Am i deluded with our prospects this season

[mumbles]

I've been gassing, over email, with my pal about what the future holds for our team this season and we are completely at odds with one another.... i really cant understand where his opinion is coming from and, i guess, he feels the same about mine.

i realise that the game is about opinions, thats what makes it so great but i cant bear the guys pessimism.

I'll give you the latest excerpt of our conversation... mine and then his
Let me know if im being a complete penis or not

Him
After reading the match report we got battered and were poor again……Gomes won us that match single handedly , and I'm chuffed he did , in fact I'd happily be wrong every game we play if it means getting a result

I can just see us drawing really tight games e.g man utd through not getting a striker…… I mean who would have predicted a Crouch winning header last night!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our mid and fully fit back 5 is more than good enough to give anyone a game and keep anyone out , but lets not kid ourselves we're almost certain to be battling Liverpool for 5/6th now as opposed to challenging for a top 4 place due to our failure of not getting a worldy striker in the whole month of Jan….it would have to take a City wobble of a big nature for it to happen…..

me
Wayne, with the greatest respect, put a sock in it..... your getting on my t*ts with your negativity now

We weren’t poor .... no way, i listened to it on the radio and it didnt sound half as bad as you are making out... besides the fact that we are seriously struggling with injuries, (we had two keepers on the bench last night) we went up to Ewood Park, not an easy place to go, and won the game...with a good clean sheet.....yes Gomes did pull out a couple of decent stops but thats what he's there for and so did Robinson believe me...... we also had a right footer on the left and a left footer on the right which, to me, is ridiculous.... both wingers were just cutting in all the time.....I bet Salgado was over the moon lennon didnt take him on the outside and just use his pace to go past him

I dont know how you can say that...surely at least half or more of crouch’s goals for us have come off his head...... Man City away last season to name just 1.... i know he hasn’t hit the back of the net recently, apart from last night, but he has provided VDV with a few assists so his value is there... Against the better teams i simply wouldn’t play him..I would play Pav and VDV/Defoe and keep the ball on the floor.. you are never gonna win against United or Chelsea by playing long ball anyway, their defenders are too cute (shirt pulling, leaning in, etc) and too good to come unstuck that way.... its also fair to say Crouchie doesn’t get the penalties he deserves either...how many times have we seen him pulled down in the area because the opposing teams centre half doesn’t know what to do with him and its always ignored because he looks clumsy when he falls to the deck ?

Your off your head son.... City dropped 2 points last night and now we are 5 points behind with a game in hand....all we have to do is beat them when we play them, win our game in hand (Blackpool !!) and then match them for results the rest of the season and its job done. Why cant we do that, when we at least try and beat the big teams in contrast to City who just try not to lose to the big teams i.e Arsenal last month ?... stop being so pessimistic Ladlow, we are doing very well and we should be pinching ourselves everyday when you consider how improved we are the last couple of years..... Just because we didn’t sign someone in the window, it doesn’t mean we suddenly turned crapola at 11.01 on Monday night...we are good, attacking, exciting team.
I really dont see why city need such a large wobble for us to secure 4th spot.... its also worth noting that the games we would consider our hardest left to play are not scheduled until the middle of April onwards Man city away, Chelsea away, & Liverpool away when i would expect our lengthening injury list to have subsided and, in any case, i do not fear going to City or Anfield.... i believe we can pick up points in both games..... Chelsea away may be a different prospect by that stage but we’ll see..

The glass is half full

 

[mumbles]

his and then mine, i should have said

 

[Spurger King]

We're in a good position mainly because of VDV and Bale's goals. They started in great form, and have had few poor games since.

If we want to get 4th, it's my opinion that those two will need to continue their form into the second half of the season (certainly not impossible but still very difficult for even the best players to maintain), or we need at least one of our strikers to go on a scoring run.

Seeing as Crouch wouldn't know a scoring run if it knocked him to the ground and buried him in nachos, we're relying on Pav or Defoe to hit form quickly.

Certain players need to rise to the challenge. If they do...4th is still very possible.

 

[whitelightwhiteheat]

Bit of a prediction:

Crouch and Defoe are about to hit a parnership of 20 goals between them in the remaining 14 games left.

Bale and VDV will contribute another 8 between them. We will edge Man City out of 4th place... AGAIN.

It will be momentous. Again.

We'll party on the streets and enjoy the Champions League again.

In the word of BBLG: BELIEVE!

 

[BringBack_leGin]

:-D I got a shout!

 

[AngerManagement]

I predicted a Crouch winner earlier in the day, based on the fact he got two their last year and also his only goal in the league this year was also against Blackburn

 

[BringBack_leGin]

I'm hoping that having broken his duck, he'll now go on and rack up a semi decent tally for the remainder of the season. I'm also hoping that Defoe scores against Bolton and then follows suit. Is that too much to ask?

I competent strikeforce is the key for us, we're strong elsewhere. Whatever criticisms we may afford them, our second string midfield is still strong enough to win most games. Obviously the return of Modric and Bale in time for the harder games would be greatly appreciated, but I have no issue with Jenas and Palacios for games against the likes of Blackburn, Bolton and Sunderland. Both of those players would walk into the central midfield of every side currently below us in the table.

 

[dimiSpur]

How can he be so negative about last nights performance after only reading a match report? :roll:

 

[mumbles]

How can he be so negative about last nights performance after only reading a match report? :roll:

my thoughts exactly

 

[JonnySpurs]

To a large extent you can watch a game the way you want to watch it.

You can focus on the positives, focus on the negatives or be open minded and see the game for what it is. I always try to do the latter, find the good things even in bad performances but still not glaze over and ignore the bad things too.

Sadly your mate seems to just be the pessimistic type and will likely always be that way. My advice, just don't bother discussing footy with him in future unless you really have to, lol!

 

[mumbles]

Sadly your mate seems to just be the pessimistic type and will likely always be that way. My advice, just don't bother discussing footy with him in future unless you really have to, lol!

I think your right mate......its like :bang: talking to him sometimes.

 

[Darrkespur]

Blackburn away is one of the hardest games for a 'flair' team like ours, so any win is a great result for us. Teams like old style Bolton, Stoke and Blackburn have always been our Achilles Heel and we've definitely started to improve how many points we get against them. I think our performances against these kind of teams are always going to be a bit lacklustre as playing free-flowing passing football is hard to do.

 

[BringBack_leGin]

We do in fact have the fourth best away record in the league. Our issue this season has been the amount of home draws. Sunderland, City, Chelsea, United, Everton. It's too many and we really need to win all our remaining home fixtures as well as a continuing this away form if we're going to get top four.

 

[Azazello]

How can he say that Gomes singlehandedly won the match and then point to Crouch's winning goal!

It's crazy!

 

[StartingPrice]

I predicted a Crouch winner earlier in the day, based on the fact he got two their last year and also his only goal in the league this year was also against Blackburn

"Can we play you every week":grin:

In answer to OP = No.

Pessimism sucks.

To quote Williams from 'Enter the Dragon':

Han: "Your style is unorthodox."
Williams: "But effective."
Han: "It is defeat you must prepare yourself for."
Williams: "Uh uh."
Han: "How so?"
Williams: "Man, I'll be so busy looking good I won't even notice":wink:

 

[LLPaulJ]

I tell you now if we draw the games with the teams nearer the top this season then we wont be doing too bad as long as we pick up the wins against the rest of the league.

We have Chelsea, Citeh, Liverpool AWAY and Sunderland if you want to count them in the mix for anything this season.
The only 'big' game in the league we have at home is Arsenal which is now being moved to a mid-week game which im bloody thrilled about (Atmosphere will on another scale).

I still think we have a great chance of getting 4th still if we stick with 4-4-2 when we dont have our five most influential players available VDV, Modric, Huddlestone, Bale and Lennon which we will then revert to 4-4-1-1 where that formation seems to work. I pray that Defoe sticks one in on saturday even if it comes off his ball sack, as he seems way off with confidence.

 

[mumbles]

How can he say that Gomes singlehandedly won the match and then point to Crouch's winning goal!

It's crazy!

And laughable!

We done well last night as far as I'm concerned

 

[Timberwolf]

And laughable!

We done well last night as far as I'm concerned

We did well to get the win but we also allowed Blackburn to have an awful lot of chances. If they had been as clinical as Bolton were in our game at the Reebok we could've easily been on the end of another hiding.

I'm not trying to shit it anyones biscuit tin, but lets be realistic here- last night was a bit of a smash and grab and Blackburn deserved a point at the very least.

 

[Mr Pink]

We do in fact have the fourth best away record in the league. Our issue this season has been the amount of home draws. Sunderland, City, Chelsea, United, Everton. It's too many and we really need to win all our remaining home fixtures as well as a continuing this away form if we're going to get top four.

Was thinking exactly the same thing...you can forgive a few of those as they are tough ie United etc...but realisitically we should of beaten City and we should be beating Sunderland at Everton 9 times out of ten at home. Had we done that we would of been on 48 points. I know every side can look at the ifs, but I agree our issue has been drawing too many at home.

Last season we lost to Wolves and Stoke at home, drew with Hull etc..we lost to Wigan at home this season.

As long as we cut that sort of stuff out now we still have a great chance of top 4.

Bolton on Saturday has to be 3 points, a draw would see the same problems returning.

 

[mpickard2087]

Was thinking exactly the same thing...you can forgive a few of those as they are tough ie United etc...but realisitically we should of beaten City and we should be beating Sunderland at Everton 9 times out of ten at home. Had we done that we would of been on 48 points. I know every side can look at the ifs, but I agree our issue has been drawing too many at home.

Last season we lost to Wolves and Stoke at home, drew with Hull etc..we lost to Wigan at home this season.

As long as we cut that sort of stuff out now we still have a great chance of top 4.

Bolton on Saturday has to be 3 points, a draw would see the same problems returning.

I think this is the main reason for the second season running why we aren't right up there with Utd. We have dropped points against 4 of the bottom 5 teams this season. Thats not good enough really.