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Rudolph Hucker

It's looking much clearer.

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Forget about Bournemouth. They are on a roll and next up have Reading at the right time. They will make their goal difference unassailable after that game and go on to win the rest unless they have an inexplicable case of nerves.

Norwich would have to win their next four and Reading win only 2 of their remaining three to overtake them and I can''t see The Cherries slipping up. Good luck to them too.

There are only three sides competing for the final place, forget the rest, they know they are in a play-offs fight.

Middlesbrough come up against a Wolves side desperate and smarting from their weekend defeat. They are a side good at bouncing back. I expect ''Boro will struggle to win this one and they could easily lose it; but I''ll predict a draw.

Forward to Friday night, and if Norwich has defeated Leeds then it is OUR chance to put one of our two rivals effectively out of the automatics.

We would have 85 points and the best they could get is 86 and with a small goal difference.

We would only need a draw if it was only ''Boro in the hunt but it is Watford who are the one side capable of taking it out of our hands.

Watford are only one goal behind on difference but with a much bigger goals scored total.

Cardiff made a lot of chances against Leeds and while our first priority is to win that game it would be good to score a few which means taking the chances we will surely get.

We need Watford to slip up.

Forest away is a tough looking game and again, if we beat Leeds, they would have that psychological pressure to get a win. I anticipate Watford will drop points on Wednesday and on Saturday they face Birmingham.

I have been impressed by Birmingham. They have goals in them and have bloodied the noses of a few top sides this season either by taking points or by giving them a proper game.

If Watford drop four points over these next two we would still need three wins from four.

So, to summarise, we are competing with ''Boro and Watford. We have the chance to do it for ourselves against ''Boro but it isn''t fully in our hands against Watford and there is every possibility they will make it on goals scored.

So, let''s go out tomorrow and beat Leeds then see if our two rivals can match us. I doubt they can but there would still be no breathing space in what is very much a three horse race for second spot.

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I would love to catch Bournemouth up but agree that they just look to be in control . Watford are the big threat as we can hopefully see off Boro. It is between the top four now for automatics. I fancy us in the playoffs mind you!

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Well, I''m not so sure that Bournemouth winning the title is so certain. I agree that with their semi final on Saturday, Reading should be easy meat for Bournemouth tomorrow night and Sheff Weds at home too should be a wave through. However, their last two games will be nervy affairs and I wouldn''t be at all surprised if they drop points at home to Bolton and/or away at Charlton in their last match. We have two tough fixtures, away at Leeds and then at home against Middlesborough, but IF we win those and then the away match at Rotherham I expect that we will be playing for the title at home against Fulham on 2nd May. This of course assumes that Watford will drop points tomorrow night or Houghton''s Brighton doing us a favour at the Amex on 25/4.

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Despite fewer permutations now it''s futile to go with how results should turn out in this ''weird'' division - especially so this season.

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However you look at it its two places between four clubs.  After Friday, if we can see off Middsbro, it will be two places between three clubs. Then it is anybody''s and it only needs Bn''mth to falter once to let both us and Watford in.  Atm, it''s anybody''s.

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Would our current squad have stayed up in the Premier League, under AN this season?

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It is easy win 4 score more against Leeds and Rotherham and we are there.

Bournemouth not there yet they were uncertain against Brighton who should have scored but the Hughton factor. Conceded 2 at home to Birmingham. Expected to stuff FA Cup bound Reading can see the dropping 2 points final game at Charlton could be tricky.

Watford could drop points at Forest and Brighton in last game certainly don''t expect them to score more than City in away games.

Boro could drop points to Wolves look nervous and unconvincing home wins against Wigan and Rotherham. Will need to beat City but last 2 away conceded 5 to Bournemouth and Wolves and looked poor.

Play Offs guaranteed and chances being created 20+ on Saturday 8 on target and Grabban back again its nailed on.

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[quote user="Lessingham Canary"]And we want to swap this for the premier league ????[/quote]But it wouldn''t always be like this in the Championship. If we don''t get promotion good players will want out, the money will dwindle, there''ll be little incentive for quality players to come here, the results will suffer. the manager will be off, there''ll be little or no transfer budget, crowds will decline and before you know it we''ll be treading water in mid table mediocrity followed by an inevitable Championship relegation battle.If you want to be like 1p5wich and be stuck in the Championship with a bit of excitement once every 10 years then fine, but give me the PL, even on a yo-yo basis, everytime.

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Overall Watford have been more consistent than us, being up the top end of the league and playing better football than Norwich. While Hughton was destroying any semblance of football at Norwich, clubs like Watford and Bournemouth were developing sides which played as a team. We might have better individual players, although I think the difference in superiority is often overplayed, but we''ve been playing catch up in terms of playing as a team.I''m therefore not going to be too disappointed if we don''t go up automatically as it was never likely to begin with. I really hope we do it, but we''re having to rely on luck a bit too much for my liking. Alex Neil has performed a miracle for us still to be in contention, but I''m still hopeful that we''d have a decent chance in the playoffs should we not make the top two.A lesson from Watford is that the set up there is geared to play football from bottom to top. Early in the season they were derided for having changed manager so often, but they ensured that they got the right man early on. He was laughed at despite an impressive CV and a track record of playing according to the club''s requirements. In contrast we''ve had to recover after we dithered and gave the job to someone who was clearly not cut out for top level management, let alone the task of reinvigorating a dejected squad.

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[quote user="93vintage"]Overall Watford have been more consistent than us, being up the top end of the league and playing better football than Norwich. While Hughton was destroying any semblance of football at Norwich, clubs like Watford and Bournemouth were developing sides which played as a team. We might have better individual players, although I think the difference in superiority is often overplayed, but we''ve been playing catch up in terms of playing as a team.I''m therefore not going to be too disappointed if we don''t go up automatically as it was never likely to begin with. I really hope we do it, but we''re having to rely on luck a bit too much for my liking. Alex Neil has performed a miracle for us still to be in contention, but I''m still hopeful that we''d have a decent chance in the playoffs should we not make the top two.A lesson from Watford is that the set up there is geared to play football from bottom to top. Early in the season they were derided for having changed manager so often, but they ensured that they got the right man early on. He was laughed at despite an impressive CV and a track record of playing according to the club''s requirements. In contrast we''ve had to recover after we dithered and gave the job to someone who was clearly not cut out for top level management, let alone the task of reinvigorating a dejected squad.[/quote]This is the phrase I disagree most in your post so I will pick on that. What luck have we been relying on? Virtually all of Alex''s wins have been deserved wins. Even though Bolton was a last minute winner it wasn''t lucky as he really went for it with his team selection. The only one I can remember where luck played a part was the last minute equaliser. Please expand on your point.

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For no particular reason, I''ll just leave this here.[URL=http://s869.photobucket.com/user/mortymccarthy/media/11136678_1574074052878472_5148901773284497066_n_zpsrdpjtoqp.jpg.html][IMG]http://i869.photobucket.com/albums/ab257/mortymccarthy/11136678_1574074052878472_5148901773284497066_n_zpsrdpjtoqp.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

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[quote user="morty"]For no particular reason, I''ll just leave this here.[URL=http://s869.photobucket.com/user/mortymccarthy/media/11136678_1574074052878472_5148901773284497066_n_zpsrdpjtoqp.jpg.html][IMG]http://i869.photobucket.com/albums/ab257/mortymccarthy/11136678_1574074052878472_5148901773284497066_n_zpsrdpjtoqp.jpg[/IMG][/URL][/quote]

HA! [:D]We''ve hardly had any penalties this season... Fulham away, Blackpool home and Forest h- must have missed some...

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[quote user="Herman "][quote user="93vintage"]Overall Watford have been more consistent than us, being up the top end of the league and playing better football than Norwich. While Hughton was destroying any semblance of football at Norwich, clubs like Watford and Bournemouth were developing sides which played as a team. We might have better individual players, although I think the difference in superiority is often overplayed, but we''ve been playing catch up in terms of playing as a team.I''m therefore not going to be too disappointed if we don''t go up automatically as it was never likely to begin with. I really hope we do it, but we''re having to rely on luck a bit too much for my liking. Alex Neil has performed a miracle for us still to be in contention, but I''m still hopeful that we''d have a decent chance in the playoffs should we not make the top two.A lesson from Watford is that the set up there is geared to play football from bottom to top. Early in the season they were derided for having changed manager so often, but they ensured that they got the right man early on. He was laughed at despite an impressive CV and a track record of playing according to the club''s requirements. In contrast we''ve had to recover after we dithered and gave the job to someone who was clearly not cut out for top level management, let alone the task of reinvigorating a dejected squad.[/quote]This is the phrase I disagree most in your post so I will pick on that. What luck have we been relying on? Virtually all of Alex''s wins have been deserved wins. Even though Bolton was a last minute winner it wasn''t lucky as he really went for it with his team selection. The only one I can remember where luck played a part was the last minute equaliser. Please expand on your point.[/quote]I missed a bit out at the beginning, that Watford have been up there longer than us. We''ve had to play catch up from 11th while Watford''s low (around the same time) was 7th. When you fall behind it''s massively difficult to catch up again and we''ve had to really outperform since Alex Neil joined to get up to being equal.We''ve not had much bad luck for a while, whether it''s a game where the ref wrongly gives the other side a penalty or we play very well but lose. But anything like that, perhaps just one loss or a couple of draws instead of taking 4 points, could be the difference. Historically we''re pushing our luck a fair bit by winning 11 out of 15 games (losing once and drawing 3).If we need to remain unbeaten then we''ll need to finish an 11 game run. Those sorts of runs don''t come along often, we did 8 earlier in the season and 10 under Hughton, but sooner or later I fear we''ll come unstuck through the necessity of winning leaving us open. In other words we''re relying on luck.Don''t get me wrong, I''ll be delighted if we finish in the top two and it''ll maybe better 1982 when the crowd invaded the pitch after the Orient game. Back then we had an excellent run from being in a similar position but could only make third (enough for automatic promotion). But being a bit of a realist I''m not going to be disappointed if our luck runs out and we don''t make it.

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I don''t think anything looks clearer!

Anything could happen at this stage of the season. I could see us easily losing or drawing any of our remaining games - the same stands for Watford and Boro.

Whoever seizes the top 2 spots from this position deserves it - let''s pray it''s us again.

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[quote user="lake district canary"]Yeah, Watford have been much better than us....Norwich 3 Watford 0Watford 0 Norwich 3

[/quote]

Not that I necessarily agree with them but they would point to a controversial early red card at Carrow Road and a highly contentious penalty award at Vicarage Road helping us significantly on our way in both those games.

It''s amazing that they are only a goal behind us when we''ve hit them for six.

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[quote user="lake district canary"]Yeah, Watford have been much better than us....Norwich 3 Watford 0Watford 0 Norwich 3[/quote]But it''s a 46 game season, not a cup competition. You could probably find similar results from seasons past where the loser finishes above the winner in the end.

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93vintage, you have just blown your own arguement out of the water with that statement, as you say it is a 46 game season and whoever accrues the most points over those 46 games gets promoted. All teams will have been lucky/unlucky over those 46 games, it is not about a last minute winner here or the last however many games, it is about how many points you accrue over 46 games......

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[quote user="93vintage"]Overall Watford have been more consistent than us, being up the top end of the league and playing better football than Norwich. While Hughton was destroying any semblance of football at Norwich, clubs like Watford and Bournemouth were developing sides which played as a team. We might have better individual players, although I think the difference in superiority is often overplayed, but we''ve been playing catch up in terms of playing as a team.I''m therefore not going to be too disappointed if we don''t go up automatically as it was never likely to begin with. I really hope we do it, but we''re having to rely on luck a bit too much for my liking. Alex Neil has performed a miracle for us still to be in contention, but I''m still hopeful that we''d have a decent chance in the playoffs should we not make the top two.A lesson from Watford is that the set up there is geared to play football from bottom to top. Early in the season they were derided for having changed manager so often, but they ensured that they got the right man early on. He was laughed at despite an impressive CV and a track record of playing according to the club''s requirements. In contrast we''ve had to recover after we dithered and gave the job to someone who was clearly not cut out for top level management, let alone the task of reinvigorating a dejected squad.[/quote]That is a highly misleading rewriting of history. Watford thought they had the right man at the start of the season in Sannino, who had been the manager since December 2013. Before August was out they decided they had been wrong and decided Oscar Garcia was the right man. Which he might have been, or might just as easily not have been, but illness forced him to quit. Even if McKinlay was only a stop-gap (and it is not at all obvious from the reports that he was) then Jokanovic was still the third-choice "right man".

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[quote user="Faded Jaded Semi Plastic SOB"]93vintage, you have just blown your own arguement out of the water with that statement, as you say it is a 46 game season and whoever accrues the most points over those 46 games gets promoted. All teams will have been lucky/unlucky over those 46 games, it is not about a last minute winner here or the last however many games, it is about how many points you accrue over 46 games......[/quote]If you''re far behind then you have to exceed the average in order to catch up, thereby leaving less room for error. If a team won all their last 20 games and finish 2nd on goal difference then wouldn''t they look back and say "we were lucky and had zero room for error"? Would they be ''luckier'' than the other teams even though every team played the same number of games?

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I think they would just say "we had zero room for error".  In principle, luck has nothing to do with winning your last 20 games.
Simply put, in your terms, "not making errors" is not "luck".  Is it?

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[quote user="PurpleCanary"][quote user="93vintage"]Overall Watford have been more consistent than us, being up the top end of the league and playing better football than Norwich. While Hughton was destroying any semblance of football at Norwich, clubs like Watford and Bournemouth were developing sides which played as a team. We might have better individual players, although I think the difference in superiority is often overplayed, but we''ve been playing catch up in terms of playing as a team.I''m therefore not going to be too disappointed if we don''t go up automatically as it was never likely to begin with. I really hope we do it, but we''re having to rely on luck a bit too much for my liking. Alex Neil has performed a miracle for us still to be in contention, but I''m still hopeful that we''d have a decent chance in the playoffs should we not make the top two.A lesson from Watford is that the set up there is geared to play football from bottom to top. Early in the season they were derided for having changed manager so often, but they ensured that they got the right man early on. He was laughed at despite an impressive CV and a track record of playing according to the club''s requirements. In contrast we''ve had to recover after we dithered and gave the job to someone who was clearly not cut out for top level management, let alone the task of reinvigorating a dejected squad.[/quote]That is a highly misleading rewriting of history. Watford thought they had the right man at the start of the season in Sannino, who had been the manager since December 2013. Before August was out they decided they had been wrong and decided Oscar Garcia was the right man. Which he might have been, or might just as easily not have been, but illness forced him to quit. Even if McKinlay was only a stop-gap (and it is not at all obvious from the reports that he was) then Jokanovic was still the third-choice "right man".[/quote]Are you disputing that they were derided? I definitely remember lots of people in the media and elsewhere doing exactly that regardless of circumstances. The point is they got someone experienced in early doors rather than risk keeping an inexperienced man in the job.

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[quote user="93vintage"][quote user="PurpleCanary"][quote user="93vintage"]Overall Watford have been more consistent than us, being up the top end of the league and playing better football than Norwich. While Hughton was destroying any semblance of football at Norwich, clubs like Watford and Bournemouth were developing sides which played as a team. We might have better individual players, although I think the difference in superiority is often overplayed, but we''ve been playing catch up in terms of playing as a team.I''m therefore not going to be too disappointed if we don''t go up automatically as it was never likely to begin with. I really hope we do it, but we''re having to rely on luck a bit too much for my liking. Alex Neil has performed a miracle for us still to be in contention, but I''m still hopeful that we''d have a decent chance in the playoffs should we not make the top two.A lesson from Watford is that the set up there is geared to play football from bottom to top. Early in the season they were derided for having changed manager so often, but they ensured that they got the right man early on. He was laughed at despite an impressive CV and a track record of playing according to the club''s requirements. In contrast we''ve had to recover after we dithered and gave the job to someone who was clearly not cut out for top level management, let alone the task of reinvigorating a dejected squad.[/quote]That is a highly misleading rewriting of history. Watford thought they had the right man at the start of the season in Sannino, who had been the manager since December 2013. Before August was out they decided they had been wrong and decided Oscar Garcia was the right man. Which he might have been, or might just as easily not have been, but illness forced him to quit. Even if McKinlay was only a stop-gap (and it is not at all obvious from the reports that he was) then Jokanovic was still the third-choice "right man".[/quote]Are you disputing that they were derided? I definitely remember lots of people in the media and elsewhere doing exactly that regardless of circumstances. The point is they got someone experienced in early doors rather than risk keeping an inexperienced man in the job.[/quote]You will have to do much better than that, 93vintage. Did you really think I wouldn''t see through you trying to use the irrelevant "derision" non-argument as a smokescreen? This is the internet, where you can find every opinion, no matter how absurd, on anything. Who cares if some people derided  Watford?What matters is the essential rightness or wrongness of the decision itself, or in this case of the various contradictory and questionable decisions the Watford directors made all in the space of a few weeks.And did you think I wouldn''t notice the not very subtle change of wording from your earlier post to this, so that "they ensured they got the right man in early on" becomes getting in early "someone experienced" - which is not the same at all?Their first decision of the summer was to stick with Sannino, only to find their had a player revolt on their hands. He resigned but would probably have been sacked had he not. Replacing him with Garcia seemed reasonable, given his decent job at Brighton, but there is no guarantee he would have had Watford where they are now.When his health broke down Watford, far from going for the right man or even the experienced man, chose Billy McKinlay. And from what the Watford CEO said at the time that was intended as a permanent appointment:"In Billy McKinlay we have someone with the qualities and significant

experience to build further on the foundations already laid for a

successful season ahead."No suggestion there of him being a caretaker. But within a fortnight he was gone, and Jokanovic arrived.To sum up, you were trying to portray our directors as ditherers and Watford''s as decisive, and instantly correct. The reality is Watford made at least two very bad decisions and as a result went through four managers in less than three months before correcting their mistakes. Our directors, having decided their first decision was wrong, corrected it first time round. You need to rethink your definitions of dithering and decisiveness.

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