I do think that things will get worse for us, results wise, before they get better. Man City home and Newcastle away are by no means nailed on defeats, but I am expecting defeats in both. So that would leave us on 24 points from 27 points, winless in six games, and quite possibly in the relegation zone again. So long as the players and the fans don't drop their heads and get down, this isn't a problem. There will still be enough winnable games left to survive. But it does become twice as hard to win those games - and I think we will need to win at least four of those final eleven, maybe five depending on the number of draws - if everyone is feeling quite low and negative going into them.
I think we have quite contrasting opinions. You see, the points You have listed there as being positives I personally view as negative, yes we have played well but we are not winning the games, we have had 52 shots at goal in our last 3 games and only scored 3 goals. Everton should have been wrapped up after 30 minutes, Rickie missed 3 chances you'd put you life savings on. Against Utd you can't have 21 shots and fail to get anything from Old Trafford , we may never get that chance again. And against Wigan yesterday, we did everything we could to gain the lead and then In typical Saints fashion thre it away via an individual error. So as I said from what I have seen under Pochettino I still feel we will go down, if not we will run it VERY close.
Olly come on you have to admit that these last 8 games the team have performed consistently well. We would all have taken this points return back then. No-one expected anything from Arsenal, Chelsea! If we keep that level of performance we will stay up!
Absolutely the last few performances have been great, I was never disputing that. It worries me that we have an inability to kill games, not just through Pochettino, it goes back to Adkins aswell.
Yes there is. We can easily get 15 or 16 more points from these last 14 games. We have 9 points from the last 8 games so we only need to continue that form to stay up. My guess is that we will do better than that.
Olly I apologise for having an opinion but certainty in the last 8 games as Lamby has said we have been performing well but seeing as you are always looking for an argument with anyone who will entertain you with one I can't be arsed with you. Again I apologise for not seeing all the negatives like you do.
Tend to agree with Olly here. We have played well in the last 3 games, but for all the pretty football, the really great passages of play and domination we have scored 3 goals. 1 of which wasn't anything to do with us making a great move but was an individual error by Carrick. Yes we have played great in large spells of the last three games, but we are not winning and we are not putting games out of sight like our dominance suggests we should. The reason? I think theres a couple of reasons. Firstly teams know we like to knock the ball about and build from the back, did this under Adkins and its continuing under Pochettino, so in short they let us do that. They are perfectly happy with us having the ball just inside their half or in ours as long as they keep their shape and have numbers behind the ball then we find it very hard to break them down. As proven by the lack of real opportunities created in the 3 games. Secondly we don't have a real out and out goalscorer in our team. Yes Lambert is a great goalscorer but he offers much more to the team than that, so drops deep meaning that we regularly only have the wide players in really advanced positions with not much threat in the box. If we had someone like Chicharito (not suggesting him, but that style of player) then i think we would create a hell of a lot more goalscoring opportunities than we currently do as he would always be making little runs off the shoulder of the last man and Ramirez/Lallana/Lambert could be playing through balls to him. Someone like Billy Sharp could provide this role, but having a player like that in the side may effect the shape and balance of the team so we may not do that. In short I expect the Wigan and Everton games to not be a one off. I think we will feel aggrieved a lot more times this season, saying we deserved to win, were unlucky etc due to controlling games. But I really don't think we will win many games against experienced Prem sides playing this way, I just hope we have enough to stay up come May
Fair enough, But if you look through the conversation here I'm not arguing with anyone, it's more debating/challenging an opinion than arguing.
Olly and magic are entilted to their view. Mine is just more positive and I agree with Chilco. We will stay up with room to spare!
Looks like my view in somewhere in the middle of these. I think we have a real chance of staying up - we are certainly capable of doing so - but I also have a real fear that we'll go down. Either way, I'm certain it wont be decided before game 37, and I'm pretty convinced it wont be decided before game 38.
After the games leading up to and including the draw against Chelsea I was very confident that we would stay up. This is not intended to express an opinion on the manager change, but to have produced so little in points from the great performances in the last 3 games I find worrying. Only creating 2 goals plus the give-away from Utd is extremely poor return for long periods of dominance since Poch took over. That HAS to improve if we are to stay clear of the drop zone.
I don't think we will go down, I have faith that our form will improve soon, but recent weeks have concerned me. It's not just the fact we aren't getting the results our general play has warranted, it's that the other teams around us have started to do better. Particularly Reading and Newcastle have ended the dreadful runs they were on and have started picking up wins, and we have missed chances to do so. We've not been higher than 15th all season, it's time for some people to accept that we're in a relegation fight, and without the killer instinct we have failed to show virtually all season, that situation isn't going to improve. As I say, I believe we're not far off and that we'll be ok in the end, but just getting a load of draws like we have lately isn't going to be enough.
I agree with most of this but still feel we will stay up, if we can only get out of the habit of conceding, like yesterday, a corner, almost every 10 minutes, or, if that statistic stays consistent, defend them with greater discipline. The pressure on the defence and concentration required is always going to tell with that kind of event. The GK situation seems now to be much better, another top notch display from Boruc. I can see that when that extra zip around the oppositions goal comes, as I believe it will, then some teams will take a pasting, (well I hope they do!)
