Relegation

[Thomasc]

Seriously starting to think a season in the championship and a chance to rebuild might not be a bad thing.
We are just making up the numbers in the PL now, just like Burnley, Watford and others.

What we had under Moyes is now a distant memory and in hindsight it really makes you realise that Ancelotti overachieved to get 59 points with these wasters.

Our only hope is that the new incomings of DVB, Alli and El Ghazi can liven us up. Patterson and Mykolenko too.

Throw DCL, Gray, Richy and Doucoure in with those and we have a chance of staying up, if players could stop getting injured for maybe just a few weeks.

The centre half situation is dire though. Mina can seriously GTF, Keane and Holgate are just garbage.

 

[arch stanton]

I subscribed to all of the above with the exception of the last sentence.
There simply is no fight amongst the squad, nobody willing to see the situation were in. Another game less in which to nick even a point.
I see calls for us to turn GP into a bear pit on Saturday. The only team benefitting from that will be our opponents.

Anthony gordon is the only one I see who resembles a tough footballer and is capable of putting in a couple of fruity tackles to even things out. Mina and Colgate are faux tough guys. Shelvey tried to reduce Gordon last night as AG was starting to get hold of the game, we need players like that. It seems that we cant both try to enjoy the ball and also to want to play aggressively when we don't have it. These aren't mutually exclusive, but our players are weak. OK we have been unlucky with injuries this season and it disjointed the game last night but teams worthy of this league deal with it. We aren't dealing with it.

 

[Billy Dean]

Had my head in the sand for a long time but really can't see where our next win comes from and think we might go down.

 

[kenada_blue]

Just don’t need to panic and get something from Leeds to stop the rot.

Lampard needs to switch things around until he can find a formation that gives us enough to get a result or two, then the confidence might come back.

The players are a disgrace though, to go from the levels against Brentford to last night is exactly what they’re all about, midfield and defence are just a complete shambles.

It's clear they're mentally weak. Things went their way against Brentford. The minute it doesn't you can see them all blaming each other.

It's a squad full of mice and you wouldn't go into battle with any of them as they'll let you down.

However...there will be games where it'll go in their favour.

 

[Dwight K Schrute]

Seriously starting to think a season in the championship and a chance to rebuild might not be a bad thing.
We are just making up the numbers in the PL now, just like Burnley, Watford and others.

What we had under Moyes is now a distant memory and in hindsight it really makes you realise that Ancelotti overachieved to get 59 points with these wasters.

Our only hope is that the new incomings of DVB, Alli and El Ghazi can liven us up. Patterson and Mykolenko too.

Throw DCL, Gray, Richy and Doucoure in with those and we have a chance of staying up, if players could stop getting injured for maybe just a few weeks.

The centre half situation is dire though. Mina can seriously GTF, Keane and Holgate are just garbage.

You can't honestly believe that? I get we need to purge all the poisonous and inefficient elements from the club and a major reset. But that does not involve dropping to the Championship. If we go down we stay down, for several years.

The stadium doesn't get built, we are left in a crumbling Goodison with diminishing attendances and our debts quickly mount.

It would be nothing short of a disaster if we go down. Give your head a wobble!

 

[Shoody]

From a Villa fan, you'll be 'fine' this year. But as someone said earlier it'll be because others are worse rather than you saving yourselves.

You start to notice it as a fan that your squad isn't up to it before it's actually as bad as you think it is.

You'll likely get one, maybe 2 more seasons of circling the drain before you actually drop. Plenty of time to save yourselves and reignite the squad.

We had it with Lambert and he was pretty awful in the end but he delayed the inevitable for us. I reckon Lampard will be dynamic enough to reignite your squad and your owner is willing to invest when push comes to shove, so I reckon if you can get to the summer and buy smartly, you'll be fine

 

[Rooney_Tunes]

One of the things I've been pondering is the injury situation.

We have had a huge number of strains and tears this year. I remember reading about how Benitez (because he knows better than everyone) believes that you should only ever have your squad operating at 70-80% fitness and that his medical team push this theory - incidentally I know some people who work in sports science and they either raised their eyebrows or laughed at this statement, so go figure.

If we then factor in that for Ferguson and Lampard's 3 combined matches, we have expected the players to run more and close down, is the fact that we have had 3 major muscle injuries and a reoccurrence of Gray's hip injury, that much of a shock? We already have an injury prone side and appear to have been dangerously undercooked this year.

I believe it is more than coincidence or bad luck that these injuries have hit.

Coleman, Keane, Holgate, Rondon, Iwobi and Tosun are all fine though...

 

[ToffeeTim]

Seriously starting to think a season in the championship and a chance to rebuild might not be a bad thing.
We are just making up the numbers in the PL now, just like Burnley, Watford and others.

What we had under Moyes is now a distant memory and in hindsight it really makes you realise that Ancelotti overachieved to get 59 points with these wasters.

Our only hope is that the new incomings of DVB, Alli and El Ghazi can liven us up. Patterson and Mykolenko too.

Throw DCL, Gray, Richy and Doucoure in with those and we have a chance of staying up, if players could stop getting injured for maybe just a few weeks.

The centre half situation is dire though. Mina can seriously GTF, Keane and Holgate are just garbage.

It would be catastrophic

 

[PhilEFC]

Had my head in the sand for a long time but really can't see where our next win comes from and think we might go down.

Same. Thought we can’t have a bad run this long. But the spineless cowards we have aren’t bothered about getting beat.

Every team below us might not necessarily have better players, but they have more fight.

 

[PhilM]

It's clear they're mentally weak. Things went their way against Brentford. The minute it doesn't you can see them all blaming each other.

It's a squad full of mice and you wouldn't go into battle with any of them as they'll let you down.

However...there will be games where it'll go in their favour.

They're a squad of players rather than a team - a cohesive players working together. That's the biggest problem we have, which is made worse with injuries.

Lampard needs to get them working together, playing and together and importantly for one another. It's something we've now missed for a while.

 

[tommytowne]

Anthony gordon is the only one I see who resembles a tough footballer and is capable of putting in a couple of fruity tackles to even things out. Mina and Colgate are faux tough guys. Shelvey tried to reduce Gordon last night as AG was starting to get hold of the game, we need players like that. It seems that we cant both try to enjoy the ball and also to want to play aggressively when we don't have it. These aren't mutually exclusive, but our players are weak. OK we have been unlucky with injuries this season and it disjointed the game last night but teams worthy of this league deal with it. We aren't dealing with it.

My lad went last night and has just given his version of events. 100%, injuries in first half cost us. Some individual performances were good including Gordon. He wasn't too downhearted but stated the obvious by saying we need points from anywhere. Been on nineteen for a lifetime now.

 

[Fansince1988]

why is this post even on here? We aren’t getting relegated not a chance. We have been dire and still 4 teams below us. Seriously can you see any of them putting a decent run together? Newcastle perhaps but they Imo played there best game of the season last night. I still predict we will finish between 10th and 15th but we will definitely get more points between now and the end of the season than the current bottom 3 will. There still 17 games to go and Lampards hardly got his foot in the door, we will be just fine,

 

[Papa Shango]

Seriously starting to think a season in the championship and a chance to rebuild might not be a bad thing.

It would absolutely destroy us.

We are not built to cope with it, it would be a totally alien concept to the players, the fans and the club.

One of our defining features is that we are one of the traditional top flight clubs. We are always there. Fans would expect us to win every game, our better players would be away (not always a bad thing but we would be taking huge losses on them).

I see some parallels with Hamburg. Traditionally a top club, never been relegated from the Bundesliga until 2017-18. They expected to come back up, of course they did, they are Hamburg, yet they still languish in the 2.Bundesliga to this day.

 

[Sharpattack]

No way this team beats Leeds on Saturday.

 

[Papa Shango]

why is this post even on here? We aren’t getting relegated not a chance. We have been dire and still 4 teams below us. Seriously can you see any of them putting a decent run together? Newcastle perhaps but they Imo played there best game of the season last night. I still predict we will finish between 10th and 15th but we will definitely get more points between now and the end of the season than the current bottom 3 will. There still 17 games to go and Lampards hardly got his foot in the door, we will be just fine,

I don't think we will go down but there absolutely is a chance of it, of course there is. Poor results and combined with injuries in key positions can be disastrous.