I feel ultimately at the end of the season we may look back at matches like this, swansea, utd and city etc. and think what could have been. Sometimes you don't play well and get beat and when you come up that happens more often. However that doesn't matter if you make the most of when you have the chances to win games and do so. Now today on paper looked like a good point however we were in a posistion that we absolutely should have won the match. Had we done so we could have afforded a loss against a team we expected to beat. Now if we loose those games we should win the pressure mounts. This season we've shown we're good enough to create match winning opportunities however I think we lack a leader to finish them off. We need a player whose experienced to be able to grab hold of the match and help organise the team so we can see out difficult finishes like this. If we can be more clinical(not just in front of goal) then we should be fine. Also keeper number one priority in Jan. We've probably lost approaching 10 points alone from GK, all keepers make mistakes but ours do far too regularly. Sort these areas out and we should be fine!
I'm a half full kind of person and prefer to look at it that we are on a steep learning curve and improving all the time. Nobody gave us any chance at all against Stoke today, with that Skate buffoon Merson, claming that the game was as close to a certain "home banker" as you can get. Today we proved we can mix it with a physical, direct team and almost got the 3 points, I would've like to have seen us close out the game playing possession football but credit must go to Stoke too and it took a wonder goal to ultimately deny us. In my opinion, on performances, we are no way the third worst team in the division and the second half of the season will see us get more of the results that our play deserves, lets not forget where we were after 10 games played.
The loss against Sunderland at SMS puts pressure on other results...draws against Fulham and Stoke were good results, but, with a probable loss against Arsenal, we may end up with 2 points from four games that should have been 5. I would say that we are playing well enough to have 4-5 teams below us, but we need those wins starting with Aston Villa.
I have to admit, I was probably one of the most positive people on here during our opening ten fixtures when many heads were dropping, but as we go on I find myself worrying more and more. If we'd picked up some of the points we had on offer in a few games that we missed out on and had another 4/5 points on the board then we'd be in the driver seat, as it is it's looking as if we will be in the battle right 'til the end and if you asked me to wager my house one way or the other on us surviving, then I would be hard pressed to decide between my gut, my head and my heart because they all tell me different things. Some very impactful January signings would settle my nerves a treat. Fingers crossed!
First group of games...I knew we had spells of good play but thought we weren't good enough. Shock all round after some good years. Second group of games...problems getting sorted but goals scored were sacrificed in order that defence improved. The next group of games will show if we can build on this improvement. We need wins, but I think we are being more consistent than the other relegation candidates. You don't always get what you deserve, but there are worse teams than us. We are only 1 point from safety roughly half way through the season. Looked a lot worse several weeks ago.
Having seen the Stoke highlights, I don't feel quite as gutted as I did when I was just listening on the radio and watching online updates. I thought it was a tough game in which we took our chances early on, a few of which involved elements of luck (Huth pressured to putting the ball on to his own crossbar for Jay Rod to snatch the rebound; own goal for third), and in which we were lucky that Kenwyne Jones missed a sitter in the first half. Guly's miss in the second half was an absolute travesty - and to me shows lack of top level game time, where he panicked in a pressure moment where he should have kept his head - and would have seen us close the game off almost certainty; and if he'd scored we'd be sitting on 19 points today. However, the thing that worried me the most was that usually it's the newly promoted teams who bemoan their luck in games. Yesterday, Stoke had three key decisions go against them, and we were unable to capitalise on this 'luck'. We were actually pretty lucky not to lose. When things run for us, we need to make sure we make that count. Agreed, the goal was class, unstoppable, and deserved to win any game; but we should have had four, or made sure they didn't have a second at that point. We need to make things count - is it a lack of killer instinct?
To be fair, Stoke had their share of luck since Crouch clearly handballed it to control the ball before he knocked it to Jerome for the leveler.
Not exactly sure what that was, infact. Whatever, it was extremely camp, and probably deserves some sort of gif.
