9 out of 13

[Fraz 2]

Interesting fact is out of our 13 premier league games we have played this season 9 have been play against the teams sitting 1-11 in the league, having to still play 4 of the bottom 8 (ourselves excluded ) before we hit mid season.

[grefstad 0]

And some of the reasons they are top 11 is that, oh wait, got 3 easy points against us

[crabbycanary 2]

And they will stay top 11, because they will get 3 points against a lot of teams this season.

[Making Plans 936]

Yes it''s very unfair how the lower in the table you go the more likely you are to play against a team that''s higher than you

[city4eva 207]

[quote user="Making Plans"]Yes it''s very unfair how the lower in the table you go the more likely you are to play against a team that''s higher than you[/quote]that made me laugh, not sure the Op will though

[Hairy Canary 668]

To be fair he never mentioned that the teams we''ve played are above us. He said they were in the top half.

Not sure it particularly relevant unless our performances improve but never the less it is an indisputable fact.

[It's Character Forming 1,160]

I think the OP''s point is that the teams in the top half of the table tend to be better than the teams in the bottom half, by and large.  So if you''ve had fixtures mainly against the top half, you''ve played more difficult games.

 

Oddly enough when we had a run of fixtures against Arsenal, Chelsea, Man U, Man C in quick succession, we didn''t do so well.  Now that we''ve had West Ham and Palace at home, we''ve had back to back wins.  Who''d have guessed ?

 

But remember "it''s a results business".  Or so we were told ad nauseam when we had that tough run of games - surprisingly, those who want Hughton out now think it''s all about the performances.

[Making Plans 936]

[quote user="Hairy Canary"]To be fair he never mentioned that the teams we''ve played are above us. He said they were in the top half. [/quote]Well last time I looked, most, if not all, of the top half teams were above us. Posts like this are just excuses for the inexcusable - feeble attempts ate glossing over the inadequacies of the Manager.

[PurpleCanary 5,554]

The average position of the teams we have played is 9th (rounded down from 9.4). After we have played Liverpool the average position will be exactly 9th.

[It's Character Forming 1,160]

Like it or not, sometimes the fixture list throws up tough parts of a season (which are, by definition, balanced by easier parts).

 

This season is the most heavily skewed I can remember for City in the top flight, with a tough start and a tough run-in, but the middle of the season is correspondingly easier, basing this on games against the top sides, which I take to be Man U, Man C, Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs and Liverpool.

 

By this I mean that our first 9 league games included Spurs (A), Arsenal (A), Chelsea, and Man City (A) so 4 difficult games out of 9.  Whereas the next 10 games, taking us to the halfway point when we''ve played everyone once, only includes 2 games of comparable difficulty - Liverpool (A) and Man U.

And in the New Year we start an incredible run of 15 games which includes only 2 really tough fixtures, Man C and Spurs (both at home though).  The rub obviously comes at the end of the season with Liverpool, Man U, Chelsea, Arsenal as our last four games (hopefully they''ll all be on the beach by then, of course).

 

So with a tough start, it''s not very surprising after 9 games we were not doing so well; the important thing was that we kept in touch with the mid-table pack.  We''re now a few games into a run of 25 mainly easier games, so it''s not surprising we''re doing better.  The key of course is to keep up the better results so that we''re well placed with 34 games gone and don''t have to worry about those last 4 fixtures.   We want to be at the magic 40 point mark at 34 games, I''d say.

 

And before anyone says it, "there are no easy games in the Prem..."... but some are easier than others...

[nutty nigel 7,509]

14th is where we deserve to be having played the teams we''ve played. A little more consistency and we''d be top half. I''m specifically referring to games against Hull and Cardiff. But we only have ourselves to blame for that. Come the end of the season we will be where we deserve to be. I''m sticking with my forecast of 45/50 points and hopefully a top half finish.

 

 

[It's Character Forming 1,160]

I agree.  Last season I felt there were a lot of games where the luck and the officials were against us (e.g Sunderland, Arsenal away) and few games where we got the rub of the green.  Probably the game when things finally fell our way was WBA at home when Foster made that mistake to let Holt walk the ball in for the 2nd goal.

 

This season there can be no excuses for the away games at Hull and Spurs - at Hull our new attacking players just completely failed to gel, at Spurs the whole team never turned up.  Cardiff was more one of those days when you have masses of chances but it just doesn''t go in and we''ve had a few other performances e.g. Chelsea at home when we probably did well enough to get something out of the game.  I think the West Ham game things fell in our favour to even things up a bit.  Saturday I think we were comfortably the better chance, yes they hit the bar but so did we and even though we dropped deep in the second half (which a lot of teams do when they''re holding on to a vital 1-0 lead) they didn''t create many chances so I wouldn''t count that as a lucky result.

 

After Wednesday we have a lot of less difficult games, which will define our season, I think 45 points is realistic but in the end 17th would be good enough for me.