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SwearyCanary

Call me crazy, but……

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10 minutes ago, Mason 47 said:

And we were 1st at some point too. My point was just that there's a few other teams that get a vote if Sheff Utd stack it.

There's always a team that goes on a charge second half of the season. Last time we were here, that was Watford- whilst most were worrying about Bournemouth catching us, it was them getting their mainly-PL squad in order and mounting a charge. OTD two years ago, Watford were 6th (admittedly less than half as far off 2nd than we are). Why not us this year?

I think how we look against Burnley will shape that

Two of those teams we also have a game in hand over... 

Don't get me wrong, I think it's unlikely, yet possible. I just don't think there is much between the rest and should we go on a run who knows?

Middlesboro and Watford both have played a game more, and our GD is the same as the former and 6 better than the latter. They also sit on 45 and 44 points respectively. Then there is Blackburn, -4 GD and a point ahead of us having played the same number of games. Luton and Millwall are level on points with us and have both played a game less, both also on a GD of 6.

I honestly don't see much separating that bunch, you can probably keep going down the league table if you like as 5 points below us is Reading in 16th place. Another team to have previously sat in a play-off point not too long ago. At the moment that's the cut off. It's 9 points to Brizzle City in 17th.

It's probably worth noting then that our next six games are Burnley(H), Bristol City(A), Hull(H), Wigan(A), Birmingham(H), Cardiff(H) - which takes us up to the end of Feb. Burnley is a tough game, but the others are all bottom half of the table at this point. If you take the cut off as Bristol City, 9 points below us, then actually, currently Hull are the only team not 17th or lower, in 15th, of that group.

March gets a bit tougher and perhaps more play-off determining depending upon how those results go. Millwall(A), Sunderland(H), Huddersfield(A) and Stoke(A).

That's the next ten games. After that in April we face more of the current contenders, but it could all look very much different at that point.

Whatever the case may be, we certainly need to be getting a string of results together to cement a play-off position just to go into the play-offs with if nothing else. If we could turn up the heat on Shef Utd, that's also be fun.

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1 hour ago, Midlands Yellow said:

The run of 82 coming along then. Norwich must have been in the bottom half of the table at this stage of the season back then but still pipped Wednesday to the auto spot. 

I think Norwich were 13th at the beginning of that late run.

Strangely Sheff Wed would have gone up instead of us if the three points for a win change hadn’t happened the previous season.

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55 minutes ago, hogesar said:

It was incredibly far-fetched even with Smith if we use the stick you used against our position at the time (bookies odds) 😉

Not if you followed the trend of the odds and how different they were in December compared to two months previously. 

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2 hours ago, SwearyCanary said:

……..I think autos are still a possibility. 

Lots of ifs and buts obviously, BUT IF the blunts play as I’ve seen them the times I have seen them I can see them having a horrible run like we did. Momentum is obviously critical, BUT this league is not great. Burnley I think are making it no matter what, but I feel 2nd is there for the taking still. Alex Neil got us there and whilst I realise the playoffs is a bigger target to hit, this just feels different. 

A win on Saturday and I’m believing. Who is with me? (God I sound like Lakey of 18 months ago) 

You crazy fool.

 

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All we have to do is keep winning and get as close to 2nd place as possible. If we are in striking distance of second place with two or three games to go, the team in second will start to feel the pressure and their results become less easier to come by, giving us the opportunity to sneak it at the last moment.

So it is definitely there to play for - we have to just keep going, build on the positivity Wagner has re-introduced and go for it and put as much pressure on the top two as we can.

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Not to **** on anyone's fireworks but since this thread was created, we've managed to slip out of the top 6..

Shall we go back to making the sky's going to fall on our heads threads instead? 🙂

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All we can do is to try and gain as many points as possible. And where that has us come the end of the season we shall have to wait and see. I sense there is a feeling among fans of the old Sherlock Holmes thought 'come Watson, the games afoot' - we are back in the race, so lets enjoy it and let the end of the season deal with itself when we get there.

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I realise the following is mainly gossip, but it comes mainly from conversation with some friends of mine who are connected to Sheffield United in some form.

There is one little fly in the Blades challenge ointment. The current transfer embargo is due to missing a payment on their transfers. This is due to a combination of: a) poor cash flow planning with parachute payments not matched to fee repayment schedules, b) the Pauper Prince finally running out of cash and assets to support working capital loans / overdrafts, or c) expectation that the new owner would have taken control after EFL clearance so no further funding required.

So, if the EFL do not give clearance to the prospective new owner, will their future parachute payments cover both their transfer fees and running costs? I would imagine the Prince will still have a friend or two to help out short term problems, but he remains desperate to sell.

Given the fees missed so far are not likely to be that big, I would imagine the parachute payments will be sufficient, the cashflow issue being short term due to expecting the new owner would be in charge and providing the cash needed. 

There are quite a few rumours in Sheffield they won't though, with the delay at the EFL signalling that the takeover will not happen. What impact on morale might that have? 

More importantly there is potential for wage payments being missed if the Prince cannot find other sources of funding. Any wages missed could have a demoralising impact on their players, their performance on the pitch impacted.

Potentially this is all a load of ****, but as I've said some of their fans are expecting the worse. They are also on a Smith type winning run like us during September, their play has been unconvincing. Is that a factor of internal dissonance?

The bigger mystery is why the EFL have taken so long to give clearance to the new prospective owner! It's been going on since before Xmas.

Come on Norwich, it ain't over yet, despite Luton winning tonight.

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4 hours ago, SwearyCanary said:

……..I think autos are still a possibility. 

Lots of ifs and buts obviously, BUT IF the blunts play as I’ve seen them the times I have seen them I can see them having a horrible run like we did. Momentum is obviously critical, BUT this league is not great. Burnley I think are making it no matter what, but I feel 2nd is there for the taking still. Alex Neil got us there and whilst I realise the playoffs is a bigger target to hit, this just feels different. 

A win on Saturday and I’m believing. Who is with me? (God I sound like Lakey of 18 months ago) 

No chance. But I admire your spirit . 

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2 hours ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

I like the thinking, but the danger is everyone'll start thinking every game's a must win with that attitude, which'll soon sour the atmosphere if there's a blip.

I don’t remember the atmosphere going stale under Alex Neil when we fell short of the auto spots. 

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28 minutes ago, Hank shoots Skyler said:

I don’t remember the atmosphere going stale under Alex Neil when we fell short of th

I don't remember any expectation of automatic promotion.

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42 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

I don't remember any expectation of automatic promotion.

There was certainly disappointment when we basically fell at the final hurdle, losing at home to Boro and the draw at Rotherham killed our chances. It worked out alright in the end though...

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I don’t ‘expect’ that we will be auto promo. But I don’t think it’s out of the question. Games are less must win and more probably should win when you match us up against the other teams in the league. Turn losses v the top 10 into 50/50 wins snd draes and mop up the rest and we are not looking a million miles off. If we don’t get there then it is what it is. No waning support from me and I’ll be going full blooded into what might become a Wembley visit. 

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9 hours ago, PockthorpePete said:

It's not over till its over, Have a look at these two

The old fighting spirit is back, we can do it. Suggest the faint hearted get off the bus now

 

I like to see the Sky Sports updates for the Norwich Millwall match but I don't think that they're online anywhere.

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....as Sweary says, it's all about momentum, considering we've underperformed points wise, the Teams currently in the play off places are easily within reach. Put a decent run together, even finish a strong 3rd and the momentum created could see another day out at Wembley.... never, ever, give up......

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Didn't the commentator for the cup game say that Sheffield had eight league games in February. The replay makes nine games.

They also lost a man through injury and had another sent off.

They could fold, but it would still need a monumental run of wins from us to catch up, and in a league 'where anybody can beat anybody' this seems unlikely.

I am quite happy to settle for a play-off place and feel that we are certs for a top six.

If the Wagner effect continues, then I will be confident of our chances in the play-offs.

If some feel we are capable of a monumental run in the league games, then they should be equally confident about us in the few play off games. 

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6 hours ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

I don't remember any expectation of automatic promotion.

Eh? Below is what the table looked like after we lost 0-1 to Boro with 2 games left in the season. If we’d won that game we’d have gone top (albeit with Watford and Bournemouth with the ability to catch us).

Are you suggesting that the fans didn’t ‘expect’ autos under Alex Neil when the situation had us top of the league, but are now expecting it under Wagner with 15 points to make up? Can you point it out in this thread?

To be clear, I don’t think there was any expectation or entitlement in either campaign, so don’t agree with your wording in the first place, just trying to understand where your own comparison is coming from? Because as far as I can tell it is utter nonsense!

The support would not hinder the team with an auto push now if we fell short, despite your best attempts to insinuate it. Again. The fact we have a much better example of it from our recent history and you don’t want to think about it shows where your feelings of the fanbase still lie….

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2 hours ago, Hank shoots Skyler said:

I don’t think anyone got that impression from your OP mate - well anyone else anyway.

I wasn't saying that he did. People do get carried away though. When Neil Adams was sacked nobody expected automatic promotion. Getting into the autos with two games to go might even have been a 'false position'. Who knows? Actually, on second thoughts it definitely was given we finished out of the autos.

Then again, people don't always get carried away. Sometimes people can still believe we're destined for League one when we're practically top of the league. Although maybe that's just another sort of getting carried away.

Edited by littleyellowbirdie

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3 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

I wasn't saying that he did. People do get carried away though. When Neil Adams was sacked nobody expected automatic promotion. Getting into the autos with two games to go might even have been a 'false position'. Who knows? Actually, on second thoughts it definitely was given we finished out of the autos.

Then again, people don't always get carried away. Sometimes people can still believe we're destined for League one when we're practically top of the league.

Sorry LYB, I'm sensing several digs at the fanbase (of course) but not really a coherent point in there. Lets get back to where we were, paraphrasing slightly:

You said 'if there is a must win atmosphere then things may turn sour if there is a blip'

I said 'the atmosphere didn't sour during the promotion push under Alex Neil when we fell short'

You said 'nobody expected promotion then'

Why did no one expect promotion under Alex Neil when we literally could've gone top with 2 games to go versus Boro at home? And if that is true, then how on earth would anyone expect promotion now when we are 15 points adrift?

Clearly this line of thought makes no sense, so I'm just not really sure who your posts are aimed at. If you want to call fans out for their stupidity (and of course there is some), it would surely work best to respond to those people directly, rather than making blanket comments which don't remotely stack up!

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13 minutes ago, Hank shoots Skyler said:

Sorry LYB, I'm sensing several digs at the fanbase (of course) but not really a coherent point in there. Lets get back to where we were, paraphrasing slightly:

You said 'if there is a must win atmosphere then things may turn sour if there is a blip'

I said 'the atmosphere didn't sour during the promotion push under Alex Neil when we fell short'

You said 'nobody expected promotion then'

Why did no one expect promotion under Alex Neil when we literally could've gone top with 2 games to go versus Boro at home? And if that is true, then how on earth would anyone expect promotion now when we are 15 points adrift?

Clearly this line of thought makes no sense, so I'm just not really sure who your posts are aimed at. If you want to call fans out for their stupidity (and of course there is some), it would surely work best to respond to those people directly, rather than making blanket comments which don't remotely stack up!

They could only be digs at the fan base if all of the fan base was guilty of pushing such nonsense.

Nobody expected automatic promotion when AN took over from NA. We fell out of the autos as you said, but went straight into playoffs and won promotion there, so that was forgotten. Had we been knocked out in the playoffs the mood could have been very different.

Edited by littleyellowbirdie

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16 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

They could only be digs at the fan base if all of the fan base was guilty of pushing such nonsense.

Righty'o... digs at 'some of' the fanbase then. 

17 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

We fell out of the autos as you said, but went straight into playoffs and won promotion there, so that was forgotten. Had we been knocked out in the playoffs the mood could have been very different.

So the fans didn't expect automatic promotion, but did expect play-off promotion? 

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5 minutes ago, Hank shoots Skyler said:

Righty'o... digs at 'some of' the fanbase then. 

So the fans didn't expect automatic promotion, but did expect play-off promotion? 

People would have been disappointed. I would have. For some people, disappointment immediately translates into looking for a scapegoat.

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I'm not surprised some people are optimistic. Every time we've been in a promotion hunt in the last 19 or so years we've been promoted one way or another. We're used to it going well when we're in and around the top of a league. Plus we've relatively recently had the first AN season where he came in and immediately made an impact like Wagner has and we went on a crazy run and very nearly made the auto's. It might be different this time round but it feels like we're hard to stop when we've got the wind behind our backs in this league. Plus we're a streaky team anyway, we don't pick up or lose points consistently we go on good and bad runs so a really long good run could put us in a good position.

I don't think we'll do it however, we're just too far off and there's too little margin for error, but if we can somehow miss Watford in the play off's I'd put us red hot favorites to win those, even if we do draw them we might do better than usual as our tactical approach has changed. I'm optimistic but I think finishing 2nd is extremely unlikely. 

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On 31/01/2023 at 18:14, SwearyCanary said:

……..I think autos are still a possibility. 

Lots of ifs and buts obviously, BUT IF the blunts play as I’ve seen them the times I have seen them I can see them having a horrible run like we did. Momentum is obviously critical, BUT this league is not great. Burnley I think are making it no matter what, but I feel 2nd is there for the taking still. Alex Neil got us there and whilst I realise the playoffs is a bigger target to hit, this just feels different. 

A win on Saturday and I’m believing. Who is with me? (God I sound like Lakey of 18 months ago) 

 

On 31/01/2023 at 18:14, SwearyCanary said:

……..I think autos are still a possibility. 

Lots of ifs and buts obviously, BUT IF the blunts play as I’ve seen them the times I have seen them I can see them having a horrible run like we did. Momentum is obviously critical, BUT this league is not great. Burnley I think are making it no matter what, but I feel 2nd is there for the taking still. Alex Neil got us there and whilst I realise the playoffs is a bigger target to hit, this just feels different. 

A win on Saturday and I’m believing. Who is with me? (God I sound like Lakey of 18 months ago) 

SeearySweary

 

On 31/01/2023 at 18:14, SwearyCanary said:

……..I think autos are still a possibility. 

Lots of ifs and buts obviously, BUT IF the blunts play as I’ve seen them the times I have seen them I can see them having a horrible run like we did. Momentum is obviously critical, BUT this league is not great. Burnley I think are making it no matter what, but I feel 2nd is there for the taking still. Alex Neil got us there and whilst I realise the playoffs is a bigger target to hit, this just feels different. 

A win on Saturday and I’m believing. Who is with me? (God I sound like Lakey of 18 months ago) 

Sweary no you won’t be voting Conservative which how things are going is a certainty but where did all your mates in the Snake pit go when we were losing

Fair weather fans 

Shame on you, the old boys in the Old Foggies stand at least stayed till the end in general 

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12 minutes ago, daly said:

 

SeearySweary

 

Sweary no you won’t be voting Conservative which how things are going is a certainty but where did all your mates in the Snake pit go when we were losing

Fair weather fans 

Shame on you, the old boys in the Old Foggies stand at least stayed till the end in general 

Weird post. I’m in the South Stand. And I stayed til the end. Maybe a bit more water in the whisky next time. 

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