... Apart from the 10 game period where we picked up 22pts, we have been showing relegation form all season. For most of the season we have averaged less than 0.5 points per game and would be sat rock bottom on just 16 or 17pts!!!! Assuming we survive (and I still think we will), the board need to not be blinded by that little spell which has saved us this season. We need a lot of work in the close season. Maybe it is the management and coaching staff, maybe it is the playing staff but the board need to ensure that we do not need to rely on having a purple patch at some stage to survive.
Ffs! That should have a been a draw today at the least, at the Emirates. The 10 game unbeaten run was NOT a purple patch. It was like today only without corrupt officials!
Timing of this thread seems a bit odd, seeing as we played in the right way to get a result today, and if the Lino hadn't interfered we'd all be celebrating 3 points. But, yes we need work, but I think Hughton and the board are aware of that, and that we'll see a fairly dramatic overhaul of our attacking options before next season. Defensively the platform is nearly in place, Garrido, a DM and CB and I'd be happy, and the rest of our funds will be spent increasing the goals scored. As for the purple patch, I agree with GG that performances like today got us the results against Arsenal and United, but the rest of the time we were playing teams we stood a good chance against: Stoke, Reading, Everton, Southampton, Sunderland, Swansea, Wigan. I think that perhaps the confidence in the team during that run meant that we maybe turned a few draws into wins, but I don't think our points tally would be too different if those results were spread out more.
You make your own luck. We have been unlucky in too many games lately. This post was not based on today's result. Games against the Arsenal's of this world do not define our seasons. The stats cannot be denied though.
So the home win against Arsenal was not defining? Oh, of course not. It was part of our purple patch!
We're all hurting right now Kenny but we WERE dealt a bad hand today. We could, should have won that game and for once I'm feeling positive, I truly believe we will stay up and we WILL beat Reading next week
Granted some of our displays this season have been poor and the results haven't been brilliant and yes you're right we do make our own luck, but today we were robbed. We did the same to Arsenal today as we did when they came to Carrow Road, the only difference today was we had an incompetent linesman who decided to give a penalty from 50 yards and chose to ignore and offside from 5 yards. As Neil Warnock (of all people) said, if that penalty decision had been in the Arsenal box it the foul wouldn't have been given.
I'm heartened by the interviews with both Hughton and Tettey. Both talk about translating the sense of grievance this week into extra motivation to win next week. We may look back at this match as the spur they needed to get over the line in style, (purple patch style).
F@#k Arsenal and their plastics. F'#k that twat of a linesman and the ref. Dont let it eat away at you people.I know what I saw today and thousands more will on MOTD tonight. We will beat Reading next week,wont lose too many after that and we will be playing in the PL nest season. COMON CITY!!!
you can't really frame it like that though. Its akin to saying 'apart from the games we've won, we haven't looked like winning a game all season.' If you deliberately omit the run of form we went on bested in the entirety of europe by barcelona alone, then yeah sure it looks a lot worse!
I mentioned earlier in the week that this game would have knock on effects for the rest of the season. However, I hadn't expected the game to pan out as it did today. My thinking earlier in the week was one of lets hope we don't get tonked 5-0 again and take that losing, negative mentality into the Reading game. How things have evolved after today's outrageous and incompetent assistant referee's decision making means that they can either sit and cry about it all week - (and to be fair to Hughton his team has never done that all season) or roll their sleeves up and use the sense of injustice to motivate the players to new levels for next week's must win against Reading. I just hope Reading don't score an early goal or the doom mongers will be out in force and the whole place will be as nervous as hell.
Apart from the 9 game period where we picked up 4 points, we have been showing the sort of form needed to comfortably avoid relegation all season. Spread that form over the whole season and we would be picking up ~50 points. Guess what I'm trying to say is we will go through good periods and bad periods every season, judge the team and the manager on the whole season. This season we will most likely avoid relegation by 4/5 points. This will be an overachievement, make no mistake about it. Hughton inherited one of the worst squads on paper and had probably the second smallest playing budget. Despite staying up last season we were still most peoples favourites to go down this season. Look at how promoted teams usually get on, staying up in the first two seasons is rare (made even more difficult by back to back promotions and our manager leaving us). This club has done exceptionally well these past 4 years, enjoy it! I think some people must of had some very unrealistic expectations if they are disappointed to see us in the position we are in at the moment.
I'll grant you it's been a strange season in terms of most of the points all coming together. But I agree with the others that it's not sensible to somehow discount that fantastic run. Overall I think we've been poor this season, certainly in terms of flair and attacking ability. We seem to have found a good approach against the top teams which has netted us more points than we expected at the start of the season (12 against the current top 6, and maybe it should have been more - Spurs away and last night's officiating fiasco). But we have not coped well in matches where the onus has been on us to take the initiative.
I must admit that I have always quite liked Colin.Okay he is a loud mouth but he was genuinely put out yesterday by events at The Emirates.I don't think that I have heard a pundit condemn a match official in such unequivocal terms.It was the same on MOTD with Hansen and Moyse,Keoghn of course was less forthright,maybe he didn't see it.I think that we can take four points from our home games and maybe something at Stoke.
