Wow, that would be just superb. If you are right I will buy you some doggy biscuits, and a nice new biplane.
April/West Ham will be key. 3 home games and 1 winnable away one plus Chelsea away who have lost a few times at the Bridge. Don't want to go into the last 2 games neeeding points! And we have to hope to get more than expected in the next 3-4 matches.
I took an average of the current league positions of the opponents of each of the 7 sides listed above, just to try to get an objective comparison of difficulty. In descending order: AFCB 7.5 Villa 8.5 Brighton 9.0 Norwich 9.0 WFC 9.7 Palace 10.1 WHU 10.2 Bournemouth have a very tough run in. Their 6 remaining away games are all against teams in the top 11 of the table and 3 of their 6 remaining home games are against teams currently in the top 6. Unless they have a major upturn in form, they might struggle to make more than 35 points. For us, I think 7-9 points at home, then however many we pick up at Burnley, Palace and West Ham will decide our fate. I reckon 38 points will be enough to avoid the drop.
I convinced myself the exact same result would happen back in 1988. That season Liverpool won the League by a country mile with opponents from Manchester trailing in second place They came and beat us 4-1 in Feb We went down This year I predict two out of the three will repeat.
What is 'very Watfordy'? It seems to be used to describe us beating opponents who usually embarrass us but I can't recall any examples of this since we've been promoted. Or is it some ******** thing to describe mindless optimism?
United a, 3 Liverpool h,1 Palace a, 3 Leicester h, 3 Burnley a,3 Southampton h, 3 Chelsea a, 0 Norwich h, 3 Newcastle h, 1 West Ham a, 3 Man City h, 0 Arsenal a 1 End the season on 48 points.
Its all very well looking at the run in and saying this game is winnable and we'll pick up points here when we have just achieved 1 point out of 9 in winnable matches vs Aston, Villa, Everton and Brighton. Taking the lead in all three games with a 2-0 lead at home to Everton and then ending up with a paltry one point. We have put a huge amount into the last 3 games but our defensive could not cope against 3 average teams so it will be miraculous if we start winning against Man Utd, Liverpool and Leicester. Man City at home is a complete write off. Im afraid that we will almost certainly lose at Man Utd as we always go there play well, miss chances, , but end up losing due to a defensive error. A draw will be great but is only possible if Sarr plays. Anyone who seriously thinks we will beat Liverpool is deluded. We played our best football of the season away to Liverpool while they played one of their worst and we still lost 2-0. I have a feeling it will go down to the last day where we need a win away to Arsenal to stay in the Premier League.
I can think of a couple of examples, both in 2016/17 - beat Man Utd at home, a team we'd lost our last six league games in the Prem against, and then Arsenal away, a team we'd lost our last seven Prem league games against, with a fair few batterings in the process (not great examples though because most of our losses had occurred during the seasons we didn't have a hope and those were poor Utd and Arsenal sides that didn't even make the Champions League that season). I think it refers more to our occasional tendency to beat the best while lose to the worst - that same season we lost to League 1 Millwall in the FA Cup just before beating Arsenal, and lost to relegated Hull and Sunderland. Not really any different to a dozen or so other middling clubs though...
Using average league positions is a bit misleading because it doesn't take account of whether our rivals are playing the teams home or away, which can make a big difference (take Spurs for instance - their home and away form is like night and day). I used Excel to produce a combined home and away table, as follows: 1 Liverpool (h) 13 13 0 0 35 9 39 26 2 Liverpool (a) 12 11 1 0 25 6 34 19 3 Leicester (h) 13 8 3 2 26 14 27 12 4 Man City (h) 12 8 2 2 31 12 26 19 5 Tottenham (h) 13 8 2 3 25 12 26 13 6 Man City (a) 13 8 1 4 34 17 25 17 7 Everton (h) 13 7 3 3 18 14 24 4 8 Man Utd (h) 13 6 5 2 24 12 23 12 9 Chelsea (a) 13 7 2 4 27 22 23 5 10 Leicester (a) 12 7 1 4 28 12 22 16 11 Sheffield Utd (h) 13 6 2 5 15 12 20 3 12 Southampton (a) 13 6 2 5 18 18 20 0 13 Newcastle (h) 13 5 5 3 12 12 20 0 14 Sheffield Utd (a) 13 4 7 2 13 12 19 1 15 Burnley (h) 13 6 1 6 16 18 19 -2 16 Chelsea (h) 12 5 3 4 16 12 18 4 17 Brighton (h) 13 4 6 3 17 14 18 3 18 Wolverhampton (a) 13 4 6 3 17 15 18 2 19 Wolverhampton (h) 12 4 5 3 18 17 17 1 20 Arsenal (h) 12 4 5 3 18 18 17 0 21 Aston Villa (h) 12 5 2 5 16 21 17 -5 22 Crystal Palace (h) 13 4 4 5 10 13 16 -3 23 Bournemouth (h) 13 4 4 5 15 19 16 -4 24 Arsenal (a) 13 2 8 3 14 16 14 -2 25 Watford (h) 13 3 5 5 13 17 14 -4 26 Crystal Palace (a) 13 3 5 5 13 19 14 -6 27 West Ham (h) 13 3 3 7 20 25 12 -5 28 Man Utd (a) 12 3 3 6 12 17 12 -5 29 Norwich (h) 12 3 3 6 18 25 12 -7 30 Everton (a) 13 3 3 7 16 24 12 -8 31 Burnley (a) 12 3 3 6 12 20 12 -8 32 West Ham (a) 12 3 3 6 10 18 12 -8 33 Tottenham (a) 12 2 5 5 15 20 11 -5 34 Newcastle (a) 12 3 2 7 12 24 11 -12 35 Southampton (h) 12 3 2 7 13 28 11 -15 36 Bournemouth (a) 13 3 1 9 11 21 10 -10 37 Watford (a) 13 2 4 7 11 23 10 -12 38 Brighton (a) 13 2 3 8 14 24 9 -10 39 Aston Villa (a) 13 2 2 9 16 26 8 -10 40 Norwich (a) 13 1 3 9 6 22 6 -16 So the descending order of difficulty for the teams involved based on the above table: Bournemouth 14.83333 West Ham 17.38462 Brighton 17.41667 Watford 17.66667 Aston Villa 18.30769 Norwich 19.23077 Crystal Palace 21.33333 That seems more accurate; I thought West Ham looked too low down, and a lot of people have been pointing out how tough West Ham's run-in is. Interesting to see Bournemouth still at the top - I don't think we have a hope of catching Palace with the fixtures they have left, and it doesn't seem like they'll go down regardless.
I think you have taken my analysis to another level . Is it too simplistic to say that Norwich are doomed, AFCB have a mountain to climb and we are in a 4-way battle with Villa, Brighton and West Ham for the final place?
Thinking about Bournemouth - just imagine that on the last day we survived with them being relegated on GD below us..... "Revenge is a dish best served cold!"
Don't know, assuming West Ham and Villa don't both win, it's still in Muff's hands and they're still capable of the odd surprise, but their defence may be their undoing (yes it isn't the worst but I believe they've only kept one clean sheet since they beat Man U and Dean Court isn't exactly a fortress). Definitely more in it than Norwich though.
Man Utd - WIN (27) Liverpool - LOSE Palace - WIN (30) Leicester - DRAW (31) Burnley - DRAW (32) Southampton - DRAW (33) Chelsea - LOSE Norwich - WIN (36) Newcastle - WIN (39) West Ham - WIN (42) Man City - LOSE Arsenal - LOSE That Norwich, Newcastle, West Ham stretch is vital to us staying up. I think we will do it, injuries permitting.
Surely the Watfordy thing would to be kn the cusp of surviving at Bournemouth's expense until the last minute when humpty fans encroach the pitch and some lump with one brain cell marches on to ruffle Foster's hair?
This is rediculous fantasy. The last 3 games have taught us where Watford are at. We will not go away to both Man U and Palace and pick up 6 points. This is laughable stuff. 2 Draws or one win would be amazing from these 2 games, the likelyhood will be 1 point at best.
United are Rashford-less and very blunt without him. Palace are shyte. To call them two results as fantasy is incredibly pessimistic IMO. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Palace cannot score for love or money - bit like Man U. So if we had a decent defence fully focused for 90 minutes we can get results. But I wonder who will **** up this time !
Just signed a new contract hasn't he? Turns to pot then ... Or Dawson will come in and be caught out for pace which the next few teams we play have (Vardy, Zaha and Liverpool as a whole) and Kiko played in his more natural position being rubbish again after a longish injury.
I was bored today, so thought I'd produce a summary of the league table and games to play which I'll update every week.
Man Utd - LOSE Liverpool - LOSE by at least 3 Palace - DRAW Leicester - LOSE Burnley - LOSE Southampton - DRAW Chelsea - LOSE Norwich - WIN Newcastle - DRAW West Ham - DRAW Man City - LOSE BY 5 or 6 Arsenal - LOSE So being optimisitc that is 7 points. I dont think that is enough
I dont have the time right now but is there some way of combining the home and away stats in that table to make it more concise and easier to draw conclusions from in terms of our league position?
Man Utd - WIN Liverpool - WIN by at least 3 Palace - WIN Leicester - WIN Burnley - WIN Southampton - WIN Chelsea - WIN Norwich - WIN Newcastle - WIN West Ham - WIN Man City - WIN BY 5 or 6 Arsenal - WIN So being pessimistic that is 36 points. I think that might just be enough.
