[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

They remind me of Wolves under Mad Mick. They'll be dire for three or four matches on the trot, then they'll grind out a jammy win or two to push them up the table. I read earlier that they've averaged two points for every goal they've scored this season, which tells you all you need to know about their lucky 0-0 draws and 1-0 wins.

I've abandoned hope that they'll ever go down, but boy, I want us to finally do that double in March.

[aries22]

BBC Sport ran a poll today (Jan 12) asking voters who would go down. The results were:
Everton 4.8%
Aston Villa 10.3%
Albion 1.7%
C Palace 2.1%
Sunderland 3.8%
Burnley 9.1%
Hull 8%
QPR 30.3%
Leicester 29.9%
#ThePulisEffect_fingers_crossed

[Dingle-Dingle]

Villa placed all their hopes on the return of Benteke. He's back and they are still p1ss poor, their defence looks shaky, Delph looks like he could go and I do believe they have used up their lives. That said they did win the European Cup I'm told

Lies Damn lies and statistics can produce any result you want. DD

[Luke_East_Baggie]

As of the predictions on the first page of this thread.. I really can't see us losing only 6 times (tidy) or 4 times (stairs) for the rest of this season.

When (before yesterday) out of the last 13 games I think we only won twice (an own goal vs Leicester, and a 1-0 at home vs villa who had 10 men for 60% of the game)

HOWEVER! with only 17 games left, wins are most important now.. (I know it sounds stupid!) but wins against Palace, Villa, QPR, Leicester, Burnley and Sunderland are imperative. If we managed that we would stay up regardless. Those are the games we need to target for wins. 1/2 draws within those games would be okay, anything worse and it's going to be going to the last week / day again

[aries22]

Totally agree with your win targets, Luke_East_Baggie, and since all those teams are around us, we might only need five wins. "Only"!!

[tidy]

Luke, I did say I was being optimistic...

Although I have us down for only 6 losses, I have also got us down for only 6 more wins:

Burnley V West Brom.........W
West Brom V Swansea.......W
Aston Villa V West Brom.....W
West Brom V Stoke.............W
West Brom V QPR...............W
West Brom V Leicester.........W

At the start of the season I stated on a forum that to survive we would need 10 wins and the balance made up of draws (8-10)
Currently we are on 5 wins and 6 draws so it should be within even our capabilities, given who we still have to play, to get the required amount of points. However, I qualified this by stating if we have not reached the required pts by the Palace game then we are proper in the shit.....thats just my opinion...

[Luke_East_Baggie]

It's a fair assessment tidy!

10 wins and 8-10 draws seems just about fine to keep us up, So that leaves another 5 wins and 3-5 draws left.

When we have 17 games left to play, and 8 of those are:

Arsenal
Chelsea
Man united
Liverpool
Tottenham
Southampton
Everton (away)
Newcastle (away)

I'd say at a push all of those games are potentially write offs - maybe the odd draw. It leaves us with 9 games to get 5 wins and 1-2 draws (thats worse case we draw 2 of the above 8 and lose 6)

It just makes those games against those around us, huge. We can only afford to lose 2 out of 9 at an absolute maximum. Even if we go and draw against Tottenham, Everton, and United, it means nothing if we then go and lose to a Burnley. or Leicester.

I am averagely confident we will stay up - because there is 3 worse teams than us, but I'd hate to be a Newcastle of a few seasons ago, and think we should have enough, and end up back in the champ. 2 wins in 13 (BEFORE HULL!) needs to drastically improve, and we cannot afford for it not to soon!

[drewks]

It's a fair assessment tidy!

10 wins and 8-10 draws seems just about fine to keep us up, So that leaves another 5 wins and 3-5 draws left.

When we have 17 games left to play, and 8 of those are:

Arsenal
Chelsea
Man united
Liverpool
Tottenham
Southampton
Everton (away)
Newcastle (away)

I'd say at a push all of those games are potentially write offs - maybe the odd draw. It leaves us with 9 games to get 5 wins and 1-2 draws (thats worse case we draw 2 of the above 8 and lose 6)

It just makes those games against those around us, huge. We can only afford to lose 2 out of 9 at an absolute maximum. Even if we go and draw against Tottenham, Everton, and United, it means nothing if we then go and lose to a Burnley. or Leicester.

I am averagely confident we will stay up - because there is 3 worse teams than us, but I'd hate to be a Newcastle of a few seasons ago, and think we should have enough, and end up back in the champ. 2 wins in 13 (BEFORE HULL!) needs to drastically improve, and we cannot afford for it not to soon!

All very true; however, the supporters of about 8 or 9 other teams will be thinking the same, and wondering where the points will be coming from.
In a nutshell, your last line says it all Luke, and IMO we've given ourselves EVERY chance of improvement by appointing TP!

[tidy]

I wouldn't want to be Leicester

2 or 3 wins in there plus some draws.....on current form, of course. They have a good run in though and their final game could be a decider for more than 1 team.


Leicester v Stoke
Man Utd v Leicester
Leicester v Crystal Palace
Arsenal v Leicester
Everton v Leicester
Leicester v Chelsea
Man City v Leicester
Leicester v Hull
Tottenham v Leicester
Leicester v West Ham
West Brom v Leicester
Leicester v Swansea
Burnley v Leicester
Leicester v Newcastle
Leicester v Southampton
Sunderland v Leicester
Leicester v QPR

[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

No way are Everton, Spurs, Newcastle or Liverpool write-offs. All stronger than us on paper, but all having very dodgy seasons, and there for the taking if we can do a job on the day. Palace soared up the table last year by beating sides like this, and I'd expect TP to be drilling our boys to do the same.