Premier League 2015/16 Relegation Watch

I think we've been bang-average so far this season. Won 3, Lost 3, drawn 4. Very ordinary. Nothing to write home about. Middle of the road. Nothing special. Just another extremely mediocre Premier League side.

Yawn. Looks like we're going to finish mid-table.


(yes, I am being ironic)

 

Because we've been ****ing horrific to watch at times? 1 goal at home etc. As I say though,I'm feeling somewhat positive now even if I have/have had my reservations about us .

 

You say that as if that's not a huge achievement for a newly promoted club.

We'll have an even better squad next year.

 

No, we've been pragmatic and hard to break down...time to get out of the Championship mentality...we have to accept tactical battles.

If we're labelled as defensively organised and hard to break down....I'll take that.

We're respected by other teams and managers...we're written off by has-been pundits, certain written media and opposing fans.

You've got to battle hard for points...I watched the Manchester derby and it was mostly ugly...but City fans are happy with a point. Liverpool v Southampton...very ugly game but Saints will be happy with the point.

We have to stifle teams and squeeze the life out of them, that's how we can compete and are doing so. As I said before, the first 2 years are about survival, in the 3rd year you're established which is when we push ahead...you can't have a boom or bust mentality in the first year as it tends to end in tonkings.

 

We are really building something, and this season I have had a sense of development and progression with every match. Who knows where we could go, but I believe we have more potential than Norwich or Bournemouth. I don't understand this nostalgic looking back to the supposed excitement of the championship. It's about 2 years ago that we lost 3-0 to Yeovil - and last season, what about the home games against Brighton, Cardiff, Wolves, Blackburn, even Ipswich. As far as I can tell we have a great team spirit and camaraderie amongst the players. When people talk about grinding out a boring 0-0 versus an exciting 3-4 defeat, or whatever, are they forgetting the tedious games that they've seen over the past 2 or 20 years, tedious because everything about the game was fairly crap, as opposed to less than exciting due to a tactical battle of wits.

 

Do they want Holebas?

 

yea I was being ironic there chap. Mid table for us is bloody brilliant.

 

Bit early to write Bournmouth off yet, they aren't as organised us as so against two of the better teams in the league they have had a tonking, where we only lost by 2 against city and 3 against Arsenal, but we still lost all the same. Our mentality is obviously far more deffensive than theirs so we won't get spanked as much but we are still likely to lose most of our games against the top four or five as well.

 

Yep,I never said we were horrific all the time though did I? I agree and fully accept that we have been tactical and hard to break down,but the 2 first home games were really quite dire. I don't see why I should be taken to Guantanamo Bay just for admitting what I'm sure a fair % of our fans are thinking. End of the day 13th in the league is bloody marvellous,as previously mentioned.

 

With their injuries, I think the squad they have is significantly worse than almost every team in the league. I don't believe it's possible for a team to be able to make up ground with such a huge gulf in quality against every opposition. This is especially true with the run in they have. They'll have to be at least six points clear of the drop by March (even that is being generous), and I don't see any way they can possibly do that.

There's only so far they can blame injuries. They are part of the game, and you simply cannot rely on poor quality players like Josh King and Junior Stanislas to plug the gaps.

 

E.g they *****ed a good portion of their budget on Mings and Gradel. For the same price we got Capoue, Behrami, Nyom, Prodl and Jurado.

Depth = Security

 

Newcastle spent £50m this summer

Their net spend was only exceeded by the two Manchester clubs

 

I remember seeing us lose 4-3 to Charlton on New Years day

Some would call that entertaining because of the scoreline, but the reality was watching 2 crap teams hoofing and taking it in turns to make basic defensive errors

Turgid stuff

 

That's made my day.

 

It's a Championship quality squad that's only going to get found out further as we go further on into the season

 

Whilst i'm cautiously optimistic about our season some people need to tone it down a touch. Being cocky in October is not a good look, especially when we could quite easily slip back down the table!

I don't want us to become one of those arrogant fan bases, with unreasonably high expectations.

 

Championes, championes ole ole ole "

 

Seen the goals on MOTD2. Boruc literally gave Spurs about 3 of those goals

 

Thank God we don't have Boruc.

 

Good thing we built from the back eh

Boring boring Watford

 

So anyway, how does everyone think Muff will get on next season? Will the parachute payments help them bounce straight back with another promotion? Or will the exodus of key players mean they'll be battling to avoid relegation to League 1?

 

Our expectation this season is 17th place in the P.L. Anything above that is a bonus

We are currently in bonus terotority

 

Muff could survive on that basis that there are 4 other poor teams in the division

 

There it is....drop that truth bomb.

 

New league, new coach, new system, new players...got to give some time to adjust dude.

West Brom and Southampton games weren't great...but ask Norwich and Bournemouth for those 2pts and they'd snap your hand off.

 

I know football is a game of opinions and all that but there's no way I'm having the WBA home game chalked off as 'really quite dire'. The final score says little about actually happened. We dominated from beginning to end and had lots of attempts on goal.

 

We should go in for Matt Ritchie in January.

 

I wouldn't want that little fekker at my football club. Would be funny though.

 

That's what I meant. 'Unsettle' him.

 

Howe would be livid. We should definitely do that.

 

Just looked on muff and naarch forums and they are bemoaning their gung ho approach. Somebody actually praised us on the pink un!.

Funny when some of us on here have been unhappy with our defence first policy. Apart from that the general outlook seems to be v gloomy indeed.

 

Moseyed on over to the wet spam forum to see if they have any threads on the game yet and saw this - "The three to go down":

http://www.westhamonline.net/forum_flat.php?8149047||1||

"Then between Villa and Newcastle although I think Watford will start to be found out eventually."

Found out? Geez!

40-50% of them have us as certain to go down. Hope we can show them what we are capable of on Saturday!

 

If we do beat them it will be because they had an off-day no doubt according to their fans, pundits, Amazonian tribes, etc.

 

At what point does Chelsea become realistic?