I was thinking that West Ham and Brum would end up taking the top 2 spots. But with Readings win last night taking them upto third and only 3pts offthe top I'm not sure now. Burnley are 10th and only 10pts off the top. We are only 2 wins (plus GD makes it an extra point) behind Southampton in 2nd. This season is a lot more closer than 2007/2008. The top 6 are going to be changing every week from now until the end and its fantastic to be in there. Top two?? Could be any of the top 10. This has to be one of the closest run seasons I can remember, upto now no team is pulling away.....yet.
Birmingham will take one of the auto spots... the other is anyone's guess.. it will only take west ham or reading to lose a game and teams will overtake them.. it'll be an interesting end to the season for sure.
I reckon anyone of the top 9 clubs still has the ability to win the Championship. If you look at the remaining games Blackpool have by far the easiest run in with Southampton not far behind. Reading now have momentum. Realistically West Ham he the most expensive squad and therefore probably the best so you have to think they will take one of the top two places. I'm certain we will not be in the top two, we just aint got the firepower up front to win those vital games. I also think it will be a MASSIVE struggle to get in the top 6. As for TWS, if you look at the fixture list they have a very difficult run-in, harder than anyone else in the top half.
Our pitiful squad depth will be what costs us a play-off place, what happens if Rosey, Chester or Hobbs get injured? We're ****ed.
3 of the top 6 places will be taken up by West Ham, Southampton and Birmingham with two of the trio taking the automatic places (West Ham and Brum imo). That leaves 3 places up for grabs between us, Cardiff, Boro, Reading, Brighton, Blackpool, Burnley and Leeds with an outside chance. Leicester are too inconsistent to make the top 6. At the moment, this would be my honest prediction for the top 6 West Ham Birmingham Southampton Cardiff Reading Blackpool Feel our lack of goals will cost us, as it will Boro. I'd love to be proved wrong though!
I'm not fussed about promotion, an exciting end to the season and perhaps a near miss will do me. Not strong enough to challenge this season
i dont fancy birmingham at all, thought they where poor long ball merchants on tuesday and we could have beat them if wed gone for it a bit more...it is crazy how close it is, it could end up a team in 7th place missing out completely, who where only 5 or 6 points off autos! madness!
Injuries permitting,it will be top six for us. So far we have fully fit squad and we will need that to continue,but if Cameron Stewart can find his form he will be like a great new signing. Fingers crossed !
I think if we're still misfiring, we will loan a striker, but not until we're 93 days away from the play-off final. Edit: I just checked and 93 days from the play off final is today.
It isn't pitiful at all. We're short at the back but we have options up front. Other teams will have loads of defenders and only one or two strikers. Some teams will have hardly any backup at all. This squad depth thing is a myth which was fuelled by the Crawley loss. We could do with another defender, apart from that we really that short for cover. I'd suggest our pitiful finishing so far this season might cost us. We should have about 10 points more than we do now if you look at the games we've thrown away by missing chances. If it continues as we appraoch the end of the season I can't see us being promoted unfortunately. But then agaion maybe we're saving our luck for the run in.
Bollocks it's the Crawley game, some of us have been expressing the concern all season about the lack of quality in depth. You generally expect to be able to lose 2 players from your first team without a major weakness being created. We're miles off: With McShane out on loan if Hobbs in injured we've nobody with any size in the back four. That's not just an issue in the air, it's an issue when you're trying to muscle players away from the ball at set pieces without giving away freekicks/penalties. If Rosenior is injured we're relying on East stepping up. If McKenna is injured we've no hard tackling replacement. If Evans is injured we're relying on Oli coming back from injury to play twice a week during March despite not having made a single start yet, or Cairney discovering some work rate (to compensate for McKenna sitting). If Brady gets injured we've no cover for Koren or Stewart, and the only attacking midfield option on the bench is Garcia. It's a bit of a concern when Garcia and Stewart are both coming back from long term injuries. We have no real variation up front, again there's no option for someone big to go up and hold the ball there. Then if you go on to the 2 players out at a time: With McShane out on loan if Hobbs and Chester are out at the same time it leaves us with Cooper as our only recognised centreback. If McKenna and Evans are out we've got the combination of a lazy player and a player coming back from injury. If Koren is injured the only realistic replacement is Brady, if Stewart is out at the same time as Koren then Brady is needed on the left and in the middle.
You're basically saying certain players are irreplacable even though many of them don't play half the time. You're also talking about combinations of injuries which would take the cruellest of luck. We can't afford to sustain 30 odd players so we have 3 options in every position. For the front 4 we have Fryatt, McLean, King, Brady, Stewart, Koren, Simpson, Garcia and that's without going into the likes of Cullen and Adebola. We couldn't possibly need another striker for numbers (maybe for quality but that's another debate) In midfield we have 4 good players for 2 positions, what more do you want? Goalkeeper wise we have them coming out of our ears so as I originally said, it's only defence where we're short.* Everyone else will have a similar weakness somewhere in their squad. After the Crawley game everyone started going on about the second string being so weak but they said nothing when the second string beat a better team in Ipswich convincingly. That's why I said it's a myth fuelld by the Crawley game, it was just the lazy explanation to an embarrassing loss. *And even then, we have 2 good left backs so it's only CB and RB that could do with extra cover.
I think anyone who says we haven't got a very thin squad is blind. Rosenior, Koren, Chester, Hobbs Fryatt. If ANY of these players are injured our performance and results would be greatly affected because there is little else to back them up........and Yes, that was clearly visible against Crawley.
I still can't get my head around why we seem so content with out defensive options, Cooper isn't good enough so don't throw his name at me, we've been very fortunate so far with our defenders staying fit, it'll be suprising if we get through a ridiculous 9 games in March without any of them missing time and then we could see it all unravel dramatically. Whos our backup RB? Garcia????
We have replacement players for all positions, it's not that that is the issue, it's the fact that they're not good enough to maintain a promotion push. If we lost Rosenior, Koren and Fryatt for a single game, we'd be in bother, Mannone picks up an injury and we're in even more bother. We may have keepers coming out of our ears, but Mannone's back up is a loanee who's crap and a bloke who's only ever played one league game in his life.
Hobbs and Fryatt played againsty Crawley. Koren was rested for Brady who was playing well until he got injured. Koren does a great job but we're also very lucky to have someone else who can fill that role in Brady, he's done very well every time he's played there. As I keep saying we all know we could with another CB, but look at my previous post, I've looked at every other position and we have more than 2 players for every position (apart from CB/RB as I keep saying) You can't argue with 2 players in every position.
But we all agree that Simpson deserves a chance don't we? And he's played 1 minute since coming back in January, so clearly a player we all agree is a decent larker isn't good enough to get in the team. If that doesn't suggest competition, what does? Barmby likes Gulacsi, I know most people on here don't but for you lot there's also Basso. That's 3 keepers that are all decent (at least in the opinion of the management). God knows why people keep saying we'd miss Fryatt so much, we have several other players who can miss chances and be offside while coming back for the ball. As I've said about 10 times now, yes we'd miss Rosenior, Chester or Hobbs. There's no need to debate that, we all agree. It's the other positions we're talking about.
So you are saying Brady replacing Koren would be seemless???????? Brady, as I have said all along, has HUGE potential and if we get so much as a sniff of getting him permanently we should take it instantly. HOWEVER, that is the future. Right now he is nowhere near an adequate replacement for Koren. Right back is another REAL issue for me. Danny East is nowhere near good enough for the first team and he is it, as far as backup is concerned now Macca has gone. Fryatt has been misfiring of late but he is showing signs of coming through that, but if we lose him who will lead the line? Adebola? McLean? King? Perhaps Simpson, but I really think his time is over after failing to impress at Millwall.
