Will We Make The Play Offs?

Onwards and upwards. The replacement will be better.
Best to cut out the deadwood quickly once it's clear that he's unable to build a table-topping side on a shoestring.
Time for the Cleverley & Deeney DoF dreamteam.

 

I agree with you on Bilics lack of game plan especially going forward but not sure how you can say we absolutely won’t make the play offs

 

Bilic clearly hasn't been an overwhelming success but I don't think he's been so dreadful that he deserves the boot already. It seems odd to criticise Pozzo's management style and the instability it brings with one breath then demand the latest manager is sacked because he hasn't won every game since he took over with the next

 

Apparently we have the easiest run in for the rest of the season, based on the average position of our opposition.

 

The problem is sporadically having patience with some and not others. There was never an issue with how we approached hiring and firing when it was sensible and measured. No issues with not keeping Joka on and getting QSF in, no issues on parting company with QSF and Mazzari at the end of a season, no issues with sacking Silva after losing 10 in a row or whatever it was.

Instead we gave that horrid gargoyle Hodgson his full term even when he was openly insulting our own fans, but we sacked Pearson with two games to go.

We sacked a young manager after just 10 games, but have given a distinctly average one who has shown zero signs of improvement in results 24 games when we’ve never given any manager (maybe Zola aside) anywhere close to that sort of latitude before when we’ve been in the championship.

We gave Javi a four year deal then sacked him after four games.

Ivic had us in 5th and got sacked after 20 games, Bilic has us in 8th after 24.

We can’t just excuse the poor performance of the current manager because we’ve been quicker to sack them in the past.

They have completely lost their way in the past few years with it, it’s not the firing that is the issue, it’s the scattergun approach to it, back this one, sack this one, when in the past it was a lot more logical. Edwards/Bilic highlights it perfectly, a ridiculously low level of patience with one and a too much with the other, they’re just thrashing around in the dark at the moment.

 

As I posted few pages back. We have achieved 1.65 PPG against every team from 10th up, and 1.55 against teams from 11th to 24th.

 

I know people have convinced themselves that our injuries are a 'convenient excuse' because it helps support their entrenched viewpoint, but how much are the above numbers impacted by the players we've been missing?

For example, Joao Pedro has started 9 games this season against the teams currently 11th-24th. In those 9 games we got 20 points. 2.22 PPG. Is it a surprise that we've struggled to break down teams that sit back, when we're without our two best progressive passers of the ball in JP/Louza? I'm hopeful those two plus Sema being fit will make a difference in how we perform and the points we pick up against the poorer sides in the league.

 

It's best to play teams with nothing to play for in the lower/middle table than those in relegation trouble in the last 10 games or so, so I'm not sure "the easiest run-in" assumption is valid.

 

Fair points

 

He's only ever been a head scout so maybe that's what his other offers might have been. We've put him in charge of a lot more than scouting - maybe a Technical Director role at Watford pays more than a chief scout role at better clubs?

 

The other teams will be looking forward to playing us then!

 

Hull beating West Brom immediately makes a mockery of the chart

 

Absolutely zero chance of us making the play-offs and we don't deserve to be in them.

 

I have been positive about this up till now, but after today I am beginning to doubt that we will not do it

 

Guys, I’m really starting to think the autos may be out of reach

Looks like we’re gonna have to settle for winning at Wembley

Focus now has to be on getting Cleverley and Ngakia fit

 

Spot on.

 

No chance we make the play offs and we don't deserve too

 

I think Gosling will be crucial to what Bilic is trying to do. Once he's back, he'll tie it all together.

 

We have been **** without Kalu over the last year. When he isn’t in the team we are generally ****. When he’s in the side we are also generally **** but it’s a much smaller sample size, so is inconclusive. It’s essential we get him back fit, younger, and in the side ASAP if we still want to finish top 2.

 

I can't work out if;
1/ We have only mediocre players
2/ We have good players but no spine/commitment
3/ We have good players with spine/commitment but a manager who has zero motivational skill or tactical awareness.

 

Somewhere between 1 and 2 for me

 

(4) a rancid poisonous unaccountable ownership culture that makes the other 3 pale into insignificance.

 

Having a terrible owner, if we do, won't directly affect results on the pitch, it would only be the ultimate reason behind 1,2,or 3.

 

It results in poor player commitment and lack of manager authority. This making whether you recruit good players or managers irrelevant.

 

It's a mixture of all three I believe but I would say the most between 2 and 3.
But my main issue is we don't play as a team or to our so called strengths!
Unfortunately we're crying out for a Deeney type figure upfront.

 

I was wondering if any team had got to the play-offs from a similar position to us, and remembering that Norwich achieved the remarkable feat of getting to the 2002 play-off final after they looked dead and buried not long before the end of the league season, I found this:

https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/league-division-1/17-march-2002/

And what’s more, they were 11th too and 6 points from 6th place with a significantly inferior goal difference to that of the team in 6th (Millwall) and 9 points from the team they eventually pipped (4th place Burnley) also with a much worse GD, AND they had only 7 games left as opposed to 10. And which team are in 4th place and 9 points ahead of us, and have a much better GD?

But realistically, it doesn’t look like happening. We haven’t scored in our last three games (and it’s far from the most demanding run given Sheff Utd are having a wobble) and quite frankly I can’t see where our next win is coming from. We are becoming just too easy to play against, it seems all a team has to do is work hard and get in our faces and we have no idea how to break them down. Unless we find some divine spark from somewhere, our only hope is when playing some free-styling team who don’t bother about tackling and man-marking, and not many of those exist in the Championship!

 

Considering our troubles breaking teams down, maybe we'd be better off with a 'tougher' run-in!

 

Very good point, don’t know how I could’ve forgotten that - we were 7 points from Wolves with just 8 games to go.

https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/league-division-1/30-march-1999/

Still like I said, that form has to come from somewhere…

 

Genuinely, 'becoming' is generous in the extreme. Even when we've managed to scrape a win, we've almost never made it particularly hard for the opposition, or even held control of a game this season.

And how many times have a theoretically technically inferior opposition, with a squad assembled on fairydust in comparison to our own, looked sharper, more aware of what they are trying to do, and even better at executing the basics of football than us? It's a majority of games, at an absolute minimum.

 

If we were to win our next 4 in a row, we would probably not be in the top 6. I think we will need to win 8 or 9 of the last 10. I just don't see it.

 

Yep, a team who has won 3 games in a row once all season needing to get an absolute bare minimum of 20 out of 30 points to most likely still lose out on that total in the majority of season is highly, highly unlikely.

 

I don't think we managed more than 2 wins in a row under Ivic neither, but a) that was a smaller sample size, and b) he was robbed of a genuine Championship gamechanger in Will Hughes and, if not necessarily a gamechanger in quality, Adam Masina, who was a gamechanger in that he was an actual left-back!

Long story short, our goose is cooked