Delphinho123 Posted February 21, 2023 Share Posted February 21, 2023 1 minute ago, Tomaszk said: Dunno, west London and nice seaside? Fulham only signed one in the summer. They are not better than us man for man. They have had a very good coach for coming up to two years. Brighton do exclusively what we do sometimes. Buy players who can grow into top half players. They've had two very good coaches for coming up to four years. I would expect if you put all our squads together, we'd have 8/9/10 of the top earners. We do need to stop dishing out huge salaries unless they are justified. Agree and disagree. Firstly, not sure I agree about the bit in bold. You could very well be right, but we as a fanbase tend to rate all of our players very highly but are left scratching our heads when we can't finish above these teams. Like, why is that? Maybe our players aren't very good. Take Douglas Luiz as an example. I don't mind Luiz, I think he's tidy enough and he's got better over the years, but how good is he really...? Is he better than Harrison Reed? I bet every single person on this forum will say 'Delphinho, you're mad', but seriously, is he? Is he better than Palhinha? Is Buendia currently better than Willian and Andreas Pereira? At some point, us as fans need to realise that we are where we are because we're a below average PL side. Until we start scouting better and finding better players from abroad on <100k a week wages, we won't improve. We're not going to go to another top half PL club and take their better players. What we need to do is replicate what we did with Kamara and go out and find players that are top half quality but playing abroad. It's not easy, for obvious reasons, but there are plenty of them and given the wages we can offer and the size of our club, we can do it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wict01 Posted February 21, 2023 Share Posted February 21, 2023 9 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said: Agree and disagree. Firstly, not sure I agree about the bit in bold. You could very well be right, but we as a fanbase tend to rate all of our players very highly but are left scratching our heads when we can't finish above these teams. Like, why is that? Maybe our players aren't very good. Take Douglas Luiz as an example. I don't mind Luiz, I think he's tidy enough and he's got better over the years, but how good is he really...? Is he better than Harrison Reed? I bet every single person on this forum will say 'Delphinho, you're mad', but seriously, is he? Is he better than Palhinha? Is Buendia currently better than Willian and Andreas Pereira? At some point, us as fans need to realise that we are where we are because we're a below average PL side. Until we start scouting better and finding better players from abroad on <100k a week wages, we won't improve. We're not going to go to another top half PL club and take their better players. What we need to do is replicate what we did with Kamara and go out and find players that are top half quality but playing abroad. It's not easy, for obvious reasons, but there are plenty of them and given the wages we can offer and the size of our club, we can do it. "Better" players is always a weird one to me, as 99% of players in the prem will be decent at something at least. I think it's all about bringing out their strongest, most effective attributes in the right team and set up. Are Luiz and Buendia effective in our system, for example? Ish, I would say. Are Palhinha and Pereira effective in Fulham's? They've certainly proven themselves to be so far this season, but then would they replicate that level of form playing for us? Probably not, and that's an issue I think we've always kind of had in a way, certainly as far as back as my brain really dares to go with DOL and MON. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pinebro Posted February 21, 2023 Share Posted February 21, 2023 It's the culture. Midtableness is within the walls in that tunnel. I believe our home crowd need to be more hostile towards the opposition whenever they have the ball. Make it uncomfortable to come here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delphinho123 Posted February 21, 2023 Share Posted February 21, 2023 1 hour ago, Pinebro said: It's the culture. Midtableness is within the walls in that tunnel. I believe our home crowd need to be more hostile towards the opposition whenever they have the ball. Make it uncomfortable to come here. Don’t agree it’s the culture. It’s not the culture, it’s not the manager, it’s not the fans. It’s not the stadium. It’s not the pitch. Our players just aren’t good enough. We’ll start moving up the table when we sign better footballers. Talk of culture and the fans is just denial that the team aren’t very good because the players aren’t top half quality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Posted February 21, 2023 Share Posted February 21, 2023 6 hours ago, Tomaszk said: Why would top half players sign for not top half Villa? The same reason that they were prepared to sign for Newcastle, namely money and loads of it! We have it over them, when it comes to winning things more recently. Birmingham as a city has it, over Newcastle, particularly location wise (proximity to London) and we have the higher profile manager now. They are now one step ahead of us on league placings this season, but I suspect we could sell our ambitions to prospective players pretty well. We might not be able to match the wages that a few clubs (including Newcastle now) are prepared to offer, but I think our "project" and the salaries we are prepared to offer will be a match for quite a few clubs who end up in the top half. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeyp102 Posted February 21, 2023 Share Posted February 21, 2023 On 20/02/2023 at 10:38, MakemineVanilla said: I think it is something which players like Southgate, Young, Barry and Milner recognised, which prompted them to move on. Not sure you can really put Southgate in with the others. The other 3 went in and won league titles and many cups. Southgate went to Middlesborough, won a cup and got them relegated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted February 21, 2023 Share Posted February 21, 2023 2 hours ago, Delphinho123 said: Agree and disagree. Firstly, not sure I agree about the bit in bold. You could very well be right, but we as a fanbase tend to rate all of our players very highly but are left scratching our heads when we can't finish above these teams. Like, why is that? Maybe our players aren't very good. Take Douglas Luiz as an example. I don't mind Luiz, I think he's tidy enough and he's got better over the years, but how good is he really...? Is he better than Harrison Reed? I bet every single person on this forum will say 'Delphinho, you're mad', but seriously, is he? Is he better than Palhinha? Is Buendia currently better than Willian and Andreas Pereira? At some point, us as fans need to realise that we are where we are because we're a below average PL side. Until we start scouting better and finding better players from abroad on <100k a week wages, we won't improve. We're not going to go to another top half PL club and take their better players. What we need to do is replicate what we did with Kamara and go out and find players that are top half quality but playing abroad. It's not easy, for obvious reasons, but there are plenty of them and given the wages we can offer and the size of our club, we can do it. Andreas Pereira was a flop in Serie A and didnt pull up many trees in Brazil. Willian was also a bit of a laughing stock when he left Arsenal but has had a good return to form At the time of signing they werent seen as shrewd signings. Imagine uproar on here if Gerrard had of tried to combine Coutinho and Willian as our playmakers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodders0223 Posted February 25, 2023 Share Posted February 25, 2023 A thread for those with a bit of realism and not delusional or bed wetters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tayls Posted February 25, 2023 Share Posted February 25, 2023 Helloooo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted February 25, 2023 Share Posted February 25, 2023 10 minutes ago, rodders0223 said: A thread for those with a bit of realism and not delusional or bed wetters. You saying we won't get champions league? City game aside and for different reasons the last games have been quite enjoyable to watch, today was frantic and proper PL football, low on quality from both teams but it gives it an edge,the pace at times was crazy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jareth Posted February 25, 2023 Share Posted February 25, 2023 I like it here. It feels safe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marka Ragnos Posted February 25, 2023 Author VT Supporter Share Posted February 25, 2023 (edited) We’ve literally stayed in 11th place for something like ... 5 games now? Anyone worked out how long? This is crazy. Stuck in purgatory. Are we working off our Gerrardian sins? Edited February 25, 2023 by Marka Ragnos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marka Ragnos Posted March 4, 2023 Author VT Supporter Share Posted March 4, 2023 (edited) Since mid-December, we've been in only 12th (first) or 11th place. This is getting weird. Edited March 4, 2023 by Marka Ragnos 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maqroll Posted March 12, 2023 Share Posted March 12, 2023 On the NBC coverage they'll show photos of American fans of Prem teams in kits and scarves etc. They never show Villa fans. Today it was all West Ham. But you know what? I kind of prefer it this way! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul514 Posted March 12, 2023 Share Posted March 12, 2023 Big miss on two more points today, it happens but if we want to finish a couple of places higher than where we are now....... we need all three from games like today. Bournemouth is must win. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rightdm00 Posted March 12, 2023 Share Posted March 12, 2023 19 minutes ago, maqroll said: On the NBC coverage they'll show photos of American fans of Prem teams in kits and scarves etc. They never show Villa fans. Today it was all West Ham. But you know what? I kind of prefer it this way! Same. As an American Villa fan I'm not even sure what I would do if I met a fellow supporter in the wild. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam2003 Posted March 12, 2023 Share Posted March 12, 2023 1 hour ago, maqroll said: On the NBC coverage they'll show photos of American fans of Prem teams in kits and scarves etc. They never show Villa fans. Today it was all West Ham. But you know what? I kind of prefer it this way! When the PL had its latest jump in popularity in the USA we were circling the drain then in the Championship, so there are still a lot of American PL fans who don’t really know who we are or have only seen us be pretty average/absolutely awful. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam2003 Posted March 12, 2023 Share Posted March 12, 2023 2 hours ago, paul514 said: Bournemouth is must win Yeah. Lose that and we could slip down to 11th! Looking at the table I think we should overtake Fulham and finish top half which would be the first time in a decade and set us up nicely for next season. But I don’t think it’ll be much better than 10th or much worse than 11th. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ender4 Posted March 12, 2023 Share Posted March 12, 2023 Love 11th. But still a decent chance we can get 9th. And an extremely outside chance of 7th. LETS DO IT. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ender4 Posted March 12, 2023 Share Posted March 12, 2023 Brighton 7th - 5 points ahead plus 2 games in hand. Extremely difficult to catch. Fulham 8th - 4 points ahead and played a game more. Surely can catch by end of season. Brentford - 3 points ahead and 1 game in hand. Decent chance to overtake them. Chelsea - 2 point ahead and billion pound squad starting to win games. Small change to overtake them. Villa high chance to finish 10/11th, an outside chance to finish 8/9th, and an extremely unlikely but still possible chance to go finish 7th. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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