I’d agree with that. Only thing I’d add is a proper defensive midfielder and play Alzate a bit higher as a number 8 if Matazo’s injury is as serious as we fear. Still don’t know if or when Zambrano will return.
Agreed on the whole, if Plymouth, Derby or Luton somehow put some wins together we’re in trouble. But you could say the same about Stoke and Cardiff too. I think it’s in the balance but currently our form since Selles came in just about still tips it in our favour - but that could change. Thankfully it’s a very weak Championship this year.
End of the day games are running out and Plymouth, Luton and Derby have won less than a point a game over 34 games. I just don't see that changing in the 12 games to go. Even they somehow increased their output to a point a game that's only 3 more wins we'd need to stay up. Make it four to be absolutely sure of it.
Exactly. It sounds obvious, but if the teams around the bottom were capable of putting together a run of results they wouldn’t be at the bottom. That includes us. I’m confident no team 18th or lower is going to win more than four games before the end of the season.
The games you referred to above where we've got something out of it, we generally had around 30 something percent possession. I looked last season at Rosenior's tenure with a few games of the season left and we tended to pick points up at around 55% possession. In nearly every game where we had 65+% possession, which was a fair few of our home games, we lost - usually narrowly and we barely registered any efforts on goal in those games. The only game I could find last season where we took 3 points with 65+% possession was Blackburn, but they had someone sent off fairly early in the first half. All others we either lost, or we got a draw against a team much lower in the table. Jones, Coyle and Allsop would have more touches than anyone else by some distance. Everything used to 'set off' via Greaves or a very deep Seri in most cases. Tonight was a mirror image of one of those high possession games from last season at the right side of defence. We're more direct everywhere else on the pitch though I'd say.
If Zambrano didn't get banned and Belloumi and Millar didn't pick up those injuries I think we'd have enough individual quality to have been beyond the position we find ourselves in, just.
Jones and Coyle are two of the least progressive players in the team when it comes to passing. Being a defender isn’t an excuse either because Macca and Hughes are both capable and eager to play slick, forward ground passes to the midfield or forwards, either to feet or into space. Jones and Coyle don’t do it nearly enough and instead they often turn inside to play a sideways or backwards pass or just a crap long ball that hangs in the air that defenders dream of. The whole right side of the defence completely kills our tempo in games where we dominate possession and has done for years under several managers because it’s the same two players doing it. Jones is ideal in a defence that doesn’t have a lot of the ball as he’s quite composed and efficient defensively, has good positioning and sweeps up. In possession, he’s so average. Coyle on the other hand seems to be getting worse defensively on top of being ****e on the ball.
The warning I'd put on this is - we've seen many a nailed-on relegation candidate suddenly find form at the end of the season. Its like work - some teams are crap whilst they can still put it off - but as soon as the pressure is on it comes together. Its always easy to say that the teams currently in the relegation zone in any division will be the ones that go down. We do need to be wary of the threat that as it stands we'd be the ones to drop if any of those three got it together. But at the same time, we shouldn't ignore the fact that form is currently in our favour.
That's....certainly a stance of all time. We cannot and preferably never rely on other teams to not pick up points. A few weeks ago Portsmouth were stuck in the bottom three, they probably only need four more points to be safe. All it would take would be one of Derby or Plymouth to grab six points while we grab none and we're in the ****. Our home record is ****e, so I'm hoping that is rectified against Plymouth. My cope is resting on the fact that whenever we have a **** performance like that, we tend to perform better the following game. Our injury record is also something to behold, not only did we lose our two big money wingers, we've also potentially lost an in form midfielder and a highly rated forward. I know every team gets injuries every now and again, but we consistently seem to be hit hard by losing our bigger players. It's not like Andy Smith or McLoughlin ever did their ACL, it always has to be our better players.
100% agree with this. I don't think it's AS bad with Jones because he's central and can hand the ball off to someone else in any direction who's willing to play it progressively. He usually makes up for it with very solid defensive work - a good pair of 'safe hands' at the back. With Coyle it's different though. As a full back he's supposed to be more of an outlet than a CB but he very rarely is. Even when he was on fire at the start of the season he didn't pass the ball, he carried it out himself, which at least worked well enough, but as the season's gone on he's just turned into an immediate dead end in possession. Yet Macca who could hardly get into the side last season is now playing out of position and is constantly feeding the ball forwards effectively. I know Drameh can be erratic, but in games where we're going to have more possession he needs to be starting, because he at least tries to make progressive passes. Drameh was also starting with Kamara ahead of him at a time before Kamara got a bit of a rocket up his arse for not doing his bit.
I can see us staying up on goal difference. As it stands: City 33pts -11 =================== Plymouth 30pts -32 Derby 29pts -14 Luton 28pts -24 Next fixtures: Saturday Luton vs Portsmouth Middlesbrough vs Derby Tuesday City vs Plymouth
You raise a good point. I’d argue for balance that no one on here believes it will take 50 points to stay up, with most saying 44, because it’s a poor championship season. The idea that it’s a poor Chanpionship season and the possibility that a team will suddenly find form contradict one another, so hopefully that helps our cause. Even if Plymouth finished on 44 points, four wins and two draws or three wins and five draws are the two minimum routes to that final score tally. That would be some turnaround. They’ve only won six all season. If you look at my old posts you’ll find that I’ve always argued we should be aiming for 50 points as the teams around us will absolutely pick up points and we should expect that, so I think you may have misunderstood my point. The maths of it though, is that no team 18th or below has earned more than 1.12 points per game this season. 1.12 multiplied by 12 would be 13.4 points. Season-long form would suggest that the six teams around us are not all going to win more than four games before the end of the season. Even if one did, the majority won’t. The rest are going to chug along like they have done all season.
While I somewhat agree I do also take Drew's point that some teams flick a switch when it gets to the last 8-10 games of the season. Think Sunderland in the PL year after year.
I agree with your point and Drew’s. It’s certainly possible, but I feel it’s unlikely to be the majority of them. Otherwise we’d probably need 50 points to stay up and I’ve been told that’ll never be the case.
Oh absolutely, the worry with where we're sat in the table is only one team needs to do it. We need to be winning a few more games and getting above Cardiff/Stoke/Oxford.
I think cause and effect are sometimes the other way around on this. You have a lot of the ball when you're losing, because the other team let you have it while they sit deep. End result is often a defeat with loads of possession. Doesn't mean that the possession led to the defeat necessarily.
Similarly teams that are happy to sit back and settle for a draw will give up a lot of the ball but try to hit you on the counter. You rarely see a team dominate possession when the other team is also trying to dominate possession. Even against Southampton, Leicester and Ipswich last season I would think we had less of the ball?
