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The Real Buh

So, can we do it? The great escape!

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Probably not...

BUT!

Has there ever been a team in this situation before that has had a better chance of getting out of this position?

 

We have great players, we have a great manager who isn’t under threat of the sack, we have a fanbase that hasn’t given up, we’ve got an amazing goalscorer. We are also scorned with this VAR injustice. We have all these attributes that the bottom team usually doesn’t have. Usually the bottom team is totally gone and preparing for the championship.

 

can we harness all of this and pull of the ultimate great escape? Maybe I’ve watched too many rocky movies but I believe we can do it. It’s unlikely, I’m not a maniac, I’m aware it’s very very unlikely, but I’m saying we have way more weapons to be able to do it.

 

Us surviving in this league, in a year with so much injustice from VAR, would be such a middle finger to the games authorities.

 

I’m not ready to throw in the towel yet.

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10 minutes ago, The Real Buh said:

Probably not...

BUT!

Has there ever been a team in this situation before that has had a better chance of getting out of this position?

 

We have great players, we have a great manager who isn’t under threat of the sack, we have a fanbase that hasn’t given up, we’ve got an amazing goalscorer. We are also scorned with this VAR injustice. We have all these attributes that the bottom team usually doesn’t have. Usually the bottom team is totally gone and preparing for the championship.

 

can we harness all of this and pull of the ultimate great escape? Maybe I’ve watched too many rocky movies but I believe we can do it. It’s unlikely, I’m not a maniac, I’m aware it’s very very unlikely, but I’m saying we have way more weapons to be able to do it.

 

Us surviving in this league, in a year with so much injustice from VAR, would be such a middle finger to the games authorities.

 

I’m not ready to throw in the towel yet.

I’ll take a pint of that!

The non-sense that NCFC have experienced so far this season wants to turn into the prefect storm and knock a good team back into the Championship, but I whole-heartedly believe we can make at least 16th!

OTBC!!

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1 minute ago, not a clue said:

Yeah, I like that.

Could we play theme music before k.o.?

This absolutely needs to happen

lets embrace it

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We can do it, I couldn’t trust a better group of players or manager.

I truly believe that if we can get a win against Palace then, coupled with the Spurs result and performance, that could be the turning point.

If it wasn’t for an unprecedented list of injuries for a chunk of the season then I think we’d almost certainly be in a fairly reasonable position. We couldn’t legislate for that though, and all supporters should sympathise with the lads there, or that’s my feeling anyway.

And crucially, as long as we start crossing the line very soon, I can almost promise you one or two teams that are looking ok in mid table right now will start to drop right at the worst possible time, and get dragged into a dogfight that they are not prepared for. It literally happens every season so we must go about our business and the rest will fall into place. 

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9 minutes ago, Alex Moss said:

We can do it, I couldn’t trust a better group of players or manager.

I truly believe that if we can get a win against Palace then, coupled with the Spurs result and performance, that could be the turning point.

If it wasn’t for an unprecedented list of injuries for a chunk of the season then I think we’d almost certainly be in a fairly reasonable position. We couldn’t legislate for that though, and all supporters should sympathise with the lads there, or that’s my feeling anyway.

And crucially, as long as we start crossing the line very soon, I can almost promise you one or two teams that are looking ok in mid table right now will start to drop right at the worst possible time, and get dragged into a dogfight that they are not prepared for. It literally happens every season so we must go about our business and the rest will fall into place. 

Amen to that!

 

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Of course we can stay up, teams have gone it from our position in the past. The odds are slim but win a couple of games quickly and the confidence and momentum would build. 

Anyone who has given up already doesn’t have the guts for it. 

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Leicester rock bottom at Christmas, turned their performances around (as we are), stayed up, won the league the following season. It can and does happen. I’d settle for the just staying up bit though of course. And I’d love to see what would happen next summer if we do - would the purse strings be opened a little more? Let’s keep our fingers crossed that we get to find out the answer! Big New Year’s Day coming up to get us closer into the mix again!

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15 minutes ago, GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary said:

Sadly...even if we did have an upturn in points in the second half of the season that put us in with a chance....our run in of fixtures would ultimately do for us

That’s assuming we then reverted back to ‘injury crisis’ Norwich for the run in, who knows how we’ll be playing by that point?

When the fixtures came out I don’t think any of us would have guessed that Man City would likely have nothing to play for on the last day of the season for instance. 

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It’s clearly still possible, after all we are only just over halfway through the league season and have lots of games to go. 

Given where we are, I’d not normally hold out much hope but we’ve actually looked pretty decent in most games and rarely been outplayed - unlike many bottom placed sides.  You could argue that with only a small upturn in fortune the results may change.  We clearly need better luck with injuries and most definitely need to vastly improve our home form...starting with Palace on Wednesday.

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Head - Sadly not. 1½ points per game to get to 40. Not beaten another team in the bottom three and have a paper-thin squad (Jan transfers pending). We'd need something like seven wins and six draws from the last 18 games.

Heart - YES! I love our club, how we play and the players who wear the shirt - WE CAN DO THIS!

(Nurse - the screens!🤪😂)

Edited by Drazen Muzinic
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1 hour ago, Alex Moss said:

That’s assuming we then reverted back to ‘injury crisis’ Norwich for the run in, who knows how we’ll be playing by that point?

When the fixtures came out I don’t think any of us would have guessed that Man City would likely have nothing to play for on the last day of the season for instance. 

Agreed.
 

Any of the big teams will be more focused on winning trophies in whichever competition they may still be in. Only a few will be focused on league position by the final few weeks. 

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 Can we do it? Hell yeah!

 

Will we? I’d love to think so, it’s not impossible, but I wouldn’t bet on it. But it raises a question - if we buy one player in one position in January, where would it be? Despite all the fuss about central defenders, now we have Hanley and Zimbo with Godfrey on his way back, I think I’d be looking for a defensive midfielder, the role that I hoped Amadou would fit into. It’s a tall order, but we found Teemu, Emi and the rest, perhaps we can pick up that missing piece of the jigsaw. Fingers crossed.

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Yes I agree, a defensive midfielder would be my one desire to really strengthen the team / squad. What is Reece James (Chelsea / Wigan loan) doing nowadays? 

Edited by Surfer

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I think it's a long shot but not totally impossible.

However, it has to start with a win tomorrow as we can't afford any more slip ups at home against one of the also rans in this league.

We could have easily had another 6 or 7 points from the last 8 games.

That is a positive but at the same time it's also a worry because we haven't managed to get what we deserved from most of those games.

20 games left but only 9 of those are home games so we really need to win 6 or 7 of those.

Add to that a couple of away wins and pick up a couple of draws somewhere and it is possible.

It's unlikely but I wouldn't rule it out.

 

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The injury problems can only go so far - for a little while now we’ve had a squad with no more injured players than most other clubs, yet the results haven’t turned around. More worryingly, we’ve had games where we’ve looked the better side (so can’t blame injuries for us not being good enough) but don’t kill teams off. 
 

There’s also now a fair gap between us and pretty much everyone else. We’re two results behind Watford (who have a slightly better goal difference), three results behind Villa, West Ham (who have a game in hand) and Bournemouth. We haven’t won a game for 7 matches and unfortunately until March we don’t have a run of easy games (we have a “big side” every other game) so unlikely to string a few wins together.

BUT to get into the spirit of the opening post, I don’t think we’re a million miles behind a lot of teams in the division. If a few players can find some inspired form/luck then we could possibly turn the draws and close losses into wins. I just think we’re a few bits of quality short.

Edited by Aggy

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Love this, interesting that some haven't contributed, I'm hoping that we can make a fight of it.

We've  been relegated 8 times in my lifetime, for different reasons.

 I don't mind being outclassed given the financial constraints. I understand that sometimes we'll lose a star player or Manager which derails our season.

Injuries to Wes and Timm could have seen us survive at key points in a season.

What I have trouble dealing with is the sides who clearly had the ability but for whatever reason couldn't or wouldn't perform.

I don't think that is happening this season, if we ultimately fail it won't be for the want of trying. 

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35 minutes ago, Aggy said:

The injury problems can only go so far - for a little while now we’ve had a squad with no more injured players than most other clubs, yet the results haven’t turned around.

Just to pick up on this particular point Aggy, maybe in terms of numbers, other sides have had similar injury levels to our own, but they haven't had virtually their entire central defence out for half the season. No Zimm, No Klose, No Hanley, and Godfrey at times playing injured because otherwise, our CB pairing would have likely been Tettey and Amadou (maybe Famewo if Farke thought he's ready)!

Look at Man City, they've lost just ONE of their primary CB's in Laporte, and it's made a massive difference to their defensive stability, with them being excused at times for sloppy defending because he's out injured, yet we have had THREE CB's out, and apparently we should just get on with it because other teams have injured players...

A settled backline gains you points over the season, constant chopping and changing (or playing people out of position) causes issues and a lack of stability, which translates into goals conceded and often games lost.

Would we have been challenging for the top six without the injuries - absolutely not IMHO, but would we have likely been outside the relegation zone with more points on the board - absolutely yes (again IMHO).

Add in the dodgy match officials, and VAR screwing us on a number of occasions, and I think we'd probably be somewhere between 12th and 16th without any of it happening, maybe even challenging Palace for 9th spot, however, we have to be fair, other clubs have also had issues with officiating and VAR, but the perfect storm we've faced in the first half of the season has cost us dearly, and simply saying other clubs had people injured does us an injustice in showing just how tough we've had it tbh.

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Good thread, shows plenty of us haven't given up yet. We look to be back to the kind of form we were in last season - Vrancic is again showing his class and there is plainly still belief in the players.

For some reason this feels to me like the last few weeks of last season - so near to achieving something special but not quite there yet. We showed how strong we were  mentally then - and that is going to help us again. Can we do it? Absolutely, but it is going to be every bit as tough and nerve wracking as it was last season. 

 

 

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39 minutes ago, Aggy said:

The injury problems can only go so far - for a little while now we’ve had a squad with no more injured players than most other clubs, yet the results haven’t turned around. More worryingly, we’ve had games where we’ve looked the better side (so can’t blame injuries for us not being good enough) but don’t kill teams off. 
 

There’s also now a fair gap between us and pretty much everyone else. We’re two results behind Watford (who have a slightly better goal difference), three results behind Villa, West Ham (who have a game in hand) and Bournemouth. We haven’t won a game for 7 matches and unfortunately until March we don’t have a run of easy games (we have a “big side” every other game) so unlikely to string a few wins together.

BUT to get into the spirit of the opening post, I don’t think we’re a million miles behind a lot of teams in the division. If a few players can find some inspired form/luck then we could possibly turn the draws and close losses into wins. I just think we’re a few bits of quality short.

The thing is, there’s a lot of games to be played and we’re really not that far behind the pack above. People are talking like there’s 3 of us ridiculously cut adrift with a massive points difference to mid table. That is not the case at all.


To give an example, if we were 6 points off top with 20 odd games to go, a lot of people wouldn’t think it’d be insurmountable to catch the league leaders at this stage of the season. It’s only because it’s the other end of the table that the points difference looks uncatchable (to some), when again, it’s really not the case at all. 
 

Interesting you mention how many of the better sides we will have to play. Ironically, it’s actually against those sides where the points and best performances have come, and some of those were during the depths of our injury crisis too. From what I’ve witnessed from all the games I’ve either attended or watched this season, the evidence suggests to me that we’re better off playing games where we’re the underdog. Our players seem to revel in this scenario.

 

I’ve honestly never felt more positive we can get out of this position. Some seasons I’ve thought ‘we’re just not dangerous enough’ or ‘the spirit and togetherness isn’t there’. But that’s really not the case, and it’s refreshing to see that this group of players know that another positive result will breed further confidence, and as we all saw last season, when that happens then these boys should never be underestimated 💪🏽
 

It’s not fair to judge our points total thus far based on the season to this point. The injury crisis we had was ridiculous, and almost unheard of, freakish. I’ve heard managers such as Mourinho and Rodger’s, and other experts, saying this has led to a somewhat false position given we were playing with for example one centre back and even then Ben wasn’t anywhere close to 100% fitness. We have a team back now and performances are definitely improving. That’s a very good sign.
 

Good to see most of you all on here have a bit of fighting spirit too, even if you have justifiable worries and concerns. The lads will need you all, don’t underestimate what difference you can make as the 12th man 👍🏼

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17 minutes ago, lake district canary said:

Good thread, shows plenty of us haven't given up yet. We look to be back to the kind of form we were in last season - Vrancic is again showing his class and there is plainly still belief in the players.

For some reason this feels to me like the last few weeks of last season - so near to achieving something special but not quite there yet. We showed how strong we were  mentally then - and that is going to help us again. Can we do it? Absolutely, but it is going to be every bit as tough and nerve wracking as it was last season. 

 

 

Would give this, and literally every post a ‘like’ on here if I’d not just run out - wish Pete would increase the limit!

 

Some excellent posts on this thread 👍🏼

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On our performances yes,

Realistically, probably not.

One thing going in our favour is that we have a group of players that will fight to stay up because they need it as much as the club do, I cant see there been many more Premier League Opportunities for Krul, Tettey, Hanley, Klose, Mclean so trying to squeeze one more year for them will mean everything.

You've then got the lads who came from Germany, they may get a move to lower end Bundesliga but I cant't see any Premier League teams queuing up for them.

There will be some natural attrition, Ben, Max, Jamal and Todd but coming from the youth system, I'm sure their hearts are in it. 

Certainly think we have a better shot than when we had Snoddy, Naismith, Bassong, Howson, Fer, Elmander, Redmond and Olsson who were immediatley ready to pick up their next pay cheque elsewhere. 

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Good stuff OP , in my case I’m glad to say  you’re preaching to the converted !

It’s backs to the wall stuff , but if the players and fans can stay united then it’s possible . It won’t be if we don’t stay as one that’s for sure ! It’ll be a real scrap , let’s relish it and let it bring the best out of NCFC . 
Any of the clubs above us could have a prolonged run of bad form or an injury crisis same as us that nobody can ever see coming . Or a new manager that gets a bounce , then they start losing again . Christ it’s bloody hard enough to know what’s going to happen to your own team , let alone other people’s ! 

The real hope for me is the number of chances we’re creating at the moment . If we weren’t doing that it would look pretty impossible. But we are !! So bring it on !!

 

OTBC 

 

Edited by Pockthorpe

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Solely looking at ourselves, I believe that we can string some wins together and have a much better second half of the season. The main concern in terms of our survival hopes is finding 3 teams we'll finish above. Watford have got going under Pearson, Southampton improved, West Ham will surely have enough to drag them away from the mire and the  dull likes of Burnley/Newcastle will likely grind enough home wins. Got a keen eye on Bournemouth, and Villa will be down there, but not sure of a 3rd.

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https://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/huddersfield-beat-drop-11-most-miraculous-relegation-escapes-english-football-premier-league?page=0%2C2

Wigan 2011-2, Sunderland 2013-4, Leicester 2014-5. All were in equally bad predicaments even closer to the end of the season, and all survived. Still a slim chance.

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1 hour ago, Excited Canary said:

Solely looking at ourselves, I believe that we can string some wins together and have a much better second half of the season. The main concern in terms of our survival hopes is finding 3 teams we'll finish above. Watford have got going under Pearson, Southampton improved, West Ham will surely have enough to drag them away from the mire and the  dull likes of Burnley/Newcastle will likely grind enough home wins. Got a keen eye on Bournemouth, and Villa will be down there, but not sure of a 3rd.

The fact that all teams are taking points off each other means it is going to be unpredictable who will end up at the bottom of the pile. We simply have to concentrate on ourselves, start picking up points to get ourselves back in the mix and then see where that takes us.  To my mind it is still open from about 9th downwards.

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9 minutes ago, lake district canary said:

The fact that all teams are taking points off each other means it is going to be unpredictable who will end up at the bottom of the pile. We simply have to concentrate on ourselves, start picking up points to get ourselves back in the mix and then see where that takes us.  To my mind it is still open from about 9th downwards.

I'm genuinely trying not to respond but then you trump yourself and post something even more stupid than your previous post.

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