Well that didn't work. He is a nasty piece of work though. A great player but...... Newcastle got themselves a lot of breathing space as well.
That's what 2 wins can do for you - everything suddenly looks much nicer. Imagine if we did that against Liverpool and Chelsea......
Has anyone noticed Stoke trying to get in on the act? It's something like 4 points out of 27 by my calculations.
They have hit a brick wall, but as I say, all the sides on 33 points will be fine. And besides, I don't want Stoke joining the relegation battle. Don't want them coming to us on the last day, needing to get a result themselves!!
I now think Reading are heading for the drop. Sacking McDermott might be similar to the McCarthy sacking last year, where they can't find a decent replacement and finish poorly.
Although from memory, Wolves were in a slightly better position that the one Reading currently find themselves in. But yes, Wolves rolled the dice and lost. And they are still paying for that decision now. McCarthy may not have kept them up, but Wolves would be in a darn sight better position this season than they currently are. And as bad as relegation may be for a club's finances, it can't be as bad as relegation followed by no immediate promotion.
Hull would be another example. Sack Phil Brown...only to replace him with Iain Dowie. Hello Championship.
Or relegation followed by an incredible downward spiral that leads to another relegation, for that matter. I considered Wolves to be, by far, the most likely of the three to earn promotion back...thought that even with the players they lost, they had the resources to walk to an auto spot. That they've bungled it badly enough to be staring League One in the face is unbelievable.
Has anyone seen the bottom of the Championship lately..? Blimey, that's close: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/championship/ __________________________ 22 Peterborough -10 39 23 Wolves -10 39 24 Bristol City -12 39
And Barnsley may again survive, barely. Would be their seventh consecutive season of finishing 17th or lower in the Championship without being relegated, and the fourth time that they've finished 20th or lower. Wigan has nothing on them when it comes to late-season reprieves.
You fear for Ipswich and Wolves don't you. Barnsley are on fire and O'Driscoll will improve Bristol City in which ever division they are playing next year.
Peterborough may or may not make it. Ferguson Jr sometimes gets it spectacularly right, more often badly wrong. Wolves, I think are dead and gone. They have a big club mindset and it might kill them. They need to fight and I don't think they have it in them. Bristol City have shown enough under O'Driscoll that they could climb out of there. Barnsley, Ipswich, and almost any team upto lower midtable need to watch out. Don't go on a bad run.
Every time I start to get worried, I check the relegation odds...we're still between 3.5-1 and 4-1, essentially where we've been for a few weeks. The roof isn't actually caving in, even if it seems that way.
