The College Dropout

The Chelsea draw last week was a bonus. We always would need to beat them at home and if we have no further injuries or suspensions and Howe back I’m so confident we‘ll do it.

They gambled on January and it’s paying off. If they don’t qualify it will be by a small margin

Qualify for the CL and neither is sold. 50-60 games next season. First attacker off the bench, first midfielder off the bench, 3rd CB etc. should be first team quality. Villa brought on Ramsey, Onana, Malen and Rashford which killed us off. Full strength we only have Gordon, Trippier and Botman of that quality off the bench.

Aye so they need a mega run of 9 wins in 10 or something right? Thing with Villa is they have a great squad. They didn’t look tired because they have quality in depth. 4 wins and a draw gets them to 70 points. Thats not a crazy ask from here.

If they beat City I think they will get a minimum of 69 points. I think both sides would be happy with a draw. Definitely City. I long assumed 68 points would be enough. Still think it will be but GD might play a factor.

We’ve needed Villa to drop points for awhile and they just keep winning. I think that’s 7 in a row? If they beat City they’ll fancy themselves to win all but 1 of their remaining games at least. For Villa to pip us (assuming we get 68 points) they need to win 11 out of 12 or so in total. So fair fucks.

You recover best at home. If they want you to stay in hospital you are sick to the point the Doctors feel the need to monitor you and/or you require ongoing care

If we qualify for the CL we need another quality athletic CM. Bruno plays so many minutes and has to cover so much ground. He needed subbing today but we don’t have the options off the bench

We really do need Man City to beat these.

It should be enough. And if it isn’t it means Villa have won all but one of their remaining games.

Gareth Bale is as a clean a striker of the ball as you can find in the game.

He RAN to send me him off all dramatic like a cabaret queen. Big moment that

Referee was delighted to send him off

Give him another £170m to sign 4 players. GK, CB, CM, attacker. He rotates players he trusts. He didn’t trust Tino or Hall back then. But he did rotate with Wilson and Barnes as he trusted them. My only issue with Howe is that he might not play young talents like Tino or Hall from the start (Osula isn’t that level). He was too quick to get Tino back on the bench and he essentially perma benched Hall after a few poor showings.

btw with this new CL format, I think 90+ point seasons will be harder for even the cartel clubs until they can all get tremendous strength in-depth. The PL is too tough. The semi-perm 16 teams, are all pretty good. They can't give Darron Gibson's 15 pl games a season anymore

I agree with this. I genuinely think, if Villa had this squad at the start of the season, they would have another 6-8 points. That takes them from the bottom end of the CL battle, to pushing hard for 3 major competitions and getting CL football fairly comfortably. We can get there with 1 good window and a bit of luck.

I'm being hyperbolic, but we are another couple of players and some depth away from going up another level. That 76-85 point range, depending on the season, is a title challenge. We speak about the cartel. Only three of them are capable of exceeding 85 points next season, and only one will do that this season. There's no point in having players like Isak and Tonali, then targeting finishing 4th or 5th for the prime years of their career. We can target a 76-85 point season next year, if we achieve that, can that unlock finances to go 85+ points?

Small green arrow but I’ve had my worst season in years. Too much dip on my chip I think. Goinf to try and gamble every week but doesn’t feel like there are great choices

He’s been transformational. Onviously we’ve not signed a first team player in over a year. But we didn’t have Tonali in that time. We’ve replaced our weakest player, a central midfielder at that. With arguably our strongest player - at worst 3rd/4th strongest. It’s not 1 level, it’s at least 2. It’s like replacing Fabian Schar with a 24 year old VVD or Murphy with Saka. Probably a bigger gap than that still. It’s only 1 player and the same system more or less but an entirely different team. It’s a massive ask bexuas it’s difficult to make such big upgrades on the rest of the squad. But if we can sign another couple players the level of Tonali, Isak, Bruno etc and have some luck with injuries…….. we can win the Premier League boys and girls.

We need another CM regardless. The big 3 can't play 60 games a season and we can't suffer such a big drop in performance if one of them is out. It's so important we get a CM.

If i'm Guehi, i'm staying at Palace and collect a supermax contract as a free agent. I don't think he's good enough where a club goes drops £60m on him. But for free? £150-200k per week he could end up at City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Man U, Us etc..

I fancy Villa against Man City man. Man City will win the last 3. But I see them dropping points before then. I fancy both Villa and Everton to cause them trouble. We can finish above City for sure.

Thought he was quietly really good yesterday.

Think he's decent at them.

Think a big part of the game plan was the switches to the flanks. Bruno, Tonali and Schar to ping em. Schar landed 2 perfectly early on. Won all his duels and he was absolutely loving it, feeling it, in the zone. He had so much fun out there. Back off, I'll ping it anywhere I want. Press me, I'll drop my shoulder and run past you.