Non Top 6 Alternative Table

[AlloverthefloorYesNdidi]

1 minute ago, AKCJ said:

I mean that we may well be in a decent position in the table as it stands, but we're literally one bad result away from being in the bottom half.

 

People say "BUT YOU'RE 8TH?!?!" which conveniently ignores that we've got a wretched run of fixtures and we're only 5 points clear of 13th.

 

Say the probable events come to fruition, we're not going to pick up many points until the end of February. What then?

 

Have you heard of this thing called March?

[Babylon]

30 minutes ago, AKCJ said:

I mean that we may well be in a decent position in the table as it stands, but we're literally one bad result away from being in the bottom half.

 

People say "BUT YOU'RE 8TH?!?!" which conveniently ignores that we've got a wretched run of fixtures and we're only 5 points clear of 13th.

 

Say the probable events come to fruition, we're not going to pick up many points until the end of February. What then?

Who is ignoring it? People know the fixtures, we're just dealing with where we are at the moment. Yes we have some hard fixtures and we might slip down the table, but then again we might not. Even if we do slip down, how would you feel if someone said... "we've had a hard run of fixtures, one win though and we'll jump up to 7th or 8th"?

 

"What then?" Maybe we win three on the trot after that. Who knows. The group is so tight, there are no standout teams at all and week to week teams are going to shift about in the table. It's utterly pointless to even consider having the weekly... we're 7th, we're 10th, we're 12th, we're 7th again argument whilst things are so tight.

 

Half way way a good point to have the discussion as we'd all played the same teams. We're past that now so once again fixture lists can play a part in the movement in the middle section. Unless the form drops off a cliff, then we might as well just wait it out and see where we end up.

[funkyrobot]

For me, with positivitee, creativitee and intensiteee we could finish in the middle of this league. 

[AKCJ]

1 hour ago, Babylon said:

Who is ignoring it? People know the fixtures, we're just dealing with where we are at the moment. Yes we have some hard fixtures and we might slip down the table, but then again we might not. Even if we do slip down, how would you feel if someone said... "we've had a hard run of fixtures, one win though and we'll jump up to 7th or 8th"?

 

"What then?" Maybe we win three on the trot after that. Who knows. The group is so tight, there are no standout teams at all and week to week teams are going to shift about in the table. It's utterly pointless to even consider having the weekly... we're 7th, we're 10th, we're 12th, we're 7th again argument whilst things are so tight.

 

Half way way a good point to have the discussion as we'd all played the same teams. We're past that now so once again fixture lists can play a part in the movement in the middle section. Unless the form drops off a cliff, then we might as well just wait it out and see where we end up.

My point is that there's a massive difference in perception between 7th and 13th but the reality of the situation is that it's really ****ing tight.

 

If we were to sack Puel now in 8th people will be calling us spoiled, saying things like "do they think they should be challenging for the title" and other such nonsense.

 

But if we were to sack Puel in a few games time when we're likely to be in the bottom half then people will say that he had to go, people will look at our squad and say that we absolutely should be in the top half fighting for Europe.

 

We could easily finish the season in 7th and be 5 points clear of 13th, as we are now. We could easily finish 13th and be 5 points behind Europe saying "what if".

 

For my money, we should be comfortably in 7th place. We've thrown away some horrendous results. Cardiff H, Palace A, Fulham A and Southampton H are 4 games we should have comfortably won but we've received a measly 1 point. Had we won those games we'd be scrapping for a European Group Stage spot.

 

Everything about the club is screaming "that'll do" when the reality is we absolutely should be doing better than we are and i'm convinced that Puel is not the best man for the job.

[AlloverthefloorYesNdidi]

1 minute ago, AKCJ said:

 

 

For my money, we should be comfortably in 7th place. We've thrown away some horrendous results. Cardiff H, Palace A, Fulham A and Southampton H are 4 games we should have comfortably won but we've received a measly 1 point. Had we won those games we'd be scrapping for a European Group Stage spot.

 

 

Do you seriously think Everton arent saying the same thing?

Even Wolves probably feel they should be higher up the table

Watford and West Ham will probably feel its a failure to finish below us

[Dahnsouff]

2 minutes ago, AKCJ said:

My point is that there's a massive difference in perception between 7th and 13th but the reality of the situation is that it's really ****ing tight.

 

If we were to sack Puel now in 8th people will be calling us spoiled, saying things like "do they think they should be challenging for the title" and other such nonsense.

 

But if we were to sack Puel in a few games time when we're likely to be in the bottom half then people will say that he had to go, people will look at our squad and say that we absolutely should be in the top half fighting for Europe.

 

We could easily finish the season in 7th and be 5 points clear of 13th, as we are now. We could easily finish 13th and be 5 points behind Europe saying "what if".

 

For my money, we should be comfortably in 7th place. We've thrown away some horrendous results. Cardiff H, Palace A, Fulham A and Southampton H are 4 games we should have comfortably won but we've received a measly 1 point. Had we won those games we'd be scrapping for a European Group Stage spot.

 

Everything about the club is screaming "that'll do" when the reality is we absolutely should be doing better than we are and i'm convinced that Puel is not the best man for the job.

Guess this is where the difference in opinion comes into it. Personally, I do NOT feel we should be doing better, and we are about at the right position given the task Puel has, and the off the field happenings over the last 6 months or so.

The boring play witnessed under Puel, at home specifically, is obviously a concern, but it is something we should hopefully see change as time progresses.

It is to some degree a consequence of younger players replacing older pros in such a tight knit group.

[Babylon]

12 minutes ago, AKCJ said:

My point is that there's a massive difference in perception between 7th and 13th but the reality of the situation is that it's really ****ing tight.

 

If we were to sack Puel now in 8th people will be calling us spoiled, saying things like "do they think they should be challenging for the title" and other such nonsense.

 

But if we were to sack Puel in a few games time when we're likely to be in the bottom half then people will say that he had to go, people will look at our squad and say that we absolutely should be in the top half fighting for Europe.

 

We could easily finish the season in 7th and be 5 points clear of 13th, as we are now. We could easily finish 13th and be 5 points behind Europe saying "what if".

 

For my money, we should be comfortably in 7th place. We've thrown away some horrendous results. Cardiff H, Palace A, Fulham A and Southampton H are 4 games we should have comfortably won but we've received a measly 1 point. Had we won those games we'd be scrapping for a European Group Stage spot.

 

Everything about the club is screaming "that'll do" when the reality is we absolutely should be doing better than we are and i'm convinced that Puel is not the best man for the job.

I don't see why we're expected to be any better than West Ham or Everton. For me they have better more proven players in their squads, they've spent a lot of money recently where our manager has had to sell to buy. Most of the big signings he's inherited have been flops. We're a team that could and should be realistically finishing in the 7th to 11th range any given season.

[ealingfox]

We are a younger side than others in the middle group, a lot of our starters are under 25 now, and we lost our best player last summer. It's not unreasonable to think we will improve over time, learning from these dog muck results and be a better side next season. It's not bad to be competing for 7th with up to 8 under-25s in the starting line-up.

[AKCJ]

26 minutes ago, AlloverthefloorYesNdidi said:

Do you seriously think Everton arent saying the same thing?

Even Wolves probably feel they should be higher up the table

Watford and West Ham will probably feel its a failure to finish below us

Personally think we're a much better side that Everton, Wolves, Watford and West Ham. 

[OhYesNdidi]

12 minutes ago, AKCJ said:

Personally think we're a much better side that Everton, Wolves, Watford and West Ham. 

Why? 

 

[sylofox]

19 hours ago, AKCJ said:

It also shows how false our position in the table is.

 

"Why would you want your manager to get sacked, you're 7th!!!" is what we all heard after the Newport game.

 

We could easily be in the bottom half after the Wolves game with Liverpool, Man United and Spurs as our next three games.

Because no one below us has to play Liverpool man u or spuds. We are where we are because at this moment we have more points than the rest. What's false? 

[Captain...]

There seems to be some misunderstanding over the term false position. Being in a false position doesn’t mean we don’t deserve to be there. You play the games take the points and you deserve to be in the position you are in. 

 

Saying that you think we are in a false position in 8th is saying that despite the results our performances and squad/managerial capabilities suggest we are not the 8th best team in the league. 

 

Look at Burnley last year or Huddersfield they fully deserved their finish but it was clear to everyone that Burnley would not be able to maintain it and that Huddersfield had performed out of their skins to stay up, you could say the same for Cardiff at the moment.

 

Back to Burnley the fact that we imploded as did Everton and everyone else challenging for 7th doesn’t make Burnley the 7th best team in the country they just took advantage of the situation.

 

The fact that we can beat Man City and Chelsea then lose to Cardiff, Newport and Southampton makes it very hard to judge this team, but if trends and performances continue we will not finish top half. Despite us being top half now on merit. That is why it is described as a false position.

[Foxaholic ME]

5 hours ago, AKCJ said:

My point is that there's a massive difference in perception between 7th and 13th but the reality of the situation is that it's really ****ing tight.

 

If we were to sack Puel now in 8th people will be calling us spoiled, saying things like "do they think they should be challenging for the title" and other such nonsense.

 

But if we were to sack Puel in a few games time when we're likely to be in the bottom half then people will say that he had to go, people will look at our squad and say that we absolutely should be in the top half fighting for Europe.

 

We could easily finish the season in 7th and be 5 points clear of 13th, as we are now. We could easily finish 13th and be 5 points behind Europe saying "what if".

 

For my money, we should be comfortably in 7th place. We've thrown away some horrendous results. Cardiff H, Palace A, Fulham A and Southampton H are 4 games we should have comfortably won but we've received a measly 1 point. Had we won those games we'd be scrapping for a European Group Stage spot.

 

Everything about the club is screaming "that'll do" when the reality is we absolutely should be doing better than we are and i'm convinced that Puel is not the best man for the job.

We never expect to win at Palace and win against Chelsea and Man City ere 6 bonus points  so 2 worse than expected . Incidentally as a very long time supporter I cant recall many wins at Fulham but do regard that as 2 points dropped. Although far from a Puel supporter suggest many ignore superb wins such as Chelsea and City  and concentrate on the flops. Apart from the 60s and title winning season regardless of manager  we have nearly always beat the best and lost to the worst albeit better football.