afternoon ladies! i'm supporting youse low-life's this evening so any dissing and I'll withdraw my contribution to the event, ok mickeys
I don't think last night can be counted really as it wasn't the first team really. However, if the league and CL form follows suit then yeah, I'll be losing the bet!!
It's a must win game regardless of the PL. Like I said in the other thread, our PL form isn't bad at all. If we kept that form up for a full season we'd have 88 points which would have enough for us to win the PL title in each of the last five seasons. The CL isn't something you abandon to concentrate on the league, that's what you do with the CC and the EL if you're in it. I can only assume your comments about top four are meant as a highly ineffective wind up attempt. And if they're serious, surely you should be more worried about how you still being in the CC will affect your ability to get top four (or even top six based on your current form and with Arsenal, Spurs and Newcastle all looking strong). Jeez, you sound like a proper Utd supporting plastic now! Two points dropped against Liverpool at Anfield is hardly a sign of something going wrong! After all, City got the same result. The draw with Newcastle wasn't a great result, but given how well they're playing at the moment it's hardly a crisis. And in the CL, well I remain confident that we will, as we often do, do just enough to progress and then kick on in March when our form is usually much better.
Mainly a bit of fun Swarbs. However, I don't think your form in the PL is that good and I think there's a possinility it could get worse. On the other hand, I genuinely believe that we're improving. The missing ingredient is chance conversion. Granted, that's an important ingredient, but not as serious as not creating chances in the first place. Arsenal without Van Persie are poor. Chelsea have problems. Spurs got beaten last night (cracks appearing) and have yet to play some difficult matches. I actually feel quietly confident at the moment. Well pissed off about Lucas, though.
Did you catch any of the spurs game? It was a cracking game and PAOK at the end defended like champs! Gutted about Lucas too but who knows, maybe Valencia go out and we get Banega ( slight fantasy but eh what the heck)? As far as our form goes Swarbs, someone did the stats need for fourth and the point tally and all that on another thread and we are bang on to get fourth it our form keeps up. I know there are too many draws for our liking but we have not been beaten in awhile and ( touch wood, grabs rabbit foot and horseshoe) we have a very favorable run in Decemeber that if we convert our chances, we could really shoot up the league. Also on our CC, I almost feel more confident with City than I do with Cardiff/Palace. We love our underdog tag and usually up our game when this happens.
I think your comments tell the real story. Form is just that - form. It could get better or worse for any team - you seem to be pinning a lot on our form getting worse and yours getting better, along with Chelsea, Arsenal and Spurs all getting worse. And I'm not all that convinced by your improvement either - you had some good results in the last three matches, but then Liverpool always seem to get results in those types of games. Your performance against Swansea, imo, showed no real improvement in terms of a cutting edge and ability to win the game than your performance against Sunderland back on day 1. You mean stats based on previous seasons? Well if you continue the way you are going you should end up on around 68 points which is likely to be enough for fourth. But then all that goes out the window if the clubs above you also continue the same way. And see my Utd example - if we continue with our current "poor" form then we are bang on to win the league, not even taking into account the fact that of the six teams we have yet to play five of them are in the bottom half of the table. But then like you say, at this stage of the season it's all about keeping those fingers crossed and taking chances. Cos pretty much every PL season to date has shown us that the early season form often means very little come May.
I think we are similar in having already played the big 6 teams and a run of the middle and lower teams in the run up now. We shall see though, At least we are touching distance and it is always nice to see Chelsea in a struggle!
Chelsea are already "worse" and as I said, without Van Persie, so are L'Arse. We've played badly in two games all season so far - spuds and Swansea. In the rest, we've played well, but without taking enough of our chances. That is all.
Our December runs are actually very similar - only real difference is we play Wolves at home and you play Newcastle at home. So it'll be an interesting benchmark of how the two clubs are doing. I reckon we'll have a few "played average but got the win" games and you'll have a few "played good but ended up with a draw". Probably against Fulham, QPR and Wigan... Aye, but if you're playing well and not winning consistently, what happens when your form drops off? No team ever plays well for an entire season. And you're showing no sign of addressing the poor finishing - you had plenty of chances to win against Swansea and City but the only goal you got was an OG, and none of your goals against Chelsea came from your strikers.
'Swarbs' the original 'Immovable Object' Good new book that I hope my girls get me for Christmas: The Infinity Puzzle by Frank Clarke He's a physics prof at Oxford.
What can I say, much like the speed of light, I see no evidence to seriously challenge the status quo at this point in time Want to bet a cyber pint that Utd get more points from roughly equivalent games in December? Sounds good, may have to add it to my Xmas list Btw, have you read "Neutrino" and "Antimatter" by Frank Close? They've been recommended to me and I was thinking of getting them as well.
I'll take that bet. It doesn't even have to be a 'cyber-pint' with you living Alty and me in Warrington
