Home Hype
In this week’s pre-match press conference Aston Villa boss was full of praise for Villa’s home form this season.
“Our home form has stacked up over the season. We’ve been very, very pleased with that,” he said.
It’s a statement that MOMS found rather surprising, as we mentioned on the recent podcast (listen below), yes, it’s an improvement on last season, but Villa’s home form needs serious improvement if they are to threaten the promotion places next season.
Why? Because it’s only actually the 9th best in the Championship this season, as the up-to-date Championship home form table below shows:
Championship Home Form Table
(Update: after the Norwich win, Villa now have the 8th best home form)
While Villa have only lost twice this season, a feat only matched by Brighton and Reading, it’s their failure to turn one point into three points that has cost them dearly.
When you consider Sheffield Wednesday have lost three more games than Villa at home, yet have still gained four more points (although have played a game more), it clearly tells the story that, it’s not how many games you don’t lose, but how many you win that counts.
Away Compensation
Considering Villa’s current poor away form (currently 18th best in the division), home comforts become even more important.
Interestingly Newcastle aren’t even in the top six for home form and actually are only one point better off than Villa. Their away form is on another level though with the Toon army registering an away record of W 13 D 4 L 3 – a total of 43 points. The next best away team in the Championship, Brighton, are nine points behind that total.
Performances
The key to proper home form, as we keep saying, is a drastic improvement in performances with more progressive tactics and attacking play (surely we have the players for that at this level?). Hopefully, a settled team can be found before the end of the season and with injuries seeming to clear up, this will certainly help Bruce.
There seems to be a lot of hype covering up the cracks of Villa’s season, but lets not exaggerate the truth. We have less points than we wanted from Villa Park this season, so the home form at this level is no great success.
However, in saying that, becoming hard to beat at Villa Park is a big step in the right direction that will hopefully be built on next season. It has to.
UTV
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Another negative article. I know we’re not playing like Barcelona and I know we’re over reliant on one goal scorer, but at the same time it’s nice to win. We know issues at the club run deeply so any of us with half a brain aren’t expecting some miraculous turnaround.
Start from the back. Don’t lose. Then build from there. We’ve signed some players that will help us going forward but they need to gel. We need to settle on a system. It doesn’t help Bruce that it seems like we get a new injury every week.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not blindly assuming everything is going to be fine, but at the same time I take some satisfaction we’re going in the right direct.
In conclusion, I’m POSITIVE about the club I support.
Nope, another article based in the real world and addressing these words from Bruce:
“Our home form has stacked up over the season. We’ve been very, very pleased with that.”
How can you be ‘very, very pleased’ with home form at a level that will never get us promoted?
If you’re happy with that then good for you, but I have bigger ambition. Ambition aka promotion, that if we don’t achieve soonish could spell big trouble for the club.
I see the big picture, others need to have one eye on it too.
We are heading in the right direction. Nothing we can do now over lack of winter points. If the team can be positive, the fans must be. I understood the point of he article, but three points are three points.
When was the last time MOM wrote a positive article? Always a snide bitchy undertone. Nowt positive to say? Say nothing.
Bruce like every manager has to put a positive spin on things.