Being out the fa cup has given us a slight advantage on the fxitures front on the weeks of 6th round and semis we are due to play Newcastle & swansea. as both of these are out then the fixtures are unlikely to be re-arrnaged to a midweek We have 15 games left Man Utd and Tottenham could have 31 games left Man City could have 29 games left Arsenal could have 27 games left I don't know if this would help us in the run in. I've not included FA cup replays in these figures. Down side is that when the teams play the re-arranged league games they know how we've done.
Moulton, what are your expectations for this season as things stand ? I´ve moved from avoiding relegation to a top 10 finish. Maybe that will change again soon to a top 5 finish & then I´ll be keeping half an eye out for teams like Liverpool, West Ham & Manc Poo, but til then it´s really one game at a time & fingers crossed.
I was thinking this, the others obviously have larger squads than us and probably stronger too. Having potentially half the games to play, it could act as a leveller of sorts. Fitness could be key in the run in
Expectation? Hope = top 4 if we get where I hope then these factors could be in our favour I want a top 10 finish becasue if we don't then we would have to go on a Peter Taylor type run which carried into the next season and a 5-0 defeat to Bolton.
Theres not much difference between recovery time and rustiness though, i just hope the longer breaks don't bring a negative impact on our intensity.
If you look at how we played across international breaks when the majority of our players had a week or two off and over Christmas when we had 3 games in 7 days, having longer breaks does us good.
We need any little advantage we can get. I hope the sides left in Europe go to the final and so they play as many games as possible. Ultimately though, lets be honest, it is in our own hands and if we fail to get into Europe now, we will only have ourselves to blame
Exactly. With Ranieri, Fuchs Inler and Okazaki we have enough experience in what it takes to close out a tough season and they should be able to help keep the intensity up. That means next season we will be in this horrible position of having all these extra games in Europe to contend with.
The only down side to that is if man poo, scousers or spurs win europa league they get a champions league place.
