The Great Escape

Newcastle now have 11 players out injured as well. Most wont be available for the next couple of games either

Lascelles, Saint-Maximin, Ritchie, Clark, Dummett, Manquillo, Shelvey, Willems, Schar, Yedlin and Colback.

10 of those 11 start for them probably. That’s their first choice defence out. Manquillo, Shelvey, Willems and Schar all happened today against Leicester. All appear to be hamstring or groin related. Which could easily see those 4 out for 4 weeks or so.

Newcastle could easily get dragged into this.

Honestly I think Norwich are down. Our win today has now brought multiple teams into the final two spots. It’s now out of Villa, Bournemouth, West Ham, Brighton, Burnley, Southampton, Newcastle and us.

All games are must win, but a win against Bournemouth really brings all those teams closer and we get to play them all again this season.

Next weekend every single team in the bottom half of the table plays someone in the top half of the table away a part from us and Brighton. Brighton play Everton away while we play Bournemouth. They are also all away a part from Villa, who host Man City.

We beat Bournemouth and the other teams in the top half actually bother to help us out, we will be out of the relegation zone and only be 3 points away from 12th. Huge weekend and psychological impact.

They have a lot of injuries as well and hopefully Ake will still be out for them.

The great escape is well and truly on.

 

They have a lot of injuries and also a history of going on runs (good and bad). Howe could easily turn it round, theyd b crazy to sack him. Even if we can beat Muff and b really in the mix it's gonna be incredibly tight and due to the weaknesses (ie points dropped to bottom 10 teams) of Chelsea Arsenal Spurs and Man Utd it will take 40+ points for survival this season. It will be incredibly tight but if we keep fighting like we are itll be one helluva of an adrenaline ride.

 

They're all cup-finals between now and the end of the season. Oh ****.......

 

Will go down to the last game of the season. We need to win to stay up in place of them. 1-0 up deep into injury time, the fans are on the touchline, then.....

 

Annoying the FA cup gets in the way. 10 days is a long time for Bournemouth to do some soul searching, to recover from the festive fixtures and to get key players back from injury. A win would be brilliant, a point would be ok but a defeat would be a disaster

 

A defeat would be annoying but not a disaster. Our amazing form of late means we can afford to make the odd mistake now. Of course that isn’t something that the players should allow to creep into their mindset, and I don’t think Pearson will allow it to.

Bournemouth are not complete mugs, and if they turn up with fire in their belly they could easily grab the win.I’m pretty confident that won’t happen, but football often doesn’t follow the likely outcome.

 

Spot on.

6 wins and 6 draws (and therefore 5 defeats) would definitely see us safe I think. Which is just bog standard midtable form which we've proven capable of many times before. And we might not even need as much as that. Though it would be better for our chances if the wins come against our direct competitors, it doesn't really matter too much anymore.

 

Hard to express how bad they were against West Ham. They've also got an injury crisis similar to the ones that Mazzarri and Silva had to deal with here. Having said that, they'll probably get a couple of players in and be bang up for the game against us after the break. If not quite a must win, it's a bit of a must-not-lose as we don't want to be responsible for kick starting their revival like we were against Southampton.

Oh, and useless £18 million striker Dominic Solanke is bound to break his duck at some point...

 

That is about 8th place form based on last year's table (53.65 points over a season).
It's just good to see we are back in the mix.

 

A lot of points gained against our rivals over Xmas.

 

More points in 4 games than all those previous. Couldn't have asked for much more. Just annoying saint's matched us

 

Just noticed the current bottom three is the 3 teams who were promoted together in 2015.

 

Yes, and in the same order!

 

Although I think that we will do it, mainly because we have the personnel, a motivating manager and resources; a far cry from the impossible situation we found ourselves in in 1991, that was a great escape culminating with the win at Oxford.

 

It's not over yet, we're still in that bottom three. There will be setbacks along the way, but survival can be achieved. However, without the impact of Nige & his team, this would not have been possible a few weeks ago. Let's just keep going how we are and fingers crossed everything will turn out okay.

 

Such a cliche, but the game against Bournemouth is your classic 6 pointer. Picking up wins against wolves and Man Utd are fantastic and much needed, but a win against Bournemouth literally counts double and is twice as important. Every last possible bit of work on the training ground and research into the opposition needs to go into games like this, which I’ve no doubt will be the case

This is now the game that could either takes us out of the relegation zone for the first time this season and puts everything under our control, or plunges us further back into it again.

 

Beat Muff and there is every chance that we will be changing our signature tune from "Z Cars" to "The Great Escape" next season

 

Burnley are facing a battle to survive in the Premier League - trip to Chelsea this weekend, then meetings with Leicester City, Manchester United and Arsenal
https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...ight-survive-premier-league-relegation-battle

 

Yeah but we're staying up, we all know that deep down. Doesn't really matter what the fans think anyway, Pearson is a professional and won't let any complacency kick in and the only way it'll impact on the fans on match day is less booing.

 

Of course its never as simple as that but with 5 games of hindsight I think you may well of nailed it a month ago.

(Although I'd have moved Leicester into the final group myself and swapped Brighton and Bournemouth for Everton) based on your groups and five games in we are:

1) from the first group P1 - W1 D0 L0. ON TRACK for the realistically four wins/10-12 points we need here from the fellow strugglers
2) from the second group P2 - W1 D1 L0. ON TRACK for the four wins/12-14 points realistically needed from this group
3) from the third group P2 - W1 D0 L1. ON TRACK/AHEAD for the one win/5-6 points realistically needed from the big-6
4) and from what you fully expect - 100% correct so far

Its a long way to go, and we must keep this momentum flowing, but I'm whistling The Great Escape as I type....

.

 

"Although I'd have moved to Leicester" !! Not I'd of, as in"May well of nailed it"

 

Keep up the good work!

 

Hello, and here is the update to my patented "over-the-top-prediction-of-where-Watford-will-finish-spreadsheet". I also went back and worked it out for each game of the season. Basically, the spreadsheet predicts every game for the rest of the season to come up with the final position. It then replicates it 1,000 times.

Of course, how good I make a team in this model will have a big impact on the results. I've made the main following assumptions:

• Villa and Norwich are the two worst teams.
• We are then next worse along with Muff, Newcastle, Brighton, Southampton and Burnley.
• This would be a drop-off in form for us, so it probably a bit pessimistic.

Also, I then modeled what would happen depending on the results of the Muff game:

• Win = 70% chance of survival
• Draw = 54% chance of survival (basically the same as now)
• Lose = 45%. Back to our chances after the away Sheff Utd result.

Not losing this game will definitely be important. I'd say it's a bigger game for Muff. Even if we lose I think we will go on to stay up. If Muff lose they will really have their work cut out.

 

This is my hope, that they will continue to be bad. I just know football games can so often not turn out how people expect.

I agree, I will be happy not losing and giving them momentum.

 

At the risk of stating the obvious, if we get to 30-35 points early, it's vital that we continue to press on until we're mathematically safe, and not coast during the rest of the season thinking we'll stay up easily. We don't want a repeat of either of these clubs' seasons, for instance:

https://www.worldfootball.net/teams/ipswich-town/2002/3/
https://www.worldfootball.net/teams/swansea-city/2018/3/

 

Not forgetting either that our last two games are against "big six" teams.....

 

So after this round of games things are taking shape. Southampton (28) who looked nailed on relegation candidates are no longer in the picture. They've done brilliantly. Considering they lost 9-0 at home, they go and beat that team 2-1 away today. Only really need 4 more wins from their remaining 16 games. They're safe.

I would say it's now from Newcastle (26) down who could be in trouble. I say Newcastle because of their injury crisis and the Steve Bruce factor, but their points total looks decent at this stage, but they could easily go on a bad run.

Burnley (24) are in freefall right now, and could be serious contender for relegation. Brighton (24) are always going to be in the vicinity, but they seem to just have the ability to sit just above the drop zone.

West Ham (22) are a strong contender for me. They should be better than they are, but they're not. Moyes does not seem to have improved them so I think they are a serious contender as well.

Villa (21) and Bournemouth (20) are clearly in danger. Villa might have enough, but Bournemouth seem to be in a Burnley like freefall and obviously long may that continue.

Norwich (14) are gone. They have no chance of avoiding the drop.

 

Tomorrow really is a must win. Not only is it important point wise, but the psychological impact it will have on the players is massive. Win, and we are finally out of the relegation zone, the first hurdle accomplished.

The unthinkable made possible, catch the other teams up and bring as many teams into it. Done.

Also we will only be 4 points behind Newcastle in 13th, that will make them be looking over their shoulder.

The great news is we play all of them again from Newcastle down. That’s 21 points. Win them all, which is very doable, and we are on 40 points.

 

I can’t handle all of these must win games. I think this our fourth one already this season?

 

Agree.....and since we appointed Pearson, even from day one of his appointment, I thought 40 points was achievable. However, it could be that we need more that 40 points this year. The evidence points to 40 points being the least you need to aim for.

More than 40 points could be a push for us, although not impossible. I'll be outlandish, and predict the three to go down be Burnley, Bournemouth and Norwich. Would have got very good odds on that pre-season.

 

Can you imagine "Saint Eddie" and the "Ginger Whinger" getting relegated in the same season?

 

And Luton!

 

Haha makes a change. We are normally coasting at this point in the season. The Prem was beginning to get boring. At least we have something to fight for. The league is already won. So the only exciting thing left this season is the relegation fight.