Anyone else seeing this Donny match as pretty much must win? With recent away form being a bit shaky i just think we definatly need to be beating bottom of the table even if its away from home. Build up a bit of a gap and make WHU having to keep winning without no rise in league position. Would it be over-reacting to be worried if we dont get all 3 points at the weekend?
I generally look at games from the eyes of your rivals. In this case, the likes of West Ham and Cardiff will be expecting us to win. So if we do just that, nothing changes in their eyes - but if we don't win, they can maybe do a bit of fist-pumping and start talking about a chink in our armour etc. So whilst I don't think it's a must-win game in terms of our automatic promotion chances (it's way way way too early in the season to be saying that), I think it is a must-win in terms of keeping up appearances (if that makes sense). A win would also take a little bit of pressure off of the result against Pompey. Putting the obvious rivarly-related pressure aside, not winning this weekend will mean we go to Fratton Park knowing that if we don't take 3 points then we'd have slipped up in 3 straight away games. There's nothing much wrong with slipping up in every other away game, but 3 in a row?
Hate too say it but doncaster are very much like bristol city and have a surprisingly good squad, so I wouldn't take a win for granted here.
I don't think we have to win this game, nice as it would be. As somebody else posted on another thread, we probably only need to win another 15 games to secure promotion, out of the 27 remaining. If we win most of our home games and draw most of our away games, we'll be fine. Having said that, I'll be disappointed if we don't win against Donny.
Why does everyone expect us to win at Doncaster? Obviously it would be nice, however no away game is easy and a number of Premiership loans has bolstered their team. I think we aim to go there and win but I would be satisfied as long as we don't lose there.
Every game is a must-win until it is mathematically certain that you can't be caught. The fact that a team slips up along the way means that more games become must-wins. It depends how big your ambitions are. If you plan to win the league, the first game of the season is a must-win, and the next, and so on. If you just plan to survive and depend on the results of others, then you can comfort yourself occasionally. In short, yeah this is a must-win.
It's not a 'must-win' but we really should be winning. Diouf is out, thankfully. At least our players won't be spat at now.
I don't quite understand your reasoning Saint Lambden. Do you think other teams, like West Ham, will conveniently lose for us, so that we can stay at the top of the table..? Why make it harder for ourselves in the long run..? Of course it's a must-win, until promotion or the title is won. That's the only way Saints can approach it, with their ambition. Then they can have as many games as there are left in the season to decide whether they want to try hard enough or not. And those games that are left are the only ones that are not must-wins.
It doesn't really matter how "good their squad is", games like these are must wins if we want to win the league, or even get play-offs. Our rivals will almost certainly be doing it, and we must improve our away form.
