Dunno mate, not really taken an interest in Wednesday, other than when we went there and won. I expect with their lowly position, he might get the boot sooner rather than later, despite him getting them up last year. The way football is going though.
I hope Cardiff really drop off and completely out of the top 6. Only because when I went down there for that Tuesday night game last season there was a kid wearing hideous purple trousers jumping around and making hand gestures like he was mike tyson, I got so annoyed at him I even lobbed that blow up sheep we were chucking about at him. I want him to be very, very sad.
Still 2 games to go before the halfway point of 23 games. If you look at things statistically, the 3 teams we've seen as equal to us - Cardiff, Boro & Leicester - we lost to them all away. But they will all come to the KC, I'm not sure what we'd expect our points return to be from these 3 games but if we won a couple of them it would even things out. At the end of the season the table won't lie. IMO to be Champions we need Aluko fit & we need the Sunderland lads to stay on. Plus we need a quality striker. I think SB is the man and he'll "knock down the Allams' door". This time I don't think they'll be surprised.
There's more to life than purple trousers mate - you should see my pink flairs...... Anyway, back to the thread. I suppose I should forget Dai Jones - he's in our past. After we entertain Peterborough on Saturday (to make 11 home wins out of 11 ), we've got three defining games before the New Year - Leicester away then Palace and Millwall at home. If we're still top after that lot, I reckon it'll be a job well done. As for you in the same period, you've got three home games and just Derby away. You should win all three at your place, but be careful of Derby. They're very strong at home and are my dark horses to challenge for a top 6 spot come May.
Cheers for the fair comments youv'e made on this thread mate.Cardiff were always my tip for the top this season,even though my £10 went on us because the bookies priced us at 33-1,way too big. I don't think i'll be collecting though,you will scupper my plans of paying for next seasons pass. Having Bellamy in your'e team is tantamount to cheating in this division and Whittingham is one the best creative players around. **** it up however,and i think we'll be there to take anvantage.
Thanks for the sentiments - I think much of Ideal Standard as it was has now gone. I do think Cardiff will grab top spot and of the others (besides us) Boro and Leicester pose the greatest threat for the other automatic spot. In our promotion season we had amassed just 31 points at the halfway stage but had a storming second half of the season to finish third with a relatively low tally of 76 points. Whether we can stay the distance to grab an auto will, as others have said, depend on keeping Elmo and Meyler, staying pretty much (long term) injury free and the likes of the German, Simmo etc chipping in with the goals (unless we make a marquee signing)
I wouldn't like to put my name to a finishing position yet but it's great to see overall optimism on here! Key factor for me is to bring in a natural finisher. I aren't concerned about our current strike options in winning us most of our games but we need someone who can be more clinical and boost our goal difference and kill games off because it's looking increasingly likely that we might need it come the end of the season, our GD's pretty dire for where we are and we keep letting teams back into games after we go ahead. That will come back to haunt us if we don't cut it out.
It won't necessarily stay that way though. We might well slip up and lose points this way later in the season. Also, if the keep scoring first thing was the case our goal difference would look better at this stage surely? We win our games by one goal every time and if we want to match the teams around us we need to start catching them by winning games by more than a goal.
This league will be tight right up to the final weekend. CITY v. Cardiff on the last day could see both needing a point to be promoted, though lots can change between now and then.
Pretty much as I see it - by the sounds of yesterdays game and the stats as they came up on the bbc website - we were in total control - if we had a natural finisher (Waggy Edwards) we would be giving some of these sides are right hiding that our overall play surely merits... If they had conceded earlier yetserday they may well have dropped two vital points and SB knows it...
Goals are scored against the run of play all the time. I forget which team it was last year that we battered for 90 minutes but lost 2-0 to. If we can secure the players we have now for the rest of the season I would hope we'd just focus the Jan budget on bringing in a consistent goalscorer to finish more of our chances. I wouldn't have thought we needed anyone else.
Exactly, you've hit the nail on the head there. You can only get 3 points for a win so if we finish on the same points as another team at the end of the season having only won our games by one goal (the minimum margin) and they've won a few with a 2 and 3 goal cushion they're going to have a much better goal difference than us... It could make all the difference and although we're in control at the moment, my only criticism is that we need to be scoring more goals and killing teams off. Yesterday was a good example of giving someone a sniff and being punished. It didn't affect the outcome but if it had happened ten minutes earlier who knows. In a season that's tighter than ever, being around 2nd/3rd or 6th/7th looks more and more like goal difference will factor in.
Goal difference is important but we also need to score more goals to send a message out to opponents and build our own player's belief. Leicester score a lot of goals and for that reason you can bet mid to lower table teams go to the King Prawn stadium with low confidence, whereas teams can see that games are often close at the KC so they always feel they have a chance. The psychological advantage goals bring can have a big effect on points.
Leicester score ****loads and concede **** all, for this reason they will piss the league. W don't score enough and concede far too many soft ****ty goals. For this reason we won't piss the league. Get in a consistent goal poacher and this can all change. Heskey anyone?
It's a funny old game ... as someone once famously said .... the only side that we've really struggled against so far was Palace at our place ... Derby were lucky to get away 4-1 but look what they have now done to Leeds .. and that's the beauty of this league ... no result is entirely predictable and, as other posters on this thread have said, it depends on whether you 'turn up' on the day ... we have Millwall Cardiff and the tiggers coming up and those 3 fixtures will go some distance to endorseing (on not) our credentials as promotion candidates ... enjoy the ride my friends, we live in exciting times ...
Yesterday, Zola said that his side could not deal with us. He said that we were the only side so far this season that they could not cope with. Championship winning performance.
I think Jones is on borrowed time at the Wendies, I reckon he'll be gone in the next couple of weeks. As for us, I don't think we're good enough to make the top two, but a good striker in January and we could be.
Get in a consistent goal poacher and this can all change. Heskey anyone? Errr No... Craig Davies from Barnsley. He'd score a load for us or anyone else who takes a punt.
