Oddschecker now have us finishing 16th in a bottom 6 of Sunderland, Villa, Watford, Bournemouth, Norwich & WBA, with Newcastle, West Ham and Stoke in the 3 places above that. That looks about right to me but we could improve on that if Jarvis continues like the gem he was against Bournemouth and Mbokani brings something special as well. With Olsson returning, Brady becomes an option at LW with Jarvis providing competition both there and at RW against Redmond. The squad looks far more balanced now.
I reckon Villa will have enough to survive. Personally was gutted that Watford won as we could do with them getting a few hammerings to knock some of the confidence from them. I still see it being a very tough year for us. We have not really played anyone of note (and I know that Palace and Saints are decent and we should have got more from the two home games) and we will hit a period when we are playing some of the better sides week in week out and we will probably have a bit of a slide back down the table. Really hope that we take advantage of Liverpool's poor start to the season next week and then I may be a bit more bullish!
Don't upset him, he's not published Saturday's results yet, don't let him know he has extra time to put up this weekend's thread!
Anfield will be a test for sure, but AN is probably working out a cunning plan to deal with that. Looking forward to that.
Liverpool look a very different prospect from last time we played them. Probably more crucial for them than for us.
What you have with Liverpool is that a lot of their pace has been sucked out of the team with loosing Sterling and Suarez. Just have to watch out for Can and Coutinho. If you can keep those guys under control your half way there.
Can's great on the ball. However, a couple of my German friends despair at his defensive capabilities sometimes. He's rather error-prone in that respect.
i think we can go to Anfield without fear. Whether we come back with any points is a different matter! I think I would be disappointed though to lose this time.
With 2 wins, 2 draws and 2 losses we're progressing well. To gain 40 points, we need 10 wins and 10 draws or the equivalent (ie.11w/7d or 9w/13d). The Liverpool result was important, as if we'd flopped like at Southampton, things would look a lot bleaker now. Jarvis has fitted in seamlessly, Brady looks like a fantastic signing and we have yet to see what Mbokani can add to the mix.
Also, the team spirit which seemed to go AWOL at Southampton after 'Grabbangate' is back to it's best!!!
I set a points target for August of 5. We got 4. I've set a points target of 4 for September and we've achieved that with a game to go - a point or better against West Ham and we're absolutely on track for 39-40 points.
I take it you mean August and September, JK, but it does look good. Especially when you consider the points we 'should' have had in August. Winning against WBA would mean 3 matches unbeaten, and good confidence levels going into the West Ham game.
