Relegation

[Simon Buttle]

If we get back-to-back wins now by beating Leicester and Burnley (as I'd expect) lose to West Ham, I think it's beyond them. A seven point gap and better GD surely cant be clawed back by a team as terrible as Burnley?

I think its beyond them anyway Dave, Burnley players looked very deflated the other day after that game.

 

[Toff33Blues99]

I think 34 will be enough. Just don't see a truly awful Burnley side getting another 10 points in 8 games with 2 of them being Spurs and WHU

 

[davek]

I think its beyond them anyway Dave, Burnley players looked very deflated the other day after that game.

They did. Their overall performance was abysmal. They really are a truly shocking team.

TBH, when they sold Wood in January they looked like a team preparing for the Championship. The only reason why they aren't in a completely hopeless position is because we've failed to build on our big wins against Leeds and then Newcastle since Lampard arrived. Not building on the United vistory will just encourage them to stay in the race though, so we have to treat the Leicester game like it's our last chance to get points. If we can slam the door in Burnley's face with a win against Leicester they just might fall apart. I think they will too.

 

[Neiler]

We will get results we won’t expect, we will loose games we think we will have a chance in, so will Burnley. Relegation battle 101.

In a way assessing fixtures won’t tell us much, we’ve gotten positive results against Arsenal, Chelsea, Utd twice and we deserved a result against City, in a way harder fixtures suit us as we don’t have to play with the initiative and can be compact, when the opposition have the initiative, they can often be open.

Big thing for me would be turning away defeats into draws, if we can do that it’s a massive shot in the arm. Look at our losses Vs draws this season, it’s really undermined us.

 

[Goat]

They did. Their overall performance was abysmal. They really are a truly shocking team.

TBH, when they sold Wood in January they looked like a team preparing for the Championship. The only reason why they aren't in a completely hopeless position is because we've failed to build on our big wins against Leeds and then Newcastle since Lampard arrived. Not building on the United vistory will just encourage them to stay in the race though, so we have to treat the Leicester game like it's our last chance to get points. If we can slam the door in Burnley's face with a win against Leicester they just might fall apart. I think they will too.

Oh Dave.

You flapped it after Burnley, you cant be coming here now acting like everything is ok.

 

[Drico]

If we get back-to-back wins now by beating Leicester, and Burnley (as I'd expect) lose to West Ham, I think it's beyond them. A seven point gap and better GD surely cant be clawed back by a team as terrible as Burnley?

Agreed. The only caveat to that is we must not down tools having beaten Leicester. If we can do as you say - and Burnely lose - then we can surely scrabble a few more points together before the end of the season to see ourselves over the line.

Burnley could well collapse now - basically, give up - if we can beat Leicester and they lose at West Ham. We would simply need to tack on a few points then to prevent giving them a way back. I can see a few twists and turns yet. The ideal scenario, of course, is we go to Anfield and win. A boy can but dream.

 

[TraffordBlue]

Agreed. The only caveat to that is we must not down tools having beaten Leicester. If we can do as you say - and Burnely lose - then we can surely scrabble a few more points together before the end of the season to see ourselves over the line.

Burnley could well collapse now - basically, give up - if we can beat Leicester and they lose at West Ham. We would simply need to tack on a few points then to prevent giving them a way back. I can see a few twists and turns yet. The ideal scenario, of course, is we go to Anfield and win. A boy cab but dream.

Some people are getting carried away after the win the other day. That game will be very difficult and there is no getting round the fact that we have been truly awful for months.

Equally, people are massively overrating Burnley. Both of us are terrible teams, I just don't think we are as bad as them.

 

[Drico]

Some people are getting carried away after the win the other day. That game will be very difficult and there is no getting round the fact that we have been truly awful for months.

Equally, people are massively overrating Burnley. Both of us are terrible teams, I just don't think we are as bad as them.

Evertonians swing between extremes all the time. The Leicester game will indeed be tough, but the hope must be now that we have been reprieved this weekend, we surely have enough about us to seize the moment and get over the line.

I agree with you: we have more about us than Burnley - which, of course shouldn't be in question after what we've spent - but we have managed to lose to them. After that, one would think we were finished, but events have transpired to give us a second wind.

In the final analysis, our consistent uselessness has to be compared to Burnley's abject inability to score goals and string a few wins together. If we end up going down, it'll be a monumental failure.

 

[ProZ]

Just looking at the remaining Leeds games and they don't look to clever.

 

[Goat]

Just looking at the remaining Leeds games and they don't look to clever.

Again mate, do you look at ours and think "easy"?

 

[ProZ]

Again mate, do you look at ours and think "easy"?

No ours are hard also which I am pretty pleased about, considering we have been slapped by everyone of the crap teams.

 

[knowing your history]

Going in to a home game against leicester with most of the first team back fit, us with much more to lose than them and Goodison under the lights. I actually think this is one of the games we have to at least draw, we should be able to.

Leicester can't defend set pieces at all so would fancy Mina (if back from the dead) or even Keane to get on the end of at least one of them. Perhaps DCL aswell but that's probably too much to ask for...

That said their little passing triangle of Tielemans-Maddison-Barnes all moving out towards Coleman (can't see anything but unchanged team from Man. United if everyone remains fit) does worry me hugely.

It feels a 1-1 game to me tbh. Win would be huge though especially with the two games coming up after that.

 

[NathDogg]

We need to take control of it ourselves and not think about what Burnley or anyone else need to do.

Goodison needs to be the snarling, noisy, supportive bear pit it has been recently, every single match as we know these lads pulling on the royal blue jersey can’t be trusted to do it themselves.

I just wish that they can sort themselves out even 50% better away from home so we will pick up points - keeping delph fit (didn’t see myself saying that anytime soon!) and getting Mina back in the side will be key.

 

[knowing your history]

If we get back-to-back wins now by beating Leicester, and Burnley (as I'd expect) lose to West Ham, I think it's beyond them. A seven point gap and better GD surely cant be clawed back by a team as terrible as Burnley?

They certainly have to do something in next two weeks to have realistic chance. They'll be gambling on the team in 17th not beating Leicester (could happen) and also losing to reds**t and Chelsea (pretty likely).

If they get 4 points from Southampton and Wolves at home then it's back to one point gap. Then it's on who goes to Watford and wins and how both do in the two "winnable" home games left for each. They have Villa and Newcastle. And the worst game is them having Spurs away right at the end of the season so very similar to Arsenal away last day.

When you look at it both run ins are very similar in strength so that's why it's crucial to keep the 4 point gap as long as possible as anything could happen if it goes to 3 points or less.

Does feel like the weekend was the crucial moment but they'll be a few more twists in this to rest easy just yet.

 

[GoldenToffee]

Honestly, Burnley have proven they can dig in and win games. They've beaten Spurs and us at home in 2022, and won 3 nil away to Brighton. They also drew against Arsenal and United, and narrowly lost to Liverpool 1 nil.

Their game against West Ham is a huge one, as they could very well bounce back from the Norwich defeat against a side who play Lyon two days prior.

The 'best' team that they face before the end of the season is Spurs, so we know their on-paper fixtures are favourable versus ours.

I think it's incredibly naive to write them off at this stage. It doesn't matter to me how many they have won this season, this is a relegation fight where form goes out of the window. For me, they can easily win 4 more games, possibly even 5. They've actually only lost by more than two goals once this whole season, compared to our five times.

Who would have thought Newcastle would have won on that incredible streak over the past few months? If shows that anything is possible.

We are 100% still relying on the crowd to pull us through this, and I probably still make us likely to go down due to our respective fixtures.