Unlucky Newcastle, that would have been another great result. Conceeding a really late late goal. I can't begin to imagine how that feels.
Plus, their next two games are home to Huddersfield and Burnley. If we were to not beat Fulham, Newcastle could be out of sight of us quite shortly. All because of Rafa.
Could be highly variable; there's certainly room for one team to collapse and finish on 34 points or something. Definitely not something we can count on, however.
After 26 games Saints 26 Newcastle 25 Swansea 24 Stoke 24 Huddersfield 24 WBA 20 It was all very close though not many points separated 9th downwards.
The reason that i'm so much more hopeful of survival this season than last is the last 11 PL games (since Ralph joined) reads W 4, D 3, L 4, PTS 15 The corresponding period under Pellegrino was W 1, D 6, L 4, PTS 9 As you can see it was the same amount of games lost but look at the points total and that is all down to the outlook of the Manager, we will lose games but we are more likely to win them too and 3pts in a game are huge at this time of the season, draws just suck the life out of you.
Imagine we balls up the Fulham game We’ve gifted them three points already this season, as well as the two Cardiff debacles. Not helping ourselves are we.
I thought I'd have a look at the remaining fixtures involving us, Cardiff, Newcastle, Burnley, Palace, and Brighton. In an attempt to put them into some sort of context, I've allocated points as follows: Home vs Big Six: 0 points Away vs Big Six: 0 points Home vs Bottom Two: 3 points Away vs Bottom Two: 3 points Home vs Mid Table Six: 3 points Away vs Mid Table Six: 1 point Home vs Fellow Relegation Rival: 3 points Away vs Fellow Relegation Rival: 0 points Obviously this isn't intended to be some sort of mathematical wonder model, but using that systems leaves us with: Newcastle 46 Brighton 44 Burnley 41 Cardiff 41 Palace 40 Saints 38 But if you strip out the head-to-head matches between the six of us, you're left with: Cardiff 38 (from 35) Saints 38 (from 36) Palace 37 (from 34) Newcastle 37 (from 34) Brighton 35 (from 34) Burnley 35 (from 35) That shows, for example, that Newcastle and Brighton both have three home games (and one away) to come against the rest of us. Whereas we don't have any home games left against them. Going back to including all games, what is almost as concerning as us coming out bottom on 38, is how things look after game 33: Newcastle 39 Brighton 37 Burnley 37 Cardiff 35 Palace 34 Saints 28 It illustrates how difficult our next few weeks is on paper. Whereas Newcastle have a very favourable looking run during that time, and Brighton, Burnley and Cardiff all have decent looking runs.
Teams that attack us so we can adopt the high press and counter attack. We either get battered or come away with a result.
Zaha loses appeal against extra match ban for clapping the ref...was always going to be upheld....so swapped a league game for an FA Cup game.
Sooo I thought you got an extra game ban if you appealed and the appeal failed? Otherwise you can just appeal to miss a less important game like Palace have here...so that he just misses a game he would have been rested for anyway.
I should have got an extra match ban as well, as I heartedly applauded the ref for about ten mins after the red came out! Still stupid that he can choose which game he misses, that little loop hole needs tightening somewhat.
Cardiff could be in some troubles here because of the Warnock family: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/neil-warnock-s-son-under-scrutiny-over-cardiff-deals-kb9zqh8v8
What sort of club would allow dealings with an agency that employs the son of a key member of their staff? I mean, really.