tomsky_11 Posted August 13 Share Posted August 13 6 hours ago, PaulC said: But our form dipped massively when he wasn't in the team. I'm talking right now with players fit and available our first team was stronger last year. Onana hopefully will improve us. Certainly we were better with Kamara in the team, but Pau looks the bigger loss of the two of them. In 12 games with Pau and no Kamara we were 1.67ppg which would equal 63 points over a season. The 2.47ppg we got with them both starting would equal 93 points in a season I think we can definitely manage without Kamara, even better than last season, with the options we have now. Having Onana and Enzo to cover until Kamara's return definitely looks better to me than our options last season. And we should hopefully still see Kamara for a good chunk of this season. I just can't see us dropping as far back points wise as opta are suggesting with the manager and players we have. We've performed at a much higher level than they are suggesting for too long under Emery to think such a drop is likely. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turvontour Posted August 13 Share Posted August 13 17 hours ago, tomsky_11 said: 2023-24 Predictions: 1st: Manchester City – 88.81 (actual 1st 91) 2nd: Arsenal – 72.23 (actual 2nd 89) 3rd: Liverpool – 71.47 (actual 3rd 82) 4th: Manchester United – 68.49 (actual 8th 60) 5th: Newcastle United – 61.23 (actual 7th 60) 6th: Chelsea – 58.90 (actual 6th 63) 7th: Brighton & Hove Albion – 57.51 (actual 11th 48) 8th: Tottenham Hotspur – 56.20 (actual 5th 66) 9th: Aston Villa – 55.38 (actual 4th 68) 10th: Brentford – 53.20 (actual 16th 39) 2024-25 Predictions: 1st: Manchester City – 88.7 2nd: Arsenal – 77.6 3rd: Liverpool – 74.0 4th: Chelsea – 61.7 5th: Newcastle United – 60.5 6th: Manchester United – 58.5 7th: Tottenham Hotspur – 58.2 8th: Aston Villa – 54.1 9th: Crystal Palace – 52.7 10th: West Ham United – 49.1 It's almost as if Unai Emery never took over. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turvontour Posted August 13 Share Posted August 13 7 hours ago, cb_82 said: Personal opinion is we need to have realism over this season, we are not suddenly a top 4 club because of last season as for as good as we were alot aligned for us to If we can have good cup runs and again secure European football in say 7th while keeping the PSR books in check it will allow us to have a more settled summer and go again (Lambert lol) But we've had match outcomes of a top 4 team for the last 21 months. If we drop to 7th or 8th next season that's fine but it's a completely different set of results. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turvontour Posted August 13 Share Posted August 13 6 hours ago, PaulC said: But our form dipped massively when he wasn't in the team. I'm talking right now with players fit and available our first team was stronger last year. Onana hopefully will improve us. With our first team available from last season we were basically top. The injuries to the key players was the drop off to 4th. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turvontour Posted August 13 Share Posted August 13 11 minutes ago, tomsky_11 said: Certainly we were better with Kamara in the team, but Pau looks the bigger loss of the two of them. In 12 games with Pau and no Kamara we were 1.67ppg which would equal 63 points over a season. The 2.47ppg we got with them both starting would equal 93 points in a season I think we can definitely manage without Kamara, even better than last season, with the options we have now. Having Onana and Enzo to cover until Kamara's return definitely looks better to me than our options last season. And we should hopefully still see Kamara for a good chunk of this season. I just can't see us dropping as far back points wise as opta are suggesting with the manager and players we have. We've performed at a much higher level than they are suggesting for too long under Emery to think such a drop is likely. Now you're talking my language. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulC Posted August 13 Share Posted August 13 1 minute ago, turvontour said: With our first team available from last season we were basically top. The injuries to the key players was the drop off to 4th. Quite true, on the other hand Arsenal.were very lucky with injuries so they couid maintain their title push 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brommy Posted August 13 Share Posted August 13 30 minutes ago, turvontour said: It's almost as if Unai Emery never took over. I do wonder how many consecutive seasons of top 4 to 6 finishes, all in front of sell out crowds, it would take for a club outside of London and the North West to be considered favourites for a top 6 finish. Perhaps 5+ years for Villa, but only a couple for Newcastle, them being the media's favourite outside of the $ky 6. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farlz Posted August 13 Share Posted August 13 I'd be surprised if we did manage top 4 again this season but we're still comfortably in line with Chelsea, United, Spurs and Newcastle. None have greatly improved for me to think any of them are a guarantee to jump us. 4th to 8th is complete toss up really. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tommytenjobs Posted August 13 Share Posted August 13 I spent some time listening to claret and blue podcast today and reading some of the post on this thread and the transfer one. I am confused by some things - hopefully people can help me out.... 1) everyone appears certain that we are going to bring in someone to replace diabys output, whilst also stating we are now following a one out, one in transfer policy to stay within cash constraints. This seems contradictory to me, when we have replaced diaby effectively with Ramsey and Emi B both now being fit. I cannot see them.both staying and us adding a third player for this type of role. Particularly, when Rogers and Philogene can also play this role. How would this not have been part of the conversations when he resigned from hull. I just don't see a need to replace him, or a space in the squad to do so. We might want another shiny new toy, but we have basically cashed in, knowing these two return, plus Philogene has come. Do people disagree strongly? 2) We need another right back also appears to be a concensus. Again, I just don't see this. Cash, Kosta and Konsa can all play there depending on the tactical desire. The mins given to Kosta especially do not suggest he is going out on loan. Nor do his performances. Injury crisis, means KKH comes home. Again, don't see a signing here, unless they are a centre back like konsa who could move out there. Do people really see someone in like Gertuida? 3) my read is the one out, one in comments from Emery are related to DC and JD. These both go, we will replace both. They don't....we won't. Therefore, unless they go out, we are done transfer wise until Jan. Am i being to reductive? 4) back to this thread, villa fans see us as top four contenders.... no one else does in the media. Interesting in the paper lead in column last sun, a number of other fans do, but not the pundits or journos. I think this is mostly about reverting to mean. I don't really see a lot between the top 8. We outperformed others last year and could have a good season this and still finish 8th. Budget and wages wise, this would be reverting to mean, so pundits playing it safe. Am I being too negative to be happy with anywhere in the top 8 as an average season. Top 6 as a good season. Top 4 amazing. Champions still.possible, but not really. Do others share my optimism that we can be top four again, with current squad? 5) I think the summer has allowed us to stay in the same bracket. It's been good enough to maintain top 8 expectations. But not to push on this season. We can make the leap from.top 8 to top 4 expectations in one or two windows. The systems are set up now to stop that. Therefore, I am happy with what we have as of now. No points deductions coming. Planning in advance. Nothing silly. Mostly we'll thought through in terms of wages, length of contracts etc. No show pony, glittery, 'stars' like felix/coutinho and a redressing of the wage bill. We've also address some sig issues from.last year in Onana and Mings coming back fit. (Fingers crossed). Am i being too effected by the past and too defneisve anout aspirations? We are still light of a league challenge being realistic, but it's still.a possibility with what we have done, for this year and the foreseeable. Much better that, than crash and burn and back to championship. We are in the mix and best placed to stay there compared to previous management. Man city are still.head and shoulders above all the rest, but even they have sig weaknesses for the first start to a season in yonks. It's exciting, we have a chance and I would rather than was always the case than some splurge, splash and drowning. Excited for west ham and if I can get my season ticket to work, arsenal. Keep the faith, transfers or no. Utv 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AVTuco Posted August 13 VT Supporter Share Posted August 13 22 hours ago, Enda said: Opta predict us coming 8th, with about a 1-in-7 chance of Top 4. More likely to be bottom half than Top 4 if you believe them. Seems quite plausible to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vazquez Posted August 13 Share Posted August 13 Conference league would be great achievement with current squad, even though it might not feel like it after champions league. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Indigo Posted August 13 Share Posted August 13 I'm still just buzzing with what was achieved last season and looking forward to the experience ahead rather than replicating it being the expectation. It's going to be a tough, competitive Premier League season as it is, particularly with the additional Champions League games to contend with. I think getting through the first phase of the CL and getting European football in some capacity through the league would still be a great season as it'd consolidate a strong position. The cluster of teams from Villa, Spurs, Newcastle, United, Chelsea, West Ham, maybe even more (Liverpool with some uncertainty, teams below like Brighton signing well etc) could almost be put in any order and you could argue it as there's so much going on across those teams between recruitment, returning players from injury, and respective coaching. We can't control how well other sides do, so I'm just hoping we have a relatively strong season and where we end up is where we end up. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted August 13 Share Posted August 13 13 hours ago, Kiwivillan said: That's false. We won next 3 games when Kamara got injured. Only lost to Spurs Man City Brighton then on the beach with 4th secured against Palace. We did more than enough than Spurs to secure 4th while playing Conference games We concede far more goals without Kamara, that's undeniable (even over xmas when he had the three match ban). Going to be a struggle to go on a serious winning run next season conceding 2s and 3s regularly, can win v relegation strugglers like Forest/Luton but we didn't win v likes of Brentford and Chelsea when leading 2-0 without him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted August 13 Share Posted August 13 10 hours ago, duke313 said: How many points from our first 4? West Ham (a) - 1 Arsenal (h) - 0 Leicester (a) - 3 Everton (h) - 3 7 would be a decent start. That's the key to challenging for top 6 (although you know the usual suspects will throw a hissy fit if we only get one point off West Ham/Arsenal as we should be challenging for title or something). Pretty sure up to the Sheffield United home game on 22nd Dec the only points we dropped before to a bottom half team was Forest away. We beat everyone else and even in the second half of the season just when things were looking difficult we beat all of Fulham, Forest, Luton and Wolves in a seven game spell. Consistency like that again will have us in the mix for at least 6th and probably higher. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted August 13 Share Posted August 13 2 hours ago, Indigo said: I'm still just buzzing with what was achieved last season and looking forward to the experience ahead rather than replicating it being the expectation. It's going to be a tough, competitive Premier League season as it is, particularly with the additional Champions League games to contend with. I think getting through the first phase of the CL and getting European football in some capacity through the league would still be a great season as it'd consolidate a strong position. The cluster of teams from Villa, Spurs, Newcastle, United, Chelsea, West Ham, maybe even more (Liverpool with some uncertainty, teams below like Brighton signing well etc) could almost be put in any order and you could argue it as there's so much going on across those teams between recruitment, returning players from injury, and respective coaching. We can't control how well other sides do, so I'm just hoping we have a relatively strong season and where we end up is where we end up. Ideal season for me is finishing 7th (so some form of Euro football for third consecutive season which shouldn't be dismissed), a big win in CL under the lights at VP and progression to knock out run and also a run like in Europa Conference in one of the domestic cups. I've got a feeling we'll do very well in the league cup this season and what's hugely exciting is we know have a manager who won't be fazed at all by managing us in a final and will come up with a fantastic gameplan to win on the day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomsky_11 Posted August 13 Share Posted August 13 31 minutes ago, VillaChris said: We concede far more goals without Kamara, that's undeniable (even over xmas when he had the three match ban). Going to be a struggle to go on a serious winning run next season conceding 2s and 3s regularly, can win v relegation strugglers like Forest/Luton but we didn't win v likes of Brentford and Chelsea when leading 2-0 without him. Sure, but the bigger differentiator was Pau. And we have better DM options besides Kamara than we did last season, ie Onana and Enzo (who looks very similar profile to Kamara). Our results without Kamara but with Pau were still respectable Euro qualifying form. Now in that situation we have better options to replace Kamara. And we can talk about squads all we want, the fact is that we've gained 117 points in 63 league games under Emery, with all the issues of an inherited squad, major injuries to key players, fixture congestion, etc. 1.86ppg is our record with all these issues over an extended period, so it feels to me much more a mid point than an overachievement. When we are at full strength under Emery we've put together genuinely title challenging runs of results. So for me, predicting 8th place and 54 points like Opta has just isn't happening unless we see injury issues much worse than I think is likely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kiwivillan Posted August 14 Share Posted August 14 Goldbridge predicts we'll finish 8th so that's top 4 guaranteed again Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QldVilla Posted August 14 VT Supporter Share Posted August 14 5 hours ago, AVTuco said: Seems quite plausible to me. I don't know why fans take these predictions seriously, last season Opta predicted we would finish 9th! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Willard Posted August 14 Share Posted August 14 If we do our part 5th should get Champions league. That feels more attainable this year. I don’t think we’ll be fighting for 1st at Christmas this year. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AVTuco Posted August 14 VT Supporter Share Posted August 14 11 hours ago, QldVilla said: I don't know why fans take these predictions seriously, last season Opta predicted we would finish 9th! I don't take them seriously as such, but 8th is probably my guess for this season right now. And 11th is more likely than 4th. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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