I said before that our first 8 home games were, other than Fulham and Newcastle, top 8 clubs from last season - I think someone did a comparison somewhere and, game for game and club for club (according to the previous seasons positions), no-one in the history of the premier league has had a more difficult home start to a campaign. Our first 8 home games include Man Utd (1st), Man City (2nd), Chelsea (3rd), Arsenal (4th), Spurs (5th) and Liverpool (7th). The other 2 coming against Fulham and Newcastle. We expected probably 4-6 points from Newcastle and Fulham (as a rule) and, so far, have got 6 points winning against Man City but losing against Fulham. If we can pick up 4 points against Villa and Stoke then I will be very happy and then go into the Spurs/Chelsea double header in pretty good stead IMO. The last 11 home games are all "winnable" games - but how long have we been watching Sunderland!!
It's no foregone conclusion that we'll stay up, my beef with the doom merchants if their complete refusal to acknowledge the tough start, instead giving it the mindless pundit-esque cliches of 'every game is tough' not only would they refuse to acknowledge the tough start, they wouldn't acknowledge the favorable second half of the season. All they were interested in was the 'worst start to the season ever' stats and the 'nobody has ever recovered from this start' stats. Christ, one person even saw fit to derail the 4 active threads at the time and plaster those stats over all four of the threads in the space of ten minutes. They've all gone back into the woodwork now only to raise their heads when we next lose a couple, which we will. There's only Whitburn lad from that crew who's still posting and is still worried and posting negativity. I've more respect for him then the rest put together. He maybe stacked with negativity, but he's consistent and still posting like a proper fan. It annoys me because these lads seem obsessed with us doing badly. They won't acknowledge they've panicked like a bunch of girls, and they won't support the lads openly on the forum. It's quiet at the moment and if they dropped the chip and started posting the place would pick up a bit more. They're there, lurking, waiting for next **** up so they can come, chest puffed out saying I told you so. I'm sure half of them would be happy for us to go down if it proves them right mate. Disgusting. If there was war, i'd stand proud next to the likes of you fella and the other lads posting at the moment. With the rest who I've been speaking of, I'd be expecting desertion.
