The Championship 2020-21

That makers no sense. You want to rotate the striker but let the wingers play through?

 

To add to this, this is the perfect chance now to start phasing away from Deeney. It’ll become much easier for the club to realise they can survive without him if they thrive on the pitch without his input.

I have a fear he will be parachuted back into the line up when he self-declares himself fit. Then I have a secondary fear - if the club do decide to make him the backup to Joao Pedro in this system, that they will turn to him the first time it looks like it’s not working or breaking an opposition down.

The club needs to wean themselves off Deeney being the all-conquering saviour for every situation and start entrusting the others more. It’s the only way this side can progress in my opinion.

 

I think we have options to rest Pedro if Deeney and Perica are available. Who would you rotate round the two wide berths? Zinckernagel? Hughes?

If we want promotion Sarr has to play and perform to the levels we think he's capable of.

Possibly Femenia could cover RW with Ngakia behind him.

 

Rotate players when they need a rest. There is no evidence I have seen that supports the idea Pedro needs more rest than Sarr or Sema.

 

Pedro also had that 8-10 game period of not playing because of his wedding and being injured I think it was, so if anything João must be full of energy ready to play.

 

Are you suggesting that he was exhausted/injured from conjugating his marriage?

 

Loves his verbs does JP!

 

Haha, quality autocorrect!

 

Tom Ince plays for the Shatters. That's made my year.

 

I doubt that BC boss will be in place much longer.

 

Hope so but probably wishful thinking. If they do lose they’ll be starting to worry about the chasing pack rather than competing for automatic promotion.

 

Tomorrow the teams around us have winnable games. Hopefully a couple of coupon busters to come.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I'd be surprised if Bournemouth slip up, but they don't matter to us so much now. But any of the rest of the top 4 could drop points, even Swansea against Forest who are in good form, have a good defence for a struggling side and haven't lost away for over two months. Dropped points for Swansea and one from Brentford and Norwich and I'd be very happy with how things have gone since Coventry.

 

Every game tonight (apart from our own) went against us, bit of a blow!

 

We have moved from never being able to make the play offs to 11 points clear.

We are in the race and that is all that matters right now

 

XM has been in charge for 10 matches now, his record is W6 D2 L2, which is exactly 2 points per match.

Over the course of a 46 match season that rate should be enough for automatic promotion. However with 16 matches to go, that rate, if it continues, will get us to 86. That will not be enough, that defeat by QPR could be extremely costly.

 

Hmsp***the league is still sailing long way to go COYH

 

I'm a lot more optimistic with the 433 than I was with the chuckle brothers 422, which to be honest, had no chance

I'd now fancy Sarr Pedro and Sema v anyone in this division on the huge billiard table Wembley pitch - it would be poetic getting stuffed at Wembley was the start of our fall and stuffing someone at Wembley the redemption

 

An absolute masterstroke, get rid of the old manager because things had gone stale, only to promote his assistant because they're skint. What are they gonna do now that he's found to be out of his depth, sack him and appoint his assistant again? Remember when we went there and they were 3rd? What was all that about lol

 

I might be wrong, but I don't think they hired Holden because they were/are skint. Bristol City are one of the wealthier sides in the division. I think Holden did reasonably well during his caretaker period at the back end of last season, and they decided that he was worth keeping (although they made a total pig's ear of the hiring process as it took them weeks to make that internal appointment.) Interestingly, in Paul Simpson and Keith Downing (who will now take charge until they appoint someone) they have two fairly well-regarded coaches formerly of the England set-up who have considerably more experience and reputation as coaches than Holden. In other situations you'd think they'd appoint one of them, but clubs are generally loath to make the same mistake twice with managerial appointment and you'd think they'll find an external appointment.

 

Aaaaand, he's gone

 

Our away record isn't looking quite as pathetic now, the 11th best in the division, as many wins as losses now, joint best defensive record, although only the scum have scored fewer

 

We’ve now conceded 20 goals in 30 games - 0.67 per game. If we keep running at that pace, we’ll concede 31 goals in the season. That means we’re in with a shout of having the best ever (no idea how far back this goes but certainly since the league’s rebranding as the championship) defensive performance in championship history. The current record is Preston 2005-6 with 30 goals (they didn’t get promoted) while Karanka’s famously miserly Boro conceded 31 in 2015-16. I think our defence does get some credit on here, but we should recognise that their performance so far this season is looking like one for the ages.

However, Swansea have conceded 15 goals in 27 games, 0.56 per game. They’re well on track to break the record quite easily. Guehi looks like a top player.

Extrapolating our goal output of 1.27 goals per game is less encouraging of course. That equates to 58 goals across the season. In the last 6 completed seasons only one team has gone up with that goal tally or less - Huddersfield under Wagner who won the playoffs following a season with a negative goal difference (56 goals). No other side has even made the playoffs with so few goals during that time, although Sheffield Wednesday under Carvalhal I believe got to the playoffs with 60 goals.

 

Brentford, Swansea and Norwich are playing tomorrow.

 

Away record under Xisco is
W2 D2 L1 - pretty decent and our last 6 always are W3 D2 L1

 

Interesting stats.

The lack of fans in the ground I think is allowing teams to park buses at home. There is no way a home crowd would allow it in normal times.

 

I reckon Sierraalta would be ok at Prem level. The difference between Kiko at that level and the championship is stark, so it’s your fullbacks that are the issue at the higher level such is the demand on them now. Shame we never had a ready made quality left back to come in to the team if we stayed up isn’t it.

 

At the turn of the year the division had seen the fewest goals since 1892-93. Don't know if the same is true now, but it can't be far off. Therefore it shouldn't be a surprise that lots of teams have very good defensive records, and some teams (namely Norwich, Swansea and us) are doing very well despite not scoring many.

 

Brutal:

 

Is that really Ken Sema responding?

 

I’ve backed Brentford and Swansea to win tonight as they are good prices for what looks nailed on games. I am often useless at betting. You’re welcome.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk