Nervousness and frustration has now been replaced by cautious optimism. My tips for the automatic slots are Norwich City and Watford. What are your thoughts please?
Do you know what Rob, I reckon Bournemouth could actually implode now and miss out altogether. Wolves and Boro with Derby for the play-offs with either Ipswich or Brentford for my five penny worth. Derby to come through probably.
IMO, Watford concede too many goals and they have some fairly tough games coming up. It will be interesting to see how they fare against 1p5wich on 21st..I fancy Derby to hold on and the final on 25th May to be between Middlesbrough and Bournemouth.
I think Bournemouth are doing what we did - i.e. a long stretch of playing badly but their form will recover. Form is often linked to the difficult matches, and if you look at their last set, they've had some of their worst. Unfortunately for them, it will probably knock them out of the title race. However, I think they'll recover their form over the next month or two, and then I can see them recovering strongly in the last five or six games to get momentum going into the play-offs.
Certainly Watford are only one win below us in the form table, so you could be right Thurnby. Derby are struggling without Chris Martin and now Bent may have hamstring problems. There are 12 more matches, so it could all change again. AN had an interesting point when he said that we have our fate in our own hands now, given the home games against Derby and Boro, which are also our only top 8 games while the others will be taking points off each other. Wins against Wigan and Millwall could see us top by the time we play Derby.
As you can see, out of the top 8, only us and Wolves have a decent goal difference!!! Might have to go down the pub for Wolves V Derby on 20th and there are some other tasty games on 21st - Bournemouth v Boro - Early kick-off Norwich v Forest Watford v Ipswich My prediction is that the top 8 could have changed quite a bit by then and wouldn't bet against Forest making a late run!!!!
I bet Forest are looking at us thinking, 'why didn't we sack Pearce when they sacked (sorry, he resigned ) Adams'?
I think it'll be something like: Norwich (Champions) Derby (Runnersup) Watford Middlesborough Wolves (Playoff winners) Bournemouth Forest would have to do something truely extraordinary to make it, Even assumming that one of the teams in the top 6 did not win more than 6, or 5 with 3 draws, that would require them to beat/match 78pts from their current 50! 9 wins a draw and goal difference could get them there but I can't see that with the tough fixtures they have, 6 against the current top 8. Charlton V Nottm Forest Nottm Forest V Middlesbrough Leeds V Nottm Forest Nottm Forest V Rotherham Norwich V Nottm Forest Nottm Forest V Wolves Brentford V Nottm Forest Nottm Forest V Huddersfield Nottm Forest V Watford Blackburn V Nottm Forest Ipswich V Nottm Forest Nottm Forest V Cardiff Bah!
I think Pearce held that little extra misty eyed loyalty. I work with a couple of forest season ticket holders as well as a number of other fans and to be honest they for the main part were still behind Pearce to the end. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but they certaintly had greater optomism than we had with Adams from the start and no will to turn on a proper legend. And it's probably that added crowd patience that kept him there longer. He certainly was no better than Adams. Bah!
Well General, I pretty much agree with your final placing predictions - it will be interesting to see how accurate they are on May 2nd Wow, I didn't realise Forest had to play so many teams above them, so my prediction that they might scrape the play-offs is probably asking a bit much!!
Shameless on-topic link to my most recent stats debacle regarding the run-in for the top 8: http://www.not606.com/threads/lies-and-statistics.292365/page-2#post-7670389
Another great effort JK, as someone following your statistical models on that thread. Excellent work mate!
I'd been thinking the same about forest sneeking in, but when I looked, it just doesn't seem possible Bah!
I'd go with: Derby (Champions) Norwich (Runners-up) Middlesborough (Playoff winners) Watford Bournemouth Ipswich This is pretty much as the Bookies see it on Oddschecker, except they have Bournemouth above Watford. Derby's 3 point margin still gives them an edge at the moment. Should they drop points at Brighton and/or at home to Brum, that could all change (assuming we beat Wigan and Millwall).
