On that horrid day last year my heart sank, my phone had constant messages from Villa acquaintances, and to top it off, the ginger one left and CY had his assets frozen. Could it get any worse???
Then came along Chris Hughton. My expectations were as follows;
1) To beat Nacional - the dizzy heights of the Europa League group stages awaited. I even had visions of doing a Fulham.
2) Not to be relegated - to be a point off the play offs with two games in hand is incredible.
As both have been achieved we should be getting full houses. Every game. No excuses. Instead we have the usual hard-core of 18,000 and on occasion some cracking away support.
I would like to know other noses views on their expectations this season? Some seem to think we should be challenging for automatic, some want the play offs, and some decide to stay at home.
We started off flirting with the bottom three whilst CH searched for the right 11. Then onto an amazing European campaign, how unlucky were we not to qualify with 10 points???! A 15 game unbeaten run, and of late, a bit of a stutter. The 2 major disappointments for me have been Carson ( innocent until proven guilty I know etc etc) and the attendances; too many fans with " can't be bothered unless we're in the premiership" stance.
Fingers crossed come the last day of the season we are in with a shout.
KRO
The season so far.....
posted on 13/3/12
I would love to see us get promoted via the playoffs or automatic but I do really fancy our chances on the day,against anyone else in this league!
Either way it's all wildly exceeded all expectations for me,so even if we don't get promoted but keep CH somehow I'll be more than happy!
bcfc83
I think you'll get your wish with the dodgy hairdresser,I just cannot see any way back for him now!
Also Peter "Aldridge Prior,The Hopeless Liar" Pannu,who is desperately trying to keep his job,like a one-armed man hanging onto a cliff with an itchy Harris!
The sooner he scratches it and let's go the better off we'll all be!
posted on 13/3/12
I hope so BIB, the sooner they leave the club the better.
I just hope we get some decent owners in, I don't mind them not spending lots of money I just want to be stable.
posted on 13/3/12
Well if we get the Play Offs then thats a achievement.
I thought we would be looking at about 5th-8th and a lot would then depend on January as in who else goes and who comes in.
But Hughton has got us performing greater than those expectations.
As far as Yeung goes, well i guess Good news is most money could have come via loans from HSBC and they could step in and take over.
Without knowing the level of debts, and lets just say its £50M owed to HSBC if they took over then they could right off any interest on that.
I think its good news that we found out Carson has no cash and not fit to run the club sooner rather than latter as he has not been here longer so as the debts ran up would not be as bad.
Most of the debt could actually be attributed to the cost of the club £81.5M for a company then worth what £40-50M and now worth what £30-40M if say we was to be sold with no debts.
We dont know the extent of our future financially but i feel it would not be so bad if HSBC stepped in rather than see us falter under Yeung and face Administration etc.
The KiD
posted on 13/3/12
The only interest HSBC have in BCFC is that they get all their money back.
posted on 13/3/12
Well said MJ
posted on 13/3/12
I know that, i dont think they are going to run us as a club as surely a Bank cant own and run a Football Club.
My point is going into the hands of HSBC who will look after their interest, has to be better than being in the hands of Yeung who will not have or be able to invest into us and thus we would go bust.
We just dont know what the future holds, but imagine if we stayed up and Yeung never got arrested untill latter date i am sure we would have got into even more debts.
The KiD
posted on 13/3/12
"I know that, i dont think they are going to run us as a club as surely a Bank cant own and run a Football Club."
Why can't a bank keep the present manager,get us back into a solvent position with positive equity and find a decent buyer for us then?
I'm sure that HSBC have plenty of venture capitalists and investors on their books,who might be looking to make a decent return on a stable Premier League club with an excellent up and coming manager?
Surely that would be the target of HSBC?
posted on 13/3/12
Start of the season I just wanted to enjoy games again, sick of watching us defend a one goal lead which we fluked from a set piece, didn't care where we finished just wanted to see us try win games rather than not lose them. We still have a very good side and one of the biggest wage bills in the division, we've had a massive overhaul in players etc but to talk of relegation is a joke, if the nonsense with the board didn't happen people would be wanting automatic but weve got a lot of sympathy because of upstairs, start of the season I had no expectations didn't know what to expect just wanted attacking football, september first when the window shut top 8 at least............sorry for no paragraphs iPhone....
posted on 13/3/12
I'm with Mackem.
I had threatened not to renew my Season Ticket had McLeish remained in charge. No way could I stand another season of drab, defensive, play-not-to-lose football. Thankfully the ginger one left to go sit on a toilet and squeeze out plenty of brown stuff for their fans to feast on.
In terms of us, it was acceptance from the outset that it was going to be difficult with the lack of money, loss of quality players, and lower gates helped me to put the whole season into perspective.
Reality is that we have exceeded expectations, so no matter how the run in goes, I'm happy. CH has done a great job at gelling a group of average players & creating a 'team'.
Sadly my prediction is that he will leave for a Premier League team, either pre-season or early into the 2012/13 season. Nobody could blame him given the current state of finances at our club, and we couldn't blame the club coming in for him - after all, all PL clubs are looking for quality at the helm.
posted on 14/3/12
At least we are having a go...
I think maybe our expectations was built up too high, because we had that run where if we beat Southampton and maintained a points per game average like we had prior to that game we would be fighting for the Title.
But it shows how tough the league is. And we need to give credit to the sides we played, we need to avoid a negative attidude as i think we need to pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off rather than fall abaprt like Wolves have.
Bottom line, at least their is potential for good football, because speaking to a number of Villa fans, McLeish still goes out for draws each game.
The KiD