[Albion] Will we ever be in the top three?

[Thunder Bolt]

Do we deserve that? We’re getting very entitled. New very young manager, new squad essentially, Pedro, O’Riley and yesterday Dunk out.

There’s moments like this every season for every club. Tottenham had one against US. Villa had one yesterday along with other clubs. Manchester United had one tonight. It was a bad loss of points, but we’ve won just last week with a smash and grab against Newcastle.

I said at the start of the season I hoped for top 10 and a cup run, absolutely nothing has changed.

The top clubs have better players, more money, more supporters and for us to even be in the conversation shows we are overachieving.

I’d suggest if you expect to be in the top four you’re probably watching the wrong club.

We’ve never ever won anything of note. Ever. Manchester City, Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal, Spurs, Newcastle, Everton, Nottingham Forest and the rest - all have cup and league wins, dozens of ‘em.

Reading this place today god knows what it’s going to be like when we slip down to mid table after facing Liverpool then Manchester City and losing in the cup.

Dear me.

Yes, it’s almost, not quite, like say We should be beating teams like …..
How we hated that when we first got promoted.

 

[nickjhs]

Oh ffs we are firmly in the frigging premier league, the pundits and other fans applaud the way we go about our football and our business, we have a good shot at being back in Europe next year, all this less than 30 years from nearly not existing and people are whining that we are not doing well enough. Just stop it.

 

[TugWilson]

It could be worse. Just think about entropy and the inevitable death of the universe.

You'll dream of being 5th in the Premier League when your constituent atoms are frozen lifeless and spread endlessly across the infinite expanse of space.

Well, you won't. But if you could in that situation, you would.

Morning Marvin

 

[TugWilson]

Worst part of all this is we dropped two points on Croydon

 

[Binney on acid]

Possibly, but not in this division.

 

[Justice]

Oh ffs we are firmly in the frigging premier league, the pundits and other fans applaud the way we go about our football and our business, we have a good shot at being back in Europe next year, all this less than 30 years from nearly not existing and people are whining that we are not doing well enough. Just stop it.

It wasn’t less than 30 years ago, we have to remember people who are now 30 won’t relate to the old days. They have watched the Albion on the main progress to where we are now.

 

[kevo]

Oh ffs we are firmly in the frigging premier league, the pundits and other fans applaud the way we go about our football and our business, we have a good shot at being back in Europe next year, all this less than 30 years from nearly not existing and people are whining that we are not doing well enough. Just stop it.

Who's whining? I was just asking if we'll ever get there.

 

[Justice]

Who's whining? I was just asking if we'll ever get there.

It’s a reasonable question had we beaten Wolves & Ipswich we would be top 3. It’s not so far away as some think.
Improve the home form and it’s not impossible.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Who's whining? I was just asking if we'll ever get there.

Do you mean at the end of the season or top 3 at any given time? If it’s the latter we have achieved that a couple of times.

 

[kevo]

Do you mean at the end of the season or top 3 at any given time? If it’s the latter we have achieved that a couple of times.

Only very early season though...

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Only very early season though...

But we have done it, early or not.

 

[jcdenton08]

On balance @kevo I understand your frustration that the win was thrown away. But look realistically; what difference would it have made if we were top three just for this week anyway? We have Liverpool away and Manchester City at home next in the league, and can have no realistic expectation of points from either of those games.

Our consistently poor home results against lower ranking sides is disappointing, but sums up our overall ability and is offset by our unexpected wins against those higher ranked.

If we could do both, we’d be flying, I agree. But I can pretty much guarantee, a “team like Brighton” would start winning the “easier” games and losing the harder ones.

To be consistently good you need world class footballers like Manchester City et al do, and that costs money - enormous money we don’t and might never have.

Leicester did it. Blackburn did it. They are extreme outliers and look what’s happened to them since.

Let’s aim at top half and a cup run, give Tony another pay back on his loan, and enjoy each and every game as it comes because we are in dreamland.

Who knows, we may go on another European tour in the next few seasons.

 

[Napper]

Would top 10 be an achievement after spending £ 183 000 000 close season, the most in the premier league ?

think you'd need to look at net spend the last 5 windows for fair assessment on that

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

On balance @kevo I understand your frustration that the win was thrown away. But look realistically; what difference would it have made if we were top three just for this week anyway? We have Liverpool away and Manchester City at home next in the league, and can have no realistic expectation of points from either of those games.

Our consistently poor home results against lower ranking sides is disappointing, but sums up our overall ability and is offset by our unexpected wins against those higher ranked.

If we could do both, we’d be flying, I agree. But I can pretty much guarantee, a “team like Brighton” would start winning the “easier” games and losing the harder ones.

To be consistently good you need world class footballers like Manchester City et al do, and that costs money - enormous money we don’t and might never have.

Leicester did it. Blackburn did it. They are extreme outliers and look what’s happened to them since.

Let’s aim at top half and a cup run, give Tony another pay back on his loan, and enjoy each and every game as it comes because we are in dreamland.

Who knows, we may go on another European tour in the next few seasons.

Aston Villa would appear to be the football model we should currently be aspiring to, rightly or wrongly. What are they doing right that we could be doing better?

 

[boik]

Would top 10 be an achievement after spending £ 183 000 000 close season, the most in the premier league ?

League positions nearly always correspond to wage spending, not transfer spending.

 

[DavePage]

Aston Villa would appear to be the football model we should currently be aspiring to, rightly or wrongly. What are they doing right that we could be doing better?

they have more Veltmans

 

[Left Footer]

Unless we make the Amex a fortress no one fancies coming to then no.
Russel Martin won’t be to worried about coming here and will look for a point or 3.
FH needs to learn to adapt to formation changes which sounds odd saying that as surely that’s the basics of being a manager let alone one in the PL.

You reckon Russell Martin will still be manager on 29th November?

 

[jcdenton08]

Aston Villa would appear to be the football model we should currently be aspiring to, rightly or wrongly. What are they doing right that we could be doing better?

Great manager primarily, one of the top guys in the game

 

[Justice]

You reckon Russell Martin will still be manager on 29th November?

Yes and why shouldn’t they, he got them promoted playing some decent football.

 

[JBizzle]

Not entitled at all. Just grates like hell that we had a chance to be Top Three and blew it.

From the depths of the bottom of the football league to top 3 in the Premier League would have marked an incredible achievement.

Are you saying you wouldn't be proud to see us up there or, if it ever happened, top the league?

We'd have only been 3rd for 1 day though, and only if we hadn't conceded the 1st goal because despite being identical everywhere else, Aston Villa were above us on alphabetical order. So if you're angry with Weiffer for us not being 3rd, you should also be just as annoyed with conceding straight after scoring.

That 1st goal took us from 3rd to 4th on GD, the second took us from 4th to 5th on account of dropping two points.

Anyway, yes, I think we will. Although quite why anyone cares at this stage when we've not even hit 10 league matches yet. The league table at this stage is a nonsense except probably the order of the top 3