Are you worried?

[john e]

No
I’m not worried
Maybe I should be but I’m not

Whats your expectations for the season? If its midtable then you have every right not be worried. But if its  champions league then i cant see how anyone cannot be. We cant defend, we cant score and just look weak in every area of the pitch.

Cant think of anything on our play thats been a improvement of last year

My expectations for this season is European football and will be every season for the foreseeable

[VillaTim]

Of course we'll turn it round. Hopefully Wednesday will be the start of that and set up a nice 6 days of pleasing connectivity, in our way. There can't be a single person who doesn't think the first sentence is true.

I can see Brentford scoring at least 2 , so hopefully Watkins takes his one on one chance , someone else gets a goal and then Duran comes on to save the day

[TelfordVilla]

We have lost the last 3 away at Chelsea, Liverpool and spuds. That's not ideal but they would all expect to win their home games against us. The problem is we have drawn our last 3 at home against the worst man u team ever, palace and Bournemouth. That's disappointing but not really the end of the world crisis stuff. 2 home wins next up and it will look a whole lot better.

[Sexual Ealing]

we're on a bad run - but we have the right people in the right roles to turn this around.

just have to accept they made mistakes in the summer learn from it and ensure this summer is far more successful than this one.

Probably  one our worst summers in years

I know what you mean*. It feels like it's still going on.


*I obviously have no idea what you mean.

[Demitri_C]

we're on a bad run - but we have the right people in the right roles to turn this around.

just have to accept they made mistakes in the summer learn from it and ensure this summer is far more successful than this one.

Probably  one our worst summers in years

I know what you mean*. It feels like it's still going on.


*I obviously have no idea what you mean.

I have absolutely no idea how you dont know what i mean as its quite clear what it means 😂

But just in case you was serious i was talking about our business in the summer in terms of signings.

I do hope that clears up any confusion  😁

[tomd2103]

we're on a bad run - but we have the right people in the right roles to turn this around.

just have to accept they made mistakes in the summer learn from it and ensure this summer is far more successful than this one.

Probably  one our worst summers in years

I know what you mean*. It feels like it's still going on.


*I obviously have no idea what you mean.

I have absolutely no idea how you dont know what i mean as its quite clear what it means 😂

But just in case you was serious i was talking about our business in the summer in terms of signings.

I do hope that clears up any confusion  😁

I do agree with you that the summer was the time to try and go big in terms of signings, but to be fair though, we don't know just how much we were hampered by the FFP restrictions. 

[wince]

No. Simple as that. Its a rough patch and no need to get all fatalistic that we have had our moment etc. Have some faith and we will be fine.

[Beard82]

I think we do - in the atheletic they were saying how this summer was going to need to be a "Fire-sale"

the whole summer was all about FFP - I dont think a single signing wasnt influenced by it.  We didnt think - ah Felix looks good - but think Jaden's better.

[Beard82]

We have lost the last 3 away at Chelsea, 'The Mighty Reds YNWA' and spuds. That's not ideal but they would all expect to win their home games against us. The problem is we have drawn our last 3 at home against the worst man u team ever, palace and Bournemouth. That's disappointing but not really the end of the world crisis stuff. 2 home wins next up and it will look a whole lot better.

Agree with this

[Demitri_C]

we're on a bad run - but we have the right people in the right roles to turn this around.

just have to accept they made mistakes in the summer learn from it and ensure this summer is far more successful than this one.

Probably  one our worst summers in years

I know what you mean*. It feels like it's still going on.


*I obviously have no idea what you mean.

I have absolutely no idea how you dont know what i mean as its quite clear what it means 😂

But just in case you was serious i was talking about our business in the summer in terms of signings.

I do hope that clears up any confusion  😁

I do agree with you that the summer was the time to try and go big in terms of signings, but to be fair though, we don't know just how much we were hampered by the FFP restrictions.

I dont mean to go over old ground tomd but i think we didnt spend too well in summer even with the FFP restrictions.  We didnt need a left back i think spending 30m on a right  back would have been more useful  for us. Also 50m on onana i think is way too much. Good player but 50m? A bit much.

The biggest one is thinking philiogene could replace diabs. That was a big mistake from the recruitment team. He looks completely lost and out of his depth.

Then we have players like buendia who the manager has lost all faith in - its a waste of a spot in the squad.

Its a bad summer but we need to fix this in the next 2 windows and im confident unai can. Need to start shopping sainsburys not pound stretcher when trying to replace  key players like dougie and diabs

[tomd2103]

we're on a bad run - but we have the right people in the right roles to turn this around.

just have to accept they made mistakes in the summer learn from it and ensure this summer is far more successful than this one.

Probably  one our worst summers in years

I know what you mean*. It feels like it's still going on.


*I obviously have no idea what you mean.

I have absolutely no idea how you dont know what i mean as its quite clear what it means 😂

But just in case you was serious i was talking about our business in the summer in terms of signings.

I do hope that clears up any confusion  😁

I do agree with you that the summer was the time to try and go big in terms of signings, but to be fair though, we don't know just how much we were hampered by the FFP restrictions.

I dont mean to go over old ground tomd but i think we didnt spend too well in summer even with the FFP restrictions.  We didnt need a left back i think spending 30m on a right  back would have been more useful  for us. Also 50m on onana i think is way too much. Good player but 50m? A bit much.

The biggest one is thinking philiogene could replace diabs. That was a big mistake from the recruitment team. He looks completely lost and out of his depth.

Then we have players like buendia who the manager has lost all faith in - its a waste of a spot in the squad.

Its a bad summer but we need to fix this in the next 2 windows and im confident unai can. Need to start shopping sainsburys not pound stretcher when trying to replace  key players like dougie and diabs

Fair points.  I think the Maatsen signing was made because it might have been felt that Moreno was on the way out after not recovering his form after a bad injury and he needed to be replaced.

I agree about RB, but I do wonder if that was dependent on Carlos being sold.  Had he gone, the funds might have been there for a RB or a CB with Konsa moving to full back.  If they thought Nedeljković was going to be an option this season, they obviously got that wrong. 

I might be in a minority here, but I've liked the look of Onana when he's played, but he's obviously been missing much more than anyone would have wanted.

The Philogene one looks like the biggest mistake at the moment, as he just looks way below the required level at the moment.  I think there have been some rose tinted views of Diaby's time with us last season, but we should have replaced him as a squad option at the very least. 

I think the biggest issue we are facing is that the form of a number of our attacking players has fallen off a cliff.  The amount of times they give the ball away in games at the moment is killing us.

[VillaTim]

The Maatsen / Kellyman thing was all part of the complex web around FFP . Balanced the books but achieved little in terms of the squad

[Accent Guy]

Still not worried, but then I set my expectations a bit more realistic/moderate than others would like. I said I expected a top 8 finish a while back and I think we will get it. Maybe even as high as 5th if we can find some form.

The league is tight and we have had a horrendous set of fixtures. It's not like we have been losing at home to the likes of Brentford and Southampton. (Yet 

Kamara coming back is another bonus and should see an upturn in results with a more favourable set of games.

We will be fine and a crack at the Europa next season with Unai in charge would be very tempting indeed. If it comes to that of course. CL qualification has to still be the club's aim.

Meanwhile we are in a great position in THIS seasons Champions League, where we have conceded (handed) just one goal in 5 games and are 2 wins away from the last 16.

And there's still the FA C.... Yeah maybe not.

But plenty to be positive about. We are still a work in progress and it shows.

In Unai we trust.

UTV

[Chap]

Good post AG.

[boozey182]

I’m not worried yet. I was pleasantly surprised by our excellent start to the season (results-wise), as I thought it would take a lot of games before this squad started to click. I thought we were quite fortunate to be as high as we were a few weeks ago, not because we had been lucky to win matches, but because we seemed to be relying on goals from Duran, which was never going to be sustainable.

We still look a long way off ‘clicking’. Rogers has been poor for weeks, and, to be slightly controversial here, I don’t think he was that good at the start of the season when he was getting a lot of attention. A lot of his performances were 70% brilliant and 30% poor, and that 30% usually included getting a goal or assist - so while he was playing well, he wasn’t winning us games. He has arguably the most important role in our team, and if he isn't playing well, we really struggle.

Unai knows this, and he knows that we need him to find some form soon. That’s the only explanation for why he plays him so much - he needs to get better, he needs more experience, he needs to work out how to impact games. To be honest, I’d have taken him out of the team weeks ago, but I think Unai is thinking about the next few years, not just the match this week. He obviously sees something in Rogers, and is doing whatever he can to bring it out of him.

Then there’s Bailey, who has a similarly important role. I’ve never seen a player so desperate for something to go his way. I’m convinced that if that shot had gone in against Palace, or McGinn had scored from his cut back against Juventus, that could have jolted him back, but nothing is happening for him at the moment.

The margins are so small in the way we set up. It’s high risk football, and it relies on every player protecting the ball. We’re not doing that at the moment. Due to the run we’re on, players are doubting themselves and each other. A split second of doubt can have major ramifications. Cash and Konsa are the most obvious ones - the amount of time they can play a forward pass, but hesitate slightly and it comes back. That’s spreading all over the pitch now, and I’m sure that it’s 90% confidence.

The thing is though, I have no idea how you can force that to work. I’m not sure what Unai can do to suddenly create confidence throughout the team, it almost certainly has to come from them. That’s the bad news. The good news is that it could come back very quickly. It could be one game where we start to pass through a side, moving from defence to attack. Bailey beats his man and sets up Rogers who lashes it home - one moment that could have a huge impact on our season.

I think I will be a bit worried if we don’t have a good week. I think 4 points minimum, but we need to be looking at 6, really. If we get those, then the league will look very different, and the world will seem a much better place this time next week.

I appreciate that this amount of positivity isn’t for everyone, so for those people, try this - I don’t think I’ve ever cared less about how we’re doing. It’s got nothing to do with Unai or the players, but I just can’t muster up the same level of enthusiasm and passion as I have done every other year. I didn’t go to the Juventus game, and I’m not sure how much I missed it.

We can question our transfer dealings in the summer, but we apparently had to sell Doug to comply with the Premier League rules, and Diably to comply with the Champions League rules. We had to replace them both with a very tight transfer budget (because of the rules, not because the club doesn’t have the means to spend). We also had to strengthen the squad now that we’re playing in the Champions League - a net spend of around £30 million? Meanwhile, our opponents yesterday have spent £1 billion on players, while continuously failing to achieve anything. Firing managers, leaving multi-million pound signings out of the squad because they can’t fit them in, selling hotels to themselves.

We’re rebuilding our squad because three years ago we let Steven Gerrard buy his mate.

“It’s an unfair game”. Too fucking right. I’m close to being done with it. Not least because in order for us to be able to compete with these kinds of teams, who happened to be towards the top of the league 10 years ago, when the music stopped, we, the fans, have to accept whatever the club wants to charge us. What’s the point?

So there we are: everything’s going to be fine, but it doesn’t really matter anymore because everything’s fucked. Something for everyone.