When your boys came to Stamford Bridge last month, I went expecting our boys to have you toasted on both sides. Although we won, I came away thinking we were going have to struggle this year to stay in the leadership race, because of it. After watching you yesterday, I have reformed my opinion! You could have nicked a point yesterday, without a doubt, and you would have deserved it. I reckon you look good enough to be around for some time in the PL, and more importantly all's well with Chelsea after all. We shall have to be on our guard in the return fixture!
Thanks for your kind words bm, I must admit, when I saw the thread title, I thought here we go again, but having read the thread, the PL you refer to is Premier League, NOT Paul Lambert.
Indeed, happy clappy Blackpool cannon fodder we are not.......................... Top half finish wouldn t be a surprise if we start burying more of our chances......Cheers
Cheers bluemoon2 Whilst the cold hard fact is we've taken 0 points from our trips to Stamford Bridge and Old Trafford, I rekon they'll be very few sides that come away from those two stadiums with such creditable performances. Certainly hope you're right and we can stick around for a bit, so far, it's looking like it might come off!
At least unlike some teams who were given much better chances of survival than us we are not shipping fives and sixes.3-1 and 2-0 at Stamford Bridge and Old Trafford were great performances.
Cheers! Nice to see other fans are seeing the quality in our performances! 7 games in and we've played very well in 5 of them (Wigan and West Brom being the exceptions, neither of which were awful) Mind you, as good as we look in midfield, I'm not getting carried away! Our current points tally (8 pts from 7 games) will only get us 43 points which I think sums up the fact that we will be around the relegation battle come the end of the season. More optimistic posters on here will point you towards bad refereeing decisions which have cost us a good few points already. However, you could equally put our dropped points down to poor finishing, naive challenges in the box and a failure of everyone except Fox & Hoolahan to pick the right pass at the right time. Don't get me wrong, I think we will survive, probably with a couple of games to spare. However, we are certainly not the finished article and I'm trying not to get too carried away by the positives we have seen.
Rubik--Forget the end of season points tally based on what you've got so far. Just remember you have got those points from a tough fixture schedule at the front end of the season. My guess is that if you play with the resolve you had against MU and Chelsea, you will pick up lots of points from the middle/lower order clubs!
Of the thirty-eight games we play this season I would say we've got the two potentially hardest out of the way already so any forecast based on average points per game so far is entirely meaningless. Swansea is a massive, win that and I can see us consolidating in mid-table for the rest of the season
Thanks blue moon I think the 3 teams that came up have a great chance of ALL staying up and sending some more established teams down. Well, maybe not colin and qpr after today
I think more points are won in the second half of the season anyway. In the first half sides are tighter and playing to not get beat. Always more draws in the first half of the season. In the second half teams take more chances as they need the points more desperately for title/european/relegation battles. It either works for them and they win or it doesn't and they lose. less matches are drawn.
Some fair points about the points tally, but I still think its early to be talking about a mid-table finish. The positives- brilliantly organised; a manager able to identify a gameplan to compete in any game; players willing to put the gameplan into action; quality full-backs able to get forward as well as put a defensive shift in; a midfield that gives the opponents very little to work with; fox's set-pieces. The negatives- poor decision making in our own box; poor decision making in the opponents box; poor finishing I think the positives will be enough to just steer us to safety. However, the negatives will continue to cost us points through the season unless we make some serious improvements.
I think the negatives will become less of an issue as the season prgresses. It is a learning curve for the players and so far they are doing brilliantly.
