Just looking at the stats...

Bit of time to kill, so thought I would compare league performance stats after 22 games against previous years.....wish I hadn't...makes for depressing viewing!!

2010/11: Pl22 W5 D7 L10 F24 A39 GD-15 Pts22
2014/15: Pl22 W5 D7 L10 F11 A25 GD-14 Pts22

2010/11 was the season MON walked out on, and Gerard Houllier took charge. Our record in terms of points is the same, but clearly we were far more capable in front of goal that year....and equally as important, far weaker at the back.

We went on to finish 9th that season....but alarmingly, in order to rescue our position in January, we went and smashed our club record transfer fee to bring in Darren Bent.

Interestingly since O'Neill left, our best performing season at this stage was under McCleish:
2014/15: Pl22 W6 D9 L7 F26 A29 GD-3 Pts27

David O'Leary, widely deplored as Villa manager had attained points tallies of 27, 28 and 25 after 22 games in his 3 seasons. mustering goals scored tallies of 27, 26 and 32 and GD's of -6. -3 and -6.

O'Neill's first season in charge saw us with 26pts after 22 games. A GD of only -2 is reflected in the fact we drew 11 of those 22 games!
But the following year we had amassed 39pts by now, and scored 40 goals, with a GD of+12!!
2008/09 was better still. After 22 games Villa were sitting on 44pts, in 4th place! Scoring 37 goals and conceding 24!
O'Neill's final year saw a small decline in what we had achieved. Only 37pts that year scoring only 29 goals.

I think when the cold hard fact dawns, that even O'Leary's team in his final year scored pretty much 3 times the goals this current lot have mustered, you realise just how much trouble we are in!

We can blame the manager, and I agree he is the main culprit here....but this time last year we had netted double the goals...perhaps more of the blame for this current shambles should lie with the players?

Another stat I heard last night - Leeds are the team to have survived a season in the top flight with the lowest goals tally. That was 28. Can we score another 17 goals in the next 16 games?

Villa_Dan wrote:Another stat I heard last night - Leeds are the team to have survived a season in the top flight with the lowest goals tally. That was 28. Can we score another 17 goals in the next 16 games?

It's frightening when you put it like that.

We may well set a new record for lowest goals scored and still stay up because we're defending fairly well, but we'll be relying on three other teams doing worse than us. It's going to be squeaky bum time again!

That could be the most depressing thing; going down without even feeling like we at least put up a fight.

The only thing that gives me hope is it's not like we have all these bad stats AND we're rooted to the bottom of the league; however, when we take into account that TEN OF OUR TWENTY TWO POINTS WERE TAKEN IN THE FIRST 4 GAMES then basically, I am petrified.

I think if we come out of Arsenal and Chelsea not in the bottom 3 then we'll have a good chance of scrapping to survival again. Especially considering Leicester and Burnley both have a run of 5 games coming up where they play Arsenal, Chelsea, Man United and Liverpool or Man City (I think). Add in QPR's inability to win away from home, we're not in dire straits just yet.

We're still shit though

Next 6 games for relegation candidates:

12th Everton 23pts
Palace (A); Liverpool (H); Leicester (H); Arsenal (A); Stoke (A); Newcastle (H)


13th Palace 23pts
Everton (H); Leicester (A); Newcastle (H); Arsenal (H); West Ham (A); Southampton (A)

14th WBA 22pts
Spurs (H); Burnley (A); Swansea (H); Sunderland (A); Southampton (H); VILLA (A)

15th VILLA 22pts
Arsenal (A); Chelsea (H); Hull (A); Stoke (H); Newcastle (A); WBA (H)

16th Sunderland 20pts
Burnley (H); Swansea (A); QPR (H); WBA (H); Man Utd (A); Hull (A)

17th Burnley 20pts
Sunderland (A); WBA (H); Man Utd (A); Chelsea (A); Swansea (H); Liverpool (A)

18th Hull 19pts
Newcastle (H); Man City (A); VILLA (H); QPR (H); Stoke (A); Sunderland (H)

19th QPR 19pts
Stoke (A); Southampton (H); Sunderland (A); Hull (A); Spurs (H); Arsenal (H)

20th Leicester 17pts
Man Utd (A); Palace (H); Arsenal (A); Everton (A); Chelsea (H); Man City (A)


On first glance it looks like Leicester will do well to pick up more than 3pts over these games....if they don't win that Palace game then it looks like they will go for me!

Sunderland have the best set of games coming up, with points possible from 5 of the 6 games. Signing Defoe could prove the difference, I fancy them to secure at least 10pts from these 6 games.

4 of QPR's next 6 are away, and we all know what their away form is like. The pressure on their 2 home games will be immense, can't see them picking up more than 3pts over the next 6 games.

Watching the Albion last night it would seem they are destined to be even more boring than us...they will most likely draw most of their games, they won't pick up more than 6pts over the next 6 games.

For us, we should be looking at getting 10pts from these games if we are to avoid being right in the thick of the gun battle. Home wins against Stoke and WBA are an absolute must, and picking up 4pts against Hull/Newcastle is very possible. I am being very optimistic I know, 5 or 6pts are more likely.