This season has been amazing. If we cool off a bit and end up in 5th or 6th at season’s end I will still be exceedingly happy. It feels like it’s been 20 years since our players, coaching staff, administration, and ownership were on the same page. It’s great.
Great feeling going for the Prem Title with NO pressure. Total underdogs, no expectation, just enjoying being on the wave..UTV...Great analysis and content.
We still have expectations, I think a UCL place was a boat too far. We probably wanted a UECL placement whether via winning the Conference league or finishing 6th. But you have to update your targets now.
I don't understand why people say there is no pressure, if you as a player think there is a chance, pressure is always there, if there is a pressure on being #1 in your team, how can there be NO pressure performing game to game in order to win😂
@@alexcoyg3281I think what’s he’s talking about is that if they lose McGin/Luiz, and a CB to injury and they slide, no one will fault them. Whereas Spurs, a club with slightly higher expectations (jokes about spursy aside), so they lost the leagues leading attacking midfielder and 2 CB’s, a fullback and a 6, they outplay teams but lose and they get slaughtered for it
@@alexcoyg3281 the pressure is coming, so far we havent had much but the more people talk the more pressure we will get, if we are still up there after christmas thats when the pressure will come, i think emery has done really well so far keeping expectations in check and maintaining the underdog status but there is only so far he can take that
That is weird, because all the RU-vidrs I follow had your summer recruitment down as phenomenal, and that you were deffo in the top 4 race. Emery is doing a great job all round.
4 months later, it hurts me to say that we were not title contenders after all. HOWEVER, we are almost certainly looking at Champions League football next year. We have only ever been in the CL twice and we got to the quarter finals once and won the whole thing the other! Fingers crossed we can keep up the good record. xD
One more thing i would add to this video is how jacob ramsey and morano have just come back from injury adding more depth just before the jan transfer window where i can see a further 2 top additions coming in adding even more quality and depth to the side
I enjoyed flying under the radar 😂, but tbh I only think we are title contenders if we can get points against the big teams at their place, this will be key, atm our away form isn’t there, so for this reason I’m more than happy with CL if we can get it UTV
Well, there's no doubt that our away form will improve....in fact, it has been improving in increments....beating spurs away, getting a point at Bournemouth. We have a depth of squad & will add to this in Jan as we are attracting big names with our our form, ambitions, finances & committed (wealthy) owners. Emery declined the job offer from Newcastle & shortly after, signed for Villa because he recognises the potential of the club, the opportunity it presents for him to achieve the greatest prizes in the sport & despite the promise of early success, his vision is to develop Villa over a number of years, improving with each season. He's a manager with integrity & driven by a single-minded desire that he cannot deviate from. Villa is a lion again, reinvigorated & hungry for victory....there's no room for the fickle, dead weight leeches....our players show their claws. However, top four is difficult for any team, especially maintaining form with injuries.....time will tell, but now our doubters are sitting on the fence all hushed.
@@Toasty_93it’s our best league start since we won in 81 you can’t say ohh villa park is a fortress and that’s why we are so high our worst performances are normally the weekend after a ECL game probably because the players are a bit fatigued but we beat city on Wednesday and then arsenal on Saturday so maybe we are turning a corner in that regard
Your giving all our best kept secrets away. I want to go under the radar till March and see where we are then. Great analysis Up the mighty Villa and good luck super hoop's.
Even if we win the Prem I still want us to go unnoticed. I want tinted windows on the victory bus and Unai to finally transform into Count Dracula so he is unrecognizable.
Unai has been there just over 12 months and we're getting better and better and better. Here people saying villa will dip soon , it's been over a year and still no dip
Still very risky, but when the defense work togheter is almost impossible to play through, you're forced to dribble, and if they can 2v1 on the wings its very hard to score
Beautifully put James. I’m a 40 year Villa fan here. And I love that we are going under the radar by hiding in plain sight. Leicester were consistently written off in 15/16. Believe! I love what you said there. Because why the hell not?! Unai has already reached God-like status & done unbelievable things. So perhaps he’ll be only known as the ineffable one in the future. There will be no word or words to describe him or what he’s done 😉⚽️😇
Liverpool took that high line to a new level in 18/19 and 19/20. Weird overlooking that and calling this revolutionary. Take a look at the Offside stats for those seasons.
Difficult to find the stats, but yer the 21/22 season Liverpool averaged 3.7 offsides per game. Villa are averaging 3.3 since Emery came in. Good catch.
It's possible to keep around the top 4 given how dedicated Emery is to detail. I think it would be a mistake not to significantly strengthen in January because we're an injury or 2 away from being quite ordinary. It could be interesting by January though because the next few games are potentially not as tricky.
The finances are there for us to make a couple big signings in Jan. The difficulty is finding the players which fit. Lots of clamour for RB and CDM but they need to be such a high standard to have any chance of getting game time. The thing we have in our favour is pretty much any player in the world right now should want to play for this Villa side, barring those already at the absolute pinnacle.
@@user-ed7et3pb4o we could really do with getting someone young in or actually giving sinisalo some game time. No way we can really upgrade on Olsen but makes more sense to bring someone into the fold that can be developed.
Aston Villa have also now had the hardest start to the season of the top 10 teams, w/ opponents averaging 1.51 PPG. Their next 4 games average 0.99 PPG, compared to Arsenal's at 1.94 lol. Should be Liverpool and Villa 1 and 2 going into 2024. Also, after the Arsenal game Villa are now 2nd place on the PL table for 2023 calendar year. City = 86 Villa = 78 Arsenal = 77 and Liverpool = 76! This is going to be a fun title race.
Oh I 100% believe it. We are a serious squad with tactics and a system that favours its players. Thank you for recognising us. The bias on TV is absolutely stinking. And to see the stats broken down like that, just proves what we’ve seen with our eyes week in week out. Thank you. I am now a subscriber. I’ve watched a few of your videos and you seem like a lovely bloke. Keep up the good work, on all the teams x
I don't know what will happen next but we are in the title race for now, what I am convinced of is that this is no flash in the pan, this project started in 2018 and the plan isn't to compete with the best its to join them.
Thank you. Absolutely fed up with people saying "they look amazing, they could get top 4". No, for a whole calender year they are in title winning form. It's not a fluke. Their high line and offside trap looks like title winning Liverpool side from few years back.
James, well put, but you could have reinforced another point; when your world cup winning goalie says 'Im a believer mate' when posed with the same question you know you have that leadership and winning mentality amongst the troops.
This makes me feel validated for predicting Aston Villa to finish 4th right before the season started in early August. At least one of my table predictions is going well.
Let's go back to 1st game of the season a horror show at Newcastle REMEMBER while we were cursing Sir Alex Ferguson said even though villa lost bad I like what I see in this team HOW right he was voice of experience
Honestly refreshing to hear a neutral observer, supporting the idea that Villa are the real dea,l instead of slagging us off to please the old big six fan bases. Well done Sir!
Villa fans don't expect to win the league, just improve on last year. It's everyone outside the club chatting bollox before we are even at the business end of the season. The amount of comments still putting the club down though from the entitled is quite laughable too. I see a lot of Arsenal fans are still bitching days on, like they've been robbed of the league title when they generally fold after xmas anyway.
Watch us go and get tonked at brentford now 😂 ive been around Villa too long, im not falling for it😆 There is a little seed of hope growing though, I will admit.
@6:58 "Surely Aston couldn't be the 1st team to win every Premier league home game in a season" COULD THEY? If that doesn't turn into a meme or a very popular short I'll be very surprised indeed. It was the camera switch and " could they" . Pure class from Mr Alcott. Sometimes its the simplest of things that have a big effect.
In so many ways Villa remind me of Spurs start of season except much more likable and less media-driven. The Benjamin Zephaniah tribute before the Arsenal game was class
I loved the bonus reason for 3 big reasons, and will continue to dream because of them: 1. You mention John Gregory, that’s the first time I went to see villa and became a fan eyyy 2. There’s no point in not dreaming. If we go on a bad streak, we already had a wonderful time. I’m just loving it in the now. And most importantly, and **CRUCIALLY**: 3. I live about a mile from the King Power. I moved to Leicester 2 months before the foxes won the title. I saw how this city reacted, and I didn’t just start dreaming villa could do the same now, I started in 2016 when we got relegated. It might seem silly, but I just hoped and hoped one day I’d see this for my own team, despite their dire situation in that year. I started heading to Villa Park more and made it a point to care even more now they were in the championship. And the love paid off, it’s just been wild. Will they win the league? Well it’d certainly be wonderful. But even finishing 7th and getting Europe last year was a dream in itself, so let’s see what they can do now ey?
I’m a Villa fan and stats don’t tell the whole story. I’d say top 4 is realistic but without major January window moves we do not have the squad depth for a title push
V insightful. Liverpool also have the most points, most wins, least losses, least goals conceded, 2nd most goals and highest goal difference. Yet City are the bookies favourites to win the league by some distance. I think the table will still finish City, Liverpool and then Arsenal, Villa won’t finish above 4th.
With all the pre season talk being about a Man City - Arsenal title race, and Man United and Chelsea for top 4 ... I'd love it if Liverpool win the league and Villa finish second
Had this earlier in the season too re XG and how over the course of a season it'll even out and we'll find our rightful place not in the top four. But here we are nearly half way through the season still ticking away.... Lies, damn lies and statistics.
If you look at how and when we overperfom xG it tells a more sustainable story one of my other comments where I went into it a bit more: 'Majority of games this year we have overperformed our xG AND had the higher xG. Only games were we didn't was Chelsea, Spurs, Man City, and Arsenal. Now we scored first in all of those which you have to admit (especially say w/ Arsenal where we score early) changes the xG stats. The Arsenal game follows the trend of last year where we had great xG for first 20 minutes, scored (one of the best early goal records in league) and then became alot more resolute and let teams come to us a bit more, though still in a medium block looking for the counter. If you spend the majority of a game in a winning game state and just exploding out on the counter when the chances are good your xG is often worse. Where the chances aren't high quality we often opt to retain the ball. And that is why we are the only team not to drop points from a leading position this season, and why we often overperform xG in games we score first in.'
Villa fan, born by the ground (literally and in the same year we won the European Cup, which explains why my dad was awol for the first year of my life and in a loveless marriage for the next 17 years 😂). I wonder what the xg is for Villa fans vs getting sexy time with the misses? I bet Uni is soon to be the mastermind behind a baby boom christened in claret and blue
Didn't the Arsenal Invincibles go all season Un beaten too ? Villa are flying atm and i love A the way were doing it Prime example for the rest of the League on how it should be done B we have World class running from the Board room to the coach from striker to keeper were in great Shape anyone who thinks were not contenders at the very least are blind to Our Season Im loving be a Villan right now we waited a long time for this UTV
I'm just enjoying the ride, we've had a very rough time ever since Lerner/Xia ruined us. I feel the title is to big a challenge but I'd love to see us in the Champions league and win a cup if possible.
Emery’s cementing himself in the Prem and I think he just may win them some silverware. Aston Villa looking dangerous without Mings and Buendia but I wonder if they’d be able to hang on with a couple more injuries
TBH I think only City have the squad to take a hit to a few important players and keep on rolling. Look what has happened to Spurs and Newcastle, Arsenal last season etc.
@@QuotidianStupidity City have the smallest squad in the league, really never going to understand this take. They haven’t had a full bench of subs for like half their games this season. If it’s individual quality you’re talking about unlike all the rest then I agree, their players are practically programmed to be winners
Arguably Torres is better on the ball than Mings and Buendia was a frustrating player, very hot and cold. We've only just got back Ramsey and Moreno, 2 of our best players towards the end of last season. Our squad is stronger than ever. With January round the corner, a RB, Winger/Striker and a back up to Kamara, we should be sound.
Early klopp era we played a high line, backing the recovery speed of VVD and Gomez backing their pace as well as the reassurance of VAR. This approach will only work for so long. Emery hasn't reinvented the wheel
@@MindSurf248and yet, when Villa brought the same high line offside trap to Anfield it cost them massively. TAA literally was picking it apart from behind both of Liverpool’s CB to any midfield runner that wanted the ball that led to constant Liverpool attacks and a 3-0 score which should have been a hell of a lot more. Villa may be in contention for top 4, but nowhere near title contenders.
I’m completely in on the idea of Villa - as per their performance over not only this season, but the entirery of Emery’s management - is a true title contender, but the interpretation and «statistical analysis» on points 5 and 6 are questionable at best. Both xG overperformance and individual error stats show time and again that they tend to trend towards the mean over time. Meaning that, if anything, those stats should be an indication that it’s highly improbable that Villa will continue to take as many points per game that they do. Of course, it’s not outside of the realms of the possibility that they will (and the individual performances of the likes of Watkins, Bailey and Konsa can sort of support that on an «eye test» level), but for a statistical breakdown those stats are really arguments _against_ Villa’s title prospects. Hope to ser them competing all the way in, though!
I say this as a spurs fan, if we had Villa’s points still, everyone would be saying we’re contenders. Not like we’ve won it, in fact Villa won it more recently than us - so even though I doubt they’ll do it they have to be a contender
Anyone thinking Villa are gonna drop off anytime soon either don’t watch us, can’t comprehend that there “top 6” club ain’t up there anymore or don’t understand the fact that we’ve been playing this way since Emery came in. Literally second in the leauge for points in the calendar year… when are we gonna drop off? That’s more points than Arsenal Liverpool Newcastle everyone accept Man City…. From January to December…. We are literally one of 4 best teams in the prem right now and we’re only going to get better 🤣 if you think otherwise your gonna really struggle for a long time coming to terms with it,but your gonna have too 😅
How dare James just force that Ainsly down our throats like this is some sort of low rate JAFFN episode and not some of the greatest football punditry ever recorded.
Sometimes it's easier when your team are middle of the road. Will I be disappointed if we don't get into champions League next year? Should I be? Whatever happens I will more than likely be disappointed. It's a funny old game. Hopefully we will keep hold of our key players this transfer window coming up. It seems that Mr Emery can't do much wrong, but whatever happens I will be proud. An 8th league title would be lovely. An 8th F.A cup winner would be fantastic. Maybe a 6th league cup win. Watch this space.
liverpool and bayern wernt doing this 2 or 3 years ago.?. it works until it doesnt. Check how many teams liverpool were catching offside then. I like villa's boldness in moving the bold in transition
