Match Day Thread Norwich city Versus Swansea City kick off 15:00 Saturday

I'm going to go out on a limb here & say we are in the play offs now.

 

It looks to be a pretty strong limb Dunc and thanks for your excellent breakdown of possibilities. Our slim promotion chances would be greatly improved if we could finish above West Brom and play Southampton rather than Leeds or Ipswich. That's likely to require beating Birmingham, or us drawing and the Baggies doing the same at home to Preston. Should they happen to lose, however, we could also lose and finish in fifth, though that seems unlikely.

 

I've being saying that we'd make the play offs and potentially finish 5th for months now. Unfortunately I've stopped believing now, due to constantly being told that we don't have the credentials to be a top 6 team

 

Promotion nerves makes for strange bedfellows, Warky!

 

I’m unconvinced it makes too much difference which of the teams above we play. They are all going to be tough opponents, but also all of them will be in questionable form (So’ton are in the doldrums) and whether it’s Leeds or Ipswich will have had the upsetting experience of missing autos. On balance, I think I’d least like to face Leeds given the Farke factor and that their record is the best against us this season.

But given our squad and form, especially if we get a solid result against Brum, we should back ourselves.

 

Resist the dark forces, Canario!

 

McLean & Handley are not Premier league quality so I wouldn't even want to get promoted we're not even top 6 Chamionship class.

If we do get promoted I will pretend that I knew all along promotion was inevitable but Wagner will still need to go because he won't keep us up next season .

 

I stole that Rick , it was behind a pay wall so rather than post the link I just pasted the entire article.

Not sure how it works but I think goals scored & head to head are used in the eventuality of same points equal GD

 

I don’t mind you sending Birmingham down btw chaps! My ex wife was a Birmingham fan and I can’t bloody stand them

 

Yeah, I have a good friend who's a Plymouth fan so it would help them as well!

 

The only criticism of Wagner would be the lack of minutes Van Hooijdonk gets .

Barnes looks like an injury concern & we could be down to just Sargent.
If he gets suspenjured then Wagner will be forced to use Van Hooijdonk who's barely had a kick since January.
When Barnes went off he opted for utility man Sorensen & pushed Nunez further forward .

With in all likeliness now 3 games left at least , is not the best time to start experimenting with our loan Dutch striker in such high pressure important games .
Which is completely unnecessary given that Van Hooijdonk could have been given game time in the 4 months he's been with us.

Let's hope Barnes is not too badly injured

 

He might start against Birmingham, given it looks like a game where the priority is to avoid injuries

 

Yeah I would, but I am not the manager!

 

Swansea's chief was certainly impressed:

"It's so scary to play against, honestly," Williams admitted. "When you see them up close, you realise the quality they have, the power and how smart they are. The header [from Josh Sargent] is a long way outside the frame of the goal and he has a tiny area to hit but he does it. I have known Ashley Barnes from the beginning of his career. He's an unbelievable player who has proven himself in the Premier League, so when you see these guys, you know you're going to be in a tough game. We played brave today because we didn't play so defensive to try and stop these players, the balance was good. We tried to defend brave, take the ball and play brave and when we faltered in this game was when we went inside our shell a bit and these good players can smell it. There is so much quality in that Norwich side and they are a very good team to be up against and see close like that."

 

Wagner does appear to make substitutions to not lose games rather than win .

You can't really blame him as during that nightmare run we were shipping goals & looked ridiculously vulnerable.

In a knock out play off situation simply not losing & finishing on a draw is a better habit than losing .

Saints , West Brom , Leeds , Ipswich & Leicester have all had a wobble in the last 5 games at least we keep the winless run going & those 3 draws look to have been enough to splutter over the line.

 

Tension is certainly a factor for all of the teams with promotion or relegation concerns. Wagner brought Gibbs on at Sheffield Wednesday when we were leading 2-0 with 29 minutes left. Gibbs came off 3 minutes later and Fassnacht came on. That was a balanced calculation that we would be able to still apply pressure up front while also protecting the lead. He could hardly expect that we would concede from two corners but we did. It was against the run of play, but an away draw was still a reasonable result, especially considering that the Owls thrashed West Brom 3-0 two weeks later. We then won the crucial match at Preston with Sargent playing the full 90 minutes, which he may not have done if he stayed on longer at Sheffield.

The two home draws that followed were disappointing, but understandable given the circumstances. Sørensen replaced Barnes after 85 minutes when van Hooijdonk could have come on, but there was a lot at stake. Swansea was more frustrating, especially conceding the late penalty, but Gunn has saved us many times and as it turned out, a point was probably enough.

 

Resting Sara, McLean Stacey & Sargent would probably be a wise idea

 

I didn’t realise he might need to be a bit careful there!

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/efl-tried-stop-norwich-boss-29079002

 

Yes, I read that. The 10 man rule seems to be a good solution. Otherwise it's unfair to other teams whose fate may depend on the result - Plymouth and others in this case.