Some relatively kind fixtures for Villa there to get back in the mix. If they get 3 wins out of those games it'll all become very tight. Let's hope Sunday's result against Citeh is the full extent of their new manager 'bounce'.
Just out of interest would anybody not have settled for a 4 point and +6 GD over 18th place at this stage in the proceedings?
Definitely not! AN is a God and but for poor officiating and bad luck we could and should be about 20pts and +432 GD over 18th. After such lavish spending during the summer I expected nothing less! Bah!
I agree we're pretty good CT, but as GM says, we could so easily be on 16 points (we should have beaten Stoke and West Ham) and be on around a +10 GD over 18th. Glass definitely half full though!!
Personally I am not overly happy with our current situation as we have played precious few of the top teams and burned away a number of winnable home matches. I reckon we have only over-achieved twice in terms of points gained (draw against the bin-dippers and win at the Mackems) whereas we have underachieved a few more times. Not in terms of performance, solely on results such as Palace/WBA/Stoke/Leicester. When you look at what we have tom come in the next few weeks I can see us being dragged into to the bottom three by late-December unless we can get a positive result at Watford and finally beast Villa as I don't foresee a lot of points coming our way from the rest of our upcoming fixtures..
That really does put into perspective how much tougher Villa's run has been. But, Everton, Southampton and Arsenal are all tough games, as is West Ham this season. Let's hope we can finally put them out the sword when they visit us
Going by the average league positions of their opponents the relative toughness is: Villa opponents 9.9th Sunderland 8.5th Bournemouth 8.6th Norwich 9.6th So marginally harder games for Sunderland and Bournemouth.
Fingers crossed it turns out like that. I can't wait for us to massacre that shower of s*** currently residing in 16th place in a week and a half.
More like two and a half weeks, Fleet, but that will be an important game for sure. Win and we could drag them down into the bottom group while moving ourselves up toward mid-table. We just have to knock off Chelsea and arsenal first!
I was referring to Chelsea, Rick! Just observing that league position at this time of the season is a good indicator of ability, but may not give the full picture.
Fair enough, Fleet - I should have paid closer attention to the 16th place, but it seems so weird them being below us! I'd also love to win that one as I can't stand Mourinho!
I quite like Mourinho, he's an oddball alright but there is something about him that reminds me of Cloughie.
Clough took an unfancied team to new heights. Mourinho walked into the Chelsea job (twice). I just dislike the constant sulking and blame everyone else attitude he has.
I used to really like Mourinho. He had an edge, an arrogance that you couldn't help but admire because he did have a bit of magic about him. Today he is a sad shadow of that former self and has begun to appear like a miserable spoilt kid who wants to blame everyone else for reasons that make little sense and he is becoming a laughing stock. If we can turn them over next weekend it may well be curtains for him.
I don't in any way support Chelsea but they have had some pretty poor decisions go against them. We would be moaning if it was us.
Jose is just miserable this time around. Just a whiney b*tch this season. Use to love the guy and his press conferences. Now, I can pretty much guess every line he trots out....When he actually responds.
