Author: Dale Rutter
Seven out of seven! We are officially the form team of the Championship! But let’s not stop there. Bring on Bristol City! It was such a great win against Rotherham and yes, on paper we should be beating them. On the night things didn’t quite go to plan, at first. It didn’t seem like it was going to be our night. A missed penalty by Tammy Abraham and then the sending off of Tyrone Mings which with the resulting penalty put us 1-0 down. I feared the worst at this point but I was wrong. The team showed real grit,…
Another great performance and win last weekend against Blackburn take Villa to five wins in a row. We have got ourselves back in contention for a playoff position and we must not take our foot off the gas. The belief is there that we can still make the playoffs but we must look to avoid dropping any more points between now and the end of the season. Bristol City was able to beat Middlesbrough in one of their two games in hand this week. It took them to fifth in the Championship. Derby County are a point behind us and…
The international break saw two emphatic wins by England and a first international goal for Conor Hourihane when playing for the Republic of Ireland. Now that is done with it is back to business with the return of the Championship. Dean Smith will be hoping that Villa can continue their rich vein of form as we look to cement a place in the playoffs. Blackburn Rovers are the visitors to Villa Park this weekend and hopefully, we can make it fives wins from five. Complacency has often been Villa’s problem when we come up against sides we are expected to…
Even the most pessimistic of Villa fans must surely be feeling a little optimism now after the pretty much flawless display against Middlesbrough. I thought we played well when we beat them in the reverse fixture at the Riverside Stadium. However, the performance at Villa Park may have topped that, for me. Promotion is a very real possibility. I think Middlesbrough would have struggled to score even if we were still playing now. Villa was that dominant. Everybody who watched the game could see how in control of the game Aston Villa, apart from Tony Pulis. I watched his post-match…
If you regularly read my articles then you will know the theme I have been going down over the past month or so. If not, then I am going to discuss our hope for the playoffs, purely because the hope shines brighter by the day. For those who are superstitious out there, I can’t stop now because it may just change our fortunes! Another fantastic result last night, this time against Nottingham Forest. Results seem to still be going our way as we now sit just two points outside the playoffs. It is amazing what a few weeks difference can…
Continuing in the vein of my recent posts, our season does still have a glimmer of hope. We must ensure we don’t get ahead of ourselves, just yet anyway. Aston Villa currently sits eleventh in the Championship, six points behind Bristol City in the final playoff position. We have managed to claw some points back in recent weeks but Bristol still has a game in hand. They will come up against automatic promotion-chasing Leeds this Saturday though. So we can only hope that things go our way. It is all ifs and buts. Villa still needs to go across the…
Last week I wrote an article titled ‘Is our season over’. This week, following a little bit of optimism I am going to turn that around in its head. Is our season still alive? I am approaching this weekend feeling a little better about Aston Villa’s chances. Don’t get me wrong, there is still a lot of work to be done. We need to pick up a serious amount of points in the run in and hope other results go our way. Despite only picking up a draw against Stoke, there were positives to take away from the performance. In…
I have tried to remain optimistic over the last few weeks. I still had hope that we could make the Championship playoffs. Well, since the West Brom defeat, my optimism has waned, no, actually, it has nearly diminished. Any hopes of still reaching the playoffs have all but extinguished but does that mean our season is over? Yes, I hear the majority of you cry and I agree, short term it certainly could be. At the start of the season and once again when Dean Smith took over, I was convinced we would gain promotion this year. Yet, here we…
Since our last meeting with WBA, Aston Villa have gradually slipped away from the playoff positions. It now could be deemed as make or break time in our season. Following the victory over Swansea on Boxing day, we sat just three points outside of those playoff positions. During the eight games since, we have averaged a point a game and now find ourselves seven points off the playoffs. During those eight games, we only one won game and that was against basement boys, Ipswich Town. Apart from Sheffield United, the other six opponents sit below us in the Championship. It…
Aston Villa was quite active in the January transfer window, having made five signings. The question everyone is asking is, will it change our fortunes and give us an extra boost? I will summarise the five signings by their cost price (according to Tranfermarkt.co.uk). Lovre Kalinic – £5.40m The 28-year-old was purchased from Genk and also plays for the Croatia national team. He has played three games for Villa so far and has mixed reviews from the faithful. Despite the odd error, I believe Kalinic will be a long term better goalkeeper than Ørjan Nyland. He has already proved that he…