Been looking at the bottom 5 teams fixtures. Sorry to say I think we will struggle to get many points from what we have got. All the other teams seem to have winnable games against each other. Reminds me of previous seasons when we were nowhere near the bottom until the last game of the season when we sudden found ourselves in the bottom 3. Doomed, we're all doomed! Please tell me I'm very, very wrong.
Norwich V Southampton Southampton V Liverpool Southampton V Chelsea Reading V Southampton Southampton V West Ham Swansea V Southampton Southampton V West Brom Tottenham V Southampton Sunderland V Southampton Southampton V Stoke Probably need about 4 wins and I'd class 6 as winnable, which doesn't include Liverpool who I believe are due a slip up.
We need 11 points, after yesterday, i really don't know where they are going to come from. If we lose to Norwich then we really have blown it. No chance against Liverpool or Chelsea in my opinion.
4 Wins would give us 39 points...think 37 points would probably do it = 3 wins plus one draw. I can see a few possible draws in that list...so we are in a position that we need to be careful but nowhere near hopeless.
I have us down for two wins (vs West Ham and Stoke) and three draws (vs Reading, WBA and Sunderland). That puts us on 36 points. Now even though that somehow keeps us up when I use the bbc predictor (without cheating!), I don't honestly believe that 36 points will keep us up. I've been targetting 39 points since the new year - and beating QPR (which I had previously factored in) would have kept us bang on course for that imo. With our GD, two of the bottom four would have to finish on 40 points to send us down - and I cannot see that happening. I'm convinced that 39 points will be enough for us. But because we lost QPR I think we now do need to get three points from elsewhere. Turning one of those draws into a win, and one of the defeats (vs Norwich, Liverpool, Chelsea, Swansea and Spurs) into a draw, would get those three extra points. And put like that, it doesn't sound too hard to me. We should be able to do that. The one thing that has always left me worried with my prediction, and still does worry me, is that it includes beating Stoke on the last day. That's bad to two respects, unless my expectations before then are exceeded. Firstly, it doesn't give us a second chance. Stoke is the final game, there will be no next week. Slip up and that is it, screwed. Secondly, it means that we wont be enjoying a nice relaxing end to the season. Unlike the likes of Fulham and West Ham, we wont be securing our survival with weeks to spare.
I realistically think we'll take 10 points. They say 38 is the target, but hopefully it'll be a little lower this year, I think 37 points will be enough to keep us in 16th.
Ugh, so negative in here. There are plenty of winnable games left. The Norwich game currently looks very difficult to predict, and the next two are home games against big teams, which funnily enough tend to be the kinds of games in which we perform at our best. Reading away is a very winnable game, and so is West Ham at home. Swansea away will be very difficult, but West Brom at home is another where 3 points are very possible, we'll struggle at both Spurs and Sunderland, but should be favourites in the last game against Stoke, who aren't great away and who will almost certainly have nothing to play for by then. We could realistically pick up 15 points from those games.
Ten points in ten games will almost certainly do it, given our edge in goal differential. That's 3 wins, 1 draw and 6 losses, or 2 wins, 4 draws and 4 losses. I can think of innumerable combinations that get us there. Keep in mind the fact that, while some of the other contenders have games against the bottom half of the table upcoming, there isn't necessarily an advantage to such over playing games against the mid-table sides...the latter aren't necessarily playing for much save pride, as we get into the final month.
Onionman, Is that said with real sincerity or are you just being kind? Thought I would get slated for being negative. Seems I am not the only one worried.
Are we back to the stage where people will say there are 3 worse teams rather that we are better than those other 3 teams ?
I think we are probably better than more than 3 teams, but we are where we are. Stay up this year, then we will be able to judge properly after, hopefully, a good summer and transfer window.
Agreed. We have enough about us to do it. I expect a couple more surprise results from us and the fact that three teams are worse than us to see us through.
Even in a 10-0-0, it goes without saying that Fox will not feature, right? If so, I'm down. -----------------------Boruc------------------------ Clyne-Richardson-Yoshida-Fonte-Hooiveld-Forren-Shaw ----------Schneiderlin---Lambert---Cork-------------- Lambert in there for defensive heading only, naturally.
It makes me happy that you still left out Fox. Got slated earlier in the season for saying he wasn't up to it in the PL.
Well I was prepared to give him a chance but you were definitely right. I am hoping he will be sold in the summer, assuming we stay up.
I know what you mean, I am always the first person to give people second chances, but even last season I thought he consistently wasn't that great. With him, I honestly think confidence has a lot to do with it. You could visibly see how low his confidence was yesterday. When the first went in his head was so low. Maybe a new start at a new club will be good for him. It would definitely be good for us!
