Make or Break!

[stuartthfc11]

I wanted to make a serperate post about where we are at as a team, reason being I feel were at a pivotal point in our (future lol) history thats is either going to highlight that were not as good as we think - or were well up there with the best and have leapfrogged Chelscum, Arscum and the Dippers.

After the summer we were all (or nearly all) disappointed with our signings, especially on the back of one deserved hammering and one, that frankly was unjust; at the hands of the Manchester Utd! Alot of us said we lacked ambition! Wheres the money going? Whats Levy playing at...and so on. Point been there was alot of unrest amonst us fans.

Now fast forward 5/6 months later and we find ourselves in 3rd with those new signings, well above the Scum, the Chavs and the Dippers. Weve surprised people and quite frankly many neutrals feel weve been unlucky.....take the Stoke game (3pts probably stolen from us) and certainly the City game (1pt) - Defoe Grrr - that would have really put the cat amonst the pidgeons!!

I honestly believe that if we win on monday night were in with a shout of the title! For those that do not know me please feel free to read my other posts, I normally tend not to get too far ahead of myself and edge on the side of caution. Should we win that game, we have the Scum - that could go either way - and UTD at home.....a game I expect at worst a draw from! After that we have a relatively easy run in - in so much that we have NO big teams to play!

Dont get me wrong, theres no easy games and its going to get harder, especially against teams fighting against relegation. But, lets be honest, Citeh are rocking! Utd arent the force they were! And for the others to catch us were going to have to seriously screw up!

Now imagine yourself 6 months back, were you happy with our transfer dealings at the time? Seriously? Now think what if Saha and Nelsen have the same impact that our summer signings have had....

Make or break, I think Monday night defines our season as wanna-be's or serious title contenders!

[StPaulSpur]

If we make it through this stretch of Liverpool, Newcastle, Arsenal, United and take 8 or 9 points from them, we have a VERY good shout. We'll have played pretty much every difficult fixture save Stamford Bridge and still have 11 matches to play. But we'd have already played both Manchesters twice, Arsenal twice, Liverpool twice, Newcastle twice, at Swansea, at Stoke, at the Hawthorns, at Molineux... all those tough fixtures that trip teams up we'll have done. The only matches in our last 11 where we shouldn't go in absolutely expecting to pick up three points are the trips to Stamford Bridge and the Stadium of Light. But even those are both winnable matches. Meanwhile, as we're sweeping up the easier matches (fingers crossed), the other big 6 clubs will be bludgeoning each other down the stretch run as well as coping with either Europa or Champions League midweek matches.

Basically, if we're within five points of first after 27 matches, we have a good shot at it. Six points is borderline, more than that is probably too much to overcome. But then again, last year we could've gone clear of Chelsea for 3rd with a match in hand with a win at Bloomfield Road and we all know what happened there. So let's be optimistic, but let's not mark off every "easy" fixture as three points either...

[stroud_jm]

Yeah, everyone is going to drop points on the way in, and I think we'll probably just about keep pace. But (though I'd never admit it in all the threads that are being stalked by Liverpool supporters right now) I really think this game coming up is going to be a tough one. They're in pretty good form and have a massive chip on their shoulder after we did them at the Lane. I think StPaul is right, 8 or 9 points from these games coming up would be a fantastic haul, and if we can do that, I think we'll actually make up a point or two on the leaders. Either way, all four games should be absolute crackers.

[Seajay]

Fook it, let's just win all our remainig games!

[juniormackay]

Seajay - you are right. I'm not sure we will but we now have a team and squad that can go into every and any game with the ability to win. Albeit I fo not think that this will be the last year we find ourselves in this position. The tide has changed and with CL next year, levy will spend where we need to and our quality will improve again. The dippers can develop their squad all they want, its gonna take them some time to catch up with what we have.

[conor1]

I wanted to make a serperate post about where we are at as a team, reason being I feel were at a pivotal point in our (future lol) history thats is either going to highlight that were not as good as we think - or were well up there with the best and have leapfrogged Chelscum, Arscum and the Dippers.

After the summer we were all (or nearly all) disappointed with our signings, especially on the back of one deserved hammering and one, that frankly was unjust; at the hands of the Manchester Utd! Alot of us said we lacked ambition! Wheres the money going? Whats Levy playing at...and so on. Point been there was alot of unrest amonst us fans.

Now fast forward 5/6 months later and we find ourselves in 3rd with those new signings, well above the Scum, the Chavs and the Dippers. Weve surprised people and quite frankly many neutrals feel weve been unlucky.....take the Stoke game (3pts probably stolen from us) and certainly the City game (1pt) - Defoe Grrr - that would have really put the cat amonst the pidgeons!!

I honestly believe that if we win on monday night were in with a shout of the title! For those that do not know me please feel free to read my other posts, I normally tend not to get too far ahead of myself and edge on the side of caution. Should we win that game, we have the Scum - that could go either way - and UTD at home.....a game I expect at worst a draw from! After that we have a relatively easy run in - in so much that we have NO big teams to play!

Dont get me wrong, theres no easy games and its going to get harder, especially against teams fighting against relegation. But, lets be honest, Citeh are rocking! Utd arent the force they were! And for the others to catch us were going to have to seriously screw up!

Now imagine yourself 6 months back, were you happy with our transfer dealings at the time? Seriously? Now think what if Saha and Nelsen have the same impact that our summer signings have had....

Make or break, I think Monday night defines our season as wanna-be's or serious title contenders!

My sentiments exactly, Stuart. We all know it's one game at a time mentality and rightly so. However, Feb is absolutely the defining month in our season. We just need to be within touching distance of the top come the end of the month. Would happily be 6 points adrift coming into March but having said that 3 points would be a big statement on Monday and a draw not disastrous.
COYS

[Justinyidarmy]

If man city draw tonight and we grind out a win at klanfield I will be a very happy chappy especially if man united get a draw also but I doubt that very much...

We can hope though

[P UNIT 1980]

Stated before that these games Dippers, Goons, Mancs and Chavs are our toughest test and will define our season.

We have the advantage of having a break between a few of the games.

Dippers V Us 1-2 6th Feb
Us V Toon 2-0
Stevenage in the cup irrelevant
Goons V Us 1-1
Us V Mancs 2-1
Toffees V Us 0-2
Us V Stone throwers 1-0
Chavs V Us 1-1 24th Mar

17 points by the 24th of March gives us a total of 66 points with 8 games to go.

Tidy IMO.

['Nixspur]

I can only imagine by your 17 point tally that you meant Toffees V Us 0-2, because that would be one of the games I'd least expect to drop points in out of that lot.

[rossdfc]

For me:

Dippers V Us 1-2 6th Feb
Us V Toon 2-0
Stevenage in the cup irrelevant
Goons V Us 2-2
Us V Mancs 1-1
Toffees V Us 1-2
Us V Stone throwers 2-1
Chavs V Us 2-1 24th Mar


That would give us 14 points out of 21 - still a very good return.