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Just when it looked like this team may start to climb out of the bottom half everyone else starts to win. The story of Aston Villa’s season one fears. They are a team I really wish stays up, full of young talent it shows what can be done, and next season with the addition of a couple of older heads they could have a really good squad.
The hope for Villa is that they have the players among them who could change their fortunes. Christian Benteke to name but one player who could keep Villa up this season, his goals have stopped them coming adrift so far this season.
Villa have three games they will look to win, Sunderland, Norwich City and of course the last day against us. In amongst that are two games against Chelsea and Manchester United. If Villa don’t win all three of their winnable games, then I think that could be it.
This season was so full of hope for us wasn’t it? Yet now here we are all over again, we ourselves have six games left to play thanks to our fantastic FA Cup run. Yet we will be wondering why we are still on 31 points after a fine display against Manchester City.
It was very much the Wigan team of last season that was on show, and a 1-0 defeat was an unfair result from a game where anything would have been helpful. Yet as it stand we will now have to hope we can take advantage of our final game in hand.
That is a home tie against Swansea City (a must win). The other five of our games see us face three tough away matches at West Ham, West Brom and Arsenal. We need at least four points from those three games, that leaves us with two home games against Tottenham four from them and we will go some way to going safe. To stay up I think we need to aim for ten to twelve points from our last six points.
Harry Rednapp couldn’t do anything to stop this sinking ship. Money wasn’t the answer and I don’t think it will be. With five games to go, they are ten points clear of safety. They will have to win all five and then hope for a miracle to stay up.
Winning their next five isn’t beyond them; they have the players with Loic Remy and Adele Tarrabt who really can mix it with the best when they are on their day. But they haven’t done it enough this season.
Yet like I said before they would have to win all five, and with games agents Liverpool and Arsenal on the horizon I don’t see it (Liverpool away on the final day). They do have three games against Stoke, Newcastle and Reading all of which are winnable. So even if they can’t stay up QPR could hurt some other team’s chances of survival (Reading though are already gone).
Reading
New manager Nigel Adkins surely must not have been asked to keep these guys in the Premier League, for it would be an impossible task. They like QPR would have to win all of their remaining games, and they look some way of doing that.
Reading, much like Norwich, don’t really have a player who is bursting into form. A draw against Liverpool at the weekend slowed their official relegation, and that is the way it will be. Any point they pick up will only stall their relegation from the Premier League. That is unless they manage to pull a rabbit out of the hat.
To do that they would have to beat Norwich, QPR, Fulham, Manchester City and West Ham United. Sorry to tell you Royals fans, but that isn’t going to happen. You can at least try and disrupt a few other teams survival push by getting three points off them.