Indeed, Villa have won 3 and drawn 1 of their last 5 league matches. The wins were against Man Utd at home and Brighton and Spurs away. The defeat was against Liverpool. Like you, I fear we will quickly run out of teams to gaze down upon.

I'm just waiting to see where we are come 1st February with regard to both results and, perhaps more importantly, the state of our squad. If Parish thinks the squad is good enough to crawl over the line then I am worried, but if there's no money or inclination to spend then Vieira may have to be a bit more creative in his use of the squad. It's weird as he got criticised at Nice for experimenting too much, whereas his detractors at Palace seem to be complaining about the opposite.

Beat Chelsea on Sunday and if results go our way we could be 10 points clear of relegation with a game in hand, and possibly even level on points with Chelsea if they lose to Fulham tonight. It's a big if but it also highlights how far clear of a relegation scrap we are at the moment.

There appears to be an air of complacency around the club at the moment. The points in the bag seem to make the board feel we will be okay.

Major concern is with a squad so weak in depth 3 to 4 injuries especially if a couple are to key players and the team could look awful.

I have a nagging feeling that this is the year that we could go down. The football is powder puff, there seems little urgency and there appears to be few battlers in the squad.

Even should we (hopefully) stay up, the amount of players that will need replacing in the summer is frightening. McArthur, Luka, one of Ward/Clyne, Riedeweld all need to be replaced. That's 4 on top of probably Zaha, the missing midfielder we don't have, a second left back and another striker.

I can't see us getting 8 adequate replacements in one summer window and as much as we want youth players to step up, currently none of them are suggesting that they are ready for anything but a bit part role next year.

Too me something is either wrong at board level at the club or there is shocking complacency.

I had mentioned this myself a couple of times. I believe just to replace the out of contract players and the ones just not good enough (largely due to lack of pace), we would need maybe one or two now and around five in the summer. As you say, clearly not happening. Next season, with a worse squad than this will be the end of the road unless drastic action is taken. There seems to be no urgency, however. How slow we are, we'd need to be already linked to the players.
Who wants to start next season with Clyne and Ward right full backs, Mitchell left and Luka, Riedewald, Schlupp and Jimmy Mac still here, Tomkins as back up to our only usable centre backs. It just doesn't even look like a Championship side. Edouard and Mateta up front. Wilf gone. Ayew and Olise (perhaps a youngster) on the wings. Looking at it any way you like - that is a grim prospect.

I'd forgotten about Tomkins. It's why the summer window was such a abject failure. We needed 3-4 players in who were ready to play a large part this season. We got one. We kicked the can down the road. Now we need those players still and others.

Feels like it's a project restart. Could be another 10 years plus before we are back again as well, as we have a combination of players who are too old, players who will be off as soon as we down, and youngsters who aren't even Championship ready yet.

Board was complacent or negligent in the Summer window.