BigFish

Yes, I think we are

Four to go @ricardo😀

I think 75 will be enough, so win the home games and get a point away.

Same again

Yes

Thing about model clubs is they can always tell you something. In this case TB has sunk hundreds of millions of pounds that he is unlikely ever to see again. What has that go him? Not the mythical "established EPL club", but a selling club that currently sits 9th. Rumour is there is unrest in the ranks and the coach is likely to move on at the end of the season. So they will then have to go again, and again, and again. This may well work, but Leicester is a recent example of a club running out of road when trying to be competitive at the elite level season after season,

Einstein strikes again, if only our coaching team had thought to tell Sainz to cover his man, why didn't they?

Fair comment 🙂

In 7 words all opinions are pretty much invalidated

You can see why that is what it looks like. Very quiet when we win, all over it when we lose. And anyway we played and unchanges team so implying we had changed the tactical approach is complete bobbins.

No, thats not it. It is just posters like you loving when we lose. We go on a run and you lot shut up, waiting, hoping for when we lose so you reinterred your negative opinions and sya you were right all along.

A lot of people make a lot of money from football:players, coaches, agents, TV, executives, merchandisers, hangers on, occasional speculators etc taking out a lot more than the fans put in. That shortfall is filled by "investors".

Didn;t have you marked down as an Observer reader 😀

This is a valid point, and runs counter to what seems general opinion. Not that makes it wrong, back to the issue of counter factuals.

Arguably this is true, but not the whole story. Sacking Farke which many fans, even maybe a majority, called for and appointing Smith, who nobody really called for, had a greater long term impact. That is not what the SD model is for. And as it happens the transfer business that Summer doesn't look so bad in hindsight. Sargeant is talismanic for our season this year. Tzolis is ripping up Bundeslegia II, PLM is knocking on the door of the French national team, Gilmour is a top end EPL player, Rashica won the League in Turkey. Who knows, we might even break even. Webber was trapped by the idea another relegation was unacceptable. If we had accepted it was likely and planned ahead last season wouldn't have seen such a decline. He rolled the dice and failed, but it is understandable failure. The price we paid was that precious momentum. So yes keep Buendia, keep Farke, get relegated, bounce back better. Ultimately there isn't the patience in the club, or football for this.

I don't mind admitting that I thought at the time it was likely that Buendia wanted to double his wages and avoid another likely unsuccessful releagation fight. As such it was logical to think the club had no choice. Events and @Parma Ham's gone mouldy have persuaded me otherwise. But the problem with alternate histories is they compare the subjective with the known outcome. Should we have kept Buendia our transfer budget would have probably amounted to 1 x EPL player (a CB or Skipp replacement) and 2 x loans. The likely outcome is another unsuccessful fight against relegation. In this situation the self same posters who rake up Buendiagate would have equal and opposite critiques. The fact I was wrong in my opinion doesn't necessarily mean I think they were right. That said I take Parm's point on sporting momentum to heart. I see that, and now agree. This is a post about opinions, not of opinions.

DON'T FEED THE TROLL

Simply put, we didn't. The view was that neither were good enough for our first choice starting 11 but could be useful in case of injuries, tiredness etc. The economics made Fisher so much cheaper for the 245 minutes of League action required. The simple question is do you want a big squad of average players or a squad of a few above average players and a larger number of below average players making up the numbers.

Effectively it is the same question, although people like the former because it shaves a couple of points off the target. But there is 11 point range between the highest and lowest points achieved for 7th place which just goes to show the variability between seasons. So the actual question is how many points to achieve 6th THIS season. It is just a calculation from now until the end of the season, not a statistical average season from August. We just need to match the performance of, say, the best of the three teams below. I suspect the worst case scenario is one of them picks up 6 wins (or 2 ppm) so 75/76 is enough. Though if one of them wins the lot we would just have to take our hats off to them & it would be a record (unless we could catch WBA).

Sunderland got 90 in '98, finished 3rd and didn't go up.

And that in itsself would equal the record (Fulham, 2017), but 19/24 looks a bit of a reach

90 apparently, Sunderland in 98, and they didn't go up. Fingers crossed.

Hadn't really noticed this before, but looks like it will be some kind of record for the team in third missing out.

Simply put there are a group of posters who just like to moan, a couple of wind-up merchants and a few trolls. Difficult to get traction when things are going well but they will be back next week if we don't win.