I keep hearing & reading this 'truth' in the media and now people seem to be repeating it. Now I'm not as clever as some so this was baffling me tbh. So I just checked the table & fixtures and, yes, I was right, we aren't cut adrift at the bottom ........ ....... not even in the bottom three Hull 30 -12 28 Aston Villa 30 -20 28 Sunderland 30 -21 26 Burnley 30 -23 25 QPR 30 -23 22 Leicester 29 -21 19 So, is this Sherwood's or Bruce's greatest ever challenge, let alone the bottom three's managers? If Advocaat had gone to a club that was a point clear at the top would the same 'logic' apply? Would it be his 'greatest ever challenge' to win the title?
I take it to mean that considering what DA took over and the way we played it was likely to be very difficult.Gus had reduced decent players to very poor collectively,and several individuals are not really that good in themselves.I thought for some time we were the poorest team in the EPL -lack of fight,drive ,pace and goalscoring capability -recently Leicester,QPR,and Burnley had what we didn,t show,and they had actually improved even if they weren't getting results while we were going backwards. However,cometh the day cometh the man,and hopefully DA can do it.It looks more purposeful altogether,and if he gets the best out of his squad-which I believe he will,then SAFC can pull clear of the other 5 at the bottom(add Hull and Villa) Think that's what they mean by "greatest challenge"-more about what the squad was producing than the actual position.Even QPR beat us.
I would have thought his UEFA Cup run was his biggest challange. Zenit Saint Petersburg only achived entry by qualification, only just scraping through the group stage giving them a run to the final which included Marseille, Bayer Leverkusen and Bayern Munich. Looking at our fixtures it's one of the better run ins.
Getting down to the nitty-gritty, we have games where points are possible. Imagine if our run in was, Swansea (Away) - April 4 Southampton (Away) - April 11 Liverpool (Home) - April 18 Crystal Palace (Away) - April 25 Arsenal (Home) - May 2 Burnley (Home) - May 9 Tottenham (Away) - May 16 Man United (Home) - May 24 Those home games are absolute killers especially when your nerves are on edge, the away ones aren't much better. The points total, to avoid the drop, is coming down week by week ...... 33/34 by my current reckoning. We have Newcastle & Crystal Palace at home, Stoke away then Southampton at home followed by Everton away and Leicester at home. TBH, if we can't get enough points from that, to get above Hull then we deserve to go down.
That's Hull's fixtures mate. They look awful don't they. Remind me of Norwich's run in last year. There's still some twists and turns to come yet for sure, the PL never just ends in an anti-climax down there. I'd take Hull beating us on the last day, (so long as we finish top 4 regardless) if it meant Villa going down.
Stopping a team seemingly in freefall as we are is no mean feat. I agree it's not his biggest challenge but I would definitely say it's a challenge. Picking up a win between now and the end of the season is a challenge considering how appalling we'd become prior to Gus going.
I was at Hull & Swansea, both away draws ........ I believe the team has more than enough quality to avoid relegation. Not one other team in the bottom 6 have 3 comparative players of the quality of AJ, Cattermole & Defoe imo. Advocaat has the brain to get that quality working for us.
I agree mate but we're not creating chances, scoring goals or picking up points. If Dick finds out how to get them playing against the mags he should have a relatively straight forward run in. I maintain the players we have available to us, playing as a unit would be a comfortable midtable team but for some reason they aren't. Dick has to undo all of Gus' atrocious work. If he takes a little while to get them playing, which he'd be forgiven for, he's got a hell of a challenge on his hands.
I usually despise every international break but Advocaat must be rubbing his hands together. 2 weeks to calmly organise a competent group of internationals into playing decent football. We could just as easily have won the West Ham game as the home side, I was impressed.
You'd really hope so, he got a game to look at them and now come his big decisions! Good luck to the bloke.
Well I said after the weekend that I thought you were 5th favourites to go down (behind the bottom 3 and Hull). The weekend was actually pretty good for you, all the teams at the bottom lost and some had decent games (QPR losing at home to Everton) and you were improved if without reward. I would disagree Smug about none of those other teams having quality, I think Villa (much as I would love them to go down) have some decent players (Benteke, Agbonlahor, Delph, Weimann, Vlaar)
