The R word

[danceoftheshamen]

Why am I more worried about relegation after Tonight?????

 

 

I think it may be because we are dropping down the table and the gap we had has reduced a fair bit after the Stoke shambles. Coupled with that Sunderland played well tonight and you can kind of see them picking up a few wins if they carry on like that. West Ham will always get the "Rub of the green" as they have "friends" in high places and it appears there is some unwritten law that they are destined to have a free stadium and guaranteed Premier League status to go with it :/.. Read into that what you will but another 3 point gift for them tonight.

 

Norwich are picking up points again, Swansea got a good point at the Emirates and Cardiff made a fist of it at the weekend too so the unassailable lead we appeared to have suddenly looks fragile once more.

 

So after the midweek games we now have a points gap to guaranteed safety of 18 with Swansea technically having a lower max points haul of 51 compared to Sunderland, Palace & West Brom all having the same Maximum possible points haul of 52 points whilst ours is 58 points so in effect our advantage is less than it appears. This is the bit that concerns me as when you look at that you see just how slender our lead is really.

 

As for the teams below them Cardiff and Fulham, Cardiff can only reach 46 points now and Fulham 45.

 

We also have a Goal difference advantage over the bottom 2 clubs of 23 and 31 so should be clear of them but the nagging doubt is that 3rd from bottom spot which we could still get caught up in.. Our Goal difference advantage over Sunderland is 10 which could easily evaporate quickly with a couple of wins for then and losses for us.

 

Or in other words we need more points yet as i can easily see Sunderland picking up a few wins from their 9 remaining games.

 

So in brief

 

Any wins for Swansea, Baggies, Palace and Sunderland are bad news for us. But every time they fail to win it deducts points off the 18 we need for safety as it does every time we gain any points.so if we win three and 3 of those teams lose three we are mathematically safe!.. 

Edited March 27, 2014 by danceoftheshamen

[lmarsha_926]

Sunderland fixtures

West Ham (H)

Spurs (A)

Everton (H)

Man City (A)

Chelsea (a)

Cardiff (H)

Man Utd (A)

West Brom (H)

Swansea (A)

They need 9 points from that to catch us, most likely they will come against teams around us so it will knock them down

[Isa]

I'm surprised some are still fretting over the prospect of relegation. I think the Chelsea victory all but sealed safety myself. Something like 35/36 points will be enough given some of the tripe below us in my estimation. I'm more interested now to see whether we will at least match last season's points total.

Edited March 27, 2014 by Isa

[briny_ear]

I think it's more that some (including me) were hoping we would start to pull away from the bottom pack, especially with a bonus 3 points from Chelsea and an obvious easy win against Stoke coming up.

 

While we are still in that bottom group (even if at the top of it), it's a constant reminder that we have been poor in many games - possibly in more games than not (to steal a Lambert phrase) - and it doesn't ad up to happy bunnies in the fanbase.

Edited March 27, 2014 by briny_ear

[lexicon]

Looking at the run in for the teams behind us, I'm not really worried.

[theboyangel]

Even if we only take one point from each of the Fulham, Palace, Hull and Swansea matches - that'll put us on 38 points and probable safety.

[Mantis]

The gap's been 9 points for almost 2 weeks now. We may have lost badly against Stoke but that affected our chances of getting into the top 10 more than it did our survival chances.

Edited March 27, 2014 by Mantis

[deeps]

Sunderland fixtures

West Ham (H)

Spurs (A)

Everton (H)

Man City (A)

Chelsea (a)

Cardiff (H)

Man Utd (A)

West Brom (H)

Swansea (A)

They need 9 points from that to catch us, most likely they will come against teams around us so it will knock them down

Swansea and WBA could really decide who joins Fulham and Cardiff IMO.

[deeps]

That's the problem with football. After a poor performance and result you, as a loving fan, feel really down and start to fear the worst.

Stan Collymore doesn't think we will win another game this season and pick up four draws, I disagree. I think this group has enough about them to pick up at least one more win, maybe even two, and a couple draws.

We ain't a great side, but IMO there are a good 5 teams worse than us.

One thing for sure, this up and coming summer is VITAL for AVFC, RL and PL. Get it wrong this time I seriously don't think we can get away with it 3 years on the spin.

[bannedfromHandV]

I really wouldn't worry, after beating United on saturday we're clear again

[Robbie09]

I'm surprised some are still fretting over the prospect of relegation. I think the Chelsea victory all but sealed safety myself. Something like 35/36 points will be enough given some of the tripe below us in my estimation. I'm more interested now to see whether we will at least match last season's points total.

 

Echoes my thoughts. I'm looking up not down so whilst we're not mathematically safe realistically we are

[Zatman]

Newcastle aren't that far ahead of us in most aspects, southampton however are growing far faster than we ever could under lerner/lambert and their style is pretty easy on the eye too. Personally i just get the feeling we'll be back here talking about another season of just doing enough or even worse possibly.

 

but will Southampton be like that next season when Lallana, Shaw and maybe Rodriguez are snapped up by bigger clubs

[Cliffy Biro]

 

Newcastle aren't that far ahead of us in most aspects, southampton however are growing far faster than we ever could under lerner/lambert and their style is pretty easy on the eye too. Personally i just get the feeling we'll be back here talking about another season of just doing enough or even worse possibly.

 

but will Southampton be like that next season when Lallana, Shaw and maybe Rodriguez are snapped up by bigger clubs

 

 

With the 40-50m they potentially get for those 3? Yes.

[The_Steve]

Still not worried. Not been worried all season. Still think we'll finish about 11th or 12th.

[Zatman]

 

 

Newcastle aren't that far ahead of us in most aspects, southampton however are growing far faster than we ever could under lerner/lambert and their style is pretty easy on the eye too. Personally i just get the feeling we'll be back here talking about another season of just doing enough or even worse possibly.

 

but will Southampton be like that next season when Lallana, Shaw and maybe Rodriguez are snapped up by bigger clubs

 

 

With the 40-50m they potentially get for those 3? Yes.

 

 

didn't we say the same when Milner, Young and Downing went. Cortese seemed to leave due to direction club was going so maybe the owner is cutting back

Edited March 27, 2014 by Zatman

[Isa]

We had entered a period of austerity when we sold Milner, Young and Downing though. The situation at Southampton is completely different.

[Richard]

The fact that a similar thread to this last year had lots more pages I think speaks volumes for the "fears" there may be over relegation.

[Jimzk5]

The fact that a similar thread to this last year had lots more pages I think speaks volumes for the "fears" there may be over relegation.

the fact a thread about relegation is active again for the 4th season in a row speaks volumes to though, in my time following football i can only remember 2 teams who spent season after season treading water, Wigan and Everton in the late 90s/00s, whilst relegation is a small chance this season, its still a possibility, and for the 4th year were going to limp over the line.

[Mantis]

 

The fact that a similar thread to this last year had lots more pages I think speaks volumes for the "fears" there may be over relegation.

the fact a thread about relegation is active again for the 4th season in a row speaks volumes to though, in my time following football i can only remember 2 teams who spent season after season treading water, Wigan and Everton in the late 90s/00s, whilst relegation is a small chance this season, its still a possibility, and for the 4th year were going to limp over the line.

 

We're not really treading water though, at least with regards to relegation. We've been the definition of mid-table mediocrity this season. People keep bringing up this Wigan comparison but I don't think the situations are that similar at all really.

Edited March 27, 2014 by Mantis

[Papillon]

I am not worried at all this season, we will be just fine. I am always pessimistic for the sake of it in terms of our chances, but this time I am very positive. Last season was living on a knifes' edge, we were really close to going down. Only a matter of results, and only a few good results from other teams would have taken us down. I remember Wigan playing away to Arsenal and we were all terrified when they equalized at some point. They lost that game 4-1 or something and we drew them at the last day of the season, but things were close.

 

This year we will be fine, we have many winnable games left and we will surely snatch a few - it's the law of averages really. We play Fulham (h), Crystal Palace (a), Southampton (h), Swansea (a) and Hull (h), and also Man Utd, Man City and Spurs. In those five games we will at least win one game and we will at least draw one game. Let's say we play 1-1-5, that will see us safe at 38 points I'm sure of it. If we beat Fulham, draw Palace and beat Hull (not out of the question at all) we will have 7 points and 41 points. Even the crappiest of runs, and add a low average of points, all outcomes go in our favor. We will not lose the last eight games, we have too much surprise and ability with certain players for that to happen. Benteke will score, Gabby will suddenly roam free as one of the teams underestimates our counter-attacking potential and so on.

 

On top of that, we have eight teams beneath us and six of them have to perform better. That's going to be impossible, because they are playing each other as well as top teams they are bound to get zero points from. If I was to predict the last games I would say 0, 3, 1, 1, 0, 3, 0 and 0 points. That's eight points and 2-2-4. Seems about right and on average - and safe.