decade, let alone the top six or eight.
Quote from: coreyfeldman on August 17, 2022, 10:21:02 AMQuote from: kippaxvilla2 on August 17, 2022, 09:45:45 AMWithout any evidence or rationale for my view but I’m wondering if this is the man Citeh moment all over again. This time Newcastle. Add to that Grealish going when he did knocked the stuffing out of us to the degree where the ambitions may have been downgraded. The squad is not as good as it appears. I think the squad is pretty decent, the main problem at the moment is that very few players ever seem to be in great form and too infrequently do we look better than the sum of our parts. The teams with similar squad quality to us have a more clear identity/style, which is either because their managers have been there for much longer, or because they have better managers, or both. I'm referring to Palace/Brentford/Brighton and probably Newcastle as well, but obviously Howe came in at the same time as SG.And yet we took 6 points off Brighton and 4 points off Palace last season. Brentford are Brentford to us, which hopefully we’ll correct this season. Im not saying we don’t need to continue to improve our squad, i think we need to add a couple more players to try and break that top 8/top 6 this season, but God we really do like to talk other clubs up sometimes.
Quote from: kippaxvilla2 on August 17, 2022, 09:45:45 AMWithout any evidence or rationale for my view but I’m wondering if this is the man Citeh moment all over again. This time Newcastle. Add to that Grealish going when he did knocked the stuffing out of us to the degree where the ambitions may have been downgraded. The squad is not as good as it appears. I think the squad is pretty decent, the main problem at the moment is that very few players ever seem to be in great form and too infrequently do we look better than the sum of our parts. The teams with similar squad quality to us have a more clear identity/style, which is either because their managers have been there for much longer, or because they have better managers, or both. I'm referring to Palace/Brentford/Brighton and probably Newcastle as well, but obviously Howe came in at the same time as SG.
Without any evidence or rationale for my view but I’m wondering if this is the man Citeh moment all over again. This time Newcastle. Add to that Grealish going when he did knocked the stuffing out of us to the degree where the ambitions may have been downgraded. The squad is not as good as it appears.
Call me old fashioned but surely possible for our coaching team to get more out of current cohort rather than spunking out more on transfer fees.
We are not done yet, absolutely not.Players moving out is needed.I still think we have a blockbuster or two under our belts but they are waiting for better offer because 14th placed aston villa with a rookie manager isn't the best prospect or easiest sell to over seas players. Let's face it a lot of them were not even born the last time we were in Europe.Time will tell but this squad here is 1 or 2 injuries from relegation and the owners will not let that happen
Well we had 10 points from 11 games when Smith was potted, so highly possible we'd have been in a relegation battle as well.
7-8 points would’ve been easier if we hadn’t taken 1 point from Brentford (admittedly 1 more point than usual), 0 points at home or away to Watford, 0 points against Wolves, 0 points against West Ham, all teams we should be beating or aspiring to beat to get to where we supposedly belong.
On our showings so far, I don’t think we’re anywhere near to finishing top 8. We still need another outstanding midfielder and a striker that’s going to get us 15/20 goals a season.Talksport had 12 minutes to update transfers but must have used up 9 of those minutes talking about Manure. Nothing ever changes and, of course, Villa weren’t mentioned at all.