I done a table

I wasn't looking forward to viewing this thread this morning

 

Whilst it makes less comfortable viewing, at least we are not in the bottom 3 yet! I still have greater faith in AN to extract enough performances of note in the later stages of the season to see us home.........Just! It's gonna be tighter than a Nunn's watsit but we'll make it.

I'll have to get my Watford/City half n half out for tonight though! 4 is a decent cussion, 2 makes the old posterior squeek!

Bah!

 

Exactly - it's that faith that makes me feel positive about it. At this stage in Hughton's season, while as we can see from the table we were in a slightly different place, the crowd had already turned irretrievably and virtually everyone had been screaming for him to be sacked since December (and of course many for longer). No signings of any real note and so it really did feel like we were trudging towards an inevitable relegation. Whereas this time, it feels very much in the balance still and plenty of positives amidst the recent negatives.

 

I'm pretty sure most of the other seasons experience a loss in the 23rd game.
Hopefully if we can get something against Liverpool the table will look slightly more pleasing on the eye.

 

Updated

 

Nice one JK. Oh dear not looking healthy. That's what happens when you lose several on the bounce. But if we win one of two we should be right back on course. If.

 

What's crazy is that we had 16 points this time in 05 and yet still nearly stayed up

 

Updated

 

That doesn't look good , but I fear you may have gone off a little early! If newc's win tomorrow then it will look fully and most horribly dire. We can cling to 17 at least for now!

Bah!

 

I decided to do the update today simply because we're still just above the relegation zone!

 

Not good:

 

And yet, in 05 we still had a chance to survive until nearly the end of the season.

Plenty of time left - we need to find form

 

I don't look at the table in detail, just cast an eye over the points total - I did not realise our goals against and goal difference column was so horrific

 

I don't look forward to these posts at the moment, but the fat lady in the corner is warming up with her vocal coach and at this rate will be singing by April!

Bah!

 

In that year we doubled our 17 points in the last 13 games with quite a weak team except for Huckerby, whereas Lambert's team only took 8 points from the last 13 games in 2012. We need to do the former this year. The situation is certainly difficult, but not yet doomed.

 

Now as you may well be aware, I'm usually one of our more positive posters, I generally hate the 'glass half empty' doom-mongering negativity on here (to put it mildly!), and if anything I could probably be accused of wearing the rose-tinted specs more often that I should, however right now even I have come to the conclusion that this season we've had it, I honestly can't see us getting out of this now.

Under Hootun during our last relegation I was bullish and confident we'd be fine right up until the last few weeks, I never feared the drop in any of the seasons we did manage to stay up and even when we went down under Worthington I thought we'd be ok pretty much until about half-time in the Fulham game and I can never, ever recall going through this feeling that our fate has already decided with so many games to go. But I'm afraid after Saturday's unmitigated disaster I think the malaise has more than set in and I just cannot see how we're going to gte out of this. I never realistically expected us to finish above both Newcastle and Sunderland, above one of them perhaps but not both as surely at least one of them will put a good enough run together to get out of trouble. I recognised that we need to overhaul at least one of Swansea, Bournemouth or West Brom (even Southampton just a few weeks back) but they all seem to be scrapping harder than we are and the gap between us and them is looking too much for us to make up, especially with our wretched current form.

We've had it this year, I hate saying it but I really do believe that we have, and it is the sheer number of mistakes we have made both on and off the pitch that will cost us, and the most galling thing of all is that it never should have come to this!! I still cannot believe we didn't try to bring an experienced keeper in for the run in, if Ruddy couldn't get his place back on Saturday after Declan's recent performances then our manager clearly has no confidence in him at all, and after what happened on Saturday there is no way we can stick Declan back in the firing line again, ther poor fella's confidence is completely shot and it is doing neither him nor us any good at all. So what do we do from here? Ruddy has to come back in, where is his head at right now? All this just reminds me of when we went down in '95 when we had Judas Marshall in goal for the second half of the season and we crumbled without a proper leader in between the sticks, and sleepwalked into the second tier.

So many other mistakes as well - selling our player of the year from last season in the summer, not signing Efobe in the summer (or even January), not signing a proper, quality centre-half in either window, not even giving Gary Hooper a sniff of the first team this season despite him proving to the Championship defenders at least that he's bang on form and knows where the goal is more than any of our other strikers, playing too many players out of position and persevering with the same formation even when it clearly isn't working.

I am so pissed off it's untrue, cannot believe we have allowed this to happen and right now I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised if we actually finished bottom of the pile come May.

 

Pretty much agree with all of that Munky, we have to have JR back and hope he's got his head sorted, my biggest worry though is AN, I thought he would learn quickly and keep us mid-table, but now it's looking as if he's lost the dressing room.

I still hope for a miracle and I will NEVER boo or bad mouth the players or the manager, but I'm now fearing the worst!

 

I'm not just worried about our relegation now, I think there could be some coming apocalypse now with TM's turn to pessimism!

It was this weekend for me too, It's the first time I've really questioned AN, we just look so out of our depth at the moment and the manager has to shoulder a lot of that burdon!

Bah!

 

This is roughly exactly how I was feeling after Saturday's debacle. Really bad.

I also have a lot of sympathy for those calling for Neil's head, because he does seem to be losing it - singling out players for blame doesn't seem to me to be the best way forward.

BUT, and a big BUT, RER's post on the other thread and a bit of reason with the fixture list means that we know that one win can completely transform sentiment. I think West Ham at home is now a must win. I can't see how Neil keeps his job if we lose it, but if we win and a couple of other results go our way I can see the whole atmosphere lifting. It's a bit like with Villa and the burden of not having won a game. West Ham are in a good position, but they struggled to break down a Southampton team with a man down, so we always have a shot. Bit of luck would be nice for once.

If we can do that, onwards and upwards. Otherwise I think drastic measures may be in order. And we need Ruddy back between the sticks tbh, absolutely. He can't be any worse than Rudd right now.

 

I can see the reasons for the negativity, but there are still 13 games left. I also agree about bringing Ruddy back as the West Ham game is now crucial. We tend to play best against the top teams. The Villa result was a disaster, but IMO the performance wasn't. We dominated the first half up until the goal, where Mbokani could have done better, but it wasn't a defensive lapse. The Rudd decision to come out was suicidal and cost us the game. We need a fast start against West Ham and to take our chance to get the first goal and then keep going.