Comments on: How Far Are Aston Villa From Being A Champions League Team?

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:54:14 +0000

re: the forum. i noticed an incoming link from your yuku board, so i reciprocated with a sidebar link. have you abandoned the old place now? drop me an email, let me know what you guys are up to and i'll get my links squared away.

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:49:09 +0000

fabregas proved against us at the emirates that one man can make a difference, but so did butterfield for palace against wolves in the fa cup. every dog has his day, but can one player make the difference over a ~50 game season? i'm less convinced.

By: Chesney

Chesney — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 08:14:19 +0000

seville have 2 world class strikers, bordeaux have a world class striker & a midfielder, olympiacos have some quality and CL experienced players, stuttgart and cska are the only ones i reckon we are at least on par with.

it all comes back to just that 1 or 2 class players, but i guess anyone could say that, i don't know where they will come from or if we already have them, but we need to get them somehow!

yeah i done it all myself, only been photoshopping for 4 days, lol!

oh and us lot on avfccommunity are here: http://avfccommunity.f3d.pl/index.php, you have your own thread and everything, lol.

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 04:52:01 +0000

that's all very vague chez.

stuttgart, olympiacos, bordeaux, cska and seville play next week, i don't think any of them are *vastly* superior to us. if anyone wants to break down exactly what they have that we don't i'd love to hear it.

i'm not saying we could really compete to win the thing, but i don't think we'd disgrace ourselves is my point.

if that's your first wall, it's not a bad effort at all. if you made the render yourself, that's some nice work right there. keep practicing!

By: Chesney

Chesney — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:45:14 +0000

i don't think we are ready for it if i'm honest, i think it will be a few more years yet. compared to other sides in the CL we are nothing. i'm not saying it will be like 10 years, i reckon around 3-4 years when milner & co. will be world class!

oh and dan, what you think of my first wallpaper, http://i954.photobucket.com/albums/ae30/WingWiz...

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:57:36 +0000

good point. i'd like to say i cut it for brevity, but i actually forgot to include a reference to our record against the top 10. you're right, that alone pretty much proves our credentials, but the record against the bottom half then puts major question marks over us. we were 11th against teams 11-20 btw off the top of my head. definitely room for improvement!!

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:49:08 +0000

can't disagree sam, although i'm sure you realise that i'm not advocating rushing anything, i just think we're every bit as good as a lot of the teams in the champions league already and wouldn't disgrace ourselves in the tournament, we just happen to play in the world's best domestic league and qualifying for europe from the EPL is a massive task in itself.

By: anotherjames

anotherjames — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:07:50 +0000

I suppose if you look at our record against the top 10 in the Premiership – this lends serious weight to our ability to compete against the best, whether domestically or in Europe. But it's our inability to beat the apparently weaker sides that let us down. Maybe it's psychological – we try harder against the best teams, or it's tactical – we play better against teams that take the game to us, as we can play on the counter-attack. But I guess the weaker premier league teams may play against us in a similar way to the 'weaker' sides we encounter in the Europa league, or we at least approach them in a similar way.

So, I totally agree that we would need perhaps better options up front or in centre midfield, but probably our biggest need is to address our record against sides we perceive as being weaker than us. If we do that – we could then both qualify for the CL, and hopefully compete to some degree. Or at least get a decent run in the Europa league as we wouldn't get knocked out by the likes of Rapid Vienna.

As it stands on merit, Rapid Vienna are better than us. But potentially, yes we *could* compete in the CL.

Yes we can! UTV.

By: RSamVillaFan

RSamVillaFan — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:56:15 +0000

Whilst i was reading your piece, (very good by the way), i started thinking about the domestic cups and how well we seem to be doing.

The difference between this and last year has been the additions made to the squad and how well they have performed consistently. If we just consider the European games as games with more travelling, then the fatigue element that seemed to dog our season close last year, is not a issue this, due to the number of quality reserves.

Whilst i agree, as you are no doubt aware, with the need for a new striker, other positions i am relatively happy with.

Champions League........erm........not yet, though we did see off Fiorentina, i cant help thinking that there was nothing on the game. Had there been, i am sure they would have made it more of a game.

One thing is for certain we need to face some of these better European teams as the experience would be beneficial in the long term. I don't know whether it's just me but it seems that the style of play of the so called big four changes in European games. We have proved we can beat the top four, what we need to do now is find some consistency against the second tier teams and this includes snowy nights away in Russia. Only through playing in Europe can we progress, think of it as an apprenticeship.

Lets not try to run before we can walk. lol