O/T......But as points of interest for the future. The 2013/14 Football season starts as follows : - The Football League Championship and Leagues 1 + 2 all start on saturday 3rd August 2013.++ The Barclays Premier League starts on saturday 17th August 2013. ++ with 2014 being a World Cup year the season has to end sooner and with 46 league games to play they need 2 extra saturdays.
The Watford game is a big game. To state otherwise is silly. It won't determine our season as some are saying on the other thread and any lost points at this stage are no more costly than losing to Blackburn, Blackpool, Burnley, etc. earlier on in the season. It's about the whole season. We're in a great position and this weekend is another big game, we could conceivably be 5 points clear which would be huge or we could be down in 4th. Fine margins now. We need to make sure we don't do what Leicester have and get left behind completely. That's the main thing. Only after that if we're in a similar position to now with a game or two left do the 'must win' games come.
They're all big games, I said Watford isn't a key game as some have been saying. Try reading the post.
I did a calculation based on league positions of opposition for remaining fixtures of all of top 4 teams. It's pretty much even for all of them. WFC certainly don't have it sigfnificantly worse. Also, WFC have a decent away record, which means that fixtures against Hull & Leicester shouldn't be automatically thought of as losses. (There again I went to Wolves vs Watford ! Great for 88 minutes) TBH I'm more worried about playing Peterboro - nobody has any idea what will happen playing them. As I said elsewhere, Hull are best team I've seen all season, in the sense that they stopped (pretty legitimately) WFC from playing at Vicarage road, and took 2 nice goals. In WFC's favour are following... 1) Averaging 2 points a game over last 10 and over last 5. That is promotion form. 2) Would be 3 points clear of Cardiff if season had started on 1st Jan (I know it didn't, it's a form pointer that's all). 3) Haven't lost 2 in a row since October. Zola seems quite good at lifting players up from a loss. If it all comes down to the last game, WFC woud be best placed. (Unless Cardiff & Hull are both 3 points ahead of WFC at start of it. In which case we might as well get the lawyers on the case now!) What fun!
Watford is a massive game, cos it isnt just us getting 3 points, it is making sure that watford don't pick up anything. if you think about it, it is a proverbial 6 pointer.
If i were a Watford fan i would be very worried about Barnsley on saturday. They had a very good win over Brighton tuesday night and will really fancy there chances @ home to Watford saturday. Come to think of it i can also see the Wendies getting at least a draw in there home game with Cardiff City saturday.
Well it is a key game whichever way you look at it. Playing our main rivals at home is the keyest(sic) game you could possibly get in this situation.
If we fail to make the play-offs then the whole concept of key games is redundant, as we will have collapsed over the run- in entirely; that won't happen. There are 9 games to go and each and everyone of them could be a banana-skin, so they must all be key, but that corrupts the term, so they are all important. As we progress, the situation may change, the pressure may fall off each game, or increase simply because we are successful and early promotion is possible, then for positive reasons the game becomes key. Right now every game is important in it's order of appearance, so one game at a time.
Agree with all of that but I do think Watford has to be the most important because it's our result and our rivals' result in one. A '6 pointer' if you will. It's funny because on another thread I was disagreeing with another poster who says the Watford game will 'define the season'.
