Given how tight it is, I'm not sure why us and Bournemouth are such big favourites. It's not as if the teams above us are much better.
I’m just going according to the bookies. They have Palace, West Ham, Leicester and Wolves as waaaay longer odds than us, Bournemouth, Leeds, Everton and Forest. So in their view it is very unlikely that it will be 3 from those 5 As I said they aren’t always right, and there is bound to be unexpected results between now and the end of the season which possibly changes things.
Yeah I thought it odd, only thing I can think of is the remaining fixtures. I haven’t looked at other teams run ins, we know ours is hard and possibly the hardest of all the teams down there which would obviously have an impact. Also if they’ve taken a **** ton of money in comparison on us and Bournemouth that would obviously impact the odds. I assume we were easily the most popular bet in this market for a long time and other teams haven’t had anywhere near as much money placed on them
I looked at remaining fixtures and West Ham (who also have Europe to contend with) have a bad run in, as do Leicester. So for me it's wide open for all 3 spots right now.
It’s incredible that we are back in the fight really. You’re totally right, amazingly the teams above us are just as **** as we are. Also looking like Palace may be a team that drops off and joins the mix.
Palace have been awful for a while in front of goal. Like us, they're really struggling to score goals so puts massive pressure on the defence. They can't be ruled out.
Maybe comprehensively beaten was poor use of phrase, but we have played the top 14 sides 17 times so far this season and lost 14. 2 wins against Chelsea and a draw with Arsenal. 7 points from 51. Conversely, we have 14 points from 8 games against the other 5 sides who make up the current bottom 6. Looking at our remaining fixtures, we have 2 games against the bottom 6 to go and a home game to Palace who can't buy at win. Even if we win all 3 we would require a further 6-8 points to stay up. Big ask!
We have 4 games against the bottom 8, plus home games with Fulham and Brentford. 6 games there, let's say we get 12 points from them. That gets us to 33. Which means to be pretty much assured of safety we'd need 5 points from the remaining 7 games: United (a), Spurs (h), City (h), Arsenal (a), Newcastle (a), Brighton (a) and Liverpool (h). Hopefully the points needed to stay up will be less than 38 but even so, 38 is achievable.
Difference between them and us is Maddison. He’s excellent, and just the type of player we’ve needed since Tadic left. If you’re gonna have one top 4 quality player in your team, you want him to be a playmaker. Unfortunately for us, ours is a DM.
He can't do it on his own though as Saturday showed. He put several crosses on a plate for his teammates who missed chance after chance.
12 12 points from: Brentford (h) West Ham (a) Bouremouth (h) Palace (h) Forest (a) Fulham (h) Big ask, that! Even if we win the 2 easier home games, 6 points from the other 4 would seem highly unlikely. Wolves and Forest home games were the two major **** ups of our season. 4 points from them and the outlook would be very different!
Indeed. He’s also a known quantity. Paul may be fantastic, but atm we don’t know if he’s a Pelle or a Carillo.
Those games are gone and it’s difficult to be too positive based on previous performances, but I think three wins from those games is doable and if we can avoid defeat against those around us then that will be a benefit. I wouldn’t discount any match of the 13, yes 13! A third of the season remains. Teams can lose key players, form and especially near the end of the season might be stuck in a mid table rut.
To be fair I can see why he is having a pop, very tabloidesque ****e reporting, including multiple emojis. Compare that to the standard of some of their other club reporters. I didn’t think they looked great, but if Iheanacho had woken up on the right side of the bed that morning they would have beaten us comfortably.
