Tough November/December

[boki]

I said 12 points
Arsenal (H) win
Man City (A) loss
Tottenham (H) win
Stoke (A) draw
West Ham (A) draw
Wigan (H) win
Chelsea (H) draw

And I hope we can avoid new injurys to people like Fellaini,Jelavic,Baines or Mirralas...

 

[grandjoeblue]

11 or 12 points, would settle for 14 points including 3 this saturday though.

 

[Cotto]

This run in will prove where we are in terms of CL prospects...

 

[agreen08]

Arsenal (H) Wed 29th Nov= We can beat these 3 points
Man City (A) Sat 1st Dec = 0 points they appear to just be starting now.
Tottenham (H) Sun 9th Dec = 1 point, boggy team, they will prob bring les ferdinand on if we r winning! he always scored against us!
Stoke (A) Sat 15th Dec = 1 point away t these although we have done well there recently! could be 3.
West Ham (A) Sat 22nd Dec = we will take 3 of these, they don't have alot. make us all happy for Xmas day!
Wigan (H) Wed 26th Dec = tough but think we an beat em! 3 points
Chelsea (H) Sun 30th Dec = 1 point pep might be in charge by then though.

12 points i'd take that!

 

[LTblue]

looking at the way we've played in different points this season and considering our previous for having a stunning 2nd half to the season, I believe top 4 should be the aim, and we need 12 points at a bare minimum to keep that realistic.

 

[pablo315]

Arsenal (H) Wed 29th Nov
Man City (A) Sat 1st Dec
Tottenham (H) Sun 9th Dec
Stoke (A) Sat 15th Dec
West Ham (A) Sat 22nd Dec
Wigan (H) Wed 26th Dec
Chelsea (H) Sun 30th Dec

Tough games, how many points do you reckon we could get out of it?

Realistically they way we have been defending we will probably lose 2 of these games, and I'd expect one of them to be our first home defeat. However this wont be the end of the world if we can turn draws into wins. I am predicting 10 points - 2 home wins and 1 away win with one draw. It doesn't sound great but every team will drop points in this period and this will probably see us still in 5th with winnable fixtures in Jan giving us the chance to stay in contention for fourth.

First and foremost though. Lets beat Norwich!!

 

[Deleted member 28206]

Zero points, and Fellaini and Moyes to Chelsea in Jan.

 

[grandjoeblue]

Zero points, and Fellaini and Moyes to Chelsea in Jan.

Moyes is going next week, not January.

Peter Reid in.

 

[wiggum23]

I suspect this run of fixtures will make us come crashing back down to earth. We've had some really easy (by comparison) fixtures this year and thrown away points left, right and centre. Dropping 2 points to absolutely turd teams like QPR, Wigan and Liverpool and then losing to Reading; these results really were glossed over as -- thanks to other teams around us dropping points -- our league position remained healthy.

But as I said this early on in the season your league position matters little. It's your points that count. And there's a massive clusterf*ck of teams around us with similar points, and a lot of them have already had to play Chelsea, City, Arsenal and so on. I think we'll take points off the tough teams but I can't foresee too many wins, and despite the media fapping over us, we've had one win since September.

This all day. We have had a run where we should have done better. I know we had bad luck, but the chances we missed to win games was criminal.

Plus, think back to our start last season, we had united, city, chelsea, the RS, barcodes away in the first 12 games, but still managed 16 points. We are only 4 points better off this year with a much easier run. The next 5/6 games will define our season IMO

 

[Frenchy91]

Arsenal (H) Wed 29th Nov - 1pts
Man City (A) Sat 1st Dec - 0pts
Tottenham (H) Sun 9th Dec - 3pts
Stoke (A) Sat 15th Dec - 1pts
West Ham (A) Sat 22nd Dec - 3pts
Wigan (H) Wed 26th Dec - 1pts
Chelsea (H) Sun 30th Dec - 1pts

 

[ToffeeMike]

I can see us getting a result at city, anyone else optimistic?

 

[daulbo9]

Just remember Gibbo is back, hes the man, we'll get 12+ imo, thats hoping we keep everyone fit, COYBB

 

[Bernth]

We'll need at least 12 points to keep around the top 4 and I really do think we'll get at least that

 

[PeterMeter]

You are a miserable lot aren't you. You think our fixtures look bad, have a look at West Ham's, flatter to deceive. I can't believe anyone would say Newcastle/Liverpool/West Ham/West Brom have better/more depth to their squads than us. Apart from Spurs and the Arse which neither seem to quite tick (Arsenal also letting in heaps of goals) I'd say no one outside the top 3 have a better current squad. If it will translate into decent points only time will tell, but barring a couple of injury setbacks I believe we'll be able to compete with the better teams as well.

To say Jelavic is out of form is ludicrous, he's not being fed like he was last year. The main problem right now is Pienaar not doing his usual ball retention, and our center leaking goals when we're hit on the counter, something I have real trouble seeing teams like Tottenham and Chelsea do as they will likely push us further back than we have. The more compact we get, the harder it will be to hit us on the break, which would hopefully lead to us conceding less stupid free kicks and/or our defense having to work face to our goal.

Our main difference this year from previous years is we actually look able to hit other teams on the counter. We have better movement and more fluidity to our team with pacy alternatives on the wings (well, mainly Mirallas and maybe Oviedo)..

 

[Bigmaclad]

1 million points