It's tough at the bottom

For the first time this season I found myself looking at the coming weekend's fixture and before concentrating on the teams beneath us looking at those immediately above and thinking "Who can we get above? Well,the most likely candidate is Liverpool.It would need us to beat Reading and them to lose to Chelsea neither outcome beyond the bounds of possibility.Even drawing level with them however would be a sign of the magnitude of our revival from this time last month.

As for the bottom,well it's hard not to think that two of the bottom three are doomed.Statistically it's likely that will be the outcome.One word of caution though.An anomaly in the fixtures list has thrown up this:Southampton have only played Wigan and Villa from the bottom half of the table,every other opponent is in tenth place or higher.Of course you could argue that a lot of their next run of games will be hard fought relegation battles,but if they were to beat Swansea this weekend that could provide a much needed boost to morale.

 

we have an fixture anomoly coming up too - currently we have played 5 away 5 home games. of the next 4, i make it 3 are away and one home, so after the saints game we would have played 14 of which 6 home and 8 away games.

 

to say two of the bottom three are doomed after ten games is fanciful to say the least. they are two wins behind us - a good gap for us to have at this stage but hardly a brick wall! we need to worry about maintaining that gap as the season progresses and hopefully pull away further. realistically we aren't competing with liverpool. we've had a very good three weeks but its still early days - it seems one or two are getting carried away, just as prior to those good results, some were all doom and gloom. we're certainly progressing as a team and that's encouraging, but we need to try and win the games against the teams in the bottom third if we can - so far we've not been able to do that, albeit we drew both games. january also may change things for many clubs. i will feel far more comfortable when we get that first away win on the board. as proven last season, home form is important but winning away is the holy grail for teams in the bottom third of the premier league. we won five away games last season - we only won seven at home! i feel we'll make carrow road more of a fortress this season but we will still require two, maybe three away wins to stay up - so far we have none, although our away games have all been very difficult on paper.

 

Did you watch the Southampton game last night?

They looked really poor and judging by that performance I would say that they will go down. I know it's early in the season but they had very little going forward and their passing and first touch was terrible.

They don't seem to have enough quality in the team to stay up and I heard a radio interview by a Saints fan saying that due to back to back promotions they had come up to early and were not ready for the premier league. It's the same situation that we were in our first season but we managed to go gun-ho and surpise a few teams, a bit like Blackpool did but we were slightly better defensivley and we pulled it off. Both Reading and Saints don't seem to have that in their locker.

It would be a shame to see the saints go down as I do have a soft spot for them, but judging by last nights performance against the Baggies I think they will.

 

Supers, while it would be great to get those away wins, it's not necessarily a necessity. If we were to win nine or ten at home and pick up several away draws, that would suffice. The best thing about getting an away win is the extra confidence it brings

 

This weekend will be a key one, I think. If we beat Reading and Stoke beat QPR, there'd be quite a gap between the lower midtable and the bottom three, especially if Soton don't manage a win. On the other hand, if Reading beat us and QPR win at Stoke, the whole bottom of the league squeezes up.

If the bottom three continue to struggle, they could get cast adrift. On the other hand, Villa and Sunderland are looking pretty dire and it's hard to see them pulling away.

Let's just hope we can win at Reading, especially with MU and Everton away to follow.

 

supers, does the win against Stoke not count as a win against a team in the bottom third?
wins are great against the teams in the bottom third, as important not to lose them

 

Lots of permutations there VC and so difficult to call, how many hands have you got BTW

 

But statistically it's a likely outcome.In past seasons the teams at the bottom in November don't have a good record of fighting their way out.That is why I say that two of the three are likely to go down.Bear in mind also that the bottom three are adrift to an extent.Two wins required from teams that have so far not mustered a single win between them starts to look like a big ask.

 

disagree completely. has a team ever stayed in the premier league without winning at least one away game? unless we suddenly start winning a lot of unexpected home games, we will need one or two away wins. there are plenty of winnable games away from norfolk. away wins take the pressure of the home form too as well as the confidence it brings, as you mentioned.

does the stoke game count as final third? yeah, maybe it does to be fair. as you say, if you can't beat the teams around you, for goodness sake don't lose them!

 

This time last year it was Blackburn,Bolton,Wolves and Wigan in the bottom four.

 

but you could also find statistics that suit an argument to counter that. check the binners board. they've been finding teams who have the same number of points as them at this stage and most stayed up. its a new season - stats like that are irrelevant. anything could happen and although i do think we are a better side than all three currently sitting in the drop zone i'm not oblivious to the fact that a lot can change between now and may. people were saying where will norwich pick up one win from three weeks ago. now we have two. its very, very foolish to think a gap of six points after ten games is anything more than a nice safety net.

also, one of those teams faces us this weekend. were they to win the match they close the gap and prevent us pulling away. we also have saints away coming up soon. same applies there. the two matches sandwiched inbetween will likely see no points gained so were things to go badly, we could find ourselves back in the bottom three by the end of the month with a very, very difficult christmas period on the horizon. i'm just playing devils advocate here - i don't believe we will be in the bottom three come the end of the month but it is much closer than some seem to make out. you never know when things might click for a team. wigan last year for example!

 

ah, that rings a bell. they were the champions the year before as well! basically though, thats likely to be a one off. the last time we went down, one away victory would have seen us safe. our home form wasn't too bad that year. west brom stayed up and guess what, they won that elusive away game. there are no guarantees of course, but i believe it is absolutely vital to win at least two on the road.

 

Saturday's game with Reading is definitely the perverbial 'six-pointer'. IF we can beat them we'll be 8 points clear of them. That would mean they would have to win three, (and they haven't managed one win yet don't forget), and we would have to lose three for them to overtake us. Not an impossible task but certainly not probable IMO.

.............on the other hand, we lose and the gap is just 2 points and I believe the've got a game in hand ??

 

The thrust of my argument certainly wasn't that we are safe,far from it.Really I suppose what I am suggesting is that it's a fight to avoid that last relegation spot.Statistics provide pointers to what is likely to happen,trends can be bucked but it's essentially a numbers game.That's why insurance companies make money,their actuaries tell them that an overweight smoker is far less likely to make old bones than a non overweight non smoker.Of course the latter may go base jumping and upset the apple cart big style.But overall - and the bookies agree- two of QPR,Reading and Saints are likely to bite the dust.We are really only down there with them for the same reason that Holt doesn't get picked for England,because we are Norwich.

 

I'll be happy as long as we're not in the bottom 3 on 1st Jan 2013, as we have 2 pretty tough home fixtures after Xmas. Injuries/suspensions will also play a big part and were we to lose either Hoolahoops or Holt for more than a couple of weeks, it could have quite an impact on our results.

I'lll be surprised if more than one of the 3 teams currently in the bottom 3 survive.

 

this is my argument. this statement is nonsense, whether or not stats back it up! every season is different. we are just as likely to finish bottom this season as we are to finish 10th in my opinion. when sides are so closely matched in the bottom half of the table, predicting things is nigh-on impossible. stats can be used any which way you want but they tend to just cloud peoples judgement rather than looking, with your own eyes, at a situation unfolding.

 

one thing in our favour this season is our run in, which i happen to think is very favourable. we face a lot of the teams at home who will be in and around the drop zone. could be key. last year we all felt we'd need to be on 40 points before the closing weeks and although we were never close to going down, that did prove right as results stuttered in the final weeks. i just hope we don't need anything final day...!

 

Only time will tell.My judgment is made from the position of a statistician first,a Norwich fan second.Lat year it was possible to track the points required for survival quite early on.If you look at an old thread you will see that is what I did.