Season Preview - Aston Villa

Quick Reminder, Real Life

Last season started out with an odd choice for manager (Houlier) who didn’t make it through the year due to health reasons. The team that had been excellent the year before regressed terribly despite a lot of the same talent and they hovered just above the relegation zone for a good part of the first half. In January they added Darren Bent as a front line of John Carew/Emile Heskey and Gabby Agbonlahor just wasn’t getting it done. The new acquisition helped them climb from the depths of the table to 9th. Still, a disappointing finish given the talent on hand and the expectations created in 2009-10 when they flirted with a Top 4 spot until well into the season.

Quick Reminder, Fantasy

BFAY (that’s Blog Favorite Ashley Young to the newly initiated), Downing, and DBent were exactly what you’d expect (very good) but also fairly expensive at this point. Albrighton and Clark were excellent values when they played. Friedel was a bit of a disaster in the first half but as tends to happen, his numbers improved along with the team’s fortunes in the second half. The forwards who started the season - Gabby, Carew, and Heskey - didn’t show much. Kyle Walker, a loan signing from Spurs, came on in the second half of the season and provided some good value when he was in the line-up. Left back Stephen Warnock disappeared after a very good 2009-10.

Summer Changes

On Bale

Well, I said nice things about Spurs (deservedly) and ManYoo (also deservedly) and wasn't particularly enamored with Arsenal's performance despite their win and yet the shouts of "you're biased" still came ringing in the comments section of "First Impressions and Second Thoughts."  Honestly, I'm coming to enjoy it a bit so keep it up.  To the extent that I have time, I'll continue to discuss my (non-biased) rationale for my opinions.  The main subject of displeasure this time around was the fact that I called out Bale as still not being fantasy value on a weekend where the Bale fantasy apologists were still glowing from his 29 point, 2 goal effort.  For those who still don't believe me that you should have sold him weeks ago despite this past weekend's outburst, here are the numbers:

Since Bale's last major outburst in Week 2 (33.5 points), he has been averaging 10 points/match and has cost approximately 15.  Over the course of 11 matches, you've gotten approximately 110 points from him at the combined cost of about 165.  For those of you who had Bale from the beginning of the season, you got those same 110 points for a cost of about 132.  So, what else could you have had for your money over that stretch that leads me to believe that you should have spent differently?