The Great Escape

Feel Brighton and Villa draw is a more favourable result. Doesn't really change what we have to do Tuesday

 

So it's all in our hands and now it's a mini 15-match league. We are 1 points better than Villa, 3 better than Bournemouth and 6 better than Norwich.

This is why beating, or at least not losing to Villa on Tuesday, is absolutely vital. The teams below us have to gain more points in the final 15 games to overtake us. So it's imperative we make that as hard as possible for any of them to do so.

 

If you look at the table now, we're with west ham on the same number of points as games played. The teams in the bottom 3 all have less points than games played. So it follows that 38 points is just enough. Bear in mind if we have 35 to 40 points going into the last 2 games (Man City and Arsenal), It'll be squeaky bottom time. 42 at that point should be comfort or miracles time.

 

I was just about to say the same. At first I was annoyed, but then looking at the table I changed my mind.

it is now 13th place and lower fighting to stay up. And we are just 3 points of 13th place!

 

I'd also say if we're getting caught by Norwich we will be relegated.

 

Yes, albeit I think we are (and have been capable) of a lot better than 1 ppg since Pearson took over, and even when our form inevitably dips we may well sill maintain form better than 1 ppg anyway. We’ve had a change of manager and playing at our potential, I see nothing to suggest the same happening for any of the bottom three.

 

I'd have said same about us and saints though. 2 lucky wins is possible for all the teams in the league.

 

Norwich the only bottom half team to win so far this weekend. Certainly a good thing for us.

 

What is the difference but us and the bottoms three though? We changed our manager. I appreciate you can’t say the same about Southampton but they did have a striker hit incredible form. Unless any of the bottom three change their manager or make some very significant signings, I see no evidence to suggest their form will suddenly improve compared the the previous 23 games.

 

Wow, what a lucky lucky win for Newcastle. Literally did nothing all game, played a 5-4-1 at home. Get a corner in the last minute which is a horrendous corner, put the ball back in the box and score. So frustrating.

I hope Chelsea are that toothless against us, with no energy.

 

Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs and Man Utd just aren’t very good this season. Only Chelsea have beaten us despite us being in the relegation zone for the entire season. Regardless of how they play Chelsea are beatable when we play them.

 

We have got more points over the last 5 games than every team bar Liverpool!

 

Based on performances at Vicarage Road so far this season, Chelsea are comfortably the best team we’ve played.

 

Did a little totting up of who's played who twice, our schedule so far has been a bit kinder than those around us. Should be a positive sign

Soton: Wolves, Leicester, Tottenham, Chelsea

Brighton: Villa, Everton, Chelsea, Tottenham

Burnley: Everton, Villa, Chelsea (Leicester tomorrow)

West Ham: Everton, Sheffield United, Bournemouth, Crystal Palace

Golden Boys: Tottenham, Bournemouth, Wolves, Sheffield United

Villa: Brighton, City, Burnley, Norwich

Bournemouth: Norwich, Golden Boys, West Ham, Arsenal

Norwich: Bournemouth, Man United, Villa, Palace

Tough couple of games recently for Southampton, they should pull away really, even if Ings can't keep up his fantastic run of form. Villa been picking up a few points of late, but they're games you'd expect them to get something out of, as it stands, a point at theirs could be very good as they'll have a trickier bunch of games after that. Bournemouth in an alarming run of form, lost those three six pointers, as well as Brighton, and have looked terrible in all of them. Unless something drastic happens (sacking Howe? Signing an absolute pearler?), they look in huge huge danger. Would anyone even back them to beat Brighton? (Massive lols for them ****ing L*t*n though! )

Kind of middling games for everyone else, including us. Take that really, will be ups and downs, we obviously won't keep up this blistering form, but we've got some of the harder games out of the way. COYH

 

Bugger, Burnley won

 

Two smash and grab wins for Newcastle and Burnley this weekend, less than ideal

Just reinforces the idea that we need to focus on our own results, no team other than Liverpool can be relied on this season

 

Agreed.
We cannot spend time worrying about others.
We just have to keep picking up points.
Everyone else is beatable,bar LFC.

 

Liverpool are beatable. If we had our shooting boots things could of been different.

Not many would predict city to drop points where they have, if teams go into these games like we did in Manchester with the mentality that they’re already beat then that’s the likely outcome. That’s the great thing about English football.


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They're on course to smash the 100 points record set by Citeh a few years ago, but I don't think this Liverpool team is even as good as their team last year. We can definitely get something at home against them. Same goes for City, how beautiful would that be if we get something against them to stay up after the trauma we've had against them

 

Most commenting we can’t go into those last 2 games needing points. I would go to Arsenal with confidence right now, can’t see it changing to much by May. As for city yes that would be a pleasure to watch after the last few results against them.


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Burnley might have disgrace-orced their way to an undeserved victory (replete with archetypal moron challenge by Ben Mee for the penalty that he, of course, moaned about til the cows came home) but it might be worth turning out eyes south; Brighton are only two points above us, actually slightly worse off than they were at this stage last season under the admittedly-limited Hughton, and couldn't even hold on to a lead to get a morale-boosting win against Villa, of all teams.

I have no particular desire to see them gone at all; quite the opposite, really. But I'll gladly swap places with them and watch from afar as they are the ones who have to scrabble desperately to the top of the pit to climb their way out.

 

Big week ahead. Personally I think they’ll do muff, I can see wet spam getting a result at Leicester too. Let’s hope we make it a 3 team away accumulator


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I think, as well as us winning, that the best thing that could happen this week is the Muff and Brighton draw meaning we catch Brighton on points and Saint Eddie gets a stay of execution. Also Leicester returning to winning ways at home to West Ham would be welcome. I'm not going to worry about Burnley, Newcastle etc. because the job at hand is to get as far away from the relegation line as possible.

 

Looking at your list it appears that the bottom three have only played one team in the top half of the table twice. Every other team has played three teams in the top half twice. It would seem that the bottom three will have a much tougher run of games coming up and hopefully we can use our next few matches to grow the gap on the bottom three.

 

I'd probably read more into that if the quality delta between teams wasn't so small this year. Outside of Liverpool and Man City, every other team looks to be much closer together in terms of quality than in prior years.

If I was looking for a reason for this, I'd probably point at the impact of the current TV money; the vast majority of clubs compete quite well now simply by being in the league. The bigger clubs still have an advantage, but it's not as wide as it used to be.

 

No need to overreact after tonight. There's still more than enough winnable points on the line.

 

Nice of Newcastle to score two in injury time to embarrass Everton. Now we have to deal with them being angry about that.

Plus they have a two week break and if we win on Thursday, no doubt we'll feel obliged to play the first team against United.

**** the FA Cup.

 

There's probably an element of disappointment in my comments but I really believe that's changed everything in terms of my belief over staying up. We've gone on an unbelievable run, but one little slip up, and we're 19th again. I just can't see us having another amazing run like before. Tonight showed we're not really good enough for that.

Next four games are Everton (h ), Brighton (a ), Man Utd (a ), Liverpool (h ). It's unlikely we're going to be able to go on another good run. 6 more wins from 14 games. We could get close, but I think we're the wrong side of it now.

We've done so well, yet are still 19th. This is a real killer result. The players must be on the floor as the fans probably are.....I know I am.

 

Not so much that. We lose to a relegation rival, go 2 points behind them, get them out of their slump and go into our own.

It's a devastating defeat.

 

Lol, you're so dramatic sometimes.

We'll be fine we're 19th but one win from 16th again. Villa & Bournemouth draw in their next league fixture and we move out the relegation zone don't we? That simple.

West Ham & Brighton also play each other, before we play Brighton.

Pearson has shown me enough to make me think we will be perfectly fine.

 

Draw would have been a perfectly fine result, but a loss to such a close relegation rival in those circumstances is disastrous

I really feel like tonight was a killer blow, I hope I am wrong

 

We're still 19th after a brilliant run. It seems pretty hopeless. I think we're in real trouble now. We couldn't afford to lose this. We all knew it. It can't be swept under the carpet. We played poorly, the officials always go against us at key moments, but I'm not sure we have enough quality to get over the line.

Pearson has given us the fight, but it's not enough on it's own. We can't pin all our hopes on Sarr. What if he's out for a while or he gets another injury?

Of course it's all very tight now, but we cannot afford to trot out the rest of the season in our normal way of losing silly games and levelling off. We've got to play like a top half team and I think that's beyond us. A player who shouldn't have even been still on the pitch, scores a killer goal. How very Watford.

 

60/40 in favour of the drop now from 50/50 in my view.

 

This.