Aston Villa Central

Gerard Houllier’s Premiership Statistics In Context

Dan — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 21:12:07 +0000

I suppose it’s a little like the Milner deal now: it seems certain that Gerard Houllier will be joining Aston Villa, it’s just a question of finalising the details. To that end, the latest word from the street suggests the Frenchman will be joining as the new manager, not a technical director, but I’ll leave worrying about the details until we actually know what they are.

In the meantime, I’ve seen one or two people throwing their weight behind Houllier on the basis of his win percentage as Liverpool boss. I may have seen mention that he has a superior record to any manager we’ve seen at Villa “this century or last” and I wondered whether that may have been based on the table I published recently.

Regardless, it struck me as a little odd to get excited about performance statistics at Liverpool as they’ve been ahead of us for quite some time, let’s be honest. Just looking at the Premiership years, last season was only the third time we’ve finished above them in the league.

It’s a bit like being excited by Jenson Button’s lap times whizzing around Silverstone in his McLaren and exclaiming “wow, his times are better than anything we’ve seen from any driver in a Force India!” Before anyone gets upset, I’m exaggerating the analogy to make a point, I’m not suggesting that we are really Force India to Liverpool’s McLaren, but we do need to see Button in a Force India before we can really draw a fair comparison with their drivers.

Just to establish some context, I thought I’d put our seasons alongside each other, indicating final position, manager and the percentage of available points won. I’ve started using the % of available points metric lately as it allows an apples-to-apples comparison between seasons with differing number of games played and it’s all about winning points in the league after all.

Without wanting to get into Liverpool’s recent history too deeply, Houllier’s introduction as co-manager with Roy Evans, who wasn’t exactly doing badly by himself, seemed extremely weird to me at the time. Houllier is credited with laying some fine foundation stones behind the scenes in terms of structure, but as you can see in the above table, it took a few seasons before Houllier delivered a “better” season’s performance than the man he replaced as far as the league goes. Ironically, it’s a stretch to describe the 2001/02 season as Houllier’s as he missed half the season with his heart problems.

The averages at the foot of the table are significant, Liverpool have averaged 4th place, taking close to 59% of the available points, which in a 38 game season based on three points for a win is around 67 points. Villa have averaged 8th position and taken 48% of the available points, which is about 55 points.

Of course any manager who keeps his job at Liverpool for six years will have a superior record to most Villa managers, it stands to reason, so what is important is how the Liverpool managers rank against each other.

I stuck with the Premiership years for brevity:-

Ironic that Phil Thompson being as mooted assistant manager hasn’t met with a thrilled reaction from fans, myself included, perhaps we really want him as manager, not the assistant.

To put things in their simplest possible terms, winning football games is about scoring more goals than are conceded and this table gives us an interesting perspective:-

Graeme Souness sits rather sadly at the bottom of that table with a ratio of 1.22 goals scored to every goal conceded in the league. By contrast, Martin O’Neill sits atop the same table of Villa managers with a barely superior 1.23 goals for every goal conceded.

As David St Hubbins once said: “yeah, too much f%*king perspective”.

“Rebuilding”

I believe Liverpool fans eventually began to lose patience with Houllier after many years of “rebuilding”, particularly when they missed out on Champions League qualification in 2002/03 and struggled to qualify in 2003/04. It was a poor Premiership competition, even David O’Leary managed a 6th place finish with a record that would barely have achieved 7th in any season since, and Houllier was perhaps fortunate he somehow managed to achieve 4th place despite a worse record than the previous season when they finished 5th.

It was the very Champions League competition that Houllier qualified for in his final season that Rafa won in his first with Liverpool. However, he too would have failed to qualify for the competition in 2005/06, finishing the 2004/05 Premiership in 5th place, had it not been for UEFA inexplicably deciding that reigning champions should be given automatic qualification to the group stage to defend their title at the very time FIFA was dispensing with the principle in the World Cup.

My concern is whether Houllier is coming to Villa to “rebuild” or, as I sincerely hope, to simply build on the strong foundations MON has already laid over the course of four years. I’m encouraged to read reports of a two year contract initially as that suggests he won’t be given inordinate amounts of time to construct his own side.

That said, when it comes to creating a team, it should be noted that Rafa Benetiz won the Champions League with a starting XI containing two players he signed himself, two from Liverpool’s youth system and seven players signed by Gerard Houllier. That was fully six years after Houllier had arrived at Liverpool though, I doubt there’s many Villa fans with the stomachs for another six years of building, even if it leads to the same prize.

One thing that seems clear to me is Houllier doesn’t have anything like the universal support MON enjoyed when he came to Villa and when you consider the honeymoon was over for MON with the ever vocal minority inside three seasons, Houllier’s going to need to translate those Liverpool statistics to Aston Villa and he’s going to need to do it in short order.

From the sounds of things, the official confirmation is expected in the next day or two and Houllier should be on the sidelines for his first game in charge at the Britannia Stadium. Kicking off with a ‘1′ in the win column would be ideal.

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Could A Sporting Director Be The Solution To Our Situation?

Could A Sporting Director Be The Solution To Our Situation?

Dan — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 06:45:51 +0000

Sporting director, technical director, director of football, general manager. Take your pick, all the same thing. I elected to avoid the director of football tag in the headline as it’s frequently been used in England and without success enough that just the mention of the term leads to assumptions of unavoidable failure.

It’s a system that’s been used in Europe for many years though and in places is regarded as the norm. Quite why it hasn’t taken hold in the UK, I’m not sure, but it possibly comes down to egos and tradition. I mooted the idea as being about the only way I could see Bob Bradley being able to step into the void MON left behind.

If I’m honest, I haven’t been overly convinced by KMac in terms of confidence and authority in relation to taking on the biggest of jobs at Villa, but like Bradley, maybe assuming a head coach role alongside a more experienced man acting as a sporting director could be the solution.

A handful of the interviewees have become semi-public knowledge this week and most, if not all, have failed to excite. It has to be said, in normal circumstances, I’d like to think that Alan Curbishley and Sven Goran Eriksson would be highly unlikely to get an interview, but given the timing and the amount of available talent, I can see why they’ve been given the opportunity to talk about their ideas.

Another name that emerged earlier this week was ex-Liverpool manager, Gerard Houllier, the man I will always remember agreed to a Milan Baros/John Carew straight swap with MON. I think we all know who got the better side of that bargain.

In the last couple of hours, Houllier has become the latest next Villa manager, following on from Bradley, Eriksson, Moyes, Curbishley and anyone else I forgot to mention. I can’t speak for the likelihood of Houllier being appointed in any role at Villa Park, but it does present a good opportunity to give some thought to the prospect of adopting the sporting director/head coach set up.

The most important factor for me during this whole process has been to see the need for continuity addressed and I was encouraged to find that tone in the last official announcement. David Moyes is a manager I think could do that, but he’s never really been likely to be in the frame for the job. Among the actual candidates we know about, I’m not so sure.

Under the circumstances, maybe someone like Gerard Houllier and possibly Kevin MacDonald as head coach would be the perfect solution. Houllier could get on with the task of repairing the coaching structure that’s left with a large MON shaped hole after he took his team with him, while also building a proper scouting system to put Villa in a stronger position to bring quality youngsters through the academy. KMac, or whoever is head coach, could do just that, coach.

As I said in the Bob Bradley piece, the success, or otherwise, of this style of management, I believe, comes down to the pairing. If the chemistry is right and they work together, it can be ideal, but if they don’t, well, it can be a disaster.

Whatever the solution, it looks almost certain to be in place before the Stoke game. Let’s hope Randy gets it right.

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Premier League Squad Analysis – All Clubs

Dan — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 21:44:18 +0000

All 20 Premiership clubs were required to submit their squads for use in the Premier League today and they were all pretty much as expected, although Luke Moore was left out of the West Brom squad, so we won’t be seeing him playing Premiership football this side of January.

Clubs were required to list up to 25 players over the age of 21 on January 1st and within that list, no more than 17 could be players not classed as “Home Grown”. Clubs can use an unlimited number of players under 21, regardless of nationality, and also submitted those names.

Stoke submitted the highest number of home grown players in their squad (17). Chelsea and West Ham had the highest number of players not home grown in their squads (15). Only eight clubs submitted full 25 man squads – Birmingham, Fulham, Man City, Stoke, Tottenham, West Brom, West Ham and Wolves.

Chelsea had the lowest number of home grown players in their squad (4) and shared the smallest squad with Wigan (19). Aston Villa and Newcastle had the lowest number of non-home grown players (7).

Arsenal padded their squad out with the most Under 21s, including scholars (56) while Blackpool had the least (22). Unsurprisingly, Arsenal had the largest overall list with 76 players and Blackpool the smallest with 46.

Here’s how the numbers stacked up:-

Team	HG	Non-HG	Squad	Under 21s	Total
Arsenal	8	12	20	56	76
Aston Villa	15	7	22	36	58
Birmingham City	14	11	25	25	50
Blackburn	8	13	21	41	62
Blackpool	15	9	24	22	46
Bolton	13	11	24	35	59
Chelsea	4	15	19	43	62
Everton	9	12	21	38	59
Fulham	11	14	25	31	56
Liverpool	8	13	21	53	74
Man City	12	13	25	44	69
Man Utd	13	11	24	47	71
Newcastle	16	7	23	45	68
Stoke	17	8	25	25	50
Sunderland	14	10	24	38	62
Tottenham	11	14	25	43	68
West Brom	11	14	25	33	58
West Ham	10	15	25	39	64
Wigan	7	12	19	31	50
Wolves	15	10	25	34	59
Totals	231	231	462	759	1,221

So, clearly, the level of quality within the main squad is important, but the depth within the younger players can be vital. If you wish to decide yourself how we match up to the other clubs, feel free to scan through all the names here.

As I said before, I’m not panicking.

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Villa Among First To Name 25 Man Premier League Squad

Dan — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 12:46:37 +0000

No one should be surprised that Aston Villa have been able to name their squad under the new “home grown” rules well ahead of today’s deadline as it was as straight forward as it can be. I took a look at the squad back in July and listed 23 players who would have to be named under the new rules. Since then, James Milner and Nicky Shorey left, Stephen Ireland joined, so here’s the 22 player who were left and named today:-

Goalkeepers: Brad Friedel, Brad Guzan.

Defenders: James Collins, Carlos Cuellar, Curtis Davies, Habib Beye, Richard Dunne, Eric Lichaj, Stephen Warnock, Luke Young.

Midfielders: Stewart Downing, Jonathan Hogg, Stephen Ireland, Isaiah Osbourne, Stiliyan Petrov, Nigel Reo-Coker, Moustapha Salifou, Steve Sidwell, Ashley Young.

Strikers: Gabriel Agbonlahor, John Carew, Emile Heskey.

I make that 15 home grown and 7 non-home grown players~~, but I’m on the fence about whether Lichaj is or isn’t home grown. I think he probably is, but either way, it’s no big deal for us~~.

Of course, we can use as many of the under 21s as we like, they do not have to be named in the squad. I listed 12 players in July that we might call on (the first three being established first team members now): Marc Albrighton, Nathan Delfouneso, Fabian Delph, Andreas Weimann, Elliot Parish, Shane Lowry, Barry Bannan, Ciaran Clark, Nathan Baker, Chris Herd, James Collins, Harry Forrester.

So that’s a total of 34 players I’ve named here, but we’re highly unlikely to see the likes of Nathan Baker, Chris Herd or James Collins (striker), let along Harry Forrester, who I can’t honestly say why I’ve even included. Seems a bit arbitrary, but I’m sure I had my reasons at the time.

If you’re worried about numbers, you probably don’t need to be, here’s the number of players we’ve used in the Premiership over the last three seasons:-

2009/10 – 23
2008/09 – 21
2007/08 – 22

As we know, outside of a core group, there were many players who didn’t actually see much time on the pitch, so there’s plenty of scope for rotation.

We’ll be fine.

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Window Shuts – This Is Your Aston Villa Team For Next 4 Months

Dan — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 18:10:26 +0000

That’s the Summer 2010 transfer window done then.

Out: Marlon Harewood and Andy Marshall were both released at the end of their contracts. Stephen O’Halloran went to Coventry on a free, while Nick Shorey joined West Brom for £1.5m and James Milner joined Man City for £26m.

In: Stephen Ireland joined from Man City for £8m.

KMac has confirmed that he would like an interview. Make whatever you will of the inclusion of a two minute video recap of his four game C.V. embedded into the official announcement.

This, then, is the “player palette” I’ll be using during the next few months:-

Depends how you view the Ireland/Milner swap I suppose, but aside from the cover Shorey provided at left back, we start this season more or less in the same shape we finished last season. On the pitch at least. Behind the scenes is whole other story.

It’s going to be a tough few months and we need most, if not all, of these players to give everything they’ve got to keep us hanging in there by the turn of the year. In a five week period between the last game in November and the first game in January, we’ll have to face Arsenal, Liverpool, Tottenham, Man City and Chelsea in addition to West Brom and Wigan.

If we’re in bad shape before that period, we’ll be in all sorts of trouble afterward, just as the Winter transfer window opens. But, as I keep saying, that’s essentially the team than were in the hunt for top four for 36 games last season, they’re not a poor side, it’s up to them to prove it.

EDIT: I can barely believe that I forgot to mention Freddie Bouma was also one of the players to leave at the end of last season. Although he didn’t play any part in the season, I had heard that he had finally signed a deal with PSV just before writing this and it slipped my mind.

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Statshack – Aston Villa 1 Everton 0

Dan — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 20:52:31 +0000

Tactical analysis seems almost pointless, if ever there was a display based on mental qualities such as determination, commitment and spirit, this was it. The stats will speak for themselves, so I’ll just throw in a couple of factoids, tug my forelock and bid you good day.

Firstly, Stewart Downing. Not the best use of the ball when he saw it, but he struggled to get involved in the game. For once his central position in the average position map is more a reflection of where the action was instead of him playing roughly equal time on each wing. Villa focused 55% of their attacks down the right, Everton 41% down their left. With Downing spending most of the time on the left, he didn’t see much of the ball.

Secondly, Villa had very little possession in general, just 32%. That led to completing just 139 passes, which was 27% of the total passes completed in the match. That’s the least number of passes Villa have made in a Premiership match since the same number were completed during the 3-2 loss to Utd at Old Trafford. And the 27% CPS was the lowest since the 26% during the 1-0 win over Utd last season.

Passing stats alone don’t mean much, I’m always the first to say so, but all these stats together paint the picture of an uninspiring performance at home against a team we’ll be competing for position against for the rest of the season.

We took the points today and hopefully that restores some much needed confidence in the team. We’ve beaten Utd, Chelsea and Arsenal in the past with similarly slender shares of the game, but with all due respect to Everton, that’s far more acceptable and expected.

Make of it what you will, but that was great result from a poor performance today.

Aston Villa

August 29th 2010

Everton

32%

Possession %

68%

Shots

On Target

Corners

Offsides

9′ L Young

Scorers

Dunne, Collins, Albrighton, Petrov

Booked

Sent Off

139

Good Passes

372

27%

CPS %

73%

Bad Passes

69%

Completion %

81%

Interceptions

Tackles Won

Tackles Lost

55%

Success %

52%

Blocks

Free Kicks

Starting XI:	1. Friedel	2. Young	3. Warnock
29. Collins	5. Dunne	19. Petrov	20. Reo-Coker
14. Albrighton	6. Downing	7. Young	10. Carew
Subs:	18. Heskey	11. Agbonlahor	22. Guzan
23. Beye	44. Lichaj	46. Bannan	14. Delfouneso

Average Position Maps

You can find Statshacks from other games here.

[Original data and graphics courtesy of ESPN and The Guardian]

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Faulkner: Management Candidates Must Have Premiership Experience

Dan — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 19:02:31 +0000

Excerpt from an official statement just published on the club website:-

We are conscious that we have steered clear of openly communicating our thoughts on the search for a permanent manager until this time, as we felt that to do so would undermine both Kevin’s and the players’ efforts to focus on preparing for these games.

To date, we have immersed ourselves in the process of appointing a new manager and clearly identifying the key criteria this person must meet.

Two of the traits we believe are of crucial importance are that candidates have experience of managing in the Premier League and a strategy for building on the existing strengths in our current squad.

We have thoroughly researched potential candidates and have reached out to a variety of contacts we have within the game for advice and guidance, as well as keeping key staff at Villa Park informed and focused.

If you hadn’t ruled Bob Bradley out in your own mind for his lack of UEFA badges, you can rule him out for his lack of Premiership management experience, which is now an explicit prerequisite.

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Aston Villa 1 Everton 0 – Three Vital Points

Dan — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 17:26:40 +0000

Aston Villa carved out a vital three points today in an absolutely enthralling battle against Everton at Villa Park with Luke Young providing the only goal of the game in sublime, if unlikely style.

The day didn’t get off to the best of starts when Stephen Ireland pulled a hamstring in the warm up, but his replacement, Nigel Reo-Coker, probably provided that little extra steel that would prove vital in the middle. Nathan Delfouneso took Nigel’s place on the bench.

Everton started brightly, moving the ball around well, but Villa opened the scoring against the run of play in the 9th minute when Luke Young latched on to Ashley Young’s superbly weighted through ball and delivered an inch perfect left footed shot, curling around Tim Howard into the top corner.

Steven Pienaar struck the woodwork with a lovely long range effort from Everton’s left flank, Brad Friedel had completely given up, thinking it was a certain goal and would have been relieved to see the ball rebound back into play and his grasp.

Everton controlled much of the possession through the half, owning 68% of the ball by the break, but couldn’t break Villa down. Marc Albrighton struggling to keep tabs on Leighton Baines who got in behind the defence on a couple of occasions, but without an end product.

Albrighton made a couple of mazey runs at the other end, almost winning a penalty right before half time, although it would probably have been a weak one had it been given.

The second half started as a gritty, at times very open, battle as Everton pressed for an equaliser and Villa looked to take advantage of the space at the back. John Carew coming into his own and Ashley Young making a couple of tenacious, twisting runs through the middle.

By the time Gabby came on for Carew in the 68th minute the game had opened into a full on end to end scrap that the neutrals absolutely loved, but those of us desperate for Villa to hold on to the three points were chewing our nails off.

A full report and statshack will follow later when my heart rate returns to something approaching normal. For now, it was an extremely spirited display that presented Villa with more chances than the single goal might suggest, but Everton could easily have hooked up as Newcastle did on another day.

But they didn’t, it’s three vital points and what could be a season defining fortnight ahead. Some important and very tough decisions have to be made and while we sit 4th in the table right now, that’s after beating two sides who occupy positions in the bottom three and a thumping loss to a side fresh from a season in the Championship.

Definitely the result and effort we needed to see after Thursday’s disappointment, but plenty of work lies ahead.

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Ash And Gabby Talk Positive, As Does Koeman And Blackburn In The Cup

Dan — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 15:51:18 +0000

Among much speculation regarding Champions League bound Tottenham trying to get their hands on no-longer-cup-tied Ashley Young, he’s talked up the team’s desire to bounce back against Everton and also his own determination to re-establish himself in the England set up.

Ashley Young
I’m a positive person. You can’t carry defeats around on your shoulders, because you would be going into the next game having too many negative thoughts. You have to look forward.

Of course, the Newcastle result crushed us. We just crumbled. It hasn’t been a good week, with what happened in the Europa League as well. But it’s the way you bounce back which shows the character in the squad.

I’m very determined. You always want to win things and do everything to the best of your ability. I’ve a lot of hopes and dreams. I’m a winner. Any time I lose, I hate it. I want to play at the highest level, win the big tournaments, win the big trophies – and I still believe we can achieve great things at Villa.

Excellent, that’s what we want to hear. And if we don’t get a result against Everton, presumably they’ll all be even more determined to bounce back a third time.

Gabby knows which side of his bread is buttered, he’d love to play his whole career at Villa.

Gabby Agbonlahor
Being from the area, I’ve got no reason to ever leave. I’m just enjoying my football here.

I saw in the programme stats the other day that I’m the longest-serving player, I think I am one of the senior statesmen! I might bring that up with some of the lads.

But I’m a local lad and you look at people like Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard – they don’t want to leave their clubs – and it’s the same with me.

That’s nice to hear, but Lampard is a product of the West Ham academy and is an Essex boy, Gerrard was very close to leaving when the grass looked greener elsewhere. I suppose it’s a double edged sword to profess a desire to succeed, preferably with Villa, because when it looks like that won’t be possible, they’ll be off like Milner. On the other hand, saying you’d like to stay at your local club for the rest of your life just sounds lazy and unambitious to me.

I’m pretty jaded right now, forgive me, normal service will resume shortly. I’m naturally delighted to hear that Gabby wants to stay, but I don’t recall hearing about any clubs trying to snatch him away. Still, put in a shift this season Gabs and I’m sure City will be sniffing around next summer.

Ronald Koeman publicly throws his hat into the Aston Villa management ring, following Bob Bradley and Sven Goran Eriksson.

Ronald Koeman
In Holland we have always viewed Villa as an important club with a tradition of being powerful in Europe when I was younger, so I would be very interested in managing them if the job was offered to me.

One of the things I’d bring to Villa if I was in charge is the idea that winning is important in football, but winning while playing offensive football is the best of all. I love English football because of its brilliant atmosphere, intensity of the competition and the culture of respect that fans and players have for the game.

I have been holding off and turning down offers simply because I want to coach in England and where better than Villa Park?

I was a big admirer of Koeman the player, back in the day, but i have to confess I haven’t followed his management career closely enough to leap to a conclusion about him as a candidate for Villa. I know he had a torrid time at Valencia, but a lot of managers have had the same experience there. I seem to recall Sid Lowe describing the environment as a “viper’s nest”, or something similar.

A quick glance over his career after his first job at Ajax suggests a history of following big name managers, such as Trapattoni, Hiddink and van Gaal, into major clubs and then failing to fill their shoes after bright starts. The exception being his last job at AZ where he was sacked 6 months into the job after a disastrous start to the season for the club van Gaal had lead to the title the previous year.

I’d have to dig a bit deeper if he emerges as anything more serious than the other potential candidates promoting themselves in the media, but right now, he doesn’t exactly yank my chain. The problem is, who really does at the moment?

Blackburn Again

And finally, a team I was sick of the sight of last season, Blackburn, will be our opponents in the third round of the Carling Cup at Villa Park during the week of September 20th.

So, there’s that.

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Your Season Expectations – Survey Results

Dan — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 23:38:11 +0000

I suppose this might seem like odd timing, but I was planning on compiling and publishing this right before the West Ham game and then Martin O’Neill went and put the kybosh on things. I thought I’d leave the survey open for a little while longer to see whether any of the data trickling in after MON’s departure would take any kind of dip, but I really didn’t see that.

That’s a good thing since I was looking for expectations, not predictions. I wanted to know the sort of progress in each competition it would take to leave you with a satisfied feeling in 10 months time and though I labelled it “MON’s 5th season”, it will still be season 5 of the rebuilding following Randy Lerner buying the club.

After dithering for a while, I decided to pull this together once we had successfully qualified for the Europa League since I had a good idea that was high on fans’ priorities. After Thursday’s terrible result, I once again considered not publishing this for fear of it appearing motivated through sour grapes. That can’t be helped though, the longer I leave it, the less relevant it becomes.

So, I asked you to tell me the priorities you held each of the four competitions we are playing in and the minimum progression you expect. Here are the results…

Premier League

Of course, the league is the number one priority for the overwhelming majority, but I was surprised that only 77% rated it as such. I may not have worded the question as well as I could.

Speaking of wording, I wanted to try to get a feel for how important European qualification is without specifically asking, so I implied it based on league finish, indicating that a top 7 finish also meant a Europa League place at least. 81% of you felt Villa should finish 7th or better, with 11% of you expecting a top 4 finish and Champions League qualification.

Europa League

52% of you, like myself, felt that the Europa League should be priority number two this season.

Of the 93% of you who expressed any interest in how far Villa should progress in Europe, all but 3% expected the group stage to be successfully negotiated and the knockout phases reached. 37% thought that Villa should at least make the quarter-finals.

There are an awful lot of disappointed Villa fans right now. Unacceptable, Stan? Yes, yes it is.

FA Cup

44% thought the FA Cup should be the third priority, while 36% thought it should be second priority. I suppose they’re all in the second priority camp now.

I don’t know whether the lack of European distractions mean that fans will expect more from the FA Cup, but 48% expect a quarter-final appearance and 23% said they want another semi-final trip to Wembley. 9% said they expect Villa to make the final and were split evenly about whether that was enough, or they wanted to see the trophy with claret and blue ribbons tied around the handles.

League Cup

Did this competition just get a whole lot more important to Villa fans? Maybe, but 58% said this should be 4th on the list of priorities.

20% said they didn’t care what Villa did in the League Cup, while 17% felt we should go one better than last season. Most respondents, 28%, felt that the quarter-finals would be just fine, although they might now expect a little more.

My Expectations

Outside of the constraints of a survey, I can be a little more expansive. We’ve had four seasons of improved league performances and I expect that to continue. If we could turn a couple of draws into wins and a couple of loses into draws, that’s an extra six points and, depending who those points are taken from, that will almost certainly lead to an improved position.

Probably not quite Champions League, I can see at least four teams practically guaranteed to finish above us, but maybe 5th. The important thing for me was a 4th straight season of qualifying for Europe, so I suppose I would have to be happy with a top 7 finish, especially at the moment.

My European aspirations have clearly already been smashed to pieces, but I was really optimistic about getting out of the group stage and then perhaps going at least one stage further than Moscow a couple of years ago.

Do I now transfer that expectation to the domestic cups? Right now, given the state of flux, I don’t. As far as the League Cup goes, as great as it was making it to the first cup final in a decade last season, I’m with the 20% of you that don’t care. I really don’t, play the reserves for all I care.

It’s hard to feel the same about the FA Cup though. Although it’s one of the most recognised and watched domestic cup competitions in the world, if progress were to come at the cost of a single point in the league, it’s not worth it in my opinion. Not at the moment, but my view may change once we appoint a manager and the transfer window closes.

So I suppose the biggest question is whether fans are now lowering the bar of their own expectations because we’re currently managerless. If we end up 8th place in May with a couple of early exists from the two cups, will it be shrugged off because MON abandoned ship so late? Will that even be regarded as an achievement under the circumstances?

Or, as I’m leaning toward, do we not have every right to expect the team that did so well last year to do at least as well this year regardless of who is in charge?

I’m sure we’ll all change our views as the season progresses and that was really the point of this exercise. My feeling in the last couple of years is that we’ve got close to the top four during the season, but fallen back to a final position most fans would have been delighted with if offered it before a ball have been kicked.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to complete the survey, it’s been extremely interesting to learn the general aspirations. I very much hope to be able to link back to this post at the end of the season and remind you all that we did better that most fans hoped.

Apart from Europe. Obviously.