This season I think we have been more fortunate the way results have gone when we have lost. Apart from qpr, who I think are now irrelevant to us the results have been quite kind with draws between fulham and sunderland, the swans beating newcastle, liverpool beating wigan and reading loosing to everton. I think we have to be thankful that the premier league is a bit weaker down the lower end of the table this year, it may just keep us up. Fingers crossed for villa loosing!
I'm not sure if it is weaker, Kemp, but the results couldn't have been better. Looking at the last 10 matches for Southampton and below, City are in a stronger position from today's results. As for the bottom 4 teams, it's difficult to see any of them getting more than 32 or 33 points. If City can beat the Saints next week, the probabilities of safety become even stronger. After that, any points gained from the last 9 matches make City safer and safer. Silver linings, methinks! OTBC!
We've escaped being drawn into the relegation battle by results at times but I think we've needed perform and get a result we have gone out there and done the business. The one thing which annoys me slightly about our team is not how we play football it's not dreadful but at times it's too safety orientated, if you play Man Utd at home you need to grab the ****ers by their jugular and kill them, you sit back and defend 99% of the time they'll have you. In fairness Hughton has inherited a squad and needs to work with what his got so I'm going wait to see what happens in the summer. On a side note today I noticed the Glaziers were at the game, everyone was saying how the likes of Van Persie and Rooney wouldn't be playing with the exception of not using the likes of Carrick and Scholes I thought they fielded a very strong team all the entertainment of the circus upstairs in my opinion.
If you look at the table today, there's a 7 point gap between Fulham in 10th and West brom in 9th. So in theory, any one of eleven (11) teams could - given a really poor run, be sucked into the basement battle. Never has the "two mini leagues within a league" cliché been more apparent. I still think it will be 3 from the current bottom 5, but starnger things have happened!
I don't want to bang on about stats but for those of you who follow the relegation spots look at it this way Although yes Villa,Wigan and Reading could,by winning three consecutive matches,catch us.However the chances of it happening are extremely remote,If you look at the bottom five clubs from Southampton down over the last six matches. QPR -6, Reading 7,Wigan 5, Villa 5, Southampton 5. Norwich have scored 6 points. So,what you can see is that the bottom of the table has moved up at an average of under one point per game ,actually 0.94 Of course there is a chance that one,even two of the bottom clubs will put together a run but given the fact that every week two or three either play top class opposition where they are more likely to get nothing, or indeed each other where by definition they will either get a point each or one will get three and the other nothing and it's easy to see that.barring a wholesale change in form between bottom and top clubs then dramatic change isn't possible.Results were not kind to us yesterday,they just went with form.
I agree CT, and there is also the fact that the bottom 4 sides have at least 3 of their remaining 10 games against top sides (Reading have 4). I see the league as 3 levels: Top 7, Middle 6, Bottom 7. City are currently in the Mid table group, only a point behind the 3 teams immediately above. All of those have difficult games next. City by comparison have 3 winnable games coming up, two of which are at home. Get 6 or 7 points from those and we should be safe, IMO.
