General consensus....we aren't doing great, but thinking back to last year when we started brilliantly but then 2nd half of the season floundered a little, ultimately we ended up safe comfortably with our best finish ever in history. I recall last year that first half of the season we seemed to have the lower teams at home first half and top teams away, with the reverse in the second half of the season. So I decided to do a proper look back to last season to see how our points tally compares in the same fixtures, swapping in QPR - Fulham, Cardiff - Burnley and Leicester - Norwich 2014/15 13/14 result - points gained / lost QPR away â won draw â 2 points gained Stoke home â draw draw â nil points Villa away â lost lost â nil points West Ham home â draw won â 2 points less Newcastle away â draw won â 2 points less Man City home â lost lost â nil points Palace home â won lost â 3 points gained Arsenal away â draw lost â 1 point gained Liverpool away â draw lost â 1 point gained Soton home â lost lost â nil points Burnley away â lost won â 3 points less Spurs home â lost draw â 1 point less Man u away â lost lost â nil points Everton away â draw lost â 1 point gained West Brom home â draw won â 2 points less Chelsea away â loss lost â nil points For the comparative fixtures, I make us only 2 points down on last year's total, which isn't too big an issue or challenge to overcome and looking at who we still have to play at home - we still have 6 of the other teams in the bottom half to play, i'm starting to get some high hopes about our overall chances of finishing comfortably again this year. So here's hoping that come the end of this season we're talking about a **** first half and amazing second half of the season
I think we'll have a much better idea of how good or bad we are doing after the next 4 or 5 games are done and dusted. Crucial few weeks coming up.
Our worst start to a season in the Premiership. but we've not really had too many of them, we really need to turn things round quickly though or we will be a Championship team next season
The next 3 are huge. I know Bruce has mentioned 6 points. I'm just hoping we win at least one myself. If we don't win one of those three then we're really in the ****.
wouldn't be the end of the world if we could hold onto the squad we have now, think we'd bounce straight back up comfortably. But i think we'll stay up comfortably
Half of them would be gone. Chezzy, Davies, Huddlestone, Brady, Robbo, Jelly, Dawson, Diame and Elmo would all have plenty of suitors.
Slightly OT here but I was looking at the Southampton board a few weeks back and there was a huge amount of optimism about European places - when I compared their results and position it was very similar to our start in 2008/09. Now they're on a poor run it's interesting to note that they have exactly the same points tally that we had (but are one place higher in the league) at this point in the season. We managed to hang on by the skin of our teeth on the last day of the season. Two of the relegation places were occupied by Blackburn and Sunderland who both ended up above us in the table and the two teams who were eventually relegated along with WBA were in 17th place (Newcastle) and 12th (Middlesborough). All of this proves little but it does show that league positions are volatile and it really is too early to go on suicide watch.
These comparisons tell us nothing, we're playing teams with different players and in some cases completely different teams, all that matters is how we perform this season, against the teams we play this season and currently, we're falling short.
We must improve the results we all know that and i agree the next four games three of which are at home are massive
Bruce has made another mistake saying this I think as in the next 13 matches we only have one that is unwinnable (Man City), but there is every possibility we might not take 6 points from these games as we are finding our way back to form. That's not to say we can't win a load of games after that. I hate it when the vocal minority or poodles or whatever get an excuse to pick on the manager as it doesn't help things at all and I think him saying that was a little bit misguided and adding a bit of unnecessary presssure to these games (edited this as it was Man City I meant)
I agree, bit of a stupid thing to say wasn't it... My expectations have been set now by Steve Bruce himself and I won't be content at anything less.
Disgrace that some people have this mentality of. 'Let's get relegated, who cares, it's a guarantee we will get promoted again' Make as many excuses as you want but 4 league wins in the entirety of 2014 is beyond terrible.
