I can't see Bournemouth winning another game this season. I can only see villa picking up a further 4 points. One win and decent GD could see us over the line. I've still not ruled out us not winning another game this season and staying up!
If Pearson has any sense. We will play a deep compact formation against Chelsea and look to counter with Sarr. Basically just do what we did against liverpool. Play a 6-4-0 and break. A point could be extremely valuable, stop the rot and go against Norwich with confidence back. I think 7 more points will be enough. Unfortunately, I’ve lost all confidence and none of the above will happen. We’re down.
I actually think we will lose all 6 games. NUFC looked superb, WHU will beat us, and with the pressure off them, NC will simply out football us. Just a chance against arsenal if they have nothing to play for in the league and maybe a cup final to play. But I doubt we will have anything to play for by then.
I think law of averages dictates we’ve got one more good performance in us. Reckon we’ll get 4 more points which won’t be enough as Villla will end up getting more.
I'm not saying Villa won't perk up but I'm slightly baffled by why folk seem so sure they're better set than us to stay up? My brother in law is a Villa fan and says they've been awful since lockdown and weren't much cop before it either. Neat and tidy but leaky at the back, with a limited threat up front and Grealish can't (and regularly doesn't) do it all on his own.
Hilariously this weekend is probably going to be another “free hit”. Easy to see us, Villa and Bournemouth all losing.
Oh I'm not sure at all, but however average they've looked, we've looked twice as bad since the restart
It's all opinions but I disagree. I think it's just a thing when you support a team and watch them you also have higher expectations for them or tend to look more favourable on others. Villa and Bournemouth forums are just as scathing about their team and, like an alternative universe, most seem to think we'll do enough to scrape by. Us, Norwich, Villa, Muff and West Ham are all playing the part of relegation threatened teams perfectly so far. 16 matches so far. 1 win, 2 draws, 13 losses.
I’ve watched 3 of Villa’s games since the restart and my opinion of them was that they’re okay at the back (not brilliant by any means but a damn sight better than us) but have very little threat going forward. However when you have a player like Grealish in your team there’s always a chance you’ll get a goal out of nothing. So I make them better at defending and better at attacking than we are. They deserve to finish above us.
I suppose you could probably swap Sarr for Grealish in that description. I would honestly say Bournemouth do look worse than us. Haven’t seen enough of Villa to properly comment though.
Deeney needs to be dropped for this. No way we score that Jarmolenko goal with him in the team. We need pace to support Sarr as they look extremely vulnerable at the back. Alonso looks like he’s after a move to us. I’d drop bobby for Pedro and Welbeck for Deeney. Sadly will never happen though.
Whatever happens, this has got to be the weakest premier league ever. The levels of dross are incredible.
Weirdly enough my brother-in-law is also a Villa fan and it sounds like we have been having identical conversations UEA. He's been telling me Villa are cr@p and I didn't actually say we were 'abysmal' to him, I changed this to rancid as I thought that was more appropriate. Generally speaking though, we seem to be aligned.
Is it wrong to genuinely want to go down at this point? Reading these optimistic posts about Villa makes me happy, I think I'll be disappointed if we stay up right now. I'd love a season to look forward to in the Championship.
This is not going to help our cause if/when we go down this season or next... https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/jul/01/premier-leagues-promoted-clubs-debts
Thing is with Villa having spent 100 million they all expected to do better so even just staying up won't be good enough. Much like us but without the big month spending !
If we stay up it will be no different next season. We might get some sort of resemblance of our club back if we went down. Here’s hoping anyway.
Yes once we've gone down and sold all of our few quality players like Sarr, Deulofeu and Doucoure we might get even closer to resembling the clod-hopping, mid-table mediocrity Championship club most of us are more familiar with. We can only hope!!
Watched the Muff game last night and they were even worse than us. They honestly look dead and buried. First shot on target was in the 93rd minute. I had absolutely no idea how they were supposed to be set up. With Man Utd next who look in top form and Spurs up after it could see a massive goal difference forming. Villa have Liverpool and Man Utd. So in all honesty there is zero points for either club. This puts such a significance on the Norwich game for us. A four point gap and a reality of a heavy goal difference could possibly be enough to kill Villa and Muff of psychologically. So on that note I would go to Chelsea and park the bus, play for a draw, frustrate them and maybe pick off a break away goal. Anything other than a heavy defeat is a positive.
Apparently Bournemouth players stayed in the dressing room for 30 minutes after they were supposed to and came out in their full kits after having an 'honest chat' - lets see if that makes any difference! From what I can tell Villa have sacrificed all their attacking threat to tighten up at the back, but they're still not great at the back... It seems as soon as they open up a bit their defending will get even worst.
Do we 'get trounced' every week? What would you 'look forward to' if we went down? The chance to see us competing to go back up?! I don't think you've really thought this through
The Pozzos famously ‘don’t do relegation’ I think the hope is a if we went down, we’d have good chance of coming back up and if we did lessons would be learned. No guarantee of any of that of course though.
Every team that goes down thinks they'll bounce back straight away. Very few actually do. Most scuff around in the Championship for years or continue to slide down the leagues
Of course, I’ve said it in other posts but we’d actually have a better chance of bouncing back than we ever would. Wigan has showed that, championship clubs are going to be screwed by Covid so on paper we have a great chance of coming back within two seasons. I fully appreciate though that it’s not as simple as that and there are absolutely no guarantees. If the club continues to be run in the same way we will go down at some point, it’s unavoidable. The questions is whether the owners recognise that too and make changes to how they operate if we do end up surviving this time. If we don’t survive it then comes down to whether we do bounce back or not. If we do they are more likely to recognise the errors they’ve made and act accordingly, but again it’s not guaranteed.
Howe looks like a defeated man and it's showing in performances. As I said I have absolutely no idea how or what system they were attempting to play. They look slower and more inept than us in every department. Even during the last couple of games we've created a few problems in the opposition box while being absolutely s h I t. Park the bus against Chelsea, frustrate and slow the game down to embarrassing levels. We just need to be in their faces from the start and its possibly to get a point. Then full throttle against Norwich. We just need a performance Saturday, something to be proud of and as I said psychologically it could and possibly will be enough to scrape through. As someone said West Ham could be safe by the time we play which can only be a bonus for us.
Don't we have a similar meeting, where the players all agree it's not good enough, everytime we serve up a turd of a performance (so every other week)?
