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Do you think we will stay up?

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Interested to hear peoples honest view. Can we realistically survive and if so where are the points coming from? What's the plan? Not even half way through yet, but its looking tough. 

Or do you think we are as good as down, out of ideas and out of our depth emphasised after a naive performance tonight? 

I felt very positive after the weekend, but so very negative tonight. So I'm looking for some honest thoughts from you guys as to what you are thinking? 

 

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I am worried about our ability to beat teams around us. In the past 3 weeks we’ve gifted 6 points to our relegation rivals, if anything is going to send us down it’s the fact that we can’t seem to raise our game against the teams that we need to beat, instead we expend all our energy against teams that won’t be struggling and then leave ourselves run ragged. Farke’s unwillingness to rotate the team selection is compounding the issue.

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We really should have won 2 - 0 tonight but for some woeful defending. If we can manage to gain a few more points and then sign an experienced beast of a centre back then maybe. If we carry on as is giving goals away we will win a few, but I fear not enough to stay up.

To sign that centre back however we have no real money so I guess we will be seeing one of our kids ( or Emi ) being moved on for big money if that is what Webber thinks is required, but who would sign for a Relegation threatened club.

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Just cant see which 3 teams we'll finish above .. and even if we did show an improvement in the 2nd half of the season to put us in with a fighting chance....our run in on the fixture list will uktimately kill us...

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4 minutes ago, GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary said:

Just cant see which 3 teams we'll finish above .. and even if we did show an improvement in the 2nd half of the season to put us in with a fighting chance....our run in on the fixture list will uktimately kill us...

I probably agree with that, Everton will be a different team once Silva has gone. We are no worse than several teams, but they just seem to have that extra bit of physicality and defensive know how.

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No,  just not good enough consistently.  We show flashes of quality but doing it game in game out seems beyond most of them. Too naive and cant even defend properly most of the time, the 2 goals we conceded tonight a perfect illustration.

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That performance and result gives you all the evidence you need to determine this question.  The players are performing as if they know the answer.

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2 minutes ago, Jobsworth Canary said:

We should be planning for next season’s promotion push 

I sometimes think that has what this season has been about, planning for the next and damage limitation to the finances. 

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No as the results against the teams near the bottom and around us have been not good enough. There is not the quality or investment to give us a chance. Real pity.

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I'm not giving up, but it's gonna be difficult.

We do worst against teams that rely on overpowering the opposition. That's how they've survived in the PL against technically better teams. We're simply not strong enough - look at what a difference Alex made yesterday; perhaps not as skillful as Todd, Emi or Tom but his power, experience & positional awareness made all the difference.

 

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Its gonna be hard if we cant beat the teams in and around us. We have now dropped points against Watford, Brighton, Southampton, Villa, Burnley, West Ham and looked bellow par in all the performance. Its all well and good stepping up against Man City and Arsenal but we have to take points off those around us and its the performances in those games which worry me, we were god awful last night and didn't look up for the fight which worries me. On current form and performances we will be down by April, I live in hope we can turn it around though. 

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12 minutes ago, ron obvious said:

I'm not giving up, but it's gonna be difficult.

We do worst against teams that rely on overpowering the opposition. That's how they've survived in the PL against technically better teams. We're simply not strong enough - look at what a difference Alex made yesterday; perhaps not as skillful as Todd, Emi or Tom but his power, experience & positional awareness made all the difference.

 

This ^^ 

If you look at our season. We have taken points of technically gifted teams who allow us to play ourselves. But when we come up against the big lads- Palace the perfect example- they just bully us of the ball and it looks like men against boys at time. Essentially a good big un is better than just a good un at the bottom end of this division- to play on talent takes serious money and gifted players. We simply have the wrong team to mount a challenge. Skilful enough but just not big enough to mix it with the scrappers.  

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14 minutes ago, Capt. Pants said:

I sometimes think that has what this season has been about, planning for the next and damage limitation to the finances. 

I don't think there is any secret about that, given all the comments about the aim being a top-26 club. The idea was to try to improve the squad somewhat, without lumbering ourselves with expensive long-term contracts, and if we stayed up this season that would be fine, but the assumption probably was that we would not.

I think two partly unforeseeable factors have come into play. One being not so much the unprecedented injury crisis but the specific loss of the three most experienced out of our four centre-backs, which had a knock-on effect on midfield.

The other being how many of our squad from last season have struggled to make the step up in class, either because they are young and still learning and/or because they reached their limit in the Championship. You can make a case that this applies one way or another to Aarons, Godfrey, Trybull, Stiepermann, Heise, Srbeny and Leitner. And you can throw in a permanently injured Drmic, and a question as to why Vrancic is not playing.

Given our finances we simply could not have afforded to bump up the squad with potential replacements for anywhere near all those players. If there was a mistake it was to rely on two players; Klose and Drmic, with bad injury records.

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Sadly no. Honestly love the clubs philosophy around nurturing youth and know it's the only realistic long term approach for a club like ours, but this season must be teaching senior management tough lessons on how ruthless it is at the very top. There's just no time available here for the team to be learning from mistakes, but that's an expected process for such a young, inexperienced team...

Prove me wrong Norwich, prove me wrong 😉

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Yes. Poor recruitment this summer in hindsight. Drmic plays in the one position we didn't need a boost. And Klose was crocked and keeping Hanley suspect. We needed a BIG defender and midfielder. We got one in Amadou. But not the other. Injuries have been a factor but I think we also overlook the fact that maybe we over achieved a bit last season also. Which made the step up much bigger than some wanted to pretend. And we really have seen that this season. 

 

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We have too many issues that have not been addressed.

1. We can't defend crosses.

2. Our game management is poor, particulary giving away cheap free kicks and corners. (see 1)

3. We rarely score the first goal and when we conceed first we lose

4. We haven't found a way to not lose against teams in the lower half of the table.

5. We are too inconsistent.

6. Buendia is only half the player he was last season

Address those issues then it's a possibly.

Don't address those issues, and quickly,  then it's a definitely not

 

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You never know, and we're not cut adrift yet. However we've lost to so many relegation rivals too easily, and literally gifted them points. Watford, Southampton, Burnley, Brighton, Villa etc... is this trend suddenly going to change? Most alarming is that any team with decent organisation and game plan seem to turn us over. Of our three wins, two came against teams who were in disarray, Everton and Newcastle. Lets face it, we probably played them at the right time. 

My thoughts are that its time to play to our strengths, and go back to the key players who performed for us last season. Win or bust, its time to see Vrancic and Buendia back in the starting 11. More of Leitner in his preferred role too. These players are suited to the way Farke wants to play, he needs to get the best out of them. 

A big fear of mine is Pukki knocking on Webbers door in January....

 

 

Edited by Il Pirata

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1 minute ago, Il Pirata said:

You never know, and we're not cut adrift yet. However we've lost to so many relegation rivals too easily, and literally gifted them points. Watford, Southampton, Burnley, Brighton, Villa... More alarming is that any team with a any sort of organisation and game plan seem to turn us over. Of our three wins, two came against teams who were in disarray, Everton and Newcastle. Lets face it, we probably played them at the right time. 

My thoughts are that its time to play to our strengths, and go back to the key players who performed for us last season. Win or bust, its time to see Vrancic and Buendia back in the starting 11. More of Leitner in his preferred role too. These players are suited to the way Farke wants to play, he needs to get the best out of them. 

A big fear of mine is Pukki knocking on Webbers door in January....

 

 

Good point on Pukki. If it looks like all is lost come January then I think the club will cash in on him if a decent offer came in . 

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2 minutes ago, Midlands Yellow said:

Good point on Pukki. If it looks like all is lost come January then I think the club will cash in on him if a decent offer came in . 

Yep, he's nearly 30 and won't want to be back in the championship. If he gets the opportunity for a big pay day he's going to take it. 

The club will get more for him in January than as a relegated club in the summer. 

£12 million probably gets him, and that's a snip for a PL team, even if its just for 18-24 months worth of goals. 

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Yeah, I think we stand a fairly good chance. This season the table still hasn't settled after 15 games with 8 points between us in 19th and Sheffield United in 9th. 

We still don't really know who our relegation rivals are going to be although you'd have to assume Watford. After that, any of:

Sheffield United

Burnley

Bournemouth

West Ham

Newcastle

Villa

Brighton

Southampton

Everton

 

Are all capable. If Silva leaves Everton, they still have to get the next appointment right. Imagine if they got Howe? That could drag bournemouth down. The form of teams in the last 5 games shows anyone from 9th down is finding consistency difficult. To give Sheffield their credit, whilst only winning 1 in the last 5 they've drawn the other 4 so defensive solidarity should be enough. Bournemouth have won 1, lost 4. We've won 1, drawn 1, lost 3.

Still so much to play for and all the teams are struggling for consistency.

 

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If we continue on our current trajectory (0.73 points per game), we'll get to 28 points by the end of the season. To get to 40 points, we'll need to improve that to 1.26 points per game over the remaining 23 games. That's a massive ask, even before you consider the likelihood of other teams strengthening their squads in January.

However, if you look at our last three games since Zimbo came back, we've got 4 from 3 (1.33ppg), including two away games and a game against Arsenal. If we could beat Sheffield United and get a draw against Wolves (assuming a defeat at Leicester), we'd still be on track. If the team that played Everton and Arsenal turns up, rather than the team that turned up last night, it is still doable.

On the balance of probability, though, we're more than likely to go down.

Edited by Feedthewolf

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25 minutes ago, Il Pirata said:

Yep, he's nearly 30 and won't want to be back in the championship. If he gets the opportunity for a big pay day he's going to take it. 

The club will get more for him in January than as a relegated club in the summer. 

£12 million probably gets him, and that's a snip for a PL team, even if its just for 18-24 months worth of goals. 

I’d go for £15M as a minimum. Hopefully it doesn’t have to happen but goals to keep another club up would make the fee a snip. 

I actually think he could player for a decent Premier league club as he’s a very clever forward too . 
 

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We don't seem to learn by our mistakes and I think we lack any mental resilience to string together wins. I will remain positive that on our day we can match anyone, but at the moment I'm not overly optimistic, as the teams around us just seem better equipped to deal with the Premiership.

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