well dembélé is fantastic - a joy to watch. dempsey has had a poor start to his spurs career but naturally fulham miss his goals. baird and sidwell are quite similar and are great at doing the donkey work but not so creative. they've not quite got the balance right without ruiz or even danny murphy to pull the strings. maybe they miss him?
the ball seems to stick to dembele's feet, he is class i think they do miss murphy. Ruiz is a bit of a love-hate player, but was playing well before he got injured.
A lot will depend upon the January window. Several Clubs in trouble will throw a lot of money about in January and whilst Reading have a lot of money behind them I really cannot see it working for them but 'arry could perform one of his magic tricks. Other Clubs could well benefit from the money being thrown around. I can see Liverpool paying, say. £15m for Bent which raises 2 questions - will he fit in at Liverpool and improve their form and how well would Lambert do with £15m to spend? As a secondary point a question for statistical historians amongst you - step forward Supers!!! Assuming, for arguements sake, we lose at WBA and go into Christmas in 8th place on 25 points - has any team with either 8th place or 25 points at Christmas been relegated from the Premiership? I am fairly certain that Clubs who were 8th or better at Christmas have gone down but I have no idea about the points total. To answer the general point I think Reading, Wigan and Southampton will go down. Southampton have a deadful away record, their game in hand is away to Chelsea and even with that taken into acoount they have still played more at home than away. They have played 6 games against the current top 7 and have not got a point out of any of them. Difficult to see where they are going to get enough points out of the remaining games to stay up especially if nearly 40 points is required this year.
well, i hate to bring it up, but norwich city were relegated from the premier league having been 6th at christmas in 1994! we had 30 points. it was a 42-game division though. as for saints, i've long maintained they will survive. you do realise they get to play everyone again, not just the top 7
Wigan seem to do this year on year, they are below average for 80% of the season but stay in touch and then pull out a great run in the final months of the season. I wouldn't put it past them again this season, they have some average & below average players (at this level) but what they do have a great spirit and workrate when the writing seems to be on the wall. That's why I'd back them to stay up, their previous campaigns have proven they have enough guile and craft when it really matters to get themselves out of trouble. Plus Martinez is one of the best managers in the Premier League
the difference this year is that they don't have a stand out player to call upon. last year it was moses, the year before n'zogbia, the year before that was valencia and so on. they'll go down eventually and my gut feeling is that time is fast running out for them. as stirring as it was to see martinez turn down bigger jobs (assuming he is telling the truth and he turned them down rather than not being offered them), i do feel he should have left to better himself. i'm not sure what he can achieve at wigan.
in my view, i can't see reading spending big. ok they have a russian owner, but there are a lot of weaknesses in the team so would need quite a few players to improve their chances. it's all about balancing the risk of going down and rebuilding against the reward of staying up. going back to the 25 pts at Xmas fact, i don't know their exact points total on Xmas day, but Blackpool won 7 out of 10 of their wins their season pre the new year, so they must have been on around 25 if you throw a few draws in as well.
Yes, that is one club that fully understands the laws of gravity and as such have learned how defy those laws
thanks, they must have won over the Xmas period then. They must be the last example of dropping like a stone post Xmas then.
Agreed but if my calulations are correct they might have to get 25 points from those 13 games which COULD be a big ask.
It might just be my imagination, but there always seems to be a team that looks comfortable and all of a sudden they are in it. And at the moment, that team is Newcastle. They have QPR Saturday (looking forward to the outcome of that), which might well be a chance for both managers to show if they can handle it, followed by Manure, Arsenal and Everton. You would assume they are wealthy enough to repel and raids on their players in January. But Demba Ba has the clause in his contract, and I wonder if he might be a target for the clubs waving the cheque book. If they don't come out of the Christmas period with a 50-50 record, then I think they are exactly the type of team who lose their way and end up struggling. I still believe it will be the current bottom three. Wigan looked awful for a full hour of the 90 minutes on Saturday and we really should have filled our boots. They have a weak squad, and like Newcastle, relying on talented but not strong foreign players. I think Harry will realise fairly quickly that if he doesn't manage to spend £30M on Defoe etc in the January window, then he will be relying on some pretty ordinary players to get him out of it. I think Reading will probably sack MacDermott. They look poor and have little or no back up. They have a Russian owner who surely ploughed his money into them to have the Prem on his CV. He might well go for a "name" manager who can bring in players in January.
you'd have to imagine they will win at least one game you wouldn't expect them to win. even teams who finish bottom often manage that. they seem to have tightened up at the back now so i fully expect them to be well clear come may, maybe by as many as 5 points. also, they've got 15 games against teams you would expect them to be competitive against, not 13.
agree about newcastle being in trouble by the way. they massively over achieved last term and now they've suffered a few injuries they have drifted down the table quickly. i think they'll stay up but they will be in the mix i'd imagine. things seemed to go wrong as soon as ashley handed pardew an 8-year deal
I think that if Newcastle can hold onto Ba then they'll be fine. Cisse is also pretty decent and there is every chance he will also come back into form and have another rush of goals. I think for the clubs at the bottom the ability to score is (obviously) key. Teams with a 15 goal a season striker in the ranks seldom go down (I am sure there have been examples but I am sure you get my point). I think that Saints having Lambert may be enough to give them the edge over the others. I would be suprised if the current bottom three stayed up - I can't see Reading and QPR picking up the necessary points unless they have significant investment in January and I feel that Wigan's time has finally come. No individual good enough to keep them up and balance the books when sold next July.
That's three less than we have and after a truly appalling run they only went down on the last day of the season.As I said in a post last week I reckon it's nigh on impossible to get relegated now.If we produced the kind of form QPR have to date with their single win we would end up with 38 points.
it would certainly take an almighty collapse to go down. not impossible but unlikely. i'll be happier if we can get another couple of wins before the fa cup game!
Ollie kept up his gung ho style of play right to the end.I remember them coming out at Old Trafford and really setting about United in that last game.Hughton would just tighten up and play out a few dour nil nils until we were safe.I must admit that with what I know now he would have been my first choice,not that I want to see any games like that mind.
