Ok, so strictly speaking it's 17 games. But if you take out the last 4, plus the game against Man City, it leaves us with 12 games from which to get the 20 points we'll probably need. Possible? Definitely, but it does put a huge amount of pressure on those 12 games, particularly the home ones. Given our away form, it suggests we really need to win all 6 home games and then pick up a couple of draws away from home. Those home games are against Hull, Newcastle, Spurs, Stoke, Sunderland and West Brom. Winning all 6 seems unlikely, so we'll need to pick up some extra points away from home, or against the big 5. Another traditional pursuit of the nervous is the 'are there 3 teams worse than us' game. Hmmm, again, possibly. I would have said West Ham before yesterday's win, and I still think they are the most likely to struggle to pick up enough wins. Fulham look another likely bet, I think they have made a mistake putting Curbishley and Wilkins in - too many different views, and I think it will count against them. Then take your pick from Palace, Sunderland, Cardiff, West Brom and Swansea. Without any real confidence, I'm going to predict a hat-trick for the capital with Palace, Fulham and West Ham going down.
If they can't get the fact it's 17 not 171 games later, I'm not inclined to immediately trust the rest of their methodology! Interesting that they think just 35 points will be enough to survive though. Edit: Even more interesting that I can't find anywhere online to show what their methodology actually is... Found their page on Norwich, they reckon Hull is the only game left this season we've got a good chance of winning, with the Stoke and Sunderland home games in the balance. Every other game deemed hard to win. For the other teams: Cardiff are the same as us Palace have every game down as hard to win Sunderland have 3 games with a good chance, 3 in the balance (expected to survive) West Ham have 2 good chances, 2 in the balance (survive) Fulham 1 good, 1 balanced (relegated)
I have been predicting 36/7 as a survival mark for a while so 35 would not surprise me in the least.There are currently six clubs on less than a point a game,from us downwards.I believe that at least three will continue that trend.
There's just six points from 10th to bottom. I think most teams will be thinking the same, it's just City have that awful run-in.
During the ill-fated 2004/05 season, we had won only three after 31 games (April) but then won four from six. Life is full of surprises. However, I think if we don't get to at least 38 points by game 35 this season, I think we will have a tough job staying up.
This "Terrible run in" is a Red Herring.There is every possibility that Arsenal will come to us on the final day in,for example,third place with nothing to play for.And the other side of that is when Villa turn out tonight ,desperate for points to get away from the dogfight they meet an Arsenal side desperate for the win to return to top spot. In the same way the last day may see a fixture between two clubs beneath us who both need either two or three points to get above us and don't have that possibility because only three are available between them.What you can guarantee is that somebody down there will be on a bad run anyway and it won't matter who their opponents are.As I said before it's three from eleven and until someone either puts a run together or has a major slump we are no wiser.Losing two nil to Everton away tells us nothing,nearly everybody does that. BTW take a look at Villa's next six: Arsenal (h) Liverpool (a) WBA (h) Everton (a) WestHam(h) Cardiff (a)
