After the last week or so watching the way we have played and fought I am beginning to believe there isn't a better side in thew Championship. I know we have dropped points when we should not have... (Burnley and West Ham in particular) but the confidence and style we are playing with is looking really good. I believed Cameron's return would make a great deal of difference and it has. He gives us both pace and width which we sadly lacked without him. Today's game against Coventry sounded like a walk in the park where we hardly broke sweat. My only concern is match tiredness and injuries because we are still a little low on strength in depth. Hopefully, and expectedly, a win against Millwall and then we can sort out Middlesboro' on their own patch UTT
Let's not lose our heads! Every fan, including myself, tends to do this when we get a good run together. Look at last seasons away record. Yet we still lost 3-0 to Brizzle and generally ended the season in disappointing fashion. Brady back for next game, Garcia and Cam are back, Oli & Pusic should be soon. Midfielders galore, although I don't anticipate an extension on Brady's loan so we may almost have seen the last of him. Automatic would be amazing but losses can come by very suddenly. One game you win 4-0, the next you're unlucky and concede 2 goals in the last 5 minutes. Confidence drops, you go on a bad run. Not to be the pessimist but before the Leicester game we lost 4 out of 5. This league is so unpredictable that really we could end up playing poorly half of the time and finish 4th, whilst equally being able to perform well most matches but finish 14th. Take it game by game. Regardless of anything, it's a very exciting time to be a Tiger.
Anything is possible, but you point out the impact Cameron has had since he came back, should he pick up an injury or any other player, that will have an impact on how things go for the rest of the season. We will need therefore luck with injuries, and who NB brings in during the January window, will also have a huge bearing on where we will finish.
Here's a statistic for you all to enjoy. If we continue on the exact same run of form as we've had since Barmby became manager, we'll finish the season with 86 points which last year would've gained us automatic promotion and left us two points astray of QPR and the title.
I'm becoming more and more confident we can sustain a promotion charge, and with Southampton and West Ham both dropping points it brings us closer to the top 2. We're playing well enough to be in the top 6 and we have the makings of a good team. We're a tad short in places but if we remain in the promotion spots into January we may well get cash to spend to strengthen a promotion push. Our current form is excellent, and I don't think we're as fancied to finish in the top 6 as the likes of Leeds, Leicester, West Ham, Southampton etc which probably works in our favour. There's a long way to go yet and teams will lose form and gain form, as long as we keep working hard there's no reason why we can't get one of those top 6 places.
did a quick calculation yesterday (pre cov game) and if we averaged the same amount of points per game as we had for the season so far we would end up on 75 points which has been enought to get a team in the playoffs for the last 10+ years
One thing in our favour is that quite often one of the top two has a complete implosion at some point and drops off out of the reckoning, so one of those top spots is there for the taking I reckon
automatic promotion would be a godsend, but i fell that we can easily get the play-offs, and we can beat any team in them. all is well with the tigers at present
It is possible but if Stewart or Koren or even Chester got injured would that not have a huge affect on how our team perform. However i will admit if we are lucky with injuries we stand as good'er chance as anyone out there.
i thought we where poor today, but still won, sign of a good team, i reckon we have a shout with a couple of good signings to add a bit of depth..
If winning when playing badly is the sign of a good team then we've had a lot of brilliant teams come to the KC in the last year or so.
We are only half way through the fixtures yet, there is a long way to go. Here's hoping we keep up the form, strengthen the squad and keep clear of a run of injuries.
I'm completely with the OP here. I haven't seen a better team than us yet, the league really isn't that strong and the way we're playing, we can definitely aim for the top two. Obviously as DaredtoDream says, it could change at any time and this is the thing. We just need to concentrate on keeping this run going. But there's only one team significantly better equipped than us (West Ham) and we still outplayed them.
I personally don't think we will make automatic promotion but the play-offs is clearly in our sights. We still need strengthening though and something that does worry me, and I hate to say it as they have spent loads and saved the club, but the Allams said one million would be available for new signings come January. In todays market, that does not buy a lot.
If you saw the interview when NB was unvailed, Papa Allam said Million(s) would be available, not one million. BBC on their written report, reported it wrongly.
Agreed, was the worst performance I've seen this season (missed palace game but hear that was poor). We couldn't string 2 passes together all game except for the build up to when we got the goal. I'd hope it's due to tired players. A few players had poor touch and were overhitting and over complicating simple passes, also thought energy levels looked low. Think we were lucky to win if I'm honest and if it was anyone other than a very poor Coventry side i think we could well have been on the wrong end of a nasty result. Anyway, all that matters is we got the points and moved up the league. A week til next game vs millwall and hopefully we can give them a good pasting to make up for what was IMO a poor performance today.
Firstly PB I hope your better half is OK, that is the most important thing. Secondly if you listen to NB post match interview on the BBC he said they won ugly, so he recognised that they did not play their best. However he did say that they took Corry Evan off because of fatigue, as young players need to be protected, and I think the number if games they have played in the last 10 days, did take there toll today. Anyhow as DJB No 4 said if you can win when not playing your best, then that is the sign of a good team.
We have to guard against getting carried away, we have a young talented side, who will make mistakes and are not as hardened as the 5 + season pro`s. What we do have, if we can keep hold of them, is the nucleus of a fantastic side. Can we make automatics, of course we can, the talent is there, whether we will or not won`t be known for several months yet, but I have to say this is the most excited about a City sides future I`ve been for a long long time. What i do feel we need is more options in the squad though, to enable some of these kids to have a breather now and again, and also to give the team something from the bench.
