The push for the Play offs ?

[sne]

Don't think we currently have the midfield to go on any long winning streak. 

Unbeaten yes, but winning, not so sure.

 

[TrentVilla]

While our midfield could and should be better (thanks Roberto) I don't actually think it's been responsible for us not winning more consecutive games.

For me we just haven't been clinical enough in front of goal and taken enough of the chances we've created. 

I think that will come, it usually does with confidence but we simply must start scoring more.

[villa89]

1 hour ago, TrentVilla said:

 I don't actually think it's been responsible for us not winning more consecutive games.

I have to disagree with that. I don't see all the games (just the ones on the tellybox) but earlier in the season our midfield was just non-existent. Gardner and Westwood might aswell have not been on the pitch, although not helped by the bizarre 5 up front tactics of RDM. We couldn't control the tempo of a game and we couldn't stop the opposition from dominating the middle of the park and that led to inevitable losses and draws. Villatalk's obsession with possession percentages bear out the fact that we just couldn't keep the football and control the game. We couldn't take the pressure off when we needed to. Also the I agree that our finishing was poor but I don't think that was the main reason we weren't winning games.

[TrentVilla]

3 minutes ago, villa89 said:

I have to disagree with that. I don't see all the games (just the ones on the tellybox) but earlier in the season our midfield was just non-existent. Gardner and Westwood might aswell have not been on the pitch, although not helped by the bizarre 5 up front tactics of RDM. We couldn't control the tempo of a game and we couldn't stop the opposition from dominating the middle of the park and that led to inevitable losses and draws. Villatalk's obsession with possession percentages bear out the fact that we just couldn't keep the football and control the game. We couldn't take the pressure off when we needed to. Also the I agree that our finishing was poor but I don't think that was the main reason we weren't winning games.

You could try but you would struggle to find a more verciferous critic of either RDM or our lack of midfield under him. I called it in the summer (I wasn't alone) and it's why I was publically calling for his head post Brentford and privately a lot earlier. 

I have though drawn a line under the RDM period so my comments re the midfield and goal scoring should only be read in reference to the Bruce reign.

What went before it, frankly was shambolic and the sooner RDM is a footnote in our history the better.

[ender4]

Brighton currently have 38 points from 18 games (2.1 points per game).  If they continue that over the season they will have 97 points at the end.

That would mean we need another 72 points in the remaining 28 games. Something like 23 wins, 3 draws, 2 losses

So not only do we need an amazing sequence of results, we would need Brighton to have a collapse at some point.   

Also hope that third or fourth place don't improve from their current rate of return. 

 

[dn1982]

14 minutes ago, ender4 said:

Brighton currently have 38 points from 18 games (2.1 points per game).  If they continue that over the season they will have 97 points at the end.

That would mean we need another 72 points in the remaining 28 games. Something like 23 wins, 3 draws, 2 losses

So not only do we need an amazing sequence of results, we would need Brighton to have a collapse at some point.   

Also hope that third or fourth place don't improve from their current rate of return. 

 

 I think you're looking for the push for automatic promotion thread!! 

[villa89]

22 minutes ago, ender4 said:

So not only do we need an amazing sequence of results, we would need Brighton to have a collapse at some point.   

Isn't that what happened to them last season? As far as I remember they were top and unbeaten at this stage last season and then fell away ending up in the playoffs. 

Edited December 1, 2016 by villa89

[PaulC]

On ‎27‎/‎11‎/‎2016 at 09:33, Woodytom said:

26 minutes ago, villa89 said:

Isn't that what happened to them last season? As far as I remember they were top and unbeaten at this stage last season and then fell away ending up in the playoffs. 

Now that we've got our act together I'm becoming more and more confident that we will comfortably get out of this truly dire league. 

It's a competitive league because teams are of equal standard. That standard being.... shite.

We won in 1st gear for me yesterday.

With 84 pts to play for and a 13 pt difference if we continue the way we are going we will catch them

[ender4]

8 minutes ago, PaulC said:

With 84 pts to play for and a 13 pt difference if we continue the way we are going we will catch them

well, as i showed above, if we continue as we are then we won't catch them. 

We need to push well above 2.1 points per game if we are to catch them.

[TRO]

3 hours ago, TrentVilla said:

While our midfield could and should be better (thanks Roberto) I don't actually think it's been responsible for us not winning more consecutive games.

For me we just haven't been clinical enough in front of goal and taken enough of the chances we've created. 

I think that will come, it usually does with confidence but we simply must start scoring more.

You are right we are not scoring enough goals that directly is the strikers responsibility.

but there are some indirect issues too, like midifeld.

However, let me mitigate.

With a more dominant midfield, will come a more composed front line.....at present their work is being rushed and they get snatchy also our MF is too deep leaving the numbers short in the opposing box.

The paradox is that most folk think we have the best forward line ( squad) in the division, but that statement is not reflective in our goals for column as you allude to.

An Interesting incident with Arsene Wenger (a while back) after a 5-0 win when a presenter said to him " I see your strikers have their shooting boots back on Arsene" (after going through a bit of a goal drought).....Arsene replied " Teams score goals".

I kinda get that .....Strikers take the final responsibility.

[Deisler123]

Looking back the last 5 seasons, Only Leicester managed to have more than 93 points in 13-14, and they won the league. I would guess 90-95 points will be enough for auto promotion this season, which means we need 65-70 points in the last 28 games, meaning 20 wins at least. Very hard indeed, if not impossible.

To hit the play-off zone, only 75 points are needed - 50 points in the next 28 games, 13-14 wins will do. If we can keep up the current form, this is not hard at all.

To be honest, I won't even be too surprised if we indeed have 20 wins in 28 games in this league. One thing I learned from watching approx. 20 games this season in Championship (not a lot I know...)  is - most clubs are very very average, as long as we are doing ok, we will get to top 3-4 easily. 

 

 

 

[Demitri_C]

We need to start picking up away wins, taht is key. Unfortunately our next three away games are very difficult 

[alreadyexists]

The more I think about it, the more frustrated I get with RDM... if we don't get the play offs the blame must rest almost entirely on him. 

I will hold my hands up as I thought that sticking with him would help with stability, but as soon as he was gone I wanted Steve. I'm so glad I was wrong about the stability side of things! 

[Hoof hearted]

24 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

We need to start picking up away wins, taht is key. Unfortunately our next three away games are very difficult 

I don't think it gets much tougher than Brighton away (Newcastle too I suppose) and with a tiny slice of luck could easily come away with a 3/4-1 win, we basically need to get lucky, it's something the top tier teams have in abundance and we've lacked for as long as I can remember but we need it home and away. We have 10 draws if memory serves me, of which (with luck) 6 should have been wins meaning this thread wouldn't exist and we'd be posting in the 'Champions 16/17' thread.

I think Bruce is a lucky manager and wouldn't be surprised if we went undefeated for the rest of the season but these draws need to be wins if we have any hope of automatic promotion.

[TRO]

3 hours ago, Hoof hearted said:

I don't think it gets much tougher than Brighton away (Newcastle too I suppose) and with a tiny slice of luck could easily come away with a 3/4-1 win, we basically need to get lucky, it's something the top tier teams have in abundance and we've lacked for as long as I can remember but we need it home and away. We have 10 draws if memory serves me, of which (with luck) 6 should have been wins meaning this thread wouldn't exist and we'd be posting in the 'Champions 16/17' thread.

I think Bruce is a lucky manager and wouldn't be surprised if we went undefeated for the rest of the season but these draws need to be wins if we have any hope of automatic promotion.

At this point in the table we have already played away against 5 teams above us with Saturdays game making it 6.....so we have already played 50% of them Saturdays making it 60%

We have 7 games to play at home against the top half teams.

Bearing in mind this is just a snapshot, as when we go up the table the figures change.

[One For The Road]

3 hours ago, Hoof hearted said:

I think Bruce is a lucky manager and wouldn't be surprised if we went undefeated for the rest of the season

You can't possibly be serious about that surely? 

[Lord Willard]

So we're 4 points behind 6th and 13 points behind 2nd. 

Would anyone be able to tell me how many points we were behind them before Bruce took over? 

[Flynnchin84]

38 minutes ago, Lord Willard said:

So we're 4 points behind 6th and 13 points behind 2nd. 

Would anyone be able to tell me how many points we were behind them before Bruce took over? 

 

Under RDM

2		Norwich	11	6	23

6		Birmingham	11	5	20

19		Aston Villa	11	-2	10

Then Bruce came

 

2		Brighton	18	17	38

6		Huddersfield	18	-3	29

Edited December 1, 2016 by Flynnchin84

[weedman]

So we've maintained our gap from the top 2 but gained massively on everyone else, we're showing Top 2 form since Brucey, but in order to actually close the gap on them we need them to lose form or us to do better. At the moment playoffs look the most likely then 

[One For The Road]

49 minutes ago, Flynnchin84 said:

 

Under RDM

2		Norwich	11	6	23

6		Birmingham	11	5	20

19		Aston Villa	11	-2	10

Then Bruce came

 

2		Brighton	18	17	38

6		Huddersfield	18	-3	29

This is why talk of a top 2 finish is absurd. Despite a new manager coming in and going unbeaten for 7 matches, winning 4 of them, the gap to 2nd has stayed the same. 

This means we would have needed 16 points from the last 21 just to close the gap by a point. 

The race for the play offs is going to be a long hard slog.