The Relegation Thread

[Trotters]

Thought I'd use this as a dumping ground for all the dickhead comments in the media from ex-players, ex-managers, pundits and all the other cock-spanks that seem to think their opinion on Villa is worth 2/5th's of fuck-all.

First cab off the rank is Tony Cascarino.

Aston Villa would benefit from relegation this season, says former striker

11:11, 1 Nov 2015
By Joseph Chapman

Tony Cascarino has described Aston Villa's situation as being 'critical'


Some clown-shoe challenges for the ball whilst wondering if his opinion will matter in 25 years. No it won't, dickhead. No it won't.

Former Aston Villa striker Tony Cascarino has suggested Villa would benefit from relegation this season.

The claret and blues’ one-time record signing, who spent the 1990-91 season at Villa Park, wrote in his column for The Times that the club needs to start afresh - and one way of doing that would be dropping down a division.

The former Ireland forward said: “I suspect Villa will be relegated this season but I actually believe that would be the best thing for them.

“The club are in a critical condition - they need to hit rock-bottom, which could lead to a big revamp.

“It feels like a business that has been allowed to drift and is now in freefall. I don’t see a plan.

“Sometimes when a manager leaves it can lift players who have been ground down by the regime, but it’s slightly different in Tim Sherwood’s case because there are so many players at Villa who have just arrived.”

[UnclePanda]

Relegation wont help. All that will happen is we will have the same problems, just in a lower league.

[Guest]

It won't help, but I'll put it down that I think we're relegated.

We are a third into the season with 4 fucking points. I think we have to realise that we're playing in the championship next season.

On the other hand I thought we were relegated last season as well, so what do I know.

[achilles]

It would be catastrophic as we would lose a lot of the current players due to release clauses in their contracts, so we would just have to start all over again and that is just to get out of the championship, then it would be another effort if we got promoted or we could end up like Leeds or Nottingham Forest to name just two!

[Dazzle]

The thing is, trotters, this is simply another ex professional who can see that Villa are heading for a crash, he is correct in that. Where i think he is wrong is in thinking that relegation would be the bottom, as the bottom for me is when the club goes down the divisions to a point where it goes bust, a bit like Glasgow Rangers.
Aston Villa FC under Randolph Lerner could easily go very wrong, very quickly. Should Villa go down this season I'd expect Randolph to trouser all the "prize" money due (he's essentially done that with the £60m+ from last season) and then trouser all the parachute money whilst selling off the players that are sellable in something of a fire sale. With that money trousered he can easily decide to offload the club to any buyer willing to stump up around £100m and fuck off into the distance to live "amongst his own". Don't think this can't happen and he wouldn't do it. It's all about the money.

[Dazzle]

It would be catastrophic as we would lose a lot of the current players due to release clauses in their contracts, so we would just have to start all over again and that is just to get out of the championship, then it would be another effort if we got promoted or we could end up like Leeds or Nottingham Forest to name just two!  

Sheffield Wednesday, Sheffield United, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Middlesbrough, Blackburn, Coventry, Portsmouth, Wimbledon. In my lifetime these have all been established top flight football clubs, with certain levels of success that either match or surpass Villa's successes of the last 20 or so years. All have spent years in the lower leagues and some have either gone bust or been as close as possible. It's very easy to see how Villa could slip into the same scenario, and it's easily done.

[UnclePanda]

You can add Leeds, Charlton, QPR, Ipswich, Fulham, Derby, Blues, Wigan, to that list. Theyve all spent decent amount of time in the Prem recently.
If you want to go back to the start of the Prem, you got the likes of Swindon, Barnsley etc who wont be back for a long, long time.
We wont bounce back straight away, IMO.

But, for me, just so long as theres an Aston Villa FC to support. I read here somewhere, I support AVFC, not the Premier League

[ember]

Tony Cascarino is fucked up retarded on a deep chromosomal level. I'm astonished a beast that dumb even has the power of speech that is cogent to normal people, let alone actually played professional football.

Then again, greyhounds are pretty much thick as fuck but they are capable of chasing a moving object, even though they are so fucking thick they think it's real.

[Thinman]

He talks about us reaching 'rock bottom' but surely it depends what that is. I suspect that with relegation, Lerner will get even more disaffected to the point where he will just seek to cut costs drastically making any potential promotion push at first attempt pretty unlikely.

So what is 'rock bottom' ?  League 1 ? League 2?

[Mooseman]

What a bell end,I doubt we'd come straight back up, and it would cripple us financially! Wish some of these ex players would keep quiet! Utv

[Saunders82]

Cascarino never had any brains, he turned us down once for Millwall him and Sheringham too. He soon realised his mistake tho and joined us a few years later but couldn't cut it in the big leagues, what does he know? I think we have hit bottom & there is only one way to go, we will see in January if Randy starts spending a bit of cash to push us upwards we will be OK.

[De Kuip]

Right, well in response to that doom-laden twat KMac's prediction that we'll need CL performance to survive relegation, I've done a bit of analysis over the past 5 seasons prior to this one:

Position after 11 games over the last 5 seasons. Number before forward slash is the points total at 11 games, after the slash, points total after 38 games.

2015/16: Newc 7  Sun 6 Villa 4

2014/15: Leics 9/41  QPR 8/30 Burnley 7/33 -  36 points would = safe.  Leics survived on 41 pts (14th), Hull went down on 35 pts, Burnley on 33 pts, QPR on 30 pts..

2013/14: Fulham 10/32 Sun 7/38 Palace 4/45 – 34 pts would = safe. Sun survived on 38 pts (14th), Palace survived on 45 pts (11th). Fulham went down on 32 pts, Norwich went down on 33 pts, Cardiff went down on 30 pts.

2012/13: Reading 9/28 Soton 5/41 QPR 4/. 37 pts would = safe. Soton survived on 41 pts (14th). Wigan went down on 36 pts, Reading went down on 28 pts, QPR went down on 25 pts.

2011/2: Bolton 9/36  Blackburn 6/31 Wigan 5/43. 37 pts would = safe. Wigan survived on 43 pts (15th). Bolton went down on 36 pts, Blackburn went down on 31 pts, Wolves went down on 25 pts.

2010/11: Wigan 10/42 Wolves 9/40, West Ham 7/33. 40 pts would = safe. Wigan survived on 42 pts (16th) and Wolves survived on 40 pts (17th).  Blouse went down on 39 pts, Blackpool went down on 39 pts, West Ham went down on 33 pts.

Conclusions:

Given the changing nature of the Prem - I'm concentrating on the last 3 years.

2014/15: Although Leics had 5 more points than us at this stage, they finished 14th - 5 pts clear of safety, so we'd need to match their performance to survive (and theirs was really good!).

2013/14: Sunderland had 3 more points than us, but survived by 4 pts, so we'd have to match their performance. Palace had the same points as us after 11 games, but they finished 11th and survived by 11 pts - we wouldn't have to match their performance (thank God) but I also think there was a win less in the relegated teams (34 pts instead of the closer-to-normal 37) so it's fair to think Palace survived - in any other season, by 8 pts.

2012/13: Soton had 5 pts after 11 games, and survived by 4 pts (41 above 37) and finished 14th. again, we'd have to match them.

So, looking at the 4 teams that survived relegation from a similar position to us, this is what points they won from game 11 to the end of the season - the first is the actual points won, after the forward slash is the points that would have got them safe (i.e. 17th). After the dash is the points per match actually earned/needed to finish 17th.

Leics: 32 pts/27 pts. - 1.19/1.00

Sund: 31 pts/27 pts - 1.15/1.00

Place: 41 pts/30 pts - 1.52/1.11 (but this was a 34 pt safety year)

Soton: 36 pts/32 pts - 1.33/1.19

Now let's look at the last place CL in the Prem over the last 5 years and look at the points/game needed:

2014/15: Arsenal. 70 pts = 1.84 pts/game

2013/14: Arsenal. 79 pts = 2.08 pts/game

2012/13: Arsenal. 75 pts = 1.97 pts/game

2011/12: Spurs. 69 pts = 1.82 pts/game

2010/11: Arsenal. 69 pts = 1.82 pts/game

So we don't need "Champions League" performances KMac - piss off with your depress-fest.

What we do need is (if we work off 37 pts = safe this year), 33 points from 27 games = 1.22 pts per game, but I'm going to stick my neck out and say 35 points is safe this year, just because I have a feeling it will be, which would equal 1.15 pts per game - all of the 4 survivors above did better or as well as that target, so there's hope, there is definitely hope.

The next thing I'll look at (in another post) is who they (the 4 surviving clubs as above) each played against in their remaining 27 games, and try and work out whether they had harder fixtures in which they got their points than we have remaining (although obviously this season is conjecture going forward).

[De Kuip]

Okay, so I've done a final check and it's not good news (although there's a few assumptions in my work!).

I've taken the 4 surviving teams and looked at the 27 games they all had left, who they played and what the results were.

I've arbitrarily placed each team as 17th best in the table (remember these are 4 teams but 3 different seasons) and I've given each team they played a "difficulty factor" (DF), depending on how many places above or below 17th that team was (it's an estimate as the table changes every week of course, but I've done the same for each surviving team so it's as equal as it can be). for example 1st place team has a difficulty factor of 17, last place of -3.

So, taking each of the 4 survivors, the total difficulty factor (DF) each faced over the 27 remaining games was this (points earned are after the forward slash):

Leics: 181/32 pts

Sund: 197/ 30 pts

Palace: 190/41 pts

Soton 182/33 pts

Now the bad news.......

I've placed Villa at 17th as well for consistency (although of course we're 20th) - our Difficulty factor is..........225!! And we need 33 pts from these 27 games.

Now I know that there are some teams strangely high up the table that weren't in previous seasons, but there are some previously top ones lower as well, plus, as I said, I've put us at 17th, so in fact at 20th the difficulty factor would be even worse.

This is what I think will do for us in the end - not the games left, not what Remi can do with what he's got, not what we might buy in Jan, but the difficulty of our remaining fixtures, based on team positions this year. The DF is much, much higher than that faced by the other 4 survivors that I've chosen to compare us with.

Not good, not good at all - I was hopeful until I started this analysis, damn.

[Guest]

Great posts

[achilles]

A couple of superb posts there De Kuip, unfortunately not very positive ones which only confirm my suspicions that this could be the year and I have never said that before this season!

[avfcjoe]

Okay, so I've done a final check and it's not good news (although there's a few assumptions in my work!).

I've taken the 4 surviving teams and looked at the 27 games they all had left, who they played and what the results were.

I've arbitrarily placed each team as 17th best in the table (remember these are 4 teams but 3 different seasons) and I've given each team they played a "difficulty factor" (DF), depending on how many places above or below 17th that team was (it's an estimate as the table changes every week of course, but I've done the same for each surviving team so it's as equal as it can be). for example 1st place team has a difficulty factor of 17, last place of -3.

So, taking each of the 4 survivors, the total difficulty factor (DF) each faced over the 27 remaining games was this (points earned are after the forward slash):

Leics: 181/32 pts

Sund: 197/ 30 pts

Palace: 190/41 pts

Soton 182/33 pts

Now the bad news.......

I've placed Villa at 17th as well for consistency (although of course we're 20th) - our Difficulty factor is..........225!! And we need 33 pts from these 27 games.

Now I know that there are some teams strangely high up the table that weren't in previous seasons, but there are some previously top ones lower as well, plus, as I said, I've put us at 17th, so in fact at 20th the difficulty factor would be even worse.

This is what I think will do for us in the end - not the games left, not what Remi can do with what he's got, not what we might buy in Jan, but the difficulty of our remaining fixtures, based on team positions this year. The DF is much, much higher than that faced by the other 4 survivors that I've chosen to compare us with.

Not good, not good at all - I was hopeful until I started this analysis, damn.

Great post, however, in my opinion, It is not that difficult for us to survive. We have to play every single team in the league still! Way i'm looking at it, is if you told me Man City are 4 points behind Utd, with 27 games to go, but City have very little chance of winning, i'd say you're talking rubbish. Just as I believe anyone writing us off at this point is doing the same!

[De Kuip]

Cheers all!

Joe - yep agree we have to play every single team still, but some twice and some only once, and the problem is that two of the twice teams are Man City and Arsenal..........

The teams we still  have to play twice are:
Man City 1st
Arsenal 2nd
WHU 6th
Soton 7th
Evtn 9th
Watford 11th
Norwich 16th
Newc 18th

Apart from Wat/Nor/New the others are in the top 9, and we have to play them twice!
If we need - say - 33 points, that's 11 wins from 27 games, then lets assume we won't beat the top 2 home or away, that's 4 games off. Let's assume we won't beat Man U away, nor Soton away, nor West Ham away, nor Everton away - that's reduced the games we could get something from to 19. So we need 11 wins from 19 games - see why I'm starting to think it's too big an ask?

[The Utterer]

I can't see anything other than a relegation. I just don't think we have the firepower to escape it regardless of how well the rest of the team play..I mean who are our strikers exactly? Gestede is a one trick pony and was 3rd choice in a Championship squad and i'm struggling to think of another! That's whats letting us down in my opinion and now the confidence has completely gone thus it's affecting the rest of the squad.

No we have an unsettled team with several unfit players by all accounts with just 1 one dimensional striker unless we're counting Ayew as an out & out Striker i guess and reports of bickering too!!

It's gone surely?! Unless Garde is some kind of genius though it sounds as though even he thinks it'll be a big ask to keep this lot up.

[Thinman]

I'm in the 'relegation is looking very likely' camp as well. I truly believe that Garde will do a reasonable job, maybe a great job, but just look what he's got to work with!

I'll modify my opinion if Lerner gets his cheque book out in January but I'm not convinced that will happen.

[VillaBill]

I have to join the relegation camp too, although Norwich, Bournemouth, Newcastle & Sunderland are doing their best to keep us involved!

[thegaffer6]

Although it would hurt if we went down...the premier league for me personally is not the be all and end all. We're never going to win it or challenge for it, so really it doesn't matter what division we're in. Id almost rather go down and win more than 5 home matches in a season than stay up just to watch us toil horrifically. Of course this could all just be a subconscious coping mechanism ive developed, but as has already been said, I support Villa, not the premier league. What has it ever done for us??

[VillaBill]

Although it would hurt if we went down...the premier league for me personally is not the be all and end all. We're never going to win it or challenge for it, so really it doesn't matter what division we're in. Id almost rather go down and win more than 5 home matches in a season than stay up just to watch us toil horrifically. Of course this could all just be a subconscious coping mechanism ive developed, but as has already been said, I support Villa, not the premier league. What has it ever done for us??

Agreed Gaffer, the football we have endured these last few years has been dogshit, going down would hit Mr Lerner right where it hurts, but us as fans would get over it!

[achilles]

Our support will continue whatever league we are in, but I would love to stay up if only to piss off all the media and pundits!

[De Kuip]

Although it would hurt if we went down...the premier league for me personally is not the be all and end all. We're never going to win it or challenge for it, so really it doesn't matter what division we're in. Id almost rather go down and win more than 5 home matches in a season than stay up just to watch us toil horrifically. Of course this could all just be a subconscious coping mechanism ive developed, but as has already been said, I support Villa, not the premier league. What has it ever done for us??

Agreed Gaffer, the football we have endured these last few years has been dogshit, going down would hit Mr Lerner right where it hurts, but us as fans would get over it!

I'm starting to think this way as well, and you know what helped? When I was doing the analysis above, West Ham were one of the relegated teams in 2010/11 and I'd totally forgotten that they'd gone down. Not done too badly since they came back up - 10th/12th/13th and looking very good this year with a cracking manager in Bilic.

Maybe I can take the pain, just maybe........

[De Kuip]

Great post, however, in my opinion, It is not that difficult for us to survive. We have to play every single team in the league still! Way i'm looking at it, is if you told me Man City are 4 points behind Utd, with 27 games to go, but City have very little chance of winning, i'd say you're talking rubbish. Just as I believe anyone writing us off at this point is doing the same!

I've been thinking a bit more about avfcjoe's point and although I haven't got time in the next day or so, it is about Villa v other teams around us this season, even though hopefully my comparison with other "survivors" was hopefully of interest.

What I'll do is have a look at, say, the bottom 6 or 7 clubs at present, and I'll pretend each one is 17th, as above, and calculate the DF for each one for the remaining 27 games this season. Again, its conjecture, but it may at least show what each potentially faces, in order to be better than at least three others.

Right, off to watch Man C v Sevilla...............

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