Play offs here we come !

[Capt. Pants 4,226]

Our current form is far more consistent than the teams above us, at least those outside the top six, so it''s not an impossibility by any means. Bristol City look the most likely to fall out of the play off positions. It would be great to keep the season alive until April but it''s a tough ask. Finishing 7th or 8th looks more likely but puts us in a decent position for next season.

[Making Plans 936]

The Sheff Utd game was the killer. If we hadn''t had a team that was knackered we could have won that and been 3 points better off.As it turned out we got nowt for an excellent, albeit futile performance at Chelsea.Not for the first time (e.g. Arsenal) Farke failed to see the writing on the wall and carried on regardless.Perhaps by not fielding a weaker team, and getting drubbed by Chelsea on prime time TV, was seen as being more important than going for an outside chance of promotion.Bad management has probably cost us any chance of the play-offs we might have had.

[lake district canary 4,531]

[quote user="Making Plans"]The Sheff Utd game was the killer. If we hadn''t had a team that was knackered we could have won that and been 3 points better off.As it turned out we got nowt for an excellent, albeit futile performance at Chelsea.Not for the first time (e.g. Arsenal) Farke failed to see the writing on the wall and carried on regardless.Perhaps by not fielding a weaker team, and getting drubbed by Chelsea on prime time TV, was seen as being more important than going for an outside chance of promotion.Bad management has probably cost us any chance of the play-offs we might have had.[/quote]

Oh, per-lease, don''t know what you''re on about. Futile??  I can''t think of any reason that the match against Chelsea didn''t give the club and our fans a huge boost.  Yes we lost against Sheff Utd, but there is a bigger picture at work here and both the Arsenal match and the Chelsea matches had real positives about them. If we are to do well for the remainder of the season, it will be partly because of those cup matches and the growing togetherness of the largely new squad and new regime.  The play offs may be too far away, but they may well have been anyway, regardless of those cup matches. Calling it "bad management" is going too far.  As it is, we still have a chance if we can keep up the good form we have shown - or even improve on it, which if the new players have an effect, we could well do.

 

[hogesar 9,657]

[quote user="Making Plans"]The Sheff Utd game was the killer. If we hadn''t had a team that was knackered we could have won that and been 3 points better off.As it turned out we got nowt for an excellent, albeit futile performance at Chelsea.Not for the first time (e.g. Arsenal) Farke failed to see the writing on the wall and carried on regardless.Perhaps by not fielding a weaker team, and getting drubbed by Chelsea on prime time TV, was seen as being more important than going for an outside chance of promotion.Bad management has probably cost us any chance of the play-offs we might have had.[/quote]

You could equally argue that it''s Farkes ability to get young players playing well for us thats giving us a vague possibility of the play-offs in a massive transitional season, i.e good management.

[Bill 1,788]

[quote user="Capt. Pants"]Our current form is far more consistent than the teams above us, at least those outside the top six, so it''s not an impossibility by any means. Bristol City look the most likely to fall out of the play off positions. It would be great to keep the season alive until April but it''s a tough ask. Finishing 7th or 8th looks more likely but puts us in a decent position for next season.[/quote]err, actually it doesn''t - it is not like F1We all start on no points at the beginning of the season, with the squads then as ell, not necessarily those who finished the season As to the Chelsea and Arsenal games Farke was right to field the teams he did. His is a view that we set about to win every game. It would not have done player moral any good if we had fielded a weakened team at Stamford Bridge or Arsenal. These are the games players like Maddison, Lewis.Ziimerman and others dream about. Especially the return fixture. At Stamford Bridge in front of forty thousand and lord knows how many more on TV, and you suggest that Farke should tell them that they will have to miss out.Keep a fighting mentality, no matter who it is.

[Ray 111]

Hogesar,

It''s a shame his self esteem is such that he can''t ''handle'' dealing with more seasoned professionals, but that''s another story. That said it may come good as he matures as a manager? Which I really hope he will.

[Jools 584]

[quote user="Rock The Boat"]There''s one part of me that doesn''t want promotion this season. The reason is that we are still building a team and developing younger players. When you get to the Premier you have to be ready; and the scope to give game time to young players is more limited than the Championship. Then there is the question of parachuting in quality reinforcements to give yourself a fighting chance of survival. And we''ve experience of what happens when the likes of RVW, Fer, Naismith etc. turn up at Carrow Road. Then you''ve got the switch from a winning mentality of the Championship to a dig-in for the duration of the Premiership where we are favourites to lose every match.I get that the downside is, that by remaining in the Championship we are highly likely to lose our best players (Maddison, Klose), but I think we need to establish a really strong Championship squad who''ve been together for a while before we tackle the top league. That''s how the Lambert years went and that turned out to be pretty good in the long run.[/quote][Y]We won''t finish in the Play-Offs and we will lose the players mentioned + Gunn & Reed, but the upside is the hopeful return of the confident Shrewsbury duo and Cantwell, Adams & Abrahams working in.

[Duncan Edwards 2,231]

[quote user="Ray"]Hogesar,

It''s a shame his self esteem is such that he can''t ''handle'' dealing with more seasoned professionals, but that''s another story. That said it may come good as he matures as a manager? Which I really hope he will.[/quote]

Are you Russell Martin’s Dad?

Ffs. I think Russ is an excellent pro and has been a fantastic servant to this football club; he’s made more Premier League appearances for Norwich City than any other player but....

I think we’d all agree that, moving forward, he’s likely to see less and less game time as we reduce the age and expense of the squad. If Farke and Webber took action that enforced a sojourn out on loan then it must be that they think any contribution to his wages could/would be better spent elsewhere.

I genuinely hope Russ stays with the club long-term as his grounding in lower league football and his ascent through the leagues and up to international level will surely be beneficial to managing the expectations and aspirations of young players. However; while he still holds a desire to play, then we’re probably not a great fit right now.

That’s no slight on him, his ability or attitude but the club is headed in a different direction and while he’s be an asset around the dressing room you have to wonder if that’s enough to keep paying him a wage (that is now being subsidised) when we were looking to recruit.

[Tootingyellow 1]

I think people are confusing form with results. We have won a few games recently with less than inspiring performances. I don''t believe we create enough going forward to go on the sort of run required for a play-off place. We couldn''t get behind the Boro defence even once despite playing 10 men for 70 mins. I know there is an effort to get men behind the ball when down to 10 but the lack of speed/urgency allowed Boro to get two banks of four lined up very easily. We never looked like we had any ideas as to how to break them down.

[Woodman 92]

74% possession, 21 shots, 6 on target suggests we did ok against Boro. But for 2 very good saves by Randolph, it would have been an even more comfortable win than it was.

[Bill 1,788]

One of the two hardest games (supposedly) and we didn''t look second best.Loads of ''ifs'' but then much to be positive about. The point about other clubs picking up points seems to have taken a knock today, with Bristol blowing a 3-0 advantage and Fulham, Brentford, Cardiff also only managing a draw.And that is how it will be with regard to the others, that is why the the play off places always end up on roughly the same points each season.Beat the binners next week and we are back on track for the two points a game average needed.However to clarify, I am not claiming that we will make the play offs, merely identifying what we have to do to stand a chance.. The points total is still mathematically possible. Our spirit and determination is what will now count. And as we bed in the new players it is looking a lot better than it did a couple of months ago.So onwards and upwards is my thought.