Allardyce came out after the game yesterday and said with 5 minutes to go he made sure we didn't lose the game as we have gambled in the past and lost every time. My question is when will we get to the stage of draws not being enough? Whilst I agree yesterday was a must not lose game it was as close to being a must win game as we can surely get. Before yesterday's game Bournemouth at home was arguably our most winnable remaining game and we have set out to not lose it. Fair enough if we were 6 points ahead of them but we are not they are 6 points ahead of us. Every other team down there with the exception of Villa have pulled a result out of their ass. Bournemouth beat Man Utd and Chelsea. Swansea beat Everton today. Newcastle have beaten Spurs and Liverpool. Our next 4 games are City and Utd at home and Liverpool and West Ham away. We need to win one of those to simply stay in touch. My guess is we will go out in all of those games to not lose and will if lucky pick up 1 point. We are in massive danger of completely losing touch and needing a miracle from out last 10 games. When does the mindset change to going out to win games rather than not losing. If we draw every game from now we have 34 points and will go down. Surely someone as analytical as Allardyce will know this. One win from the next 4 keeps us in touch just about so let's just go out to win them all in the hope that we get lucky once. Norwich and Newcastle away are the only 2 games we have against our rivals from now in and we have to win both to have a chance. Hopefully by the time we play the likes of Watford Everton West Brom Palace and Southampton they have nothing to play for and their minds are already on the beach. We don't have enough defensive quality to keep clean sheets we make a minimum of one howler a game and I've seen nothing since Allardyce took over to make me think he can change this. Basically from my point of view the only way out of this is to go on the front foot go to win every one of the last 15 games and if we win 6 of them we might just stay up.
Interesting and a hell of a quandary. Go for it, get beat and he`s criticised for being too cavalier. Go steady and he`s criticised for being too cautious. I suppose he`s got to try and find the balance based on what the players are capable of. I don`t envy him that task as, imo, they`re capable of **** all.
I agree in the main the squad is crap. We have players like Johnson Lens and Borini who have a bit of ability in them bit if they produced every week woukd be playing for better teams than us. In Defoe we have one of the best predators in the history of the premiership so surely we should be looking to get the 3 players mentioned supporting him and ensuring he gets as many opportunities as possible to put the ball in the net. My guess is we will lose around half of our remaining games so 7 or 8 defeats meaning we have to win 6 and draw one to get to 38 points which in my opinion will be 50 - 50 for survival. I guess in short what I'm saying is we are in deep ****. We've been in worse positions in each of the last 2 seasons and got away with it so we can do it again but we will no doubt have to get lucky with at least one team going on a horrific run like Norwich 2 years back and Hull last year.
January's a funny month, matches notwithstanding. Players coming in, going out. This weekends games results were all over the place. This season still has many surprises in store. Hang on to your bootlaces......
Good post. Yesterday, I might have dismissed it, but not any more. Swansea's win at Goodison today changed everything. Today, we bite the bullet and fight for all we've got, or we don't. Because, right now, it looks like we're going down.
This league has changed years ago freak results happened 4 or 5 times a season this year there's one every week. The league is more competitive than its been since the mid nineties lower teams no longer fear the big boys as they did. This league has changed and we need to adapt or be relegated simple as.
Kick around as much as you want but it still comes back to unpredictability. Everton could not have turned a more dafter performance to day if they tried but Swansea get the points. SA can take the scientific approach or look at the fixture list and plan his campaign to suit but the fact remains that if you do not pressure the other team you get nowt. Going on Saturday's match where we tried to play counter-attack at home ain't the way.
The game was there for the taking in the second half IMO, especially towards the end. You could tell Bournemouth were satisfied with a point. Should have went for the 3 points IMO.
Sam took 1 point instead of going for 3 and possibly ending up with 0. You know as well as I do that defence can`t be trusted not to concede.
Well if we go down by a point or 2 then we look back and say it was one of the worst decisions of the season. If we stay up by a point we'll say it was the best decision of the season. Time will tell.
Exactly so. I`m beginning to wish this season was over and done with whatever the outcome. Season after season. It gets to the stage where it wears you down.
If we go down by a Pont or 2 I will look back at the West Ham game where we through away a 2 goal lead or the Norwich game where we were battered. Yesterday we were crap and in the end were lucky to get away with a point. I agree we still should have went for it at the end but it's previous poor results that have put us in this precarious position at the moment.
Draws aren't going to cut it now. Its too late in the season for that. Drawing loads of games early on under De Canio kept us in with a chance, but we haven't done it this season. Given the look of our remaining fixtures, its win or lose now. We can't settle for a point. Maybe not even away now. Wins are all that counts. We need 6. Minimum.
Thats it go for wins the BSA way - still many suprising results to come and many top teams have Europe & cup matches - I know it's a long shot but we are Sunderland and we do unexpected things -but a pity it's always
Given that that's our first draw under Allardyce I'm surprised to see so many people saying he tends to play for a point. Leicester were further behind than we are now with fewer games to go, so it's not impossible. We need to pull something special out of the bag over the next few weeks though, and this season we haven't threatened the top teams at all, which is very concerning. I think we could capitalise on the instability at Man United when we play them at home, but can't see us taking anything off City or the Scousers.
End of January and desperate straits again. The only hope was to drag in some quality in the transfer window, that is not really looking good now. This team are simply not good enough
Should have started yesterday with the Nags and Norwich getting beat. Got to be positive and go for wins. This season is some what unique with a lot of the bottom teams beating the top teams on a consistent basis. Just felt yesterday bringing on Rodwell instead of N'Doye was a mistake
