Of course we can still go up this season...

[Kitchandro]

Without writing a long essay these are the reasons why we can still make it...

1/ We're only 5 points off of 6th place.

2/ In spells we look like one of the best teams in this league.

3/ The team come the end of January wont look like it does now.

4/ Sven is a good football man and has decent staff around him.

5/ All the teams in this league drop points and go through rough patches, top 6 places will be up for grabs right into the last couple of games.

Granted our Christmas results have been pretty terrible but the story is the same in almost all our games, we play very well for a spell but cant maintain it for the whole game.

I expect Sven to tinker in January and for us to come out stronger and much more consistent in better quality performances for longer spells in games, and if we do then we will be in the top 6.

A few bad results ruin an entire season, not in this league.

And we have half the season left

[Narborough_fox]

If we do go up what I would like for us to do is Sign proven players at Championship level (Like Whittingham, Westwood etc.) and a few Premier League quality players wanting to play for us and then IF we go down we have a team capable of propelling us straight back into the premier league.

[Kitchandro]

After 24 games last season Blackpool had 36 points. They were in 9th place - 2 points behind 6th with a game in hand. We are currently 17th with 29 points - 5 points behind 6th having played a game more.

I'm getting a little annoyed now with the whole "it's only 5 points" arguement - there are a lot of teams (plus a couple more when they have played their games in hand) between us and the play-offs - they won't all be losing!!!

So you're getting annoyed that people are being positive???

I'm getting annoyed people are giving up tbh. Everyone knew it was going to be a big ask for Sven to get us promoted and that's still the case. But we have half the season left and money to spend which we didn't previously have. Why is everyone giving up? It's pathetic.

We are not that shit, we have played as well as anyone in the league in short periods. Much of our squad is good enough for this league, I just think we need a striker, a centre back, a goalkeeper, and perhaps a left back and a midfielder. 5 players at most. Now we have to have faith in Sven to find the right ones.

FGS it's December.

[sphericalfox]

If we do go up what I would like for us to do is Sign proven players at Championship level (Like Whittingham, Westwood etc.) and a few Premier League quality players wanting to play for us and then IF we go down we have a team capable of propelling us straight back into the premier league.

Why would players of the ilk you have mentioned swap places to join us? Why would their clubs sell to us regardless of the money offered? Coventry is as high as they are up the league because of Westwood, and will be sold for as much as they can get for him. Whittingham will not be leaving Cardiff for us.

Sven has stated his intent. He is bringing in Premiership players as Premiership players will get us promotion. If we bring in Championship players they we might as well pish our transfer money up the wall and admit defeat this season.

[Narborough_fox]

Why would players of the ilk you have mentioned swap places to join us? Why would their clubs sell to us regardless of the money offered? Coventry is as high as they are up the league because of Westwood, and will be sold for as much as they can get for him. Whittingham will not be leaving Cardiff for us.

Sven has stated his intent. He is bringing in Premiership players as Premiership players will get us promotion. If we bring in Championship players they we might as well pish our transfer money up the wall and admit defeat this season.

If we go up that's the sort of player I would like us to sign not now.

[North-LondonFox]

I try and be positive at all times, but being honest I don't see us as a promotion team at the moment - I think we need to string some results together before we start talking about going up? Never say never i suppose but i'm not confident about it at all.

Good on you those that are being positive though - you've gotta love optimists

[Wymsey]

If even Sven is doing shit here then there's no chance of us going up

[acooling08]

Negative talk the result of losing away 4 times in a row.

[cc_star]

Without writing a long essay these are the reasons why we can still make it...

1/ We're only 5 points off of 6th place.

2/ In spells we look like one of the best teams in this league.

3/ The team come the end of January wont look like it does now.

4/ Sven is a good football man and has decent staff around him.

5/ All the teams in this league drop points and go through rough patches, top 6 places will be up for grabs right into the last couple of games.

Granted our Christmas results have been pretty terrible but the story is the same in almost all our games, we play very well for a spell but cant maintain it for the whole game.

I expect Sven to tinker in January and for us to come out stronger and much more consistent in better quality performances for longer spells in games, and if we do then we will be in the top 6.

A few bad results ruin an entire season, not in this league.

1) Everyone has 2, 3 or even 4 games in hand on us - we could be in the bottom 3 by the time they've played.

2) but yet, in other spells we look the most clueless tactically inept team there is (usually when the opposition has the ball) and in front of goal we aren't worthy of the Unibond League nevermind the Championship

3) Yes, it could be even more fragmented with even more players on our books becoming unhappy at the club & being replaced by injury-prony premier league journeymen & benchwarmers, or worse some ageing footballing celeb looking for some more ££££, how are these going to perform on a freezing cold night away from home in February?

4) Yes he is, although this belief of mine is waning as he is doing the same thing, over & over & over again despite shipping more goals than any team I can remember

5) Yes, quite right. however whilst we win one draw one lose one we'll never rise out of mid-table

[tewkesbury-fox]

1) Everyone has 2, 3 or even 4 games in hand on us - we could be in the bottom 3 by the time they've played.

2) but yet, in other spells we look the most clueless tactically inept team there is (usually when the opposition has the ball) and in front of goal we aren't worthy of the Unibond League nevermind the Championship

3) Yes, it could be even more fragmented with even more players on our books becoming unhappy at the club & being replaced by injury-prony premier league journeymen & benchwarmers, or worse some ageing footballing celeb looking for some more ££££, how are these going to perform on a freezing cold night away from home in February?

4) Yes he is, although this belief of mine is waning as he is doing the same thing, over & over & over again despite shipping more goals than any team I can remember

5) Yes, quite right. however whilst we win one draw one lose one we'll never rise out of mid-table

[/quote

Spot on Pal

[Guest Mee-9]

All boo boys should be banned from the stadium.

If you think were shit, and not going anywhere, fook off and go do something else with your saturdays, May i recommend taking up knitting, volunteering at old peoples homes, Chess clubs.

Were half way through the season. Im bored of all these games in hand buisness, It creates difficulty for the teams playing these games in hand, as they have to deal with these ontop of the usual football fixtures. Dont always assume, a club will win every game in hand.

[cc_star]

All boo boys should be banned from the stadium.

If you think were shit, and not going anywhere, fook off and go do something else with your saturdays, May i recommend taking up knitting, volunteering at old peoples homes, Chess clubs.

Were half way through the season. Im bored of all these games in hand buisness, It creates difficulty for the teams playing these games in hand, as they have to deal with these ontop of the usual football fixtures. Dont always assume, a club will win every game in hand.

who is booing, and who is merely taking part in a forum away from the stadium & the team on a Saturday?

If you want to live in a land of fluffy bunnies, rainbows where all is always well, may I suggest you be the one to fook off, as you so eloquently put it

[Salieri]

I'm still firmly in the optimistic camp and am not writing off a push for the Play Offs in the second half of the season. Realistically, i can't seeing us quite making it but i'm not giving up hope yet.

If we don't make it i just really hope Sven is given a full season to have a fair crack of the whip and if he can't deliver then, with the financial backing of the Thais, then maybe it will be time to give someone else a go.

I'd love it if Sven were the man to take us up though. :sge:

[hackneyfox]

Everything depends on January and who Sven brings in, obviously.

But this thread could also apply to beating relegation.

Teams are playing each other, they can't all win, but equally they can't all lose, obviously.

A quick look shows that when the games are played we should drop to 18th 3 points clear of the relegation zone about 8 points and a massive goal difference off the play-offs.

And there will be 10 teams ahead of us by 5 points and 16 goals.

I wouldn't put money on us hitting the play-offs.

That's a lot of work

[Corky]

Yes, we can go up, but I think it's too big an ask this season.

We have ground to make up, we have consistency in results to achieve before we can seriously consider challenging the play-offs.

As hackney says, we are still too close to the relegation zone for comfort.

[AoWW]

who is booing, and who is merely taking part in a forum away from the stadium & the team on a Saturday?

If you want to live in a land of fluffy bunnies, rainbows where all is always well, may I suggest you be the one to fook off, as you so eloquently put it

That's sounding quite appealing to be fair. Is it a land where the clouds are made of candy floss too? If so, count me in.

[chezza68]

Iam Leicester through & through & would love us to be in the premiership next season.

For me one of the first things we have to do is giving teams a 1 or 2 goal lead.

Also we needed to start bullying teams more like they do us.

I we beat Doncaster 5-1 & ended up drawing 2-2 with Leeds. But we only got back into those games with penalties ( the doncaster 1 a little dubious). Until then we were being outplayed and probably should have been 2-0 down. But yes showed great spirit to get points out of both games.

Also i hope Sve will bring in players who actually want to play for our GREAT club & not just be coming here for 1 last big payday

.

[Bob Weasel Fox]

I "fingers crossed" hope CITY prove me wrong but honestly they have no chance of promotion this year with the way they are currently playing (1 point from last 3 games?) and if you look at F****t they are after tonights results 4 points ahead of LEICESTER with 3 games in hand ( and in all honesty they were shite when played them at filbo not that long ago). Sorry but for me unless we get some amazing January transfers or just start playing better and not conceding the first 1,2 or 3 goals in every game we have NO chance of even getting into the play offs this year, best we can hope for is building a decent team for next season

[Daggers]

If you want to live in a land of fluffy bunnies, rainbows where all is always well, may I suggest you be the one to fook off, as you so eloquently put it

I am very interested in this Utopia of which you speak - please inform me where it is and what number bus to catch.

[ThorpeAstleyFox]

So you're getting annoyed that people are being positive???

I'm getting annoyed people are giving up tbh. Everyone knew it was going to be a big ask for Sven to get us promoted and that's still the case. But we have half the season left and money to spend which we didn't previously have. Why is everyone giving up? It's pathetic.

We are not that shit, we have played as well as anyone in the league in short periods. Much of our squad is good enough for this league, I just think we need a striker, a centre back, a goalkeeper, and perhaps a left back and a midfielder. 5 players at most. Now we have to have faith in Sven to find the right ones.

FGS it's December.

This isn't people "being positive" - they are being delusional. Here are some numbers from the last 9 years to back up my arguement:

1. The highest position that any team who had 8 points from 10 games (our record prior to Sven) has finished is 14th

2. The lowest points total that would have secured 6th spot is between 71 and 76 with the average being just over 74 - taking the average as the benchmark this leaves us requiring more than 2 points per game for the remainder of the season - which is basically Championship winning form

3. Under Sven we have acrued points at a rate of 1.5 per game

4. The lowest points total that any team who have made the play-offs after 24 games is 32 (Preston in 2004 and 2005)

These are all just numbers to back up my feelings - however my feelings stem much more from a footballing perspective. We are quite simply not playing well enough to mount a play-off challenge this year. We have an unsettled team that is only capable of playing for 45-minutes a day. We are leaking goals like they are going out of fashion. We are easily bullied off the ball and on some occasions out of the game.

I'm sure that Sven will make some excellent signings in the January transfer window - but new signings need time to bed in. We are currently seeing the kind of results and performances that I would expect from good footballers who have not yet gelled as a team. Many times this season we have played a back five who all play for different clubs - is it any wonder that we're conceeding goals and lack organisation? This is why I would like to see us build for an automatic promotion push next season now. Give all of the new signings 3-4 months to settle in and gel as a team so that we can have a settled pre-season and hit the ground running next season.

Now can we all please stop being so bloody positive

[Nick]

Unconditional optimism followed by hateful frustration is the  Leicester way. Being a Leicester fan is like a year on the pull with dreams of supermodels. There's the odd stunning victory then an cold winter followed by an ugly drought. Come May we'll settle for an average result with benefits.

[Thracian]

As Alan Young says, it's a very forgiving league, and the stats say that it's still possible for us to go on a special run and gain promotion.

That assumes, of course, that teams above us falter when the reality is that a good many of them might well improve still further - boosted by the sniff of a realistic chance that money well spent might pay dividends.

Several teams above us have games in hand on us as well and I can well see our problem being even more difficult after the visit to Hull.

We've not played well there anyway when I've watched and there will be no-one keener to prove a point than Nigel Pearson. His team will be eager to help him too - especially as he's got them climbing the table and just gently suggesting that they could contest the run-in for a play-off place.

To me a Leicester defeat looks a pools coupon banker - and that's our biggest hope cos I'm lousy at calling football results!

With each result though, the consequences of losing points will become more telling.

Would even a two points a game average for the rest of the season be enough to win us a play-offs place? I don't know but it's such a big ask considering there's now so much we need to improve in the team and all our opponents now think they know how to cope with us.

Realistically we need to secure our place in the Championship and build on rocks for next season. Just as QPR have done despite being reputedly the world's richest club these last few years.

.

[cc_star]

Just as QPR have done despite being reputedly the world's richest club these last few years.

QPR have appointed a manger who knows the division and more importantly what it takes to get out of it (in the right direction) better than anyone. Of course Sven could use his vast experience and do the same, but QPR also haven't been obsessed with ageing celebrity footballers & the newspaper headlines which accompany them. They haven't outspent the division, they haven't tried to buy success but instead they are moulding together all the right ingredients to have a successful team, in what looks like the correct way. I don't think any team has ever 'bought this division' are we going to be the first?

I've read in another thread that 74pts is the average for 6th spot, which means we need over 2pts per game to get there, barring a miracle that isn't going to happen

[Kitchandro]

This isn't people "being positive" - they are being delusional. Here are some numbers from the last 9 years to back up my arguement:

1. The highest position that any team who had 8 points from 10 games (our record prior to Sven) has finished is 14th

2. The lowest points total that would have secured 6th spot is between 71 and 76 with the average being just over 74 - taking the average as the benchmark this leaves us requiring more than 2 points per game for the remainder of the season - which is basically Championship winning form

3. Under Sven we have acrued points at a rate of 1.5 per game

4. The lowest points total that any team who have made the play-offs after 24 games is 32 (Preston in 2004 and 2005)

These are all just numbers to back up my feelings - however my feelings stem much more from a footballing perspective. We are quite simply not playing well enough to mount a play-off challenge this year. We have an unsettled team that is only capable of playing for 45-minutes a day. We are leaking goals like they are going out of fashion. We are easily bullied off the ball and on some occasions out of the game.

I'm sure that Sven will make some excellent signings in the January transfer window - but new signings need time to bed in. We are currently seeing the kind of results and performances that I would expect from good footballers who have not yet gelled as a team. Many times this season we have played a back five who all play for different clubs - is it any wonder that we're conceeding goals and lack organisation? This is why I would like to see us build for an automatic promotion push next season now. Give all of the new signings 3-4 months to settle in and gel as a team so that we can have a settled pre-season and hit the ground running next season.

Now can we all please stop being so bloody positive

I'm not being delusional, i know it's a big ask and you make some good points. But we have almost half the season left.

No one should be expecting promotion but there's no point saying it's never going to happen because it could possibly happen. If we are 17th at the end of February I will accept that it's not going to happen, but if I didn't give up when Sousa had us bottom I'm not giving up now.

We have a number of things to improve upon but we aren't a complete shambles all the time, we have shown some promise and I think with a few decent signings and a settled side we will still have a chance.

I can accept that everyone thinks it's an uphill struggle but I get fed up with people saying 'we may as well just forget the play-offs, it's never going to happen' after every game because our position is in fact no where near terminal in terms of that.

[DanTheFox07]

yeah but the point should be, if your a realistic fan, do you want us to get promoted to spend one season getting hammered in the premiership? no thanks! im not enjoying the way things work with the inconsistency at the moment, but then I would much rather wait for a mix of youth and experience in our side than go up and come straight back down! for the record, I don`t think we will get in the play-off`s!