Just been reading an article which has been asking the question: Why aren't West Ham storming this league..? It's not a bad little read, and at the end it poses the supposition... Also, if it’s any comfort, every club in scintillating form is due for a dip. We just have to keep up our form when Southampton hits their rough patch. http://foreverwestham.com/2011/11/blogs/why-arent-we-storming-the-league What made me laugh [and think also] was that some WHU wag commented on the article by answering the supposition with... Southampton are a different class to the rest of this division at the moment. Why should they hit a rough patch? Scary thought, perhaps they are in their rough patch and they will improve as the season goes on….!!!! I couldn't have put it better myself.
Why aren't West Ham storming the league? Because we're in it. Their quality will probably see them overtake us for the duration of the season eventually, but not without a fight. I think everybody isn't quite taking us being top as serious as they could right now, because they all think that we'll drop away. They'll come in for a hell of a shock if we don't. Opposition supporters also seem to believe that pressure is constantly now on us to win games. Right now, being 5 points clear, it really isn't. In fact, I'd say the pressure is on sides like West Ham and Leicester who have huge budgets to keep up with us. You watch - we'll lose one game and everybody will blow up and say "Here comes the inevitable slip away". We're a growing side with confidence throughout, and if the home record continues, we'll stay very much in the upper reaches of the table.
Not like West Ham is doing poorly...had they won the game against us they'd be leading the league, and outscoring one's opponents by a goal a game is pretty darned good. If they win next Tuesday away at Boro, chances are that they'll be as far clear of third as we currently are of second; that would qualify as storming the league in my books, even if at the same time we were storming it just that much better.
When this season started, I didn't want to be too optimistic and I tried to convince myself that there were teams in this division who were just better than us and that a top-half/ playoff finish would be decent. However, there was always a niggling suspicion in the back of my mind that we had more class than any other team in this league and that the way we played in League 1 was good enough for the Premier League. I was just afraid to expect too much and be disappointed at the end of the season. As it turns out, we do have the best team in the league and we are probably capable of a mid-table finish in the Premier League right now. In all honesty, and without a hint of bias, I've never seen an English team as well-gelled as ours since the Man Utd team of '99.
I have to say I agree with 90% of what Joes has said Only thing I wouldn't be convinced of at the moment is mid-table in Premier League! However, thinking about it, consistency and playing with the same players for the past 3 years means that they all know each others strengths and weaknesses. That is what makes a team! Not necessarily talent...!
I dont mean to WUM but do you guys think your being a bit too up your own team considering its still early in the season. I mean to be fair, you more than deserve your position in the league and i think you have surprised a lot of people but I think teams that have already played against you, second time round will take the game as a considerably harder game and try to nick wins and draws rather than attacking so much. Not saying you wont be promoted, you gotta be good bets for it i tell ya but as a leeds fan, i know how quickly this league can change your team from an awesome goalscoring hardworking unit to not being able to score to save your life just like it did to leeds last year.
It's not that early on in the season mate. Plus, we have more points than Newcastle and QPR had at this stage when they won the league. I don't think we've been up ourselves at all, if anything we've been overly cautious because we're used to being disappointed.
Thats why you cant expect success out of Man City straight away after getting virtually a whole new team every transfer window.
Yea i suppose so. All im saying is at christmas last year leeds were second and on form enough to hit top spot and we fell off and in the end lucky to finish as high as 7th. Although your team this year has a lot more too it than the leeds united team did particularly last year, I still think it could happen. The only reason i say it is because i am expecting Middlesborough to drop off as well as Hull City so why not Southampton, not saying Southampton cant stay up there but Adkins has to be aware of how teams will treat them second time around.
To say that teams will treat us differently the second time around suggests they didn't do their homework properly the first time, and while I agree that every team will have their dip in form, I think it could be said that we're actually having ours at the moment. Granted we've won our last 4 games and have a 100% record at home, but our away form has been pretty dodgy and none of the teams around us have capitalised when we've dropped points. If Adkins can improve our away form soon, which I'm sure he can, then we could end up even further ahead of the pack, and I'm sure we'll keep the home form up (although maybe keeping the 100% record for the entire season is a little bit optimistic).
To early to judge if we are going to get promoted or not. Anything can happen, we just have ro be pleased with how we are playing atm. Seems some people are already thinking we are up.
No one is thinking we're already up, but I think it's safe to say we'd all be pretty disappointed not to finish in the top 2 now.
I reckon you would be pretty lucky if this was your dip in form for the season, thats all im going to say on that...
Saints had a settled side and had a brilliant pre season so we came up under the radar and are brimming with confidence. West Ham had a new manager whose style is more physical and I think he doesn't get the best out of players such as Noble because of this. However, West Ham have plenty of quality and themselves and Leicester will be there or there abouts. We will have a blip, hopefully not like Cardiff but if we can get to Christmas picking up a decent number of points we put ourselves in a great position.
Exactly what I would have put if I'd have read it earlier. 17 games gone and over a third of a season with it. The start has ended and we're into the middle game now and starting to pull away. I think I said in another post, that the run-in is a toughie on paper, and so it is. That's the end game. Well, last season's end game was a toughie on paper too, though it didn't work out that way in the playing. As for being up ourselves, yeah, there's a chance of that happening, but Saints fans are notoriously extremely cautious, and the over-ambitious get shouted down as being idiots. Maybe the current crop of verbose fans are all idiots, [and I include myself there] because we're all getting a little excited right now. And for the very best of reasons. However, we're all prepared for disappointment, too. It's in our Saints fans genes. Never get too high, never get too low. Adkins even has an Adkinism for it.
I think that there are definitely concerns along those lines, and if you asked around the most common opinion would probably be that we go up...but not as champions. Thing is, none of the other teams save West Ham have really distinguished themselves, or threatened to; Leicester scares me a little, but they're 14 points and 19 goals behind us, Cardiff has been excellent of late, but I'm not sure that I'm yet ready to consider them top two contenders, and Boro turns too many wins into draws (and losses into draws, and draws into draws). We could be caught by two teams, absolutely; don't think we're walking the league from here on out, and I think it's quite possible that we'll be chewing our fingernails into the final couple weeks. But at the same time, if we make it to January without a wobble (and our schedule through the remainder of 2011 is pretty favourable), it will take a herculean effort on the part of another team or a blight of injuries to do so.
I dont know why leicester concerns you at all to be honest. I think the money that has been spent has been spent on useless overrated overpriced idiots that are not promotion worthy. I reckon Birmingham will be pushing for top 2 and i reckon West Ham will be pushing for the top spot. Can you hold them both off?? Maybe, I reckon Cardiff will be up there but they are weaker this year than they were last year so i wouldn't expect them to be putting a auto spot challenge on. Hopefully leeds can because we have definitely had our blip in form and the remainder of the year for us is a very easy run that i expect us to almost pick up maximum points, the amount of points we have dropped because our No. 1 keeper is out is ridiculous, I counted it and we would have an extra 7 points had we had a keeper that could catch a cross in goal (and im not just saying that, the goals he let in have been dropping easy catches straight into the path of opposing strikers). But in general, i think the league is weaker this year despite what people are saying, although still as competitive.
The other thing which not many people have mentioned, but is very much a massive speculation, is if/when we do go on a bit of a bad run (say for the sake of argument no wins in 4 games) how the team will react. We haven't had that sort of a run for over a year now and not at all under Adkins. Will be interesting to see how the team picks itself up after a bad spell and if we can get back to the same sort of form we are in atm.
From the game at Burnley to the league cup tie with Crystal Palace Saints only won two games out of seven. This 'blip in form' has been followed by four straight wins. If we get something from the next game against a resurgent Bristol City then I can see us getting through to the Christmas period unbeaten. Top of the table at the halfway point? Sounds good to me! The Leeds fan makes a very valid point from their own experience that it can all go 'pear-shaped' in the New Year, but I don't remember Leeds being 5 points ahead of the rest at any time last season, they certainly were in league 1 when they got promotion, after a shaky spell in the winter months. The fact is though, they hung on in there, and got the cherished auto spot behind Norwich.
Well i was actually referring to last season in the championship, we were second at christmas and fell off to be 7th which in the end we coulda been lower. If your talking about League 1, we were well and truly away by this part of the season and clear in top place before our blip that year as well when we ended up finishing second. But the difference is that, this year i believe the league is weaker and you have a very capable manager as well. I'll find the Bristol city result for you guys interesting seeings that they are almost a different team to the start of the season.
