In GT's and Boothoyd's relegation seasons the squad was limited and for the most part played to their best abilities. If either of those managers had this squad they would have survived. This lot do not give a damn.
Need wins against Sheffield United and Bournemouth now. November looks a big month as well. Feel we should have 3-4 points more than we do in terms of what I'd have expected against opposition played
Yep, you can never forget that stat that if games had ended at 80 minutes under Aidy we’d have survived. Shows how hard the team we’re working but ultimately we’re just not good enough.
It's like the sun is behind a big ominous cloud and it suddenly came out momentarily during the Arsenal game and just couldn't cope with the number of chances that we missed ... get me another pint someone
Our saving grace is some of the other bad teams around us. Hopefully we are in a bad run of form that we can turn around to at least keep up with the pack. You would have to say all of the bottom 5 look in trouble. Newcastle? Say no more. Continual decline, 5-0 today. Survived due to Benitez in last few seasons. Brucey baby at the helm with very negative tactics. Villa. No early season bounce from promotion. Not really clicking. Norwich. They are in the relegation zone despite beating ManCity and the amazing form of Pukki. If Pukki is an Ighalo form player they are in trouble. If he can keep it up all season they might just survive. Brighton. One win so far against against the bottom team. Have looked lacklustre other than big win. Normally one other team falls off. Maybe Southampton but they seem a bit more cohesive than recent seasons. Or Sheffield united, not seen much of them to be honest. I know they put up a good fight against Liverpool. I still think we’ll survive at the moment, but that view may change after the game next Saturday. It will be a long slog if we don’t get three points.
Which one of these teams will recruit Big Fat Sam first ...? Looking at the above list, I have renewed hope. I think we'll turn it around. I've got a feeling that we'll see a real reaction against Sheffield United ... there is so much negativity from some people on this forum (just a few as others have said)... we'll survive ...
I agree with your assessment. I think those are the teams that will be in the mix. Of course you can add Sheff Utd, as potentially they could be pulled in. No other team has a defence worse than us though. No one. This is why we're down there. We are the worst team in the league, not because of bad luck, we're there on merit. The defence is making us the worst team. We do have quality in other areas though, so it's not a completely hopeless cause, but we'll continually concede soft goals. We can't keep a clean sheet against any one. Is that now 19 Premier League games without a clean sheet. 11 Premier League games without a win, and no reason to expect a change in fortunes. The January window is our next likely opportunity were hope could exist, but we'd have played 21 games by that time. We'll only have 17 games left. We have to pick up points now. Every team can battle a bit, and so far, the only dead duck in this league is us. We've already played the other two sides that I consider will be in the bottom three. Newcastle and Brighton are the worst two sides in the Premier League, apart from us of course. We only picked up 1 point from those two games. We need to win 12 (or equivalent with draws). I can't really see where these victories will come from. Southampton (h ), Newcastle (h ), Norwich (h ), Villa (h ). There are bound to be a couple of other wins, like Bournemouth, Sheff Utd at home and maybe even Brighton away. They are the only games where I would be confident even this Watford team might win. Can't think of any others if I'm honest.
Yep. Possibly bad luck against Newcastle- but they might have still got a draw even if they’d not been given the one they’d got. Other than that we are being punished for poor finishing and poor defence. Having said that - a large slice of luck would certainly help us. I’ve written off many a team in the past only for them to prove me wrong. See Watford 1993-94. It seemed impossible for it turn around then, certainly more so than right now for us.
I know this has been done to death but.... why are we so **** now with largely the same team we had last season that, for the most part, was fighting to be best of the rest?? We haven't really lost any players (Britos. who I liked, retired, but no one else of note), even if the new guys are **** we should be OK playing those that were here last year. I appreciate confidence is a thing, especially in this type of job, but I don't get it, I really don't. We have quite a few good players who showed they were better than this over a long period of time last season. Appreciate other people may have upskilled but not sufficiently to move us down 10 places. Bizarre.
It's a mixture of lack confidence, lack of a genuine will to win and fight for the cause now that we are on such a bad run, and an already terrible defence being a year older and even worse than it already was. I don't see us keeping a clean sheet this entire season, so we better hope we can start scoring 2 or 3 a game on at least a semi-regular basis, otherwise it's over.
Watford not to be relegated has hit 8/15 in some places. Probably as low as it's gonna get after we win on Saturday. Lump your house on it now before it changes.
Would be great wouldn’t it. Dismal start and then 4 wins on the bounce at end of season as mojo is found!
Our main hope is that we are the team that picks up form. Over the last ten years 5 teams have survived with 3 points or less at this stage, and 7 teams with 4 points or less. The last few years it seems to have become more common, but it is not that many seasons to know if that is trend or not. Indeed it is in the last 6 years that all 5 of those teams surviving have occurred. So it is certainly not impossible, and I assume that all of those fans would have had a similarly depressing outlook as we do now, apart from possibly Liverpool in 10/11. In fact if we don't survive, this season will have highest points total for a non relegated team to have after 8 games since 14/15. Based on that, and limiting the time frame to the last 4 seasons we are in pole position for survival! In the last 1,596 days the Premier League has never seen at least one team not survive with less than 5 points after 8 games.* We are that team. #imagineif 18/19 - Newcastle 3 pts (13th place) 17/18 - Palace 2 pts (11th place) 16/17 - We're doomed! (Swansea survived with 4 pts after 8 games) 15/16 - Sunderland 3 pts (17th place) 14/15 - We're doomed! (Newcastle survived with 7 points after 8 games) 13/14 - Palace 3 pts (11th place), & Sunderland 1 pt (14th place) 12/13 - We're doomed! (Southampton survived with 4 pts) 11/12 - We're doomed! (Wigan survived with 5 points after 8 games) 10/11 - We're doomed! (special mention to Liverpool who had just 6 points, but ended up in 6th place) 11/12 - We're doomed! (West Ham survived with 5 points after 8 games) * statistics can be manipulated to make something look more better or worse than it really is.
We are going to be miles adrift after the Chelsea game. Good call to park the bus at home to Sheff Utd.
Great. The so called big teams all decided to capitulate against our rivals. Relegation written in the stars for us. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
We really do need a dislike on this button to signal not liking what was written, but agreeing with its essence!
Possibly, although note my hope for us was that we would turn around our form. My point was more that if we can turn around our form there will be other teams struggling. That of course is a big if.
