Go on then you can have a football one, Jose Mourinho- "I'll walk if Chelsea don't win trophies." Stephen Hawking- "I'll walk if Arsenal win trophies."
I watched Liverpool v Stoke. I thought survival would be easy. Then I watched West Ham v City. We made Stoke look like Brazil. Malky needs to get in 3 or 4 players quickly and some of our players look out of their depth. We play that line up all season and we are going down. However im sure Malky will sort it. Not in time for Man City though.
The first half was dire but we started to get some semblance of a team in the 2nd half. MM and his team have a lot of work to do and it's bot helped by having Man city next. The performance reminded me of Ipswich away last season.
I agree Hilts, I know its early days, but you have the feeling that Stoke will struggle this year with Sparkey. It will be a season of Stoke getting the odd goal from a Crouch nod down and Walters missing the odd penalty!
I disagree there Taff. You will lose against City as will most teams regardless, so you may benefit of an extra week on the training park with MM sorting out his formations, partnerships and tactics etc for when you do come up against sides you would target taking points off.
What I meant was that by having man city as your next game its probably a blessing in disguise. The last thing you'd want to be doing atm is playing a side like hull and palace when makay is still bedding in the team etc. By playing city next, you a few extra weeks before you play a team you'd expect to take points from.
Hardly the point of the thread Graduate. Whether we beat, draw or lose to Man City is only relative to how you do in the context of the thread question posed. In other words, do you expect to take points off Spurs at WHL on the same day to go above us assuming we do lose to Man City? Following on from that, and after your two European games between now and then, do you expect to take more points off West Brom at the Hawthorns than we will get from Everton at the CCS on the following weekend? If you progress further in Europe, it maybe tougher than many think. Again, just an opinion on footballing matters.
I think we have the depth to do both, but still Spurs is a tall order with Bale still there, he was the only reason they beat us last season!...........
Your absolutely right , it's now one game at a time, time, if that makes sense. If we put in a good performance against Petrol Vouchers ( a la Malmo ) then we will send a first pick 11 to the Spuds and have a go . If we don't we won't see the first choice mid field . However without Bale you've always got a chance .
Many years ago now I played in what was the South Midlands League for a team based in Buckinghamshire ... two young boys were kicking about on the pitch before the game and I was intrigued because one was wearing a Blackburn Rovers shirt. This was the season after Blackburn had won the Premier league title. Now my mother was born in a small town called Clayton-le-Moors between Blackburn and Burnley so I went across and asked the young lad if he had family connections in the area. Turns out he had asked for the shirt purely because they had won the league. Told me his Dad was actually a Liverpool fan 9but they were rubbish!) ... had to laugh, at least they were upholding a 'family tradition' - supporting whichever club is the most successful! ...
the second half of the season is a lot harder so its best to amass as many points as we can. If we are still at the bottom with 15 games to go then its going to be difficult to stay up..
I think you're right Dai - that applies to both of us. Being down there brings pressure in itself no matter what league you are in. The problem with the Prem is there are no "easy games" in which you can expect to pick up points, and the pressure is self-perpetuating. After your own final 15 game run in last year, I'm sure you were very grateful for the earlier points, othewise you'd could have swapped places with Wigan.
I think we'll both be in the bottom 3 come this time next week. We have a difficult start like you. However the premiership is all about momentum, one win can lead to a winning run. The amount of confidence a side can take from a win in this league is incredible. To survive both clubs have to make their stadiums a fortress and then hope to nick a few wins/draws away from home. If you can maintain a decent record at home, that will give you (like us) a great chance of hitting that all important 40point mark.
