They do have better sides, I don't dispute that. However, all I know is that we're joint 4th after a LOT of games with 5 wins in a row. We're just as good as we're being portrayed because we've racked up the wins and draws, irrespective of what Spurs and Chelsea have been doing. This time last season, 59 points would have equaled 4th again, so it's not like a one-off fluke that our performances have got us up here.
Fair points! The defensive stats become a little less damning when you look at the players we were missing during those performances, but you're right, our GD could be key and we're already off the pace of the other teams
Looks like 6th for us now, unless King doesn't play again (maybe 5 minutes at the end of the Cup Final), Harry gets his formations right and and we get huge slices of Chelsea's luck. Too many ifs, 6th for me now. Which funnily enough, is what I predicted at the start of the season and thus is actually my 'official prediction'. That looked pessimistic for so long though, and 6th will hurt now, of course.
I think Chelsea are playing at least as poorly as we are and the schedule they have means they are unlikely to pull out of it. Newcastle are playing well, but they weren't great against Swansea (apparently only touched the ball to score) and were outplayed by Bolton until a wonder goal and an offside second saw them home. In contrast we created loads against Norwich even though we were second best and could have snatched an undeserved win if Benny or Bale had scored. 3rd is gone, frankly Arsenal are playing really well and deserve that place but 4th is between 3 flawed teams and we could still get it. None of the teams we have to play will outplay us, just depends if we can convert our chances. Luckily relegation threatened teams are less likely to play for a draw, if they come out to try to win, we'll moider da bums.
That pretty much sums it up. The only difference being that Chelsea & Newcastle seem to be having all the luck at the moment, whilst we are not getting much.
Luck? How about the two penalties that could have been given against norwich but werent? Surely there is luck there? Chelsea have been lucky with a few decisions lately but you cant hold that against them as at the end of the day its down to the linesmen and referee not the players to make the decision... Our game against Swansea was always going to be a matter of weather the storm and use our pace on the counter attack and against Bolton we didnt really show up however Bolton are fighting for their lives and are always going to put up a fight (I personally hope them and Wigan stay up). The last few games where the teams in 3rd - 6th have to play bottom 6 sides will be some of the hardest of the season (i personally think our game vs Wigan away will be harder than Man City home).
Yes, but that "luck" didn't gain us a point, Chelsea's against Wigan got them 3 undesrved points. Also the second one was never a pen, the Norwich player engineered the collision with Ade. The King incident, I haven't actually seen any footage of King dragging him down. I assume he did, but there was a slight element of doubt in the incident.
Neither the Swansea game or the Bolton game were 'lucky' in my opinion...We HAVE had a fair bit of luck this season, but those 2 were not lucky. Against Swansea we only had 30% possession, but with it, they did NOTHING. Pardew said in his Pre-match conference that he expected it to be a poor game for the neutral and asked the Newcastle fans to be patient. That he expected Swansea to keep the ball well and for us to catch them and punish them on the break! That is exactly what happened...I don't see that as luck, I see that as perfectly executed tactics! The Bolton game could be considered luck to an extent in that, Bolton had chances they didn't take, but is that luck, or just poor quality on their part? We didn't foul them and get away with it, they weren't denied a penalty, they simply failed to beat our goalkeeper...We were poor in the middle 60 minutes, I mean, shockingly bad, Ba's touch was awful and we couldn't penetrate them at all, but then Ben Arfa has been making runs like that all season, he did it wonderfully against Blackburn and could've done it twice yesterday had he not tried to pass to Cisse...Is that luck or is that just higher quality shining through? Granted we're on a great run and things always seem to go right for you at times like this, but we've had to ride plenty of storms this season (first season post Carroll, Nolan and Barton/ACoN/Stadium Renaming/Season Ending Injuries) and we've stayed up in the top 7 all year...I guess the only real element of luck is that we're having our purple patch when it matters! (or at least, in the games running up to when it matters!)
Ithink what he means is that if you come up against a side with a striker who actually knows where the goal is, you could suffer a bit.
True, yourselves, Man City and Chelsea tore our arses out, Norwich took advantage of our horrible injuries and left us red faced...Fulham was a funny game and I still can't quite get to grips with what went wrong (we could've been the 5:2 winners ourselves). But then, when we've played Manure we've defended like demons, against you in the 2:2 we rode our luck but put everything on the line and in the end deserved the draw (in my opinion) and against Chelsea in the 3:0 got done by a poor refereeing decision that saw Luiz stay on and neither Mata or Sturridge get sacrificed (all 3, as well as the 3 subs, would play a big part in their goals). So you can't say our defence is poor full stop, we've had some really good defensive performances HOWEVER I'd say that's where we need the most investment (Erik Pieters and Douglas are on their way if you believe the gossip columns)
Nowhere have I said you have been lucky. I could have about Cisse's goal against Bolton. The luck thing however concerns Chelsea, not Newcastle.
The 2nd goal against Liverpool was a bit lucky. Cisse was miles offside. It's not part of a run of dubious decisions like those that Chelsea are benefiting from, though.
In short it has been a shocking season for referees and an even worse one for linesmen... Could end up costing someone a place in the CL or even the premiership! Make them full timers!
it does'nt only mean it could cost someone a place in the pl,it also affect's the top of the table where it could cost one team a top 4 finish i. e. if chelsea finish 4th three point's clear of Spurs or Newcastle it would be the three points from the Wigan game that they should'nt have got
i dont see how making them full timers would make them more attentive and less biased during the course of a game. id say get them fitter and make them give press conferences after every match to explain some decisions...that would make them wake up a bit more. that cheeky basterd apologised to Martinez..if i was RM i would hav told him to shove it as it does not help his cause for staying up like the 1 point he robbed them of,would.
I'd agree somewhat with that point. The Linesman is the closest official to the crowd in a Premiership game. I think sometimes you can just put it down to a bottle job..funny how these dodgy decisions nearly always seem to go the way of the home side!
