2023/2024 season.

In 2022/23 Brentford were the only Premier League tam to make a pre tax profil. They made 4 million, Chelsea on the other hand lost 234 million even though they sold their hotel to another part of themselves for 75 million

 

Minimum expectation of results likely to be needed to have a chance of a playoff position:
- Boro need three wins from three matches (but even that probably won’t be enough)
- Hull need three wins and a draw from four matches
- Preston need four wins from four matches
- Coventry need four wins from four matches
- Norwich need one win and a draw from three matches
- West Brom need a single win or three draws from three matches

Looking at the Baggies’ final three matches, I think we should be looking up not down - I think on balance I’d rather face fourth place in the playoffs than third, but it does depend upon form in the final few matches.

 

Maximum possible points (as of today):

West Brom: 81
Norwich: 80
Hull: 77
Coventry: 75
Preston: 75
'Boro: 72

Match-ups still to be played:

Coventry v Hull
West Brom v Preston

 

West Brom at Leicester and Hull at Watford become key games while we play Bristol City at home and Coventry play ManUtd in the cup.

West Brom(72): Leicester(a) Sheffield Weds(a) Preston (h)

Norwich(71): Bristol City(h) Swansea(h) Birmingham(a)

Hull(65): Watford(a) Coventry(a) Ipswich(h) Plymouth(a)

Coventry(63):ManUtd(cup) Hull(h) Blackburn(a) Ipswich(h) QPR(a)

Preston(63):QPR(a) Southampton(a) Leicester(h) West Brom(a)

Boro(63): Leeds(h) Cardiff(a) Watford(h)

 

With Rowe coming back to fitness it will be interesting to see whether he comes straight back into the side and who for? Barnes/Sara/Nunez/Sainz.

For me it has to be Barnes as the rest are more influential in the side, but more likely Rowe remains in the bench for the time being.

 

With Wagner's biggest concern being to protect Sargent, most likely is, as you say, that Rowe will start on the bench and be used to manage Sargent's minutes. By the by, I think you are maybe underestimating Barnes's influence, Suffolk; he plays a Stiepermann-like role, most obvious when he's not there.

 

I agree about Barnes influence, him and Sargent work especially well together

 

I agree and I think Barnes' influence and teamwork have been a big part of Sargent's improvement this season. It also helps that he makes opposing CBs think twice about trying to rough up Sargent.

 

Sara has been included in the SkyBet team of the season:

https://www.canaries.co.uk/content/sara-named-in-championship-team-of-the-season

 

So this is why our away form has been so poor?

https://twitter.com/TWFootball1867/status/1776862295773081860

 

It's certainly a factor, increased further by our small squad, which became even smaller in January with a net loss of two players.

Gary Gowers touches on it in his match assessment, emphasising the importance of Rowe's return:

"His enthusiasm is infectious at the best of times but at Deepdale, his arrival was a timely fillip for both teammates and fans alike. With Wagner bemoaning the wafer-thinness of his squad, Rowe’s return may just tilt the balance of playoff probability in City’s favour. It may. Still work to be done. But, at least, now we’ve seen the end of the Championship’s relentless Saturday/midweek /Saturday schedule until next autumn. The seven days between each of the remaining fixtures not only allow those with aching limbs to give them some much-needed rest but will afford the likes of Rowe the chance to hone his sharpness in readiness for the run-in of the run-in."

https://norwichcity.myfootballwrite...-deliver-an-away-day-masterclass-at-deepdale/

 

Tired small squad gets more injuries then gets more tired and more injuries it can be a self perpetuating cycle

 

Funny weekend. Liverpool, Arsenal and Rangers all lost totally unexpectedly. I have a good friend out here, Scottish, massive Rangers fan. He spent twenty years in the............................Royal Anglian Regiment.

 

Who are the players Wagner now wishes he had, who have been let go, apparently against his wishes, leaving us with a problematically small squad? How many starts had each of them made prior to opting for the exit door? Forshaw (2 starts)? Placheta (3 starts)? Idah (12 starts)? And then there's Batth who, for all the praise for being the consummate professional, has spent the season as a bench warmer (5 starts).
There are 14 players in the squad who Wagner thinks are good enough, and the ones he now wishes he had, got that message long since.

 

I'm not sure, I don't think we did badly in the winter, cut the wage bill and got rid of dead wood. I want him to give some of the yoof 10-20 mins here and there. Then we can know what they are like

 

Few U21 players have managed to break into the first team during a season, much less at the end of one where we are in the thick of the playoff chase. Finley Welch made a sub appearances at Boro and Ken Aboh got 9 minutes at Rotherham, but the situation is just too tight to give them many minutes now. The pre-season is far better for that as the Murphys, Aarons, Fisher and others have shown. Rowe had a few sub appearances but it was in the pre-season that he broke into the starting lineup and went on from there.

 

Yes, now is certainly not the time, but the evidence is that no time is the time as far as Wagner is concerned. He settled, more or less from the start of the season, on a way of playing built around the experienced players he brought in in the summer -- Barnes, Stacey, and Duffy. Those three, together with Gunn, Gibson, McLean, Sargent and Sara are a trusted eight, guaranteed to start when fit. The remaining three starters are drawn from a further small group comprised of Giannoulis, McCallum, Núñez, Rowe, Sainz and Fassnacht, a more-or-less trusted six. That's a total of 14 players. While Sainz was acclimatizing, Hernandez filled in, but he's not one of the six; and McCallum's standing in Wagner's eyes is debatable, so maybe the total should be 13, not 14. You might then say, the squad is only as thin as Wagner's trust is limited, and it isn't just U21s who have been sidelined in consequence (see my post above).

 

So it’s perhaps dangerous to say, but I think the Southampton score this evening probably knocks Preston out of the mix… (*miraculous comeback from Preston incoming…*)

It also makes the auto race tighter!

 

Good for us, puts more pressure on Leicester to beat West Brom