We have all been witness to Aston Villa’s fortunes over the last couple of years. Not pretty is it?
In fact, having focussed on Villa almost exclusively, we haven’t noticed the awful situations some of the clubs around us are in. Rats are leaving a sinking ship as we Demba Ba has abandoned Newcastle United for greener, or rather bluer pastures at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge. Harry Redknapp is putting on a brave face despite being deep in trouble. Martin O’Neill appears more and more out of touch as Sunderland stumble, Fulham are spluttering and Wigan – despite their win against us last week – seem almost content to just be ankle deep in trouble rather than up to their waist in muck.
Looking to the solution for problems, the transfer window does a couple of things. Firstly, the best players of the worst teams get plucked by the top teams. This reaches down into the lower leagues as well – the poor always end up with their cupboards bare, left to panic and spend their money in an over-inflated market. Some of them end up back on the market a few short years after, primed for the poorer teams to take back, albeit in a much more used, tired, and expensive state, complete with artificially inflated egos. Make no doubt about it, the transfer window is good and bad in equal measure.
Have any team really saved themselves with buying in the transfer window? I suppose Darren Bent did in a sense, but we will never know how much he specifically contributed really. Two fortuitous wins against teams whose season were already decided? I suppose you could say Robbie Keane saved Villa last year with some timely goals. Again, thing are rarely as simple as just saying “He scored goals so he must have saved us” – it is a team game and, as we have seen this year, unless the whole team works together, it doesn’t matter if your striker is worth £24m or £24,000, no teamwork means disaster.
So, the window might or might not help avoiding relegation – time will tell. In my opinion, it definitely improves the teams at the top – sadly for us, I don’t believe we are close enough to the top at present to be a team that is helped as much as those sitting at the top of the food chain. For us, it is a cycle of trying to find new talent whilst keeping hold of whatever we have managed to find successfully. This means sticking with new faces and trying to make them into the finished article, whether we get to keep them in the end or not.
Now, as far as the relegation spectre is concerned, with it hanging over the bottom eight teams, who has the best chance of survival? Is the forty point mark the absolute minimum or is it a guarantee of safety? Well, this year with the top teams vacuuming up points at a pace I never expected, I suspect it will be more around thirty-five points, if that. After all there are only so many points in total, and most are accounted for past and future barring the shock wins that pop up sporadically.
Now, assuming the transfer window does little to affect teams in this year’s season, you would have to look at team’s performances, and character. Which teams, regardless of position right now are in the ascendancy and which are in an opposite mode? You decide.
For me, Villa, including the three games in purgatory have bought into Lambert’s philosophy and are getting into the Lambert mindset. They were beat badly but have they lost all hope? I don’t think so – it isn’t the end of the world
So here is where I put the crystal ball on the table. Using the aforementioned forty points as the magic number, here are some thoughts as to how it will end, starting at the bottom.
QPR, in order to reach forty need approximately nine wins out of 17 games, which is a pace only found in the top six in the league. Not likely and Harry didn’t become the messiah either. The fortunate thing for Mr Redknapp is, whatever happens, he can either shirk the blame of failure or steal the glory of success. Either way, I think they QPR will be relegated.
Reading, also need a similar return of points between now and the end of the campaign. I don’t think they are going to be achieving such high targets either so that puts them down for me – that is two accounted for of the three.
This leaves six teams to try and avoid finishing in 18th place. Fulham, Sunderland, and Newcastle are hardly covering themselves in glory at present. In fact, as the Barcodes from the North East have been knocked out of the FA Cup by Brighton, their confidence isn’t going to be flying either. Apart from those three, there are Wigan and Southampton to watch out for. For me, Wigan have the experience to pull out of the danger zone like the miracle workers they seem to be on a perennial basis. Southampton seem to have something about themselves, and I think they will scrape it.
Which leaves us. To reach thirty-five points, all we need to do is more of the same. To hit forty, we just need an extra two wins in the second half of the campaign compared with out first half. Hardly impossible, is it? With a few decent signings this month, Villa can get out of the mire, even if it isn’t by a massive amount.
So, for me, I pick Fulham or Newcastle for slot number eighteen. They may not be down there just yet, but things are not a bed of roses for the pair of them either. When we panic and think things are only awful for us, the reality is that many teams are suffering. With a bit of effective business this month, I imagine we will dodge relegation again.
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