***** Official Pant Wetters Thread v Swansea *****

[cambridgeshire canary 6,716]

16 minutes ago, Paint Me Yellow said:

We're actually only 4 points clear of the play-offs, or did you mean 15 clear of 7th?

I'm splitting hairs a bit, I know.

15th clear of 7th. End of the day regardless of how poor we do for rest of the season I do feel we will at the very least end up in playoffs.

[pete 319]

Just a couple of points we are now not on 2 points per game.  And no matter who we have to play if you don't score goals you are not going to win.  Drawing next 18 0-0 to make play offs seems unlikely.  Might make play offs still need to score  at least one goal.  Scoring goals looks a little problematic given we have managed 4 shots on target in last 4 games.  The best squad in the league apparently looks to be ragged and devoid of confidence.  It could turn very quickly it just seems a long way off.  Rupp needs to be replaced by Sorensen, Placheta rested, and Dowell needs to show why anyone believed he could be a no 10.

To reach play offs playing like this will not see finalists.  Top of the league at Xmas and 53 points after 25 games has earned promotion might just not apply this season.

Glad to see so much positivity around the club, however little to be confident about at present.  A whole week now to do something about it.  Predict Soto will be in the squad this month.

[Feedthewolf 4,846]

18 minutes ago, pete said:

Just a couple of points we are now not on 2 points per game.  And no matter who we have to play if you don't score goals you are not going to win.  Drawing next 18 0-0 to make play offs seems unlikely.  Might make play offs still need to score  at least one goal.  Scoring goals looks a little problematic given we have managed 4 shots on target in last 4 games.  The best squad in the league apparently looks to be ragged and devoid of confidence.  It could turn very quickly it just seems a long way off.  Rupp needs to be replaced by Sorensen, Placheta rested, and Dowell needs to show why anyone believed he could be a no 10.

To reach play offs playing like this will not see finalists.  Top of the league at Xmas and 53 points after 25 games has earned promotion might just not apply this season.

Glad to see so much positivity around the club, however little to be confident about at present.  A whole week now to do something about it.  Predict Soto will be in the squad this month.

Thanks for the scoop, Mystic Meg.

[Felixfan 53]

Perhaps not being seen as the team to beat will help us for a while. I have never been a fan of McLean and even less so after his howler last.night, and Hernandez must start.

[TIL 1010 4,740]

10 hours ago, Feedthewolf said:

 

Now we've lost our mojo, we're not a patch on the side of 2018/19.

 

You had better hope Fenway Frank does not read that wolfie as i made that exact comment a couple of games ago and he has dropped it into a couple of other threads in a poor attempt at humour.

[Hank shoots Skyler 2,094]

14 minutes ago, TIL 1010 said:

You had better hope Fenway Frank does not read that wolfie as i made that exact comment a couple of games ago and he has dropped it into a couple of other threads in a poor attempt at humour.

Only FTW is not one holding that belief, he's just commenting on fans' knee jerk reactions and statements based on our most recent games. He's not necessarily agreeing with your comments, just pointing out that fans are fickle. 

Come the end of the season we will judge things overall, if we win the league the good wins and the late drama will be remembered fondly, if we fall short of the autos then we won't hold those games up in the same way and we'll instead cite the lesser moments where things didn't go so well.

The point is that running constant comparisons against the 18/19 team is probably unfair because you're measuring a title-winning season against a sample of one game or a few. 

If you go back 3 games, I don't think you'd have got many people to agree that we were 'not a patch on the 18/19 side' after the run of games which culminated with the Bristol City match which we dominated them from start to finish.

As FTW says, we'll probably have a better idea of where we might sit at the end of the season after the next run of more favourable games when we've got Buendia back. But there's still a long way to go.

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

4 minutes ago, Hank shoots Skyler said:

Only FTW is not one holding that belief, he's just commenting on fans' knee jerk reactions and statements based on our most recent games. He's not necessarily agreeing with your comments, just pointing out that fans are fickle. 

Come the end of the season we will judge things overall, if we win the league the good wins and the late drama will be remembered fondly, if we fall short of the autos then we won't hold those games up in the same way and we'll instead cite the lesser moments where things didn't go so well.

The point is that running constant comparisons against the 18/19 team is probably unfair because you're measuring a title-winning season against a sample of one game or a few. 

If you go back 3 games, I don't think you'd have got many people to agree that we were 'not a patch on the 18/19 side' after the run of games which culminated with the Bristol City match which we dominated them from start to finish.

As FTW says, we'll probably have a better idea of where we might sit at the end of the season after the next run of more favourable games when we've got Buendia back. But there's still a long way to go.

Thing is Hank, you say favourable games, and as we are top, they should all be favourable. I know what you mean of course but we are playing like a bottom half of the table team at the moment.

[Hank shoots Skyler 2,094]

1 minute ago, keelansgrandad said:

Thing is Hank, you say favourable games, and as we are top, they should all be favourable. I know what you mean of course but we are playing like a bottom half of the table team at the moment.

Being top of the league, of course we should fancy ourselves in every match to have a good chance of winning if we play well, but that doesn't mean all fixtures are equally favourable. And our last 3 have been particularly tough, especially in context:

• Middlesbrough at home, versus a Warnock team set up to stifle us completely, with the key portion of the match played with 10 men 
• Millwall away, always a tough game and Millwall have picked up points against all of the top sides
• Swansea away, 3rd and best defence in the league + two catastrophic individual errors

We've also only had Buendia for 60 odd minutes during this spell of matches. 

When I look at the next 5 I am not seeing fixtures which should give us as much trouble as the previous 3:

H - Stoke City

A - Coventry City 

H - Rotherham United

A - Birmingham City 

A - Wycombe Wanderers 

Factor in the return of Buendia and I am feeling quietly confident that we'll get back into our rhythm again come the end of this spell - let's hope so!