West Ham drew 0-0 Latests: Watford 0-3 Southampton Birmingham 1-2 against Forest M'boro 0-2 Reading Bristol City 1-3 Blackpool Brighton 3-0 Ipswich Pompey 0-0 Leeds Burnley 0-3 Millwall So only really the Birmingham, Reading, and Burnley games working for us so far, and Reading is only because they were playing M'boro who are at the bottom end of the playoffs with us.
Was just going to post this thread! Come on forest hold on. Reading looking ominously good. Do you think we shoulda signed Roberts Ricardo??
Not really a very good day for us, we could really have done with Brizzle beating Blackpool, Ipswich beating Brighton and Boro drawing with Reading. There's only really the Brum and Burnley games that have gone our way. Still, we could potentially go 4th if we win our games in hand.
More likely 5th, we'd have to win by 15 or 16 goals to go above Birmingham just using games in hand on them. I'd disagree on the Reading game, there's little chance of the auto spots now. The advantage in the playoffs is second leg at home and that goes to 3rd and 4th place. The top 3 may as well win every game now, especially when they're playing the sides in and around us. With Birmingham and Reading having been joint on points, and Birmingham losing, Reading winning against Boro is a good result as it keeps 6th place easier to achieve. I've no problem now with Reading, West Ham, and So'ton winning every game (except against us).
I don't know, he's only scored 3 and assisted 1 in his 5 games for them, we don't need a striker like that. Harte scored today though, shall I have a guess and say it was a free kick for a foul on Roberts?
mixed bag, Leeds didn't beat Pompey which might end their season, it's really settled the fact that the top 9 are in it and the rest too far behind..
it just seems a bit crap that we have the backlog of games down to other teams not being able to fulfil fixtures for whatever reason :/
Warnock will be fuming with that result. You watch his mantra has always been get in 4-5 forwards. You watch him bring in a couple before we play them. He was also praising Stuart Attwell in his column, he isnt reffing against us by any chance is he? Theres no point been wise after the event Ricardo!!
It's not after the event when I suggested looking into loaning him almost 2 weeks before he moved to Reading, and at least a week before they were taken over which is what made the permanent deal possible. EDIT: Plus it's less being wise and more being frustrated about us not getting a striker, and then saying we're happy with what we've got. When we get to the Blackpool game it'll be almost 3 months since McLean scored in the League, and in the same time Fryatt will have scored 2 goals. And we're not even trying different things with what we have got.
Optimistic. The teams around us are all winning lately while we are either not scoring, or not playing at all. Southampton seem to score 3 most weeks, how can their strikers really be that much better than ours?
Just winding you up. hehe. I know you are into stats etc of the teams who signed a forward in the Jan window, how well are they doing? Maynard has scored who else? Bednar didnt even make the bench for Bpool today.
How so? In the 3 months prior to the Blackpool game he'll have scored the goal against Bristol and the goal against Leicester. I know the Leicester game was before the Birmingham game where McLean last scored (a league goal) but I was working on 3 months for both of them. If I did 3 months from now Fryatt would have had 4. Not a clue, I only keep tabs on the players I tip as being available and think we should sign. Maynard I never did, Sharp I thought the fee would be a no go. Reading though managed to get Roberts and Connolly (QPR). I'd have had both of them, Connolly is ideal cover for our defence as he can play right across the back four, but I'll admit despite my QPR knowledge I completely missed that when they signed Taiwo he would be available. (I thought Orr going to Blackburn would mean they kept him, and expected Hill to be the left sided player to go). King was the other one I said could do a job as a lone striker, after we were already signing him I gave my views on him having seen him in the past. Surprisingly despite him not doing a lot I'm not actually being proved wrong on him yet, I said I wouldn't play him on the wing because he looked less comfortable there. It's a shame we won't play him to get him match fit and give him a go up front.
Crystal Palace get a point away at West Ham, Forest shocked Birmingham, Leeds couldn't beat Portsmouth, Millwall belted Burnley. If City had been on the wrong end of any of those results there would be quite a few saying we're not good enough to go up, but the truth is this division is there for the taking.
I read it as you saying Fryatt would have scored 2 in the time since McLean's last league goal. But as you say that isn't a full 3 months.
I guess the future tense to avoid the inclusion of his double at the end of November didn't help. Still, "optimistic" seems a bit of an understatement in that context, to go from 1 goal in that time to 2 goals in that time without even playing. It's come to something when there's confusion over whether it's 1 or 2 goals a striker has scored in a (near) 3 month period though.
who cares about ysterdays results as we cannot do anything to influence them. But they could have been worse. 11 points off Southampton with 2 games in hand and they still have to come here. Not over by a long chalk. just saying like.
We won't have looked at Roberts, as he'd have a wage in excess of £1m a year, it's the same reason we didn't bother with Sharp, we're not going to sign one player on double the money the rest of the squad are on.
The contract situation at Blackburn meant we'd have been more than likely able to loan him to the end of the season (and his contract) for a contribution of half his wages. Until Reading got taken over by a billionaire Blackburn were sitting him in the stands refusing to play him with nobody coming along for him. He was effectively in the same positions as Ghilas, Kilbane, Bullard, and Olofinjana were for us last season. If we haven't even looked at the possibility of it happening then it's just ridiculous. If it's just the principal of someone earning more than the rest of the squad rather than the outlay by us then it's even worse. It'd mean we'd turn down Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo if we were offered them for a £10k contribution.
