Liverbirdie
Ryder Cup Winner
Either that, or the OP seriously knows nothing about football........
Aston Villa
- Thread starter Crazyface
- Start date
Either that, or the OP seriously knows nothing about football........
I wanted Lambert to stay, I was informed by many around me here in Coventry that if Villa went down we'd have an extra Bank Holiday :smirk:
Bazzatron
Q-School Graduate
Aren't we all?
walliams8
Assistant Pro
I never really was agreeing with the points part . More the fact we were doomed under lambert
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Deleted member 18588
Guest
Not if, like me, you're a Bluenose.
Recent years have been more of a nightmare than a dream. (But still I keep going. Barmy or what??)
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Deleted member 18588
Guest
Sherwood has done a good job so far but if you are not to have the same problems next year you really need to keep hold of Benteke and sort out the defence. By the end of the season Vlaar had seemed to have reverted back to Concrete Boots rather than Concrete Ron.
HomerJSimpson
Hall of Famer
Not the worse season ever though surely. There must be some hope that one or two good signings and you can kick onwards again and maybe be close to a play off spot. At least there was little danger of relegation
walliams8
Assistant Pro
Vlaar has never been concrete ron in my eyes.... However you are right . Holding onto benteke is a must . Keeping cleverley is as important though in my opinion . Need another solid central midfielder and some decent defenders and don't think we will be in the same boat next year !
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Deleted member 18588
Guest
Season of one-third and two-thirds.
After losing 8-0 at home to Bournemouth we were heading only one way. Only Blackpool were beneath us and 11 points from 14.
Remaining 32 games produced 52 points, pretty well play-off form.
Could be some interesting off field developments in next few months so who knows. One thing I know as a Blues fan is that it is never going to be straightforward.
Crazyface
Tour Winner
Actually, although I realize that using Villa as an example was goading some, my point is a general one. Oh 'eck now I'm going to upset everyone else who's not a supporter of one of the big 4. It could have been anyone of those other teams really. They swap their managers when things aren't going great, West Ham have just ditched Uncle Sam for who??? Who do they think will do any better? I would have loved it had Southampton held on to a champ League place. Sadly they just couldn't do it and we've got the same four in again. zzzzzzzzzz and they can't even reach the QF!!!!
16 points from 13 games for Sherwood not great. But who could do better? The times when other teams won the top league are gone forever and it really doesn't matter who is in charge of your team if you think you are going to break in to the top four coz you're not. Mid table safety, that's the height of your aspirations.
My team? Oooooo we're a long way off the Prem. Yet strangely in the same boat as most of Prem teams. Not enough money to really compete in our league so mid table is all we aspire to. Well I'm sorry but that don't cut it for me. If we aren't going to be able to compete on a level playing field then it's not worth the effort and money to go. I bob along to the cup games, as we raise our game for those, but that's it.
16 points from 13 games for Sherwood not great. But who could do better? The times when other teams won the top league are gone forever and it really doesn't matter who is in charge of your team if you think you are going to break in to the top four coz you're not. Mid table safety, that's the height of your aspirations.
My team? Oooooo we're a long way off the Prem. Yet strangely in the same boat as most of Prem teams. Not enough money to really compete in our league so mid table is all we aspire to. Well I'm sorry but that don't cut it for me. If we aren't going to be able to compete on a level playing field then it's not worth the effort and money to go. I bob along to the cup games, as we raise our game for those, but that's it.
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Deleted member 15344
Guest
Is there a point in all that or another blob of nonsense ?
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Deleted member 18588
Guest
Here I can agree with the OP.
Four teams have varyingly realistic chances of winning the Premier League, half a dozen others are in safety positions and the remaining ten are to some extent or another involved in a relegation battle.
Nowadays the limit of so many expectations and ambitions is to just stay on the gravy train.
Football, a sport? Not for a long time I'm afraid.
Four teams have varyingly realistic chances of winning the Premier League, half a dozen others are in safety positions and the remaining ten are to some extent or another involved in a relegation battle.
Nowadays the limit of so many expectations and ambitions is to just stay on the gravy train.
Football, a sport? Not for a long time I'm afraid.
walliams8
Assistant Pro
Your point is completley invalid , as your original point was that sherwood has done nothing for villa or spurs , that villa would of stayed up under lambert and that villa were a little "prem club " .
Anyone that knows anything about football knew his record was awful and under him we were going down . Had sherwood not have took over we would be in the championship and have no FA cup final .
A slight different circumstance to Newcastle and west ham getting rid of there managers when they were sitting mid table .
It took A LOT for villa fans to get on lamberts back .
Liverbirdie
Ryder Cup Winner
Agreed, lambert had them playing losing as well as unattractive football, Sherwood totally changed it around with the same players and got them to a deserved cup final, also.
Villa are a very big club crowd wise and history wise, although weren't most of your FA cup wins in the days of Old Tom Morris winning the open?
Canary_Yellow
Journeyman Pro
No doubt that getting promoted is better than the actually being in the Premier League (or it can be at least), but I don't agree that it's all entirely pointless.
I would say supporting one of the big 6 is incredibly boring, far more boring than supporting Norwich (in my case) or another similarly sized club. In the last 20 years we've been relegated from the Premier League three times, promoted to it three times, relegated from the Championship once and promoted from League 1. We've won two leagues and have also been to Wembley and won.
All any football club is doing is competing against expectations. Do better than expected and everyone is happy, do worse and nobody is happy - regardless of whether you're a top 4 club, a conference club or any other type of club. When supporting Chelsea or Man City the expectation is that you wil win the league and therefore achieving that is no where near as fulfilling as supporting say, Bournemouth, and winning the Championship which exceeded expectations. In the lower leagues the highs are much higher and the lows much lower, just look at the likes of Wigan, Bradford City and Portsmouth, three clubs that have had days out at Cup finals which would mean far more than a similar occasion to the fans of Arsenal, Man United, Chelsea and Man City, but who have also suffered horrendous lows in the form of relegation and financial trouble.
All football clubs go thorugh lulls where nothing happens, Villa were going through a fairly big one but the FA Cup Final this weekend brings that to an end. It doesn't last forever for any club and equally all clubs go through it.
No doubt the Premier League has it's issues and part of that is the smaller clubs spending most seasons worrying about retaining their place, but winning the league isn't everything. There's so much more to being a football fan, anyone that thinks differently is most likely the kind of supporter that rarely (if ever) attends a match and most certainly doesn't feel like they're truely part of their football club (something else that is much more the case for smaller clubs).
Excellent post, and it highlights the fact that its is your own expectation that sets the benchmark of a good or bad season. If the mighty Boro had won on Monday I'd have been over the moon, and if they'd finished 10th or better in the PL next season I'd have been happy. And being in the PL means you also attract better players, which can mean better entertainment, and you get to see better teams coming to your ground = better entertainment.
If Boro go up at the end of next season, fantastic! But will they win as many the season after promotion, or will they be looking at the trapdoor below them? I'd take the promotion every time, and then hope for top 10 or above.
walliams8
Assistant Pro
Agreed, lambert had them playing losing as well as unattractive football, Sherwood totally changed it around with the same players and got them to a deserved cup final, also.
Villa are a very big club crowd wise and history wise, although weren't most of your FA cup wins in the days of Old Tom Morris winning the open?
Last one was 1957..... Be nice for one this Saturday , Not expecting too much though !
Canary_Yellow
Journeyman Pro
If I were a Villa fan, I'd be worried about next season.
Sherwood has demonstrated his short term motivational skills, but Paolo Di Canio, Glenn Roeder and Roy Keane have all demonstrated theirs too.
Losing 6-1 a Southampton and at home to Burnley is a bad omen.
Of course Sherwood may turn out to be a great success, but he is inexperienced, particularly when it comes to recruitment. There's a lot of water to pass under the bridge before Sherwood can be lauded as a great manager (not that there is anything to say he won't be).
Marshy77
Journeyman Pro
Agreed, lambert had them playing losing as well as unattractive football, Sherwood totally changed it around with the same players and got them to a deserved cup final, also.
Villa are a very big club crowd wise and history wise, although weren't most of your FA cup wins in the days of Old Tom Morris winning the open?
Totally agree with this, think Sherwood's man management is possibly his best attribute aswell as promoting youth - Adebayor, Kane, Bentaleb, Benteke, Cleverley. Next season will be tough for him, think we'll see just how good he really is with his summer signings and seeing if he can hold on to the better players at Villa.
Canary_Yellow
Journeyman Pro
The biggest challenge at Villa, unless something changes fundamentally at shareholder level, is that that the expectations of the fans will always be way higher than reasonably can be expected from the level of investment put into the playing squad.
As it stands, the squad is good enough to avoid relegation and probably good enough for a lowish mid table finish. All the other clubs in a similar place, with the odd exception (Newcastle?) are likely to spend a net £20m this summer, maybe more, so unless Villa spend more than that, they'll stay where they are.
