Aston Villa Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread 2013/14

G.K.

Very nice run in?

A Spurs team who'll be gunning for 4th, a derby, and a superior Norwich side? not really nice.

Raekwon

It's a handy run in for the teams playing against us.

Local derby with WBA away has defeat written all over it, Spurs at home say no more, Norwich away good night Vienna.

We better start praying that Bolton blow their game in hand, QPR bottle it and Wigan run out of steam.

sc86

lads theres a fair chance we could go down, i dont see how anybody can think otherwise, teams around us are winning, we arnt looking like winning...
every year a team slides down the table and either gets relagated or goes close, this year its us...

to be honest as much as it pains me we nearly deserve to go down!
how did randy lerner think robbing a crap manager, who has just got your bitter rivals relagated after spending quite a few pound, as being a good idea

cgpg5

G.K. wrote: »

Very nice run in?

A Spurs team who'll be gunning for 4th, a derby, and a superior Norwich side? not really nice.

A spurs team who can't buy a win of recent, a Brom team with nothing to play for and a Norwich team who are tiring after a great season. Very nice is a poor way of putting it, but gee it could be worse. It's the nicest run in altogether of all the teams down there (although you could argue Bolton's is decent)

G.K.

cgpg5 wrote: »

A spurs team who can't buy a win of recent, a Brom team with nothing to play for and a Norwich team who are tiring after a great season. Very nice is a poor way of putting it, but gee it could be worse. It's the nicest run in altogether of all the teams down there (although you could argue Bolton's is decent)

Are you seriously saying WBA have nothing to play for in the derby game?

Raekwon

cgpg5 wrote: »

A spurs team who can't buy a win of recent, a Brom team with nothing to play for and a Norwich team who are tiring after a great season. Very nice is a poor way of putting it, but gee it could be worse. It's the nicest run in altogether of all the teams down there (although you could argue Bolton's is decent)

Or.......

A Spurs team that have the players that can tear apart any defense from open play or set-pieces especially rubbish defenses that leak goals at an alarming rate and cannot defend set-pieces to save their lives.

A West Brom team that having nothing to play for apart from local bragging rights and a top ten finish. They have won 3 of the last 6 games which includes their latest victory at Anfield.

A Norwich team that play lovely attacking football and have had a great season where they comfortably finished in mid-table. Now why would they want to finish their season off in style and thank their fans for all the support that they've received throughout their campaign?

People who think that we are safe are totally deluded.

cgpg5

Raekwon wrote: »

Or.......

A Spurs team that have the players that can tear apart any defense from open play or set-pieces especially rubbish defenses that leak goals at an alarming rate and cannot defend set-pieces to save their lives.

A West Brom team that having nothing to play for apart from local bragging rights and a top ten finish. They have won 3 of the last 6 games which includes their latest victory at Anfield.

A Norwich team that play lovely attacking football and have had a great season where they comfortably finished in mid-table. Now why would they want to finish their season off in style and thank their fans for all the support that they've received throughout their campaign?

People who think that we are safe are totally deluded.

Be pessimistic sure.

I couldn't care less if ye go down. Have been following the relegation battle closely and am just pointing out ye probably have the nicest run in. That's all.

G.K.

Wigan have Blackburn who are all but down, and Wolves who are already. i'd call that nicer.

Mezcita

Helix wrote: »

you certainly are

but we saw how the last time worked out

villa won't go down. we've been safe for a long time, but that's no excuse whatsoever for this season. it's unacceptable and we're absolutely blessed that this season has gone the way it has for the teams around us. any other season at all and we'd be gone already

You've said this before over on the "relegation" thread. That x had to happen in order for Villa to go down. That the odds were rubbish and were based on money alone being placed on Villa to go down. That the other rubbish teams had to out perform them to avoid the drop. That was when they were at 20/1 to go down.

Situation now is that they are 7/1 to go down. I'm not saying this to pi.ss any of the Villa fans off here. More that you have been talking an enormous amount of nonsense on here for a while about them being too good to go down. The same was said about numerous other teams over the years (Forest during the Roy Keane years, Leeds etc).

Fact is that your manager has a history of relegating teams in this league. That their overall form now puts them at 19th in the league.

http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/matchday/form-guide.html

By all means keep on banging on about them being too good to go down if it makes you feel better. Reality is that if they maintain this level of form when compared to the teams around them they will go down.

cgpg5

G.K. wrote: »

Wigan have Blackburn who are all but down, and Wolves who are already. i'd call that nicer.

And Newcastle in the next game, who are flying. You conveniently missed that. Blackburn will not be relegated when they meet I assure you. that will be a very tough game for Wigan.

Anyway I was just making a point. Get over it ffs

Raekwon

cgpg5 wrote: »

Be pessimistic sure.

I couldn't care less if ye go down. Have been following the relegation battle closely and am just pointing out ye probably have the nicest run in. That's all.

I'm not having a pop at you personally but we have just lost 1-2 at home in a match that we desperately had to win for a host of reasons.

We have also only won once in 2012 and that was an injury time goal against Fulham. To top it all off we have massive injury worries and probably the most boring manager in Premier League history who just happens to be a relegation specialist (the wrong kind).

So yes, I am being very pessimistic but mainly because the optimism has been slowly draining out of me since Alex McLeish was unveiled as the manager of Aston Villa.

Helix

Neil Moxley ‏ @Neil_Moxley
McLeish met Faulkner and Lerner in the tunnel. Banished the tv cameras. Manager remains in situ. #avfc

Helix

Mezcita wrote: »

Situation now is that they are 7/1 to go down. I'm not saying this to pi.ss any of the Villa fans off here. More that you have been talking an enormous amount of nonsense on here for a while about them being too good to go down. The same was said about numerous other teams over the years (Forest during the Roy Keane years, Leeds etc).

7/1 to go down at this stage, given the way the table looks, are fairly long odds. i also never said that they were too good to go down. nothing ive said about villa for months has included the word good, simply that the other teams left themselves with too much to do for villa to go down

Mezcita

Helix wrote: »

7/1 to go down at this stage, given the way the table looks, are fairly long odds. i also never said that they were too good to go down. nothing ive said about villa for months has included the word good, simply that the other teams left themselves with too much to do for villa to go down

Helix wrote: »

bookies odds arent based on what's likely, theyre based on where people are putting money. odds increase to entice punters to place a bet, and shorten when more people place bets - they have absolutely no grounding in reality

villa definitely won't go down

Carry on. Good luck lads. You're going to need it.

Helix

not going down

Mezcita

Helix wrote: »

not going down

http://www.oddschecker.com/football/english/premier-league/relegation

Could go down.

As before if you think they won't this is essentially free money and should go into the "Bargain Alerts" thread on boards.ie as people could lay that price to lock in guaranteed profit.

Ah, but you won't.

Mr Alan

I can't fathom how someone, let alone a Villa fan who has watched em week in, week out this season, can look at that table & think there's no chance of relegation.

Essentially if you take Blackburn & Wolves as gone, it's between QPR & Villa to go down IMO.

I think Wigan could very easily take 4 points from their remaining matches.

Bolton could easily take 4 from their 4 remaining fixtures.

That'll mean if QPR can beat Stoke at home, Villa MUST get something from one of their remaining 3 games. Likely, but by no means a certainty.

The clubs around Villa are showing a grit & determination that Villa just aren't, meaning they're much more likely to string a couple of results together or cause an upset in a game where they're huge underdogs. Villa seem to be nearly sleepwalking into The Championship tbh.

OneColdHand

Dickie Dunne is back in training. If he is back for a few of the last games it could give us the grit and leadership we desperately need.

sc86

helix are you watching the same villa team the rest of us are?

kryogen

Big Eck does like a relegation party

Helix

sc86 wrote: »

helix are you watching the same villa team the rest of us are?

are you guys watching the same teams below villa as i am?

i cant help it if people get carried away with a few good results for teams who've been worse than villa for the whole season. lets be honest, how bad do you really have to be to have less points than villa? answer - seriously, seriously bad. yet you all seem to expect not one, not two, but THREE teams to all keep up this form to drag villa into it? you're living away with the faries

ive been saying all along that villa are garbage this season. ive also been saying that staying up for villa is more to do with the utter turd below them in the league than the quality of the villa team

Helix

Mr Alan wrote: »

I think Wigan could very easily take 4 points from their remaining matches.

Bolton could easily take 4 from their 4 remaining fixtures.

they could very easily both take none too

i said about 5 games ago that villa needed 2 points more to be safe, they got those points, and they'll be safe. its nothing to be happy or proud about, but it tells you how bad the league is that villa are still only what, ten points off liverpool?

Bounty Hunter

Think Helix is probably right but no way would I be as confident about it as him but maybe he only sounds 100% confident.

Even if we stay up, unless we once again change our manager, I'm not going to be too optimistic. Can't imagine too many ambitious prem quality players being attracted to Alex McLeish's Villa and think this summer could define villa for the next few years

CrackisWhack

QPR & Wigan have shown decent form as of late though, Villa have not, thankfully QPR have two very tough games to play, although I wouldnt write them off and I reckon they'lll get 3 pts off stoke, We could easily lose our remaining three, I think its between us and Bolton.

mirwillbeback

Bounty Hunter wrote: »

Think Helix is probably right but no way would I be as confident about it as him but maybe he only sounds 100% confident.

Even if we stay up, unless we once again change our manager, I'm not going to be too optimistic. Can't imagine too many ambitious prem quality players being attracted to Alex McLeish's Villa and think this summer could define villa for the next few years

Was listening to Talk Sport this morning and they had a correspondant from a Midlands newspaper.

He says McLeish will be kept on if we stay up, and ( wait for it :mad: ) he will only be allowed to sign bosman players this summer with a cap of 40,000 per week.

Looks like the future is as bad as the present.

death1234567

mirwillbeback wrote: »

Was listening to Talk Sport this morning and they had a correspondant from a Midlands newspaper.

He says McLeish will be kept on if we stay up, and ( wait for it :mad: ) he will only be allowed to sign bosman players this summer with a cap of 40,000 per week.

Looks like the future is as bad as the present.

I wouldn't believe that for a second. The bit about the wage cap might be true but there's no way we won't be spending some money this summer.

Also its easily possible for us to go down despite Helix's confidence. We need to get another 3 points to be safe really and its hard to see where they will come from...

Clanket

Very worried. It's between us and QPR me thinks. Richard Dunne on Ray Darcy now

invinciblePRSTV

What the story on Ireland? he gonna be back for WBA?

G.K.

cgpg5 wrote: »

And Newcastle in the next game, who are flying. You conveniently missed that. Blackburn will not be relegated when they meet I assure you. that will be a very tough game for Wigan.

Anyway I was just making a point. Get over it ffs

The point I was trying to make was that Wigan have winnable games, not commenting on their whole run in.

G.K.

Hypothetically, Helix, if Villa went down with Blackburn and Wolves, would Bolton, Wigan and QPR have been worse all season than Villa?

Helix

G.K. wrote: »

Hypothetically, Helix, if Villa went down with Blackburn and Wolves, would Bolton, Wigan and QPR have been worse all season than Villa?

that's the single most retarded question ive ever been asked...

pavb2

Villa, partly due to injuries, partly due to managerial ineptitude and inexperience made us look like Brazil for the most part last night.
Quote from a Bolton fan


Assuming Blackburn are also gone the way I look at it is I think it quite possible that we could lose the last 3 games which means Wigan & QPR need 3 points out of 9 and Bolton 3 out of 12.


I wouldn't get emotional or personal about AMc the conclusion I come to is he is completely out of his depth, his record is something like 15 wins out of 72 in prem isn't it?

Neil3030

pavb2 wrote: »

Villa, partly due to injuries, partly due to managerial ineptitude and inexperience made us look like Brazil for the most part last night.
Quote from a Bolton fan


Assuming Blackburn are also gone the way I look at it is I think it quite possible that we could lose the last 3 games which means Wigan & QPR need 3 points out of 9 and Bolton 3 out of 12.


I wouldn't get emotional or personal about AMc the conclusion I come to is he is completely out of his depth, his record is something like 15 wins out of 72 in prem isn't it?

07/08: 5 wins from 24
09/10: 13 wins from 38
10/11: 8 wins from 38
11/12: 7 wins from 35.

That makes 31 wins from 135 in the EPL. Or, if you will, 23%.

G.K.

Helix wrote: »

that's the single most retarded question ive ever been asked...

Not really - a few weeks back when United had some daylight at the top and it was put to them that City had still played better than them this season.

The response - no, City haven't played better, because United are at the top of the table.

You say the teams below you have been worse all season. If (Considering there are 3 games left, which is 7% of the season, hardly going to swing the other 93%) Villa go down, will those teams still have been worse than Villa all season?

Neil3030

I don't buy into this "league position doesn't lie", crap.

Villa deserve to go down, on the basis of their spineless, negative play.

Should other teams be relegated below us, it would be an injustice.

That the mathematics reflect otherwise is not relevant to the moral debate.

Helix

G.K. wrote: »

Not really - a few weeks back when United had some daylight at the top and it was put to them that City had still played better than them this season.

The response - no, City haven't played better, because United are at the top of the table.

You say the teams below you have been worse all season. If (Considering there are 3 games left, which is 7% of the season, hardly going to swing the other 93%) Villa go down, will those teams still have been worse than Villa all season?

those teams have had worse season BECAUSE they're lower than villa

thats how you rank a season

Mr.Crinklewood

Right now everyone connected with Villa is hurting badly.

A win was in sight last night against Bolton after a strong start and the tenacity the team displayed, although ultimately we weren't able to hold on for the points.

We very openly acknowledge the frustrations of Villa fans and share in them completely.

What matters to us and the Board at this moment is how we, as a Club, handle adversity and the pressure it brings.

Our horizon is the next three games and we continue to be in control of our own destiny.

Young players side-by-side with more senior players are fighting hard for the Club.

They are now preparing for West Brom followed by Spurs and Norwich.

We will continue to support and rely on our manager and the squad and therefore give them our full support.

We are totally conscious, as is everyone at the Club, that this is a very trying time for those who love Aston Villa.

We know that the team will continue to fight through every minute of the remaining games and we hope Villa fans will continue to show their great support.

Source:- http://mobile.avfc.co.uk/default.aspx?s=news-display&aid=2749103

Savman

Mr.Crinklewood wrote: »

Right now everyone connected with Villa is hurting badly.

A win was in sight last night against Bolton after a strong start and the tenacity the team displayed, although ultimately we weren't able to hold on for the points.

We very openly acknowledge the frustrations of Villa fans and share in them completely.

What matters to us and the Board at this moment is how we, as a Club, handle adversity and the pressure it brings.

Our horizon is the next three games and we continue to be in control of our own destiny.

Young players side-by-side with more senior players are fighting hard for the Club.

They are now preparing for West Brom followed by Spurs and Norwich.

We will continue to support and rely on our manager and the squad and therefore give them our full support.

We are totally conscious, as is everyone at the Club, that this is a very trying time for those who love Aston Villa.

We know that the team will continue to fight through every minute of the remaining games and we hope Villa fans will continue to show their great support.

Source:- http://mobile.avfc.co.uk/default.aspx?s=news-display&aid=2749103

In other words:

Villa fans everywhere wrote:

Sack McLeish

Randy Lerner wrote:

No.

:rolleyes:

amiable

Eathrin

The appointment of McLeish has got to be one of the biggest disasters ever at AVFC. From actually paying compensation for your rival's manager to a club of the stature of AV being led dangerously close to relegation, keeping this man in his current position past the summer would be a crime to football.

Helix

Savman wrote: »

In other words:


:rolleyes:

thats not what it says at all

from someone who works in the area of communications, that release has essentially confirmed the manager will be sacked at the end of the season. otherwise it would have specifically mentioned there was a long term commitment to the manager, or put far less focus on the final 3 games

Corholio

Helix wrote: »

thats not what it says at all

from someone who works in the area of communications, that release has essentially confirmed the manager will be sacked at the end of the season. otherwise it would have specifically mentioned there was a long term commitment to the manager, or put far less focus on the final 3 games

That's kinda the feeling I got from it too. The manager is only mentioned once in the entire statement. Looks like the distancing from him has begun.

Just hope it's not too late.

Neil3030

But doesn't the cliche go that when a board come out and publicly offer a manager their full support, that he's nailed on to be sacked within a few days?

I.e., by not explicitly backing McLeish, are they in fact backing McLeish?

pavb2

I think he should be sacked now, I'd take my chances on getting a response from the players rather than more of the same.

How many more points do people think we need I reckon two.

What makes me laugh is his talk of not walking away from the challenge, not a quitter etc etc the matter of losing a few mill compensation if sacked has something to do with it I think.

Patser

pavb2 wrote: »

What makes me laugh is his talk of not walking away from the challenge, not a quitter etc etc the matter of losing a few mill compensation if sacked has something to do with it I think.

He might as well fight for this position because after the last 2 seasons whatever reputation he had is in tatters. Could be a long while waiting for another job.

CSF

Ah, remember the days we used to think Lerner was in some way useful as an owner.

death1234567

Helix wrote: »

from someone who works in the area of communications, that release has essentially confirmed the manager will be sacked at the end of the season.

Wishful thinking...

I am backtracking on my prediction that he won't be sacked though.
Given that he is arguably one of the worst managers ever to have managed in the premier league even Randy surely isn't blind enough to stick with him. It would be stupid beyond belief to keep the Ginger twat in the job.

Neil3030

Here's one actually, is there anyone Lerner could now appoint where fans wouldn't be happy?

Phil Brown, maybe?

OneColdHand

Neil3030 wrote: »

Here's one actually, is there anyone Lerner could now appoint where fans wouldn't be happy?

Phil Brown, maybe?

Please. My brain can't handle a question like that right now.

Clanket

Steve Kean?