Blackpool conceded late equaliser to Hull in tonight's game. Got to say that's them out of the running if we pick up 3 points tomorrow.
It seems like some teams can't handle the pressure.Birmingham suffered a defeat at home to Forest and Blackpool are fading away...
Too early to rule anyone out of the running from top 6 upwards. Any one of those sides in the play off places are more than capable of producing a late surge
Don't let Adkins hear you say that. He believes nothing until its mathematically impossible. He probably hasn't stopped considering relegation yet.
It's just regression to the mean, which is a fancy way of saying things even themselves out over a season, and these teams aren't good enough to sustain a promotion push. Obviously after our recent blip we've regressed to our mean as well, which is the top of the league!
Still far to many points up for grabs to say that they are out of the running (even if we beat Leeds). It was none the less a good result for us, I'm just hesitant to right teams off just yet.
A win for us tomorrow would leave us 9 points clear of Blackpool with 12 games each to play. Would take a hell of a late surge to make up a gap like that at this stage of the season. Unless Cardiff beat West Ham this weekend then you'd have to say it's any two from Saints, West Ham, Reading & Birmingham from here on in...
The reason I say this is that on the 'oldest strike force' thread it states that they are planning to increase the stadiums capacity.
Regardless of what we do tomorrow, i'm not going to rule out blackpool or hull just yet. Think we have to wait until this whole week of three games each is over (which is almost a quarter of the remaining season). Come the end of next weekend, I think the picture will be much clearer and teams can start to be ruled out.
We could still have a terrible blip and barely hold on to a playoff spot. Some people are getting way to ahead of themselves, one step at a time people.
Their attendance before promotion to the prem was 8k, they increased the capacity of the stadium to 16k whilst there, and at present back in this div there attendance average is 12k. I assume thier aim would be to keep on increasing attendances; without as I say, regressing to their mean, then build bigger (but not spectacularly so) in the Prem.
One thing we can be pleased about is that two oppposition teams wasted one point. Not only do neither jump up the table like gazelles, but they only get the one point. It's almost nothing. Easily better than either of them winning. I wish draws on all our rivals. Kind of nice of me, unless you think about it.
I know we should listen to Adkins and focus solely on ourselves but that is impossible when it´s so god damn close! The great thing about this division is that anyone can literally beat anyone. When any team that is in and around us plays away from home I feel there is a big chance that they will drop points. Hopefully it will be one of those successful weeks for us where we pick up 7/9 points and the rest of teams around us stutter.
Far too early to write them off just yet, although they have made it that bit more difficult for themselves. Remember the run that Huddersfield had at the end of last season? Any other year, surely that form would have put them up ahead of us. Fortunately we went on an even more unbelievable run. Just because no team has managed to string so many victories together so far in the Championship, doesn't mean that it won't happen. As for Nigel, he wouldn't even accept that we were up going into the last game where we would have had to lose by, what was it, 7 clear goals(?) to fail. The fact remains, that if you listen very carefully, you can hear the fat lady gargling somewhere in the distance. I am going to be really nervous every time we get less than 3 points.
One of the "promotion" teams lost twice to Bristol City, away to Doncaster and then lost another home game to Leicester. So that must have put them out of it, then! If we've learned anything in the last three years it is that a good run from teams even mid table - Leeds for example - will dramatically change things. Hold on to your hats, folks. It's going to be one hell of a ride.
