As Things Stand Now - Where Will Villa Finish?

i reckon 21st place should be a fair assesment ;-p

8th is realistic. We haven't signed any decent players, simple. So we will definitely slide for sure. Unless MON can sign 4-5 great players, but he's had all summer to do so...so any we get in now will be panic buys, plan Fs and Gs sadly.

As it stands now, with Cuellar and Davies the only senior centre backs, we are gonna struggle. Davies has a dodgy shoulder that could pop out at any time. So as it stands with the current squad, somewhere between 8th and 12th. A couple of centrebacks and a striker then 6th/7th is possible

It will be hard to get the season started after losing 3-0 to Wigan this week. Maybe after that...

Having seen how the kids can step up when needed I'm not as worried as I was so I'm now expecting top half......just.

top half just?lol oh dear oh dear.A squad which has finished 6th for two seasons in a row and has improved is now a mid table team,Grow a brain.

Deppresives convention over here.

4th - no problem. Can't be bothered to argue why. Nice to see the levels of pessimism are still stratospheric on here though. I'll look in as the season progresses to see if any of the deeply doom mongering posters admit how wrong they've been!

with 3 more buys i expect we will eventually get i think we will be fighting to finish between 4th and 7th it all then depends on how things unfold dueing the coming season

I'm ultra-confident this season, we will finish 1st, no doubt about it. In fact we'll have the Prem wrapped up by Christmas allowing us to concentrate on the FA & Europa Cup, both of which we'll win. I doubt we'll even concede a goal all season, in fact I'd be surprised if we concede a throw in.

Roll on Saturday 3pm when all these stupid polls end and the pessimism can disappear!! Anyone would think we are a poor team, we have come on so far in three years and yet people still moan and moan!!

I think if we win all our games we have a good chance of winning the title this season..;)

Current Squad ?? Well Beye and Bouma can play CB respectively while Davies and Cueller are holding them places atm, we have Young who can play LB,RB, we have Reo Coker and Gardner to step into RB, and we have Lichaj ready to take RB too, Shorely LB so all in all it's not that bad, yes we will stuggle at the back like last season when we was without Laursen, but i just hope we buy one of the following, Upson, Dunne, Richards, Hangeland then we our problems won't be half as bad. We are still missing a creative midfielder and a striker, i believe we only need 3 FIRST TEAm players and we will be fighting for 4th.

I agree with lerner. We're gonna win the league!

As things stand now - wont we be joint top with Arsenal ?

Top 4 and silverware, bring it on.

exactly. we are second in the league already, without even conceding a goal. our defenders haven't even been troubled yet.

gee in that case Man U might have to qualify for europe through the carling cup!!!! :P Not sure if its worth us coming second if arsenal are top though...

learneravfc, there is an old saying in life, "if you're not moving forward you are moving backward. So what have we done to move forward? Bought a player that can't play until January, bought a promising but untested kid and a defender that is not expected to improve the first team as we are already good in his preferred position. In addition we have lost our captain and the man that steadied our defence for half of last season (incidentally the half where we were doing well and got up to the CL places) and we've lost our vice captain, the heart of the team (O'Neill said that, not me) and most influential player for us for the last 5 years. Yes, the emergence of the kids is encouraging but contrast this with our closest rivals: Everton, in about the same situation as us except they have not lost their two best players, Cahill and Lescott (although Lescott may still go). spuds, made some interesting changes, Jury still out but they played way better in the second half of the season than we did and that was the half when Happy harry was able to start playing "his" team. Citeh - do I need to comment? Fulham, again way better tn we were after we lost Laursen. West Ham, way better than we were after we lost Laursen.

The fact is, for whatever reason, things went wrong last season and I don't buy the exhaustion thing as Barry said that he was ready to play in Moscow and not too tired. My personal belief is that O'Neill lost them in Moscow and I don't see a reason why he has got them back. IMO he'd have been better served by wholesale changes so that he could rid himself ofthe players he "lost" in Moscow, after all, the kids, who he clearly hasn't lost, played well for him.

definately worried about the cover / strength in the centre of defence but young Clarke looked composed during pre season. Would like to see a goal scorer as well, but given that citeh will struggle for coherence and consistency, everton haven't strengthened yet, neither have the arse whilst liverpool have lost alonso. No reason why we shouldn't finish anywhere 3rd to 6th especially with kids like delph and albrighton breaking through.

The new season will certainly be interesting. The Villa now have the experience of top-four-in-the-league vertigo. The side is unlikely to lose its nerve again. Also, despite what many people say, there has been significant activity in the transfer market. Ronaldo, Tevez, Adebeyor, Toure and Alonso are all key players from the top clubs who have changed clubs. Man Citeh have a virtually new first team. Chelsea have a new coach. It will be fascinating to see the effects on those clubs, particularly Arsenal. If they can keep Lescott, Everton along with Arsenal, Citeh and maybe Fulham (If they can hold on to Haangeland) will probably be Villa's biggest rivals. I don't think Spuds will even be close. Whatever happens I hope there isn't a repeat of last seasons moronic booing, which almost certainly effected team spirit during the end of season run in.

Moscow was a fiasco true, however I'm not sure MON "lost" any players. What evidence is there of that? The loss of Laursen and gross negligence and complacency against Stoke City torpedoed Villa's 08/09 season. Good points though about Villa's decline the ascendency of the other clubs after Laursens injury.

4th/5th WITH SILVERWARE. and please, please, don't say we're gonna lose to wigan saturday. i'm from cambridge, have seen my beloved villa 11 times an not once seen them lose. i have a ticket for saturday..

1st obviously – otherwise why bother ? – oh sorry that’s Manu; I think we can do 3rd, no honestly.

2fishinatank have sent you an email requesting some of what you are on, they seem great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

who's wants to chip in for a season ticket for "Benji_Starsky" ????!!!!!!!!!

Love that. Train tickets and petrol funds wouldn't go a miss! UTV