... we'd be sat 2nd in the table after 8 games I know I know, "ifs and buts" etc. but I can't help but wish we'd won our easiest game of the season so far
Was it the easiest game of the season? Burnley have been immense at home for a while now. They’re nowhere near as ‘****e’ as some would have you believe.
Man utd loss is the main one for me, if we'd kept it to 0-0 to half time anything could have happened.
Definitely the game that has frustrated me. We battered them twice last season with a much worse squad and we knew what to expect this time round. Same park the bus terror ball they always deploy against anyone half decent. They will pick up some unexpected points playing like that but they won’t survive - they had 4 shots to Leeds 20 yesterday and scored both of their shots on target, they can’t sit back like that every game and expect to score every other shot they take. If Mayenda puts that chance away early doors it’s a totally different game.
Wed have beat villa too of Reinildo hadn't lost his head. He owes us now. Crazy to think how far better off wed be though. This isnt a team that going down
Same odds as Wolves. I still believe they’ll go down but they aren’t the ‘whipping boys’ like we’ve seen in recent PL seasons. They won’t lose many games at home
I think we've had a preferable start and we've absolutely made the most of it which is just about as big an achievement as we could have hoped for. Having said that, only the Wolves and Forest games have been games we absolutely had to win given the terrible form of the opponents. We won both those games and we've won two more and we've also grabbed a couple of handy draws. The next 10-12 games look pretty tough for us. If we can get 10-12 points from them then we are ****ing flying.
I think Everton at home will be a difficult game they’ll sit back and play for a clean sheet. I fancy us to pick up points against Fulham and Newcastle though. Newcastle have 12 games before playing us, we have 7. Leverkusen away midweek before they play us will give us a slight advantage physically, they won’t rest their better players because they have nobody of any real quality on the bench so they could have very tired legs come December. Could just be wishful thinking mind! Leeds is the must win really.
I don’t think there’s any teams this season that are horrific levels like Southampton last year. That’s gonna help us as it will stop any gaps forming so wide as they did last season, instead of 3 leagues this season is more likely going to be 2, and we just need finish 4th bottom of the 2nd league. We have nothing to fear, we haven’t anything like fully formed and hit peak yet. We still have so much more to come in an attacking sense. I can’t see a scenario where 17 teams are better than us over 38 games, as not may sides will score 2 or more against us. Burnley are definitely organised and they do look sharp when they attack, wouldn’t shock me if they stay up. What’s mad this year is how low scoring multiple teams are, including us. 11 teams have scored less than 10, which makes it even more imperative that you can defend. We can.
think a few pundits are now eating their words and are taking us very seriously, if by December we are still in the top ten, that is where we willl stay, not saying Europe but near enough
Very good point about us being in an embryonic stage. Chris Rigg just said that players haven't yet gelled so they’re covering each other’s back and avoiding taking too many chances or playing adventurous balls. When they’re more comfortable with each other’s runs/passes/dummies they’ll be more effective. Defending a 1-0 lead, against the bottom team, may not be what supporters want but the three points certainly were … … and against the bigger teams I believe it’s important not to take a pasting. You could say we had ‘nothing to lose’, while 2-0 down at Man Utd, but 4 or 5 nil could really have knocked some of these young lads. I looked over at RLB, on Saturday, and thought he was considering O’Nien for the last fifteen minutes. Wolves had eventually realised flinging in high balls wasn’t going to work and they tried playing around us. I know that would horrify some but he's not on the bench for nothing imo.
