Record against direct rivals for survival

[saints_is_the_south]

Once we have played Sunderland we will have played all of our direct rivals for survival once, results so far:

 

Wigan (H) - L 0-2

Aston Villa (H) - W 4-1

QPR (A) - W 3-1

Reading (H) - W 1-0

 

You could also throw Newcastle (H) - W 2-0 and Norwich and Swansea - both (H) D 1-1. I don't think those 3 will be involved though, it will be the teams above + us and Sunderland in the mixer.

 

Beating the teams around you can make all the difference and we are certainly doing that with 3 wins out of 4. I think if we'd played Wigan now rather than at the start of the season we'd beat them too.

 

We have to play most of them away in the 2nd half of the season but we've shown already we can go away and win in a high pressure situation. A good base to build on.

[tajjuk]

Reading and QPR will be the bottom two barring some miracle.

 

The last relegation place is between us Wigan,Sunderland and Villa.

 

We need to beat SunDerland at home (hopefully them v reading will be a 0-0 and then Sunderland get thrashed at Utd)

 

I do think that we are better than those three but our poor start means we are playing catch up a bit and have less room to slip up as our January run is tough. There is no reason though that we can't go to the likes of Villa, Sunderland, Wigan, Fulham, Swansea and win. I also think we have a chance of a couple of home wins against the big boys, maybe Arsenal.

[david in sweden]

Once we have played Sunderland we will have played all of our direct rivals for survival once, results so far:

 

Wigan (H) - L 0-2

Aston Villa (H) - W 4-1

QPR (A) - W 3-1

Reading (H) - W 1-0

 

You could also throw Newcastle (H) - W 2-0 and Norwich and Swansea - both (H) D 1-1. I don't think those 3 will be involved though, it will be the teams above + us and Sunderland in the mixer.

Beating the teams around you can make all the difference and we are certainly doing that with 3 wins out of 4. I think if we'd played Wigan now rather than at the start of the season we'd beat them too.

We have to play most of them away in the 2nd half of the season but we've shown already we can go away and win in a high pressure situation. A good base to build on.

 

 

In the Wigan game, Lallana had enough chances to win two games, and both the Wigan goals were errors (by Fonte). Otherwise Wigan played a spoilers' game and didn't have much to offer in attack.

 

These are similar to the stats. that I published a few weeks back. We were no real match for the teams we played in the first 6-8 games, (but as a new team in the Prem.) we are beginning to look like a mid-table side and the Sunderland game is " winnable ", or at least we should expect one point. By the half way point (at New Year) we will have a clearer picture of our true position.

 

The first 5 away games we lost.... were all against teams presently in the top half of the table, who all have good home records and have beaten sides much better than us.

Edited 10 December, 2012 by david in sweden

[The9]

Worth me pointing out that if we win all of the matches against the other sides in the bottom 6 we only get 30 points which will almost certainly see us relegated ?

[Kingsland Red]

Add the 4 points we threw away against Swansea and Norwich and we would be well clear by now.

So time for a few bonus points taken from the top half clubs.