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Author Topic: Will we qualify for the CL?  (Read 254942 times)

Online eye digress

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Re: Will we qualify for the CL?
« Reply #3420 on: Today at 01:36:25 PM »
Noticed Jonathan Liew on the Football Weekly (in proximity to a great rant on Sir Jim) opine that he “worries for Villa” and thinks we’ll miss out on a Chump’s league place.

I usually have a lot of time for him, but don’t think he’s thought this one through - even though his broader thinking (the 5 richest clubs will finish top 5) can’t really be faulted per se.

But he did say something else that I thought interesting, that Villa have been struck down by injuries, and that we don’t have the depth of squad to compete in those circumstances with the Uniteds, Chelseas, Liverpools, etc.

It’s something I hear often, like a short hand, but is it really true?

I mean, if United’s first choice 6 and 8 were out for the season, would they be fielding a better quality pair than Onana and Luiz? If the centre backs were out, would they be fielding better than Lindelhof/Mings? Same questions for other positions, and for Chelsea and Liverpool (a similar question was answered on another thread for goalkeepers yesterday, where the consensus would have had our pair 4th out of the top 6 after City, Arsenal and Liverpool).






Online Dick Edwards

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  • Posts: 586
Re: Will we qualify for the CL?
« Reply #3421 on: Today at 01:49:38 PM »
We do have a good squad. As you allude to, if any club in Europe lost their entire first choice midfield, they would suffer a drop in quality. Arsenal for instance have a huge squad, but if their central midfield equivalent of Rice, Odegaard and Zubimendi were missing simultaneously for an extended period they'd struggle.

Offline Mellin

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Re: Will we qualify for the CL?
« Reply #3422 on: Today at 03:58:27 PM »
Agree with every word. If you even take out McGinn and just remove Rice and Zubamendi, Rodri and Silva, Casemiro and Mainoo, Caicedo and Fernandez, or Gravenbach and Szoboszlai...how's that going to go? Exactly as it has for us. The back up is fine, just no team in the world can cope with losing their two best players in their strongest position.

We all knew we were fucked when we heard about Kamara and we all knew we were really fucked when we heard about McGinn and Tielemans. The story starts and ends there.

Offline Percy McCarthy

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    • King City Online
Re: Will we qualify for the CL?
« Reply #3423 on: Today at 04:03:54 PM »
^^ I like Jonny Liew as well. He predicted us to finish 9th at the start of the season.

Offline Monty

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Re: Will we qualify for the CL?
« Reply #3424 on: Today at 04:05:26 PM »
Yeah he's just one of those people who doesn't rate this team much or, for some reason, the club at large. Some Londoncentrism at work I guess. Anyway, he's very good in general.

Offline Skipper_The_Eyechild

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Re: Will we qualify for the CL?
« Reply #3425 on: Today at 05:12:08 PM »
I'm not a massive Liew fan but I imagine his opinion is held by many people. I enjoyed him calling Ratcliffe a fucking prick more than once the other day.

Offline Villan82

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  • Posts: 4500
Re: Will we qualify for the CL?
« Reply #3426 on: Today at 07:35:48 PM »
There has been more negativity here than in any of the other Emery years, with a lot of snarky digs at our players, yet we sit third in the league. Make it make sense.

Online PaulWinch again

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  • GM : 25.05.2026
Re: Will we qualify for the CL?
« Reply #3427 on: Today at 08:11:35 PM »
We should do it - but the nagging doubt is we are really performing badly at the moment. Obviously the injuries are big mitigation, but it feels like generally speaking if the opposition score we’re not going to win. Hopefully an upturn in performance is round the corner.

 


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