Sorry, got sidetracked having to thread my ladies new sewing machine. Here we go. 97/98 season. Barnsley, Bolton and Palace. please log in to view this image
I think we would all be happy with that Funky although this time round I think more around the 33 mark will be required
Just realised that league table is on 28 games not 38 sorry about that although I am sat here on my 7th tin of fosters so that's my excuse
Aye, he wanted to know the last time all three promoted teams occupied the bottom three at this point in the season. You'll see that now your sober.
Yeh I always say that. You can never depend on other teams losing to stay up. There have been some particularly surprising results at times this season as well, so that is all the more applicable. And I think all the more reason NOT to go into games with too defensive a frame of mind.
After yesterday's yesterday's results what do you think I'm starting to think that it might be 37 needed but can't think we ll get anywhere near that !!
Two wins and two draws should see us safe. Where from? Wins against Burnley and Palace and draws against Spurs and Man U.
Swansea, Palace and Burnley (despite our hoodoo against them) should be the games to target, as hopefully Swansea and Palace will be firmly on the beach by then - but our away form (i.e. actually scoring goals) needs to improve, and fast, as most of the games we can look to take points from are away.
34 points will do it, win 2 of Swansea, Burnley and Palace and we'll be fine, or win one of those, and grab some draws.
If it's likely some of the teams at the bottom string a few good results together then it's just as likely that some of the teams near the bottom have a run doing badly. So that evens things out. Brad Rial's article makes a lot of sense. I don't think any club should target any particular matches. We nearly won away at Manchester City and Arsenal but lost at home to Leicester. The only match we have a good chance of winning is Burnley. All the other matches are most likely to be losses but we might lose against Burnley and get draws or wins in a few of the other matches. So all in all I think Brad is more right than anybody else but it shouldn't (and wont) affect Steve Bruce's behaviour in the coming months.
Win one and draw one of Sunderland and Leicester and we would have been fine but we drew both. They were our best chances to pull away and we failed to take it. Our defence played well but in both matches we messed up easy chances.
Burnley's beating of Manchester City has changed the mathematics that Brad came up with to needing 33. Therefore we would need 5 points from 9 matches. Not winning our last two matches (which were winnable) and Burnley winning changed things dramatically.
We need to get something from the Chelsea game I think It's now or never time Might nick a point a Swansea but not a cat in hells chance at Southampton I think it's our hardest game left
If Burnley had been beaten by Manchester City then 29 would have been enough with Brad's theory. We'd have needed one more point! Obviously we will only feel relatively safe with a few more points than the theory. Crystal Palace fans only felt safe after winning on Saturday but they looked safe to me about a month ago!
I take heart in the fact that, whilst we're still anything but inspiring in most our play, we are finally managing to actually create some proper chances and should have won both of our last two if we could have finished simple opportunities. If we were playing like we did from October - February and consistently creating absolutely **** all I'd be very worried, but so long as we keep creating chances like we have done the past couple of games we will score goals and earn points.
Was Burnley's win on saturday their first win since beating us? They're not going to beat the top six very often so 10 points from 9 matches is a lot to expect. But when you think it's only three wins and a draw it's not impossible. Was it Alex Bruce that only had to move his bum by an inch to deflect Milner's shot wide?
