Personally I just cant see where the next victory will come from. We don't look capable of beating anybody the vast majority of the time. The lads don't seem motivated and their heads drop very quickly when we conceed and Schteeeve looks woefully out of his depth. I don't necessarily think that we they have blown the whole 80 mill, and I think we have the bones of a decent mid table squad, but I don't think that Mac is the one to get the best out of the squad that we have. If we do go down we can only pray that: A. The fat man sells up and ****s off, taking his tatty advertising hoardings with him. B. If the fat mans stays, he finally gets rid of the whole of the 'footballing board' and gets some people in that actually know something about running a successful football club and a decent, hungry, sought after manager.............. not a dinosaur that wasn't deemed good enough for a Championship club. I think we will go down.............. but if one of the above happens, ill live with it.
I think you'll finish below Sunderland, but I think it's where you finish compared to Norwich and Bournemouth that'll decide your fate.
We are royally in the **** but we can most certainly stay up. No doubt. Like I said on another thread, if we win two games in particular we will probably stay up. Those games are against Sunderland and Norwich and they are both awful teams and very beatable. Hand points to these two teams and we will be in serious trouble. "6 pointers" and all that.
I voted no but was hoping I could also vote yes immediately afterwards. Think its still in the balance but we are showing all the characteristics of a side that will get relegated: 1) inability to put a meaningful run together 2) poor defense that seems determined to make our goal difference the worst in the division 3) inability to get back into games once we go 1-0 down 4) nothing about our tactics that suggest a game plan for the more difficult games where other relegation candidates seem to be able to pick up points
Your defence might be weak as piss but on your day your actually play good football. Can't see you going down but it's fun to watch you suffer along side us this season.
I have said we will drop. I don't know it just feels like one of those. On the surface should be fine but the wins never come. We have got to take advantage of those teams around us that we still have to play being desparate. We can play on the break quite well. If we can keep our cool we will be ok but it's a big IF!
The games against West Ham and West Brom of course offer hope. Its the other extremes in performance which worry me. If we'd gone down to Chelsea and lost, no one would have worried. Its how we tend to lose. Unfortunately Steve can't kid us. We've seen this for a number of years now. We fight relegation most years, and the common theme is heartless uncoordinated performances.
Do they really? Both games we just took advantage of the teams being weak - West Ham had an off day, and WEst Brom were horrendous....plus we only won both games by a one goal margin, and could have easily let those 2 poorly performing teams go away with something. Like the Liverpool match, we just took advantage of a team having a massive off day. Now that it really matters, teams are going to put in much more gritty performances, especially those around us like Norwich and Sunderland. It doesn't matter if we get hammered against the big teams or even the manner of it, everyone expected us to lose to Chelsea, but the story of this season is we can't even pick ourselves up and get the points we need in the "bread and butter" matches - i.e. Watford, Mackems, Villa etc
I voted no for a couple of reasons 1: I cant bring myself to think we will get relegated, in my mind i think something will happen, a run of 2-3 games, a change of manager, just something! 2: There's alot of football yet to be played, I really beleive that its all in our own hands and because we have all 5 of the bottom 5 in our last 12, they are the games we need to look at winning. Anything but wins against these opponents will not just be 3 points dropped, but because they will be taking 3 points off us, it really is more like 6 points!
I don't think its sensible or balanced to put our wins down to off days for the oppo, and our defeats down to us being rubbish. I think that begins to look like looking for something to moan about. You have to be balanced for me. First half against West Ham we were at it and gave a cracking performance. We made them look bad. Against West Brom we made a quick start and knocked the stuffing out of them early doors. They were aggressive performances, with good intensity. Both should have been won by larger margins but of course our finishing was terrible. They clearly offer hope. If you replicate that enough times you will clearly win enough matches to remain in the division. Its simply balancing that against the tsunami of ****ty efforts which is the problem. I have to disagree wholeheartedly with the notion that it doesn't matter how you lose. It may garner the same number of points but over the course of a season, how you approach games in general will have a bearing on the number of points you get. Sunderland are currently a good example of what a consistent approach can bring. They have applied themselves in the same way over the last 3 or 4 games. They have picked up some valuable points and confidence as a result. We are at a low ebb again due to one game. Why? The way we lost. Look at the reaction of the supporters, the atmosphere around the place since that game on Saturday. Its getting downbeat bordering on toxic again. It all stems from frustration at effort levels and not even doing the basics right. If a team is just too good, hands up fair enough. Chelsea weren't that good, they were giving plenty of ball away themselves. So yeah I reckon how you lose is not just important, but actually a very important pointer to the core values being instilled, and will actually count for a fair bit once the chips are down. That is why I think we'll go down more than anything else. There is enough ability in the squad to secure another PL season. I don't think there is enough mental capacity to do so. Don't get me wrong our defence is ****e, and we by no means have a top half squad, but there is enough there with the correct guidance and application.
Doon for me ****ing ****e away and fragile at home....tbh hope we are to teach the ****s in charge a lesson
Unlike other seasons, we seem to have a start 11 which is very much capable of staying up. We have a coaching staff list who seem to be far better than we've had in years. We've spent a high amount of money, signing England internationals with premier league experience. Our manager is poor, but guys have survived with worse. So, really, on paper it looks like we should be safer than we have been in a while. Which, is why we are certain to be relegated.
I can understand that at this time there is a lot of pessimism around, I would like to give you an example of optimism from my own experience, when I was young we would be put to bed around 9 PM then quite often in the early hours of the morning you would be dragged out of bed and down to the garden and into the Air Raid Shelter, with the air raid siren screaming, I kid you not, my only thoughts at that time were that in the morning I would be able to get up early and collect a bigger and better piece of shrapnel than my mates had,
I think you have it spot on, which is why a good manager able to instil confidence is so important , how many times when watching a game have you seen a different team come out after half time
