I’m despondent, to be honest.
I’ve done my best to stay positive and hopeful, but having seen today’s results, we’re now seven points behind our nearest competititors.
With four games left, there’s no way I can see us catching them.
While my heart tells me we’re capable of getting points against Palace, Everton and West Ham, the reality and my head tells me we’re utter rubbish and just don’t look like scoring.
But then, as much as I’m upset, so I also find myself not too bothered about being relegated.
It’s a contradiction in terms, I know, but the Man U game has just capped it off for me.
I can live with a poor refereeing decision.
But when you have some mug watching the slo-mo’s repeatedly and still coming up with the 100% wrong decision, well frankly, I’ve just about had enough of the Prem for one season.
The trouble is, as much as the Championship is by far the better league, the Premier league is the only place to be. There’s simply no glory to be had in the Championship, even if you win it, promotion aside, which as we’ve seen is usually short-lived.
So onto the game then and as I said, I think we can get something here even though Palace are a better side.
I think we have some decent players. Not many, but some, who will go on to be better, whether at the Villa or not.
But we have some total rubbish too; too many lightweights who can’t handle the Prem and certainly won’t handle the rigours of the Championship either.
But that’s for later.
I’m going for a 1-0.
More in hope than anything, but it really doesn’t matter either way, does it?
“Nath” seems to be saying that we need a poll.
I’m not exactly sure what for, but believe it’s about who should be sacked.
I’m happy to roll with that and I’ve added one below.
Comments
75 responses to “So we’re down, but Villa – Palace anyway.”
The bloody poll still doesn’t show up right, but it works.
You can choose multiple answers.
I agree, the championship is a better league than the prem, but as you so rightly say you can’t win top honours in it. Villa were so un’prepared’ for the prem.
How could they possibly think that buying all those players with no prem experience and of sub-standard quality, could compete with the big boys and establish this once great club in the ‘promised land’!
A league which is all set up for the so-called big six, and where VAR favours or is indeed frightened of the big clubs!
I too am very despondent, and also have had more than enough of the prem, which is just a money spinning monster!!!!
The truth is you can’t buy entry into the Prem with the money we spent.
We started at too low a base point, simple, imo.
I should imagine our owners are utterly disgusted. As well as the second rate hoofers who have been brought in this season I sincerely hope they get rid of anyone remotely responsible for this travesty. I think a better set of players could have been found in any park in the country and hopefully next season the whole club will have been revamped from top to bottom. If not, we will probably be in Div 1 in twelve months. Travesty
Totally in agreement, total travesty!… A lot of backsides need a good hard kicking!
Very well said!
Quite frankly, for £140m spent we should expect more than the shower of shite served up this season. We bought young and hungry to replace old and experienced. Fact is that every club needs a mixture of both. Our recruitment plan has failed miserably and we got what we deserved for incompetence. Heads should have rolled before lockdown but the dimwits are still hanging around throwing excuse after excuse for defeat after defeat. Just when you think things couldn’t be any worse being a Villa fan, they go and prove It actually can. All we need now is for the owners to decide that the club is a money pit and bail.
What if villa kept Smith on and promote Delaney to the first team and get Petrov in as well. And have a transfer committee of perslow Smith and Harrison and get all the teams playing the same system of high press attacking football.
I think maybe we should stick with Smith because change all the time is not working.
Sticking with what you have just for continuity sake is a weak argument. Nevertheless Wes Edens in particular has been pretty ruthless with the Bucks and its the ruthless edge that we need. We are just too nice a club on and off the pitch.
A top class manager makes a difference – we’ve seen the likes of Benitez, Nuno and Bielsa manage at championship level. We now need to show the same ambition. I’d also like to see significant investment in scouting – the amount of value for money signings we’ve made over the years is shockingly poor.
Going back to the poll question – Smith, Terry and Suso to go for me. Smith is a broken man now, Terry will want a no 1 role and Suso I think all can agree has been a disaster. Purslow will stay as long as the owners want him to and tbf he will be judged equally on commercial matters rather than just what happens on the pitch.
The debate will rumble on. The fingers will continue to point.
Except for the list of so called ‘top’ managers that are going to be queuing up to join us next season it’s all been said.
Thanks for the poll Badger.
great to have a poll again 🙂
i pinched this from badgers post as it is totally 100% spot on and exactly how i feel and felt straight away it happened.
“I can live with a poor refereeing decision.
But when you have some mug watching the slo-mo’s repeatedly and still coming up with the 100% wrong decision”
i believe these so called top clubs are given more favourable decisions, cause the premiership bigwigs want the cream representing their league in European competitions, not the likes of sheff utd. so helping the likes utd when they can and others against the lesser important clubs is their main agenda.
when / should we go down, i do hope the club think long and hard before making their decisions. we need to look at what went wrong. who is to blame. then remove them and continue with the plan. we have improved as a club. youth set up has been updated / improved. some of the youth players will surely now get into the squad / team next season. we have a really young side and with premiership season in their bag. some players need to be moved on and some we need to recruit. but we have the foundation of a good young squad. a bit of fresh paint here and there. build on to this and i guarantee we will be back stronger than this season in premiership.
so its only bye for one season. we last entered to championship in disarray. we were all over the place. i recall one game under RDM we simply had no structure, we were on the attack and lost the ball and we had no defenders in our own half and no defenders trying to get back. we were all over the place. we definitely do not want to see that happening again. manager and players are good enough they are 12 month wiser iam confident we will win the league. we will then have a good 3 transfer windows to prepare for premiership
I think it’s all well and good talking about top managers, but who will want to come to the Villa?
I believe we’re still a big pull, as a club, but it seems many of us are forgetting FFP.
We’re going to have our hands tied and although we will get good money for some players, I don’t believe we’re going to be able to splash out for a couple of years at the very least.
In fact, I’d bet we’re going to have to be considerably in the black to make up for the last couple of seasons.
So yes, expect to see kids coming through, out of necessity. But then, I’ve had no faith whatsoever in our youth system and believe it will take years to turn it around.
It’s all quite worrying really 🙁
I think the comments regarding a kind of tacit agreement to keep certain clubs around the top is accurate; I have been thinking this for some time now. Officials, accompanied by the mass media, seem biased in favour of so-called elite clubs. I have watched various games this season between ‘elite’ clubs and ‘less important’ clubs, and there is definitely a bias towards, say, Liverpool, even Spurs etc, and a kind of concern when they’re not winning which is missing for the club’s that make up the rest of the division. I wouldn’t say corrupt just yet – but I’m afraid it’s getting there.
Strange, I’m not seeing the poll at all now. I’ve checked and it’s still there in the post, Must be something to do with the poll host.
I can’t see it either.
Bum Bum, solved it.
The cookie setting on my lappy was set to “strict”. Changing to standard sorts it.
It’s still there and it’s interesting that Suso / Terry are seen as the main culprits for our demise with Suso the clear leader at this time.
Interestingly Smith is in no mans land really and only slightly ahead of Purslow in terms of culpability.
Good poll.
Wolves – Everton is available for free on Pick (channel 11 freeview) at 12pm.
Might give it a watch, seeing as we’ve got them coming up.
Good day to all Villans I found the poll and I found myself agreeing with the other villans I also think it’s the worst team we have ever had and its back to the championship and this bunch of players won’t stand the pressure of the severity of playing in the championship watching Wolves V Everton, at the moment, anyway VTID
Potechino or whatever his name is could still be tempted I think or what about Steven Gerrard?and why not try getting Wenger as dof?or one of the German managers there’s a few good ones about.
But agree premier League just want the so called big boys in their exclusive club of European matches.worse thing that happened to football was the premier League.villa done it before let’s start our own league.
My opinion on the current regime is that Suso and Terry absolutely definitely should go. Whether Smith can do better as a hands on manager with a new coach, that is the question. Do we go for a straight replacement for Suso? Do we need an entire clear out with a manager more adjusted to dealing with recruitment? I dare say we will find out in a few weeks.
I’m not going to watch the game because I’m expecting a defeat. I think it will be 0-2 with either Benteke or Ayew scoring or possibly both. I will record the game and watch it if we win. I will watch F1 instead.
What I’d like to know is, has our owners bothered to follow our demise other than being there on match days , if not I suspect heads will roll due to seats not sold, and shirts plus advertisement of the club on tv. I hope they don’t give up on us for the long run thinking they are on a lost course. My problem is if we keep Faith in Dean Smith his he the man for the job? bearing in mind Brentford was not doing well till Dean left. I’m so fed up knowing I might not ever see Villa being a top club in my time it will take a miracle to think they will bounce back. If the result is on Watford game that its us or them they have ex Villa players trying to sink us.
Holte/Bill,
My guess is Terry will definitely go, as it would seem he’s after a management role.
Suso, I’m not so sure about.
While the recruitment might look appalling, I’d say a lot depends on how much money we can pull in from sales and who had the most influence in our buys.. Wesley in particular might look a poor buy, but he’s one I think might get better. Luiz has increased in value, for example.
Smith will be given until Christmas, is my guess.
Badger I’ll go with that, Terry won’t stay with us that’s for sure..
Aston Villa: Reina, Konsa, Hause, Mings, Taylor, McGinn, Douglas Luiz, Hourihane, Trezeguet, Samatta, Grealish.
Subs: Lansbury, Nakamba, Targett, El Ghazi, Jota, Guilbert, Nyland, Elmohamady, Davis.
I wonder if Hourihane will actually do anything today?
What a fucking joke!
0-1
Our defence is utterly pathetic.
First bit of luck
Handball, so not given.
Looks a bit harsh, tbh.
You tell me what konsa and Samata was doing.
It’s just shocking.
When will we see a football match today, I don’t see any passing movement or players looking for space. Big punch up now . This is terrible football , parks football is better.
Cracking ball in from Elmo then.
Samatta should have done better.
Palace are rubbish, but it’s 50/50 as to whether we can beat them, imo.
Good play then and Grealish shoots.
Trez agent says he’s going if we get relegated. I’ll pay his taxi fare
And then he scores 🙂
Yes!
Trez, 1-0
First decent free kick in ages.
Fair play Hourihane.