Our season so far...... the reality of the situation.

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Haterz/Tilterz...... I know you like to read/tilt over every word I write...... stop now, hug your kids and have a Happy New Year.
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We have played 8 of the 9 teams below us in the league once so far.

4 Wins 3 Draws 1 Loss (15 of our total 21 points)

It should be obvious that although we play 38 games, in all reality the probability of picking up points vs teams in the top 10 is very low.

When Mick McCarthy rested his players vs Man Utd last season that was a shrewd move as he was able to field a full strength side and win the next game.
That move alone could have kept them in the PL?

6 points from 10 games looks poor but its not that bad and if we get that amount vs the top 10 in the 2nd half we will be OK.

We would only need 2 or 3 wins vs the teams below us to stay up.

One of Lamberts fav sayings is that you "have to win more games than not"

He is wrong...... with the current PL set up, you just have to win 9-10 out of 38 games to survive.
(10 wins 10 draws and 18 losses is 43 points and midtable)

If we beat QPR and Fulham....... we are fairly certain to survive.
Our relegation price would go to at least 12 to 1 (8%)

The gap between us and the bottom 4 clubs would have widened greatly.

Why? Because all the teams below us have to play the top 10 sides also......... you think they will do better than us vs Man City or Spurs?

It will also take less points to stay up this year because the quality at the top of the PL has increased.

They used to talk about the big 4 but in all reality its now the big 5-6.
It will be really hard for a midtable club to take any points off those clubs let alone a bottom 6 one.

A lot of people were upset that we got outclassed vs Spurs the other night.
Which is a bit bizarre.

They are 3rd......... they are outclassing virtually every team below them.

When we buy in the window with our limited budget, we arnt buying the quality to compete with Man City or Spurs........ we are buying the quality to get a result vs Wigan, Bolton or Blackburn.

In terms of money and resources, just looking at the PL table it should be obvious that we are doing REALLY well.

Infact I would suggest we are almost top of the League in the 2nd tier of the Premier League.

The 10 teams above us all have super/mega rich owners compared to ours.
Their wage bills are many multiples of what ours is.

Im guessing if Fulham are planing to sell Bobby Zamora they wont risk him vs us.

The good news for us is that a number of teams below us look like they are going to sell key players in the transfer window.

Blackburn have to sell, Bolton look like they have to sell to buy........

Traditionally its been really hard to replace those types of players with equal quality in the Jan transfer window.

Kind of means the probability is that most of the clubs will fail to bring in the players to have an impact.

That has to be good for us.

OTBC

Posted By: usacanary, Dec 29, 16:42:09