Will we qualify for the CL?

[Demitri_C]

So glad that there is no game this weekend so w ecan all enjoy our weekends and villa not ruin it 😂

[PaulWinch again]

There is no bastard way we’re getting there unless something changes and Unai switches on. We are in a proper spiral. Well unless CL means Conference League, in which cases we’re firing on all cylinders for that.

[eamonn]

Hurts like hell at the moment but we all would have snapped the proverbial hand for being right in contention through two routes for the Champions League at this stage of the season.

Margins are razor-thin across the league, anyone can take points off another. We need a lift, hopefully a tweak to Unai's stubborn structure, I don't think it's outlandish to suggest it will change. We've come through bad runs before, we will again.

For all the things Monty rightly rails about, Super John McGinn stands against and our Meatball is on the way to save the day!

[Ianu]

There is no bastard way we’re getting there unless something changes and Unai switches on. We are in a proper spiral. Well unless CL means Conference League, in which cases we’re firing on all cylinders for that.

Somewhere else there’s a debate about hindsight. So if we don’t qualify for the  champions league, what are the 5 main reasons it did or did not happen.
Say it now. Both sides. Not necessarily in order.

(It’s hard to say the “did” part after such an awful run).

Did:

Tielemans playing his best ever football.
Kamara and McGinn playing consistently great.
Cash’s upturn in form and Rogers goal contributions
Unai’s tactics
Failings of other sides


Didn’t

Injuries
Poor January transfer window
Poor overall recruitment (summer and previous)
Tactical inflexibility from Unai
FFP
 

[TonyD]

It’s a mini league of us, Man United, Chelsea and Liverpool. 
3 will make it.
1 won’t. 
On our current form and tactics.  We will be the 1. 

[wince]

Nope. Downward spiral now. Too inflexible and players clueless. We should not be this shit with the team we have. Emery likely will go after this season. FFP fucked us hard but we always get a nosebleed at the top. This is as good as we will get😥

[Paul.S]

Yes

[TonyD]

FFP hasn’t helped. 
But my god the players we did land in the summer and January have been mostly awful. 

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Probability says we can't be shit forever. I'm still a believer. Just.

[Bent Neilsens Screamer]

Probability says we can't be shit forever. I'm still a believer. Just.

I’m also still a believer. We’ll turn the corner at some point and as proved by the Liverpool and Man United results the teams around us will drop points as well. Still all to play for.

[Rory]

Don't really know where to put this. Like, to answer the thread title, obviously not. The top five will be the top five, who could have possibly imagined otherwise.

I just don't think I like football anymore. The only thing keeping me following this horrible, hideous, degraded, suppurating zombie of a sport was the thought that, maybe, at some point, the Villa might reward my long stupid patience with some random one-off success that I could enjoy enough to let my stupid interest die in peace.

But honestly, all those things that make the sport horrible have coagulated into a great big embolism right in the lungs of even our modest ambitions. Chelsea lose a billion quid? Ah, but it's the right sort of losses! Man Utd have more debt than your average post-Soviet pseudo-democracy? Ah, but we don't count debt!

And the compliant, acquiescent media, really just what journalists so often are, giddy mediocrities just overwhelmed with glee to even be near power. Of course we'll intimidate refs on behalf of the chosen clubs by scrutinising every tiny decision that goes against them. Of course we'll ignore every decision in their favour. Of course we'll act as (one assumes) unpaid marketing departments to help them fluff their fucking Brands. Of course, we may tut when the chairman of Man City does something awkward like fund genocide, but Man City play such good football, wow they're just so elite, really we're so lucky we let our country and its culture and its institutions be flogged off to foreign dictators like this, we should be honoured to have the eyes of the Americans on the PremEar League.

Football as it is sums up everything to hate about our modern world perhaps most perfectly because it's such a grotesque perversion of the thing it was, the thing that oligarchs bought like they buy everything from us to sell back to us as engagement, luxury, status, CONTENT (also, all football CONTENT CREATORS, with their BANTZ and their utter slavishness to just the idea of the Powerful and their divine right to win everything, can get in the re-education camp where they belong, fascist running dogs). The Villa is my link to my late grandfather and to his grandfather. That kind of thing used to mean something. Now, it's just Legacy Branding.

So, fuck football. It's sad, but it's dead. Maybe I'll take up croquet, or woodwork, or fishing. You know, while there are still fish.

Like a thoroughbred horse allowed to gallop free in green pastures without a midget holding a whip on its back.

A post of beauty.

[dorsetvillian]

I've always believed we would still get CL. The reason simply being because we have Unai. He has always managed to get the team to put in a good performance (and often 3 points) after a defeat the week before and turn around poor runs. However, after the team selection tonight I'm starting to think that magic has gone. He seems as below par in his management as the players are on the pitch. The starting line ups, subs, in game management are all off and it's difficult to see what he can do. Our only hope is McGinn and Youri coming back to reset the performances. It's so disappointing from the position we were in. Even moderate form after Xmas and we would still have been in a fantastic position. The others around are not great, but our form has dropped of a cliff. Unai seems to have no immediate solutions so it's hard to see CL through the League or Europe.

[TheToffnar]

It's beyond lucky that we aren't 6th already, in all honesty. Chelsea should be at the very least 3 clear of us and Liverpool arguably more so.

Not getting away with it anymore. They'll both drop more points, but also pick up unlikely ones. We are absolutely the second worst team in the division as it stands and it's not even close. Even Burnley have brighter spells of play then we do.

[Demitri_C]

Not through the league. We blew it. Europa is our best chance

[Nunkin1965]

Probability says we can't be shit forever. I'm still a believer. Just.

I’m also still a believer. We’ll turn the corner at some point and as proved by the Liverpool and Man United results the teams around us will drop points as well. Still all to play for.

Certainly not giving up.
Things will change for us and there will still be opportunities for us to achieve success this season.
The majority seem to have lost it, but we should keep the faith as we're still in the game.