A quick reason not to give up on Aston Villa quite yet

Not going to go to much into this here, but I keep thinking about regression to the mean with this team. Aston Villa as they are constructed are not a great team. But neither are they a team who, based on true talent, should have four points from ten matches. They just simply are not that bad.

So what would regression to the mean be? What if Aston Villa just flipped a switch and started playing like we'd expect a team of this talent level to play?

If you'd asked me at the beginning of the season what I expected from Villa, I might have said something like 45 points. Actually, in the optimism of preseason, I might've said 55, but let's adjust a bit for reality. 45 points seems perfectly reason for this squad to achieve if you threw them into a simulator and had them play 38 matches.

If you buy that estimate, Villa should have ~12 points already. They have 4.

But, if you buy that estimate, and you still think Villa are a team that are capable of something like that, things look up a bit. Play at a 45-point pace for the rest of the season, and Villa should get ~33 points. Add that to the 4 we have and you've got 37. That's not safe, but it could be. And one "fluke" win in there could bump it to 40.

Villa have shown that they're bad this season, but I refuse to believe that they're this bad. Get someone in who can get the full potential out of this squad (a potential that I conservatively estimate to be about 45 points over 38 matches) and they could still easily survive. It feels like the end of the world, but it's October. This season isn't over yet.