our run in

[Brendo 0]

Preston, bristol, forest, coventry, derby and scunthorpe are our remaining 6 home games. All easily winnable! Also got scum, watford, hull and pompy away which are too winnable.leicester and swans away v hard though. I make that 10 wins 2 defeats, meaning 30 more pts and us winning league on 89 pts :) x

Easy peasy job done my son.

[Yobocop 1,444]

You don''t win a football match ''on paper''

It still requires a massive effort, yes it looks achievable but still a long way to go!

[Phyxius 0]

All of those away games are difficult and we will drop points at home.

Not home and dry yet [;)]

[Canary_on_the Trent 0]

12 tough games that we have to perform in to get points from. Simple!

[Lambert is King 0]

Cardiffs run in is by far the  easiest, 

Ipswich h

Palace A

Barnsley H

Millwall A

Derby H

Doncaster A

Shef Utd A

Portsmouth H

QPR H 

Preston A

Middlesborough H

Burnley A

Would swap that for ours

[Phyxius 0]

Looking at it realistically we''ve yet to win away against a team in the top half of the table and all our 6 remaining away games are against teams in the top 14.

Certainly winnable, but by no means easy.

[Thirsty Lizard 3,215]

Bit of a misleading stat that Phyxius. When we won at Derby before Christmas they had won their last six home games in a row and were 4th at the time. When we won at Coventry they had won their last four home games in a row without conceding a goal and were fifth.

[bjg123 0]

If we average 2 points a game, we''d get 24 points, this is more than we''re averaging currently, so predicting 30 points is ridiculous.

Home:

Preston - will be tough, they probably haven''t consigned themselves to relegation just yet, but they are poor, so we should win.

Bristol - nothing to play for, but are a good side on their day, should win, may draw or lose.

Forest - great side, will be tough and would be happy with a point, but we could easily lose or win.

Coventry - nothing to play for, uninspiring but can grind out a draw, we should win.

Derby - in a relegation fight, we''re better than them but they''ll be well up for it. I doubt we''ll lost this, but we might.

Scunthorpe - same as above.

From that, I''d be over the moon with 12 points or more, but we could only come away with 10 or 11.

Away:

Scum - playing reasonably well, will be motivated to win even if they have nothing to play for, by no means a gimme, will probably draw.

Watford - good side but are probably out of the play-off picture. These are the games we must win, along with Bristol, Coventry and Pompey, against teams with nothing to play for.

Hull - Probably the same group as above. Good side and will cause us a problem. Draw most likely.

Pompey - should beat them, but if they''ve got a fit squad they''re one of the best. Could easily beat us.

Leicester - really, really good at home. We''ll probably lose.

Swans - same as above.

Away points - I think we''ll win 2 or 3 of these and lose 2 or 3. Worst case scenario I''d say is 7 points. I''d be very happy with 10 points.

for me, 9 or 10 points away from home and 12-14 at home would be great, and hopefully enough to get us to 2nd, if others lose a few . I don''t think we''ll be the ones that Leicester replace, that''ll be Leeds. I also don''t expect Swansea to stay 2nd and Cardiff always bottle it. Us or Forest.

[chicken 0]

LOL.

You must be kidding me, Watford easy? They have scored more goals than us this season. Would not put that down as easy.

Same goes for Hull and Pompey - both have underperformed this season but both are far from easy places to go and try and get a result.

Ipswich - local derby - never a game you can bank on. You never know quite what can happen in a derby. Also throw into consideration that we beat them at our place they will want revenge, on top of that they have new management and perhaps even more true is that beating us at their place may well be one thing they have left to fight for this season. Mid table mediocrity lays in wait for them.

Then our home games. Forest - having a bubble, damned tough that will be. Preston are on the rise and are scrapping for every sniff of goal and points to stay up. Scunthorpe could be a forgone conclusion by then, but if it isn''t they might come out all guns ablazing trying to stay up. Even if they are down, maybe they will do so anyway as a parting shot. Derby are no push overs either.

So as others have said, no easy games in there really. If I were a betting man my money would go on how results agains Coventry and Bristol, away points it is harder, I think we will get some but its very dependable on other factors.

[grantroederdisaster 0]

"Give Peas a Chance "]You don''t win a football match ''on paper''

It still requires a massive effort, yes it looks achievable but still a long way to go!

Agree there!

Also another factor is that the struggling teams can often be harder than playing teams at the other end cause their more desperate and will have an emphasis on making sure every players behind the ball when we''re attacking!

Easy games in this Division are few and far between as we found out to our cost last Tuesday!

[kdncfc 28]

We''d have to do pretty bad to miss out on the play offs, six wins should guarantee a play off spot but we''ll probably need 8 or 9 to get second.

[InLambertWeTrust! 0]

Why dont you just take it game by game?

Easier on the nerves I tend to find :)

[Brendo 0]

Sorry I just got a lil excited. In hindsight, I stand by my thoughts on the home games mainly, but not away. All of those home games are winnable, and can''t see us getting beat in any of them. I know it''s not as easy as that, I just think we can get at least 12 points out of a possible 18. Away, well it will be hard. I''d happily take a play off spot right about now.

[ca 1]

[quote user="Barnett is King"]Preston, bristol, forest, coventry, derby and scunthorpe are our remaining 6 home games. All easily winnable! Also got scum, watford, hull and pompy away which are too winnable.leicester and swans away v hard though. I make that 10 wins 2 defeats, meaning 30 more pts and us winning league on 89 pts :) x Easy peasy job done my son.[/quote]

Preston, Scunny and Derby won''t be easy games they are all fighting to stay up.

[paul moy 235]

No games are easy and we are just as likely to beat a top side as to lose to a bottom side. I would not be surprised if we take more points away than at home. The only thing that is predictable is our unpredictability... [:D] 

[Houston Canary 0]

Before Tuesday, we also had Doncaster at home on the list of upcoming easy home wins.

[YankeeCanary 0]

With respect to the opinion by bjg123 ( doesn''t expect Swansea to stay in second place ), I would only say I would not be surprised to see them win the division. Having watched them play three times this season, IMO, they are the club that plays the brand of football that looks like they could be competitive in the Premiership. They made Leeds look easy today.

[CantonsHero 0]

Looking at the run-ins I have to say I think Swansea have got it to lose whereas Forest probably have the hardest with Swansea, Leeds and us away from home.Next weekend the big question is: Can Michael Nelson do Swansea in like he did Forest?

[bjg123 0]

[quote user="YankeeCanary"]With respect to the opinion by bjg123 ( doesn''t expect Swansea to stay in second place ), I would only say I would not be surprised to see them win the division. Having watched them play three times this season, IMO, they are the club that plays the brand of football that looks like they could be competitive in the Premiership. They made Leeds look easy today.[/quote]

The reason I think it is that they have the toughest running, they have Leeds and Burnley away, Forest and Norwich at home, wouldn''t expect them to get much from that, if they beat Leeds next week maybe I''ll retract my opinion!

They also have Scunthorpe away, ask Forest about that one, Derby away, who''ll be very motivated to avoid relegation Hull at home, Pompey and Millwall away. They''re going to drop some points in those fixtures.

[YellowOne1 0]

Those Cardiff fixtures look pretty ominous , dont see us picking up more points than them from here on in. Lets hope our easy home games turn out to be just that, Phill Brown is still looking for his first Preston win, its got to come sometime.

[Houston Canary 0]

It seems like every year recently at least, Cardiff starts strong and fades badly once spring rolls around.

[Smudger 0]

I think that it is starting to look a big ask for automatic promotion for us and with Leicester and Burnley likely to push hard for that last play-off place I think most of us would settle for a place in them if offered now.For a place in the top two I think that we will need to win at Swansea and Ipswich, plus either Leicester, Portsmoth or Hull along with beating Nottingham Forest at home and being reliant upon Cardiff dropping more points than I anticipate them to do during their run in.I think that it is going to take more points than usual to secure both 2nd place and a play-off spot this season.  I have had a look at the BBC predictor for the first time this season and see the following...QPR                            92ptsCardiff                         88ptsNottingham Forest       84ptsSwansea                      84ptsNorwich                      82ptsLeicester                      82ptsLeeds                          80ptsBurnley                        77ptsWin the big games that we have left above and no slip up''s in the so called easier games then who knows?  We still have a good chance, but looking at the fixtures I think that Cardiff have the best run in.  The play-offs are going to be really tough!

[CantonsHero 0]

I had us on a similar amount of points; think we''ll need 90 points for automatics, with 75 for playoffs. 6 wins from the last 12 should be enough.

[ricardo 8,034]

[quote user="Smudger"]I think that it is starting to look a big ask for automatic promotion for us and with Leicester and Burnley likely to push hard for that last play-off place I think most of us would settle for a place in them if offered now.For a place in the top two I think that we will need to win at Swansea and Ipswich, plus either Leicester, Portsmoth or Hull along with beating Nottingham Forest at home and being reliant upon Cardiff dropping more points than I anticipate them to do during their run in.I think that it is going to take more points than usual to secure both 2nd place and a play-off spot this season.  I have had a look at the BBC predictor for the first time this season and see the following...QPR                            92ptsCardiff                         88ptsNottingham Forest       84ptsSwansea                      84ptsNorwich                      82ptsLeicester                      82ptsLeeds                          80ptsBurnley                        77ptsWin the big games that we have left above and no slip up''s in the so called easier games then who knows?  We still have a good chance, but looking at the fixtures I think that Cardiff have the best run in.  The play-offs are going to be really tough![/quote]Absolutely no chance of 7 teams getting over 80 points Smudger.

[paul moy 235]

[quote user="Lambert is King"]

Cardiffs run in is by far the  easiest, 

Ipswich h

Palace A

Barnsley H

Millwall A

Derby H

Doncaster A

Shef Utd A

Portsmouth H

QPR H 

Preston A

Middlesborough H

Burnley A

Would swap that for ours

[/quote]

Palace, Derby, Doncaster, Preston, Middlesborough and Sheff Utd are all fighting to avoid the drop, whereas QPR and Burnley are going for promotion. They will not be easy games at all and draws will be costly so I do not envisage Cardiff making the top 2.    

 

[When Saturday Comes 0]

You''re a fool if you think ANY run-in in the Championship is easy.

It''s the business end of the season, poor sides will beat good sides, the lower teams are fighting for their lives and the few also rans (Ipswich, Doncaster etc) will start to relax and experiment for next season.

Let''s take it game by game.

[paul moy 235]

[quote user="When Saturday Comes"]You''re a fool if you think ANY run-in in the Championship is easy. It''s the business end of the season, poor sides will beat good sides, the lower teams are fighting for their lives and the few also rans (Ipswich, Doncaster etc) will start to relax and experiment for next season. Let''s take it game by game.[/quote]

Precisely, and our last four games will be against sides that have nothing to play for except pride, which hopefully will be to our advantage.

[Brendo 0]

Sorry, but I would say that playing lower teams is alot easier that teams higher up in the division. Not easy, no, but possibly easier than others.

[Canary_on_the Trent 0]

I can''t believe that some people are ignorant enough to think certain games in this division are easier or less tough than others.

Any side will turn us over if we''re not quite at it.

[Yorkshire Canary 118]

Far too optimistic. Away run in is awful home on paper not bad. I reckon 6 wins out of 12 which will put us on 77 goood playoff position