carra this is your thread and im trying to be positive! everyone has us down already so what have we got to lose?
Can see you boys beating Arsenal in last game, if we can beat Everton today then the gunners may have sealed CL by then. With a better goal diff will the clubs below get 36 points. Stay positive if you can.
Swansea take the lead against Villa. If they can secure the three points, that leaves Villa on 35 with Hull, Man City and Spurs to play. Fingers crossed they can get dragged into the mix yet.
Optimist. Welcome back to Tuesday night games and more bang for your buck for ST holders. Players not being scared to take people on and being more expressive. Not so much diving and crap.
Off the back of my 'worse case scenario' post concerning our squad next season, here's the list I ended up with of players we would retain: GKs Bunn Rudd Defs Whittaker Martin R.Bennett Olsson Garrido Mids Johnson Howson E.Bennett Redmond McGeehan Surman Jo.Murphy Ja.Murphy Strks Hooper Becchio Loza Here is a selection of decent Championship players that are out of contract this year and that I think could potentially add some depth to that squad: Defs Elliott Ward (Bournmouth) Mids David Vaughan (Forest) Chris Eagles (Bolton) Andre Moritz (Bolton) Stuart Holden (Bolton) Danny Ward (Huddersfield) Strks Will Buckley (Brighton) Matt Derbyshire (Forest) What do people reckon to some of those?
I know a number of you don't read much into stats/ratings, and that's fair enough. However, I thought I'd post this to try and continue to highlight that Snoddy has been a rare positive for us this season, even though it can be argued that he hasn't quite emulated his performances of last season: please log in to view this image If we can hang onto him (and we go down to the Championship), I would not be against giving him the captaincy and asking him to lead by example.
I wonder why people think we are more likely to hang onto Hooper than RvW? Hooper has actually scored goals in the Premier League.
Like I said before - "I could see it going either way, but possibly due to RvW's history and nationality I would say he's more likely to go out of the two. I like to think we'd be able to hang on to at least one of them though."
Doesn't Ricky have something in his contract about us going down? I remember there being a few doubts this time last year about whether or not he'd come if we fell through the trapdoor last season. We surely wouldn't get anything like our money back though
Whatever we got for RVW would be worth it,just to see the back of the useless buggar. Sometimes you need to step back before you move on. Unload RVW,Bassong and Elmander for a start
I find it very hard to judge the players to be honest on the season just past. It is quite possible for anyone in the team to become integral to a Championship winning side. The important thing is having the better players actually wanting to stay and help the club. One thing relegated clubs lack is momentum, it is incredibly hard to gain promotion and should not be expected. I personally think it is much harder to go up than stay in the Premiership unless you have a significantly better squad of players (which we won't). I think we have a few to build with who will want to stay and be capable for Championship football. Turner, Martin, Whittaker, Ruddy, Tettey, Fox, Surman. The rest I would maybe doubt their intentions to stay or are not suitable. I'm confident Hooper would score plenty with the correct midfield behind him and if we could keep him interested would be a real focus point to our attacks. Despite all the focus on forwards and defenders swaying back and forth I personally think our demise has revolved around the midfield area. Its never been balanced, either frantically giving the ball away with energy, or just taking the easy, safe options.
Along with creativity I'd say our biggest deficiency this season was a lack of any real pace, one of those physical traits you said Hootun was going to load our squad with.
We will most certainly lose Yobo, Elmander and Gutierez - all loans. I am optimistic that we will assemble a squad ready to challenge the top 6 in the Championship. Would like to see Hooper, Redmond, E Bennett stay but will probably lose Fer, Snodgrass, Bassong and hopefully RvW.
Some Spanish bastards vandalised Mourinho's Buses last night which will give you a chance this weekend!
