The Engineer

Cheers Buh, got absolutely nothing to do with my profession or degree ;) If I was a neutral, logically I think I would predict the following order: Brighton Huddersfield Newcastle Reading Fulham Sheffield Wednesday Leeds Norwich However as a Norwich fan I believe (more hope) we''ll finish 5th or 6th!

No edit button? What gives? Should say ''Reading''s AWAY game against us...'' and noticed a HUUUUGE grammatical error... it should read ''If Huddersfield win THEIR game in hand...'' Time for a coffee I think!

Very interesting to see the strengths of the remaining fixtures for the top 8 (maybe ignorantly giving Barnsley the chop)! Based upon how many games each team has left and the position each team they face are currently in the table, the average position of opponents for the top 8 are as follows: Newcastle: 10.6 Brighton: 14.4 Huddersfield: 12.4 Reading: 12.6 Leeds: 11.1 Sheffield Wednesday: 11.6 Norwich: 10.5 Fulham: 12.5 So Brighton are going to win the league! Fulham are dangerous to lookout for a late playoff surge (9 points behind Leeds with 2 games in hand and a game against them!) We officially are doomed with the hardest set of fixtures left to play - or we can do the opposite and upset the odds in spectacular fashion! Interestingly Newcastle play 4 out of the top 8 in their next 5 games (3 of which are away games in a row). Reading playing 5 out of top 8 in next 7 games and then have an ''easy'' 5 games after their home game against us. Newcastle, Reading, Leeds and Norwich have 6 games left against the top 8. Sheffield Wednesday and Fulham have 5. Brighton & Huddersfield have 4. If Huddersfield win they''re game in hand on Newcastle they are only 5 points off them, and with Newcastles difficult run of away games coming up could we see Huddersfield replace them in the top two? I would not be surprised. In terms of average points needed per game o guarantee a play-off spot, basing the points required at 73.5 derived from average 6th place points from the previous 21 seasons where the current league format has applied then the top 8 teams need the following points per game to achieve a play-off spot. Newcastle: 0.32 points per game Brighton: 0.39 Huddersfield: 0.83 Reading: 0.96 Leeds: 1.19 Sheffield Wednesday: 1.11 Norwich: 1.73 Fulham: 1.63 WOW! Not only do Norwich have the hardest remaining fixture list, we also have the highest points per games required! Time to get behind the boys as they are going to need every ounce of support they can get to give them this massive push required up the table! Note: I have not taken into account whether he fixtures are home or away in determining the ''strength of schedule''

Going to go for a current top 10 rather than all time op 10: Tame Impala Jagwar Ma Django Django The Last Shadow Puppets Arctic Monkeys The Kills James Blunt Allah Las Foals Blossoms. I think that''s the top 10 - got a feeling I''ve missed someone/could be many more in there...

Just realised a mistake, I''ve been to 60 games - forgot I''ve been to Blackburn twice not once! Average is 4 already :)

I go to neutral matches for the love of football, and to see teams and players that you wouldn''t necessarily expect to see lining the tunnel at Carrow Road anytime soon... Was gutted Kaka didn''t come off the bench at Man City as thought it would be the only opportunity I would get to see him play!   Forgot another neutral match!   Man City vs Borussia Dortmund - where I discovered my obsession for Mats Hummels after watching him and Santana in the warm up pinging balls to each other over 60yards with unbelievable technique in control never letting the ball hit the floor once!

Out of curiosity I just made a spreadsheet listing all the grounds I''ve ticked off my list, went one step further and listed how many times I had been to see the City play at said grounds and worked out I''ve been to 59 away games in the 15 seasons I''ve been going to games, working out at 3.93 away games per season :)   (Been to Newcastle, Leeds and Wigan so far this year, planning on at least Sheffield Wednesday & Huddersfield for the remainder bringing my average up to 4 by the end of this year...)   Also curious to see what neutral games you have been to? I''ve been to... Man City v Villareal Man City v Bayern Munich Man City v Real Madrid Man City v Liverpool Accrington Stanley v Tranmere Bolton v Spurs Bolton v Blackburn Bolton v QPR Fulham v QPR QPR v MK Dons Chelsea v Everton FA Cup Final Chelsea v Blackburn. I also worked at Old Trafford for a season and saw many games there!   (Was a student at Bolton and Man City did VERY reasonable cup tickets, Bolton did a couple £5 student ticket offers, and I lived with a QPR fan - to explain some of the recurring teams!)   So how many games has everybody else gone to and their averages?

Ruddy Pinto, Martin, Klose, Dijks Mulumbu, Howson Ja. Murphy, Pritchard, Wildschut Jerome Bench: McGovern, Whittaker, Bennett, Mulumbu, Jarvis, Wes, Oliveira. Not necessarily the exact team I would personally go with - but what my prediction is!

I thought after relegation, give him a full season to try get us back up - if we finish outside top 6 then he should go. Even during the bad run I was still with him to begin with - he can''t help Martin Olsson getting sent off in he first minute, making it a game we are now expected to lose. He can''t help numerous individual errors leading to goals. He can''t help CamJam missing opportunities from 5 yards out. Then, the team selection begun to become flat, unimaginative and predictable. Tactics seemed one-dimensional and wrong. This is when I began to turn, thinking maybe a fresh approach was needed with new ideas. Then, he completely changed the formation at Brentford, giving a bit of hope to the table, with the team possibly going on to win the game had Brady not been sent off for spreading butter with a spoon (didn''t do anything wrong, but debateable). Following this came the 3-0 against Derby and I thought - well it''s January - see what he does in the window. During which time prformances and results have improved and we didn''t have that bad of a window and I liked what I saw in the pursuit of Dijks, I think he deserves the rest of the season at least. He''s not far off showing it was only a bad patch - which he is turning around - every team falters, every manager has rough spells, as do players, but I do believe consistency is key. Which is why I was slightly annoyed with myself around Christmas for beginning to veer towards the out side. But, in for me now until at least the seasons end. And I think even if we do miss out on promotion, or play offs, but we see enough from now until May, and given the potential clear out of deadwood in the summer, I would like to see him continue to build his squad.

Ren, when I looked yesterday morning after seeing this thread Block H was being sold to home fans!

@Ren you can see via the ''Select your seat'' option on the ticket site

Or... you could go to the game ;) Easily said when you live in Bolton I suppose!... :)))

A cup run? What''s that? I don''t believe I''m familiar with the phrase...

Defensively Bassong had a poor game and certainly should''ve done better with the goals. However the real issue I saw was we simply did not close down Shelvey at all and he just had the time and the freedom to play that medium pass over the top so often for Ritchie/Gayle to run on to. With Shelvey primarily sitting deeper than the rest of the Newcastle midfield it surely should''ve been Howson pestering him? Mind you we simply do not know who was meant to be closing down who and marking who etc, so far me the problems arose from Howson failing to close down Shelvey, the fact he was often not even near Shelvey suggests it wasn''t his role to. Plus I love Howson :)

Cheers LDC, have ended up at the metro centre coach park just off the A1(M) as it has free parking and £2 return dedicated ''Soccerbus'' :)

Cheers Morty!   Don''t suppose anyone knows where the better places to park are?

Making the long trip tomorrow night, anyone know the away pubs for away fans? Although I can''t imagine there''ll be too many of us in there...   Cheers in advance!

Berbatov is simply class. He appears lazy yes, but in reality he as never had to work that hard and still achieved great results! If I could pick a player to base my game upon, it would be Berbatov. Just class.

Shame Dembele went to Celtic too...

Looks like Tony may have decided to ''play dirty'' after all...

I''m in! Ready to smash the first few weeks before slowly dwindling down to not checking my team for 6 months...

My question is, why the timing?   I do not understand why he could not wait a week? Meaning even if we stay up he won''t be here next season. With Bowkett going so shortly after committing his future to the club (which seemed odd at the time) and now McNally it almost says something is causing friction among the board. For McNally not even to stand this final week before the season is over is a little odd considering how professional and dignified he has been in his 7 years (bar the tweet on Saturday night). For McNally even to tweet that seemed very out of character for him as to what we''ve seen from him.   The question is, what is wrong at the top? Is it the inclusion of nephew Tom that has caused this unrest? Who knows... We must appoint someone as intelligent and ruthless as McNally to continue the strong direction our club is slowly heading.   He has done an unbelievable job since coming in, got the finances back on track and most importantly the fans back after the dismal and sour end of Doncaster''s reign.

That''s very nice of you to start a thread about my birthday! ;)

''Had'' one of those shiny rich owners.   Mind you Holdsworth has done well in investments apparently...

To be honest, he hasn''t done a lot wrong at Bolton. Working with pretty much only Bolton fans up here the general feeling all season has been, well what else can he do? He''s got a poor squad with no money to buy, a constant need to sell sell sell whatever they can, including their training ground and stadium car park - from next season they''ll be training in a standard facility shared by youth teams which has portacabins and also they''ll train at the Reebok, they have gone large parts of the season unpaid - even right down to the guys that supply the sausage rolls I believe, it''s no wonder they''re bottom - I can''t imagine it''s much of a sacking, and more a ''please let me leave, I''m fed up'' kind of thing - especially as the academy boss is taking charge until the end of the season! It''ll be sad to see them go down again, but like it did us, it gives them a chance to start again and build the club up again :)