Thoughts and issues regarding the past and present of a great football club by "The Chronicler".

Saturday, 29 December 2018

2018 Ends and Another Year Begins

Well, it's pretty clear that without Jack the Villa have lost a fair amount of rhythm these past few matches, and today's showing against Preston appears to have been mostly ragged.

But I think we ought to take encouragement from today’s Championship results. Norwich looked as though they were going to shade it 3-2 after leading 2-0 early on, and then Derby scored two late goals for them to win 4-3! As for leaders Leeds they significantly lost at home, 0-2.


With Albion dropping 2 points at home (as did Small Heath) we’re not in a bad position.

It’s clear that the top-6 teams are no great shakes – any of them – while Villa stand to improve over the next two months once we get a new couple of players in during January (we already have Elphick back) and Jack returns (in another 3 matches I understand) and gets back into a rhythm.

If those other clubs are going to continue to drop points as they did today we will undoubtedly take full use of that as I see it, and come back far more strongly than I thought we could after our Leeds defeat.


There's hope, even in the jaws of defeat. We cannot - and should not - take it for granted that other clubs will falter, but for some reason I see this point in the season as being the bottom of the valley, with a not-too-steep climb in front of us.

UTV

Later news is that Chester is carrying an injury and is one of the reasons why Elphick has been recalled.


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