madsent

I'd like QPR and Crystal Palace to be relegated. Would be the ultimate hat-trick for Paul Hart.

Charlton and Colchester are both wobbling at the moment but it's probably too late. Our goal difference means we're almost guaranteed to be above any team we catch but we still need to gain 5 points on Bristol Rovers, 6 on MK Dons, 11 on Huddersfield and to catch one of the playoff teams who are all 13-17 points ahead of us. The pressure will tell on our players (and fans) so we're bound to slip up at some point. My prediction from a few weeks ago was that we'd get between 65 and 75 points. I now predict we'll get to 73 points (7 wins, 2 draws, 1 defeat) which won't be enough.

It means spelling "consistent" wrong every time you use it rather than sometimes

We did not turn around our form on poor pitches. Our run of decent away form was when the pitches were still in reasonable nick. Since the weather turned in December, the record is : 1W, 4D, 3L. The win was at Norwich who have a pitch comparable to ours in quality. We had the lead in 3 of the draws as well.

I agree that we could win our last 7 home games. Away from home, it's a different kind of form. Apart from a 5 game run when we got 13 points, we've gained 10 points from 13. Only 7 points from the last 8 away games tells the story of why we fell away after getting within 9 points of the playoff zone.

Has someone killed more than half the population of our favourite city in Eastern Hampshire ? Current statistics have Southampton at 235,000 and them at 190,000. Both have substantial potential catchment areas. We have the New Forest, Romsey, Eastleigh, Winchester and have a decent showing in Salisbury. They have Fareham, Havant, Hayling Island, most of the Meon Valley and a good following in Petersfield. If they had been marketed correctly (not easy for such an insular club as theirs), they could have taken a lot of the fans in West Sussex as well as East Hampshire.

Why would MK Dons need to win 9 to get in the playoffs if we can get there with 10 wins ? They're effectively 3 wins ahead of us already.

Given that we have almost no chance of promotion this season (since the last playoff team has 63 points in L1 as opposed to 52 points in the Championship and 55 in L2), lets see how the crowds look next season with the likelihood being that Leeds and Norwich are going to be replaced by Peterborough and Plymouth. If Charlton then get replaced by S****horpe then there won't be any big teams left in the division for us to play. I think we'll continue to have big crowds if we're top but they will dwindle quickly if we're not winning regularly.

Interesting that Branfoot appears on the day we get to 7 straight home league victories. It's been a very long time since his team won 6 home games in a row and avoided relegation.

He's played in 38 of Fulham's 45 games this season. The times I've seen him on TV, whether he's played right-back, left-back or midfield, he's been tidy and done his job. Roy Hodgson certainly seems to have changed his mind on Baird.

Averaging 1 point per away game is good but nowhere near title-winning form. We're averaging 1.35 points per away game for the season. Even if you discount the first 5 away games, we've gained 20 points from 12 games which is 1.66 per game. It's better than Charlton's 1.64 per away game but worse than Leeds with 1.81 and Norwich with 1.82. If we've been producing title winning form since October, how come we're further behind Norwich than we were in October ?

Come on you two, you must remember that we went into administration after the cut-off date. Before that date, the points are deducted that season. After that date, the points are deducted the next season if the team is relegated without the points deduction. It's a moot argument anyway because, AFAIK, there is no corresponding cut-off point in the Premier League. For those wondering, the 9 point penalty is basically pro-rated from the 10 points in the Football League since they play less games. Luton got loads because their new owners told the FL of irregularities in payments to agents and players made by the previous owners.

As I recall, Man Utd were told by UEFA that they had no choice other than to represent Europe in the World Club Championship with their strongest side. They were then told by the FA that they couldn't field a weakened team in the FA cup without fines and possible expulsion. I'm not sure what they were meant to do in those circumstances. As for whether Birmingham would get a bye or they'd play us or one of the other R5 losers, that's a question for the FA. There is nothing in the rules of the FA Cup for this season that say what should be done. I'm sure that they'll add a new rule for next season's competition even if Pompey stay afloat long enough to lose this season.

We'll probably go into every game as favourites now and we're good enough to win any of them. We certainly could win 13 games (or more) but it is only the exceptional teams that actually go on that kind of run. There's a good chance it wouldn't be enough anyway given the current form of Colchester, Swindon, Huddersfield and Millwall especially as we are only playing 2 of them again. I think we'll end up with somewhere between 65 and 75 points and teams will need somewhere around 79 points to get into the playoffs.

The poor form of Leeds and Charlton is not really relevant to us. We couldn't possibly overhaul Leeds as they are 28 points above us with 18 games left. Charlton are sinking like a stone and could be this season's version of Cardiff but are still a huge 23 points ahead. To get into the playoffs, we'll probably need to do better than 2 from Swindon, Millwall and Huddersfield. All three are in decent form. As for Norwich away being a winnable game, all games are winnable otherwise there wouldn't be any point playing them. However, they have dropped 7 points at home all season and only 4 points with Paul Lambert in charge. Most of us would be pretty happy with a draw.

Our worst run of results was, as you said, at the start of the season. The current run of indifferent form has been more damaging, as has the scarcity of our league games. If you take every clubs' last 8 games, then we're mid-table in the form league with 12 points which sounds okay until you realise that Millwall have 19 points in their last 8 games, Swindon have 18, Huddersfield have 16 and Colchester have 14. If you also factor in that Millwall have played 10 times and gained 23 points in the time we've played 8 games, you can see why we've fallen so far behind. Swindon have played 11 league games gaining 22 points.

We've only won 4 from 15 as well. For a team with our financial muscle, that's a bit poor. We've gained a lowly 9 points from our last 7 league games purely because we've only managed 3 points from the 5 games on the road in that run. I accept we weren't expected to win at Leeds and maybe not at Colchester and Millwall but we should be beating the likes of Brentford and Exeter home or away. Before that run, we were 9 points behind the play-offs and now we're 18 points behind. If we draw or lose at Norwich, we'll probably be 20 points behind. I actually think Pardew is doing a decent job but something is clearly not right with our team when we go away from home at the moment. Since we have one of the best keepers, one of the best left-backs, 2 of the best centre backs and 2 of the best strikers (plus Connolly if he's ever fit again) in the division it must be a problem in midfield. Lets hope having Dean Hammond back proves the difference as he's been missed.

My understanding is that the court date is provisionally set for March 1st IF they come up with a statement of affairs by tomorrow that documents how their finances are at present and how they intend to pay all their creditors, including HMRC. Since the judge has already deemed them to be insolvent, I'd guess they would be wound up if such a document wasn't produced.

I think our season has been disrupted by the cup games which only seem to have caused home games to be postponed. Our poor form on the road has consequently seen us fall 18 points off the play-off zone. By the time we've played Norwich and Wycombe, we'll have played 7 of the last 9 league games on the road. So far we've got 3 points from the other 5 away games (all from 1-1 draws in games that we've had the lead in) and I can't see us winning at Norwich. I'd be disappointed with anything less than 3 points at Wycombe though.

George Burley's policy of not buying centre-backs cost us the play-offs. Kelvin Davis did nothing wrong in the Pride Park match. He could do nothing with Leon Best's own-goal and he had no chance with any of their penalties. No keeper will save penalties that are smacked into the top of the goal. I said before KD signed his deal in the summer that we didn't need him. I would prefer someone bigger and more vocal and we could have signed any number of very good keepers in the summer. I'm not disagreeing that he's been good this season but he was big weaknesses. As pointed out earlier in the thread, he stays on his line at set pieces too often and he struggles with low shots, especially close to him. As for yesterday's game, I thought he was very unlucky with their second goal. Having seen the replay, I think it's 50-50 whether it gets changed to an own-goal given that his touch actually changed the path of the ball quite significantly. Their third and fourth goals were almost inevitable considering we were a 3rd division team chasing the game against a 1st division team. Replacing Perry with Holmes unbalanced the side and didn't help us defensively.

Better get Glenda on the phone then. We'd never get relegated with him in charge.

Don't Barcelona have UNICEF on their shirts these days ?

At least they've gone into administration at a time when they can still actually get some revenue from selling players. They'd have been in dire trouble had they gone into administration this time next week. I feel sorry that they'll lose their best players in the next week but the money they could potentially raise from selling Victor Moses alone could keep the club going for a while.

He only joined QPR yesterday and they didn't play today ?

Markus Liebherr bought our club for a bargain price considering he got the training ground and the stadium with the club for a reported £12.5m. The beauty of the deal was that the club wasn't sitting on any season ticket revenue despite being bought in July. As soon as he took over, something like £3m came through the door in season ticket sales. The revenue generated by signing Rickie Lambert (and his subsequent goal output) probably more than covers the cost of his signing and wages. According to the Ugly Inside, over 1200 half-year season tickets have been sold which probably covers the transfer and wages of Jose Fonte. Considering that the club has been averaging 20,600 fans per home game (9000 greater than the number of season tickets) and that probably brings over £200k in revenue per home game, I would not be surprised if the club was running close to break-even despite the apparent largesse.