GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary

[quote user="Manchester Canary"]Chelsea will still put out a full strength team on Saturday. They wont want to finish 4th and have to play two Champions League qualifiers potentially against the 4th team from Germany or Spain.[/quote] Rafa Benitez wont care too much as to whether Chelsea finish 3rd or 4th, he won''t be there next season......he''s interested in winning the Europa League and said almost as much before the game tonight. "If we win tonight, we can approach the Europa League in a ''different'' way"....were his exact words?!

not going well so for tonight with Chelsea winning. they''ll be 6 points ahead of Spurs with 2 to play.......an open invitation for them to play the reseves at Villa 4 days before a Europa League final?

...in all probability, will have meant that we would have lost our last 4 matches of the season. Should that be the case, I don''t think that anyone could really make a case for any team deserving to stay up with that end to the season??

So, what if we draw......and then next midweek Wigan snatched a draw at Arsenal??............we''d be in trouble

what an agonizing situation it would be if we were drawing going into the last 10 minutes?...........would we go all out for the win and secure safety once and for all........or do we keep it tight and make sure we get a point and trust Arsenal to beat Wigan then again this is Chris Hughton..........I needn''t have asked

Coventry used to do this every year in the 80''s and 90''s, survive by the skin of teeth....but like them one day it will catch up with Wigan.........and like them they will drop down the leagues when it does.

lets not forget Newcastle in this, they havent won an away game all season so its no certainty that they can just turn up at QPR and win......if we better there result on Sunday, the chances are we will both lose our last games

first things first......Wigan still have to make up 3 points on us.....if they drop points tomorrow and again away at Arsenal ,a win for us on Sunday and we''re safe.......I think we need to see what happens tommorrow and reconvene aftewards......

[quote user="morty"][quote user="Citizen Journalist Foghorn"][quote user="Branston Pickle"]While we are outside the bottom three, with the same games played, it will always be in our hands. There are lots of sides with the potential to get drawn into it - right up to 12th place - look at Fulham, who will think they still need a point: no one saw their home loss to Reading coming, and they now have Liverpool (h) and Swansea (a) remaining. If we can get the win against WBA there will be a number of sides (including Villa) who are looking over shoulders nervously going into their final game, in a worse way than us. We just need to show what we have on Saturday....[/quote]If Wigan win tomorrow it is only in our hands due to other teams playing each other. That and a single point of goal difference with Newcastle.  Imagine if we were relegated on goals scored.... I think the message boards would explode!  [:S][/quote]Wigan really, really need to lose tomorrow. [/quote] i''d bite your hand off at a draw now!!!.....if we win on Sunday, and Wigan drop more points at Arsenal....we''re safe

I''m not even sure if 41 points is going to be enough now, were we to take a large-ish beating at Man City??........can anyone who has done the permutations assure me otherwise?

[quote user="Id fly over 1p5wich tomorrow..."]You''d be a bit silly to take 16/1 on Saturday morning bearing in mind we were 20/1+ elsewhere (betfair).[/quote] I wouldn''t be feeling silly now!

the value bet ''was'' us on Saturday morning when we were 16/1!!........still kicking myself I didnt put £50 on it.........i''d now be all set to fly out to Vegas on the 20th with my winnings to drink myself into oblivion.

the best we can hope from a Michu-less Swansea is to hold Wigan to a draw.....if that happens and Chelsea beat Villa on Saturday, my crude maths tells me that we''re safe if we beat WBA on Sunday.........sounds simple

the question is do we want as many of the squad that got us promoted (and most of them are still on our books) to go and try to do it again...........or do we want as many of the players we''ve signed since then to be here as the promotion squad of a couple of years ago "might" not have the motivtion to do it again? The answer is probably a mixture of both?...remember that our "Leeds quartet" didnt get anywhere near promotion with their previous club but you''d still need the core of players that did i.e Martin,Hoolahan,Holt. as I''ve said on other threads .....I can''t think of another Championship squad that could boast the striking options of Van Wolfswinkel (McNally isn''t lying to us is he??), Holt, Becchio and Vaughan.....the latter 3 should get 20 each...the first of that quartet should get 35??

"if" our fate is sealed................defeat at Wigan was one we couldnt afford, if we''d have come away with a draw ,I think Wigan would have had too much to do, whatever has/would have happened after that. tried to play for a draw, with one striker, went a goal down and ended up with 3 on the pitch and fell between all stools.....a tactically pathetic and damaging afternoon by Hughton.

oddly and perhaps uniquely for a side on the verge of relegation.......I havent heard any criticism from the fans for any players..home or away. one can only deduce that the majority believe that the fault lies with the man who is deploying them to play in the way that they are?....there''s your scapegoat.

if I had to predict how next Sunday will go ,I''d probably liken it to the Reading match that we had to win on the penultimate week to avoid dropping into League One.........as we remember, we lost that 2-0.....and coincidently Shane Long played in that match too. the Etihad the following week will be this season''s version of The Valley.

we should remember as unbelivable as it seems, Hughton actually managed to win a league with Newcastle with over 100 points. In order to do that he must know how to set up a team to attack and score goals. I''m not saying he should stay here next season if he gets us relegated as I believe he would havr forfieted his right to do so.  But ''if'' he stayed and had a pool of strikers at his disposal along the lines of Van Wolfswinkel (I''m taking McNally''s assurances at face value ....for now), Holt,Becchio and Vaughan............surely he could fashion a promotion contending team with that?!.....couldn''t he?

[quote user="Highland Canary"]We''re clutching at straws now but I guess in these circumstances we''ll try and reach for any support. But, seriously, come the last game,  if Wigan need points put it this way I suspect the odds would be somewhat in their favour.[/quote] yes, but if we''re above Villa that wouldnt matter?.........infact I''d welcome it!

[quote user="Mister Chops"]They''ll rest players before the Europa League final anyway - their team today wasn''t first choice (no Hazard, for one).  They have such a strong team that their 2nd string would give anyone a game.I also think Villa are out of danger now, with enough momentum to get another point at least.[/quote] Villa could still be integral to our survival hopes......we are probably gong to need them to beat or draw with Wigan....in order to do that they need to be motivated ....in order for that to happen ,they still need to be in danger, which will mean tha we must be above them going into the last game

if they now beat Spurs on Wednesday night, they''ll be 6 points ahead of them with 2 matches left. "might" they then be tempted to rest a few at Villa next weekend 4 days before a Europa league final?

these "neutrals" havent witnessed the negative,stifling,joyless shite he''s served up all season.......these "nuetrals" havent got up early in the morning and travelled to Wigan,Stoke,Reading,QPR and countless other away games to see us have no attempts on goal. I think I''ll trust my own views and my own eyes above any of these neutrals. Newcastle in particular seem very quick to leap to his defence............i''d gladly piggyback him all the way up there if they want him back

I wonder what team,tactics and formation the players would choose if they were to pick it amongst themselves?? Sunday could just be the day for the players to ignore Hughton and play it how they see it?...as I suspect they did in the last 5 mins vs Everton............we won''t get another chance and that clueless t**t on the touchline may very well not be here next season.

as a final footnote to this........the news that Kamara has gone back really puts a lid on the January transfer dealings, ...we now face the most important game of the season, a striker down, whch we knew we would be at this stage  when it was initally negotiated!.......that leaves the sum total of January as Becchio, a player who''s played about 10 mins of football in the last 7 games and isn''t even currently on the bench.

if he takes us down then he has failed in his apparant breif of keeping us up (although I believe it should have been to improve on last season, which he has also failed miserably),  therefore presumably he will be sacked for not delivering the job description? if for some reason he starts next season in the Championship....unless he got off to a flying start, people , myself included will be on his back from day one,ready to pounce at the first defeat.............for me relegation would leave his position unteneble