Championship Chokers ??

I am going to assume with this post that we are as good as any team in this division; we've pulled off some superb wins against Boro, Brighton and WHU.

There was always the suspicion that Saints choked the last time we go ourselves to the verge of promotion in the Championship; the manager made some very strange comments about his target being the playoffs even though he must have known the money was going to run out and the club was on its last role of the dice. He made even worse team selection and tactical decisions.

Is the same happening now ? Is the spectre of playing against the likes of the two sides of Manchester , Chelsea and Wigan getting too much for our boys ? A few have also commented on here about strange midifeld line-ups over the past few games. And, what, of course, now the current manager is going on about top 10 in January when in fact we have been top for the past 2 months !!!

Are the lads and manager starting to choke -lose their nerve ??

FFS Alpine give it a rest.

Why ? Its a valid point for discussion.

Some of them have been playing on cow fields in the past - we are talking about graduation to the creme de la creme. It wouldnt surprise me a bit.

Just so no-one be in doubt about what has recently happened. The top team has lost to two of the bottom three in successive away games.

Adkins was talking about being 10th by January as that was the original aim at the start of the season. We were to be in or around 10th and push onwards from January.

I think it's bordering on mathematically impossible for us to be 10th come January.

I don't think it's 'choking'. It may be a touch of complacency, but in reality it's probably just tiredness and the impact of a couple of injuries to our squad. The transfer window can't come soon enough IMO.

I dont think its choking as such - but there is undoubtedly much more pressure on a team when you are top of the league and expected to perform at the highest level week in week out. It probably takes a while for some players to get acclimatised to their changed circumstances - after all its not that long ago they were bottom of lg1. Also, for one or two - winning must be a double edged sword because deep down they will know they will no longer be in the team if we do get promotion to the prem.

http://www.statto.com/football/stats/england/league-championship/2011-2012/form-table/full

time to still be optimistic, better start (still) than many recent champions.

5 points clear of 3rd.

12 points clear of 7th.

current form still has us 3rd.

best ever start first 10 home games in championship.

too early to be confident, but far to quick to talk about choking.

This poster usually moans that we drop points and haven't beaten top teams - we are top against top half sides so can't use that one.

We are top, end of arguement!

If we go on a terrible run then it maybe worth considering.

It's a bad a patch, that's all. To say they are choking is a bit much. We'll turn it around and after that there is bound to be another spell where we lose a few, just wait until we have to go oop north and play on a near frozen pitch. This place is going to implode!

As of today we are the best and most consitent team in the division. Yes we lost two away games against teams in the bottom three but to date but if there is any league in Europe where top can lose to bottom it's the championship. No result should be much of a surprise in this league.

I think we can all agree and a couple of quality signings will help our cause but the lads have done brilliantly up to now and have shown over the last 18 months thay they are not bottlers. Some of these threads over the last couple of days remind me of this time last year when we were no where near the top of league 1! I guess some things never change.

I have no idea what the troll has written as I am not going to open his post, but judging by the comments of other posters

it is a calling for mass suicide of the itchen bridge

At least the troll is happy hes at his happiest when saints lose

There are some similarities to some of the rubbish away performances we had to sit through last season at lower clubs playing teams who we should beat but rolling over;

Tranmere lost 2-0

Walsall lost 1-0

Rochdale lost 2-0

In the 2nd half of the season last year.

We've overacheived so far this season. Most rational fans had us posted as mid-table for this season so it was inevitable that we would have a wobble at some point. Given that we have a fair few players who had plied their trade a L1 level before this season I think Adkins has done very well in getting the most out of them.

If we keep pretty much the same squad as we have I think we will finish in the playoff positions, if we spend a large proportion of the Oxo money then I think we can push for a top 2 finish.

Are the lads and manager starting to choke -lose their nerve ??

In my opinion? No.

There are some similarities to some of the rubbish away performances we had to sit through last season at lower clubs playing teams who we should beat but rolling over;

Tranmere lost 2-0

Walsall lost 1-0

Rochdale lost 2-0

 

In the 2nd half of the season last year.

But Doncaster aren't a team we should be "rolling over". I doubt that many have actually bothered to look at the team they had on the pitch on Saturday.They had some really,really decent players, one of whom we tried to pay 3 Million+ for last summer,another who was high on this very forum's wish list not long ago and some recently signed players from Premier League clubs.

Doncaster before they got Ikeme,Beye and Fortune were probably dire but now they have at least 3 players who are better than ours in the same position. Ikeme,Beye and Sharp.

i still cant beleive anybody is moaning! were top FFS doin so much better than we thought stop bein a typical premier league saints fan and asking questions of the team every time we dont win

When i first glanced at the thread title i thought it said ""Championship Conkers". I wish it was about conkers as it would make more sense

When I played I was lucky to be part of a team that was promoted 6 times. Now I am of course not comparing my mediocre skills with those of the SFC players but not at any point did I think about who i'll be playing next year, beit Man United or Vosper Thornycroft. Ridiculous suggestion

Who's for conkers?

We haven't even lost two games on the trot yet hardly choking. We had some dodgy away results last season and the season before it happens. We've got 12 pts on the road out of 30 which isn't great by any stretch however with our form those 12pts is enough to give us just over 2pts per game. No doubt we will lose at home but I also doubt it will be that often so keep up the home form and try to get a few more wins (or even draws on the road) and we should be there or there about.

At the moment this is just a blip, that every team will have. We have lost two of the last three, or alterntaively two of the last 12 league games I think it works out a (i believe we were 9 unbeaten before bristol city but havent checked that). You can spin stats to mean anything you want. Cardiff have had to go 9 unbeaten to get the gap to where it is. West ham were on a similar run - neither have overhauled us yet.

Interesting to me to listen to Pardew on goals on Sunday yesterday morning. He stated that he thought the top two now would be the top two come the end of the season based on what he had seen and what managers have said. The only really negative point he made about either team was that the upon park crowd will influence west hams games on a bad way in the secon half of the season.

It's funny how we over analyse two defeats but not two wins in three on here at other times!

But Doncaster aren't a team we should be "rolling over". I doubt that many have actually bothered to look at the team they had on the pitch on Saturday.They had some really,really decent players, one of whom we tried to pay 3 Million+ for last summer,another who was high on this very forum's wish list not long ago and some recently signed players from Premier League clubs.

Doncaster before they got Ikeme,Beye and Fortune were probably dire but now they have at least 3 players who are better than ours in the same position. Ikeme,Beye and Sharp.

Exactly the point, and it feels as though there's a lot of arrogance creeping in to even suggest that we are good enough to roll over the opposition in every fixture.

To my mind our fanbase was a lot more appreciative of this at the start of the season - fully aware that any team in the Championship could beat another on its day. Every team has competent players in this league, most even have some great ones dotted throughout. 20 games through 46 you can't even say that the league table has settled out yet - certain ones such as Bristol City seem completely out of place to me if we're going to use the playground logic of entitlement. So it's no use saying 'bottom of the table' if that's indicative of the attitude of banking the 3 points before a ball's even been kicked.

At the same time that mentality also belittles the efforts involved in Saints' achievements so far in the Championship - yes, we have some experienced players but for many that's not the case and they've dug out some great wins out against the likes of West Ham and Middlesborough, probably punching above their weight. It seems that few fans are in doubt that strengthening in January is going to be necessary to increase the chance of being in the fight for automatic promotion at the end of the season, but how many of us truly believed that we'd be top come December, still unbeaten at home? Surely we have one of the smallest squads in terms of strength in depth? It's been remarkable.

A game being of 'should win' status can make it more frustrating to lose, but doesn't independently suggest a crisis or 'choking' as you put it, Alpine. Any number of factors could have caused the recent blip, but at present it's just that - a couple of momentary lapses in form which need to be addressed by Nigel and his team. Way too early to decry "CRISIS, PANIC!"

But Doncaster aren't a team we should be "rolling over". I doubt that many have actually bothered to look at the team they had on the pitch on Saturday.They had some really,really decent players, one of whom we tried to pay 3 Million+ for last summer,another who was high on this very forum's wish list not long ago and some recently signed players from Premier League clubs.

Doncaster before they got Ikeme,Beye and Fortune were probably dire but now they have at least 3 players who are better than ours in the same position. Ikeme,Beye and Sharp.

They are bottom of the league with one win in nine. We are top, why shouldn't we expect to roll them over? Would Man City not expect to roll over WIgan?

No dont believe we are chokers...

I think its fair to assume that after not getting one or two key targets (most likely due to unrealistic wage demands) in teh summer, the plan was to be top 10 maybe better with the cahnce of pushing on come Jan (as Adkins has said) - and then depending on how we are doing, where the weaknesses are AND IMPORTANTLY whether we can get the right players, to add what we need for a promotion push if there was a good chance for it.

We have over achieved so far and now the the tough period is beginning, a combination of injuries, maybe a little complancey, the fact we are now taken as a serious challenge and teams are adapting to stifle us + like EVERY side we maybe having a dip in form - it happens... so its not a question of being happy clappy, but being positive - Positive 1, we are ahead of where we expected to be, Positive 2. We KNOW (adkins and NC) we have a great chance of getting promoted IF we can maintain the results and improve further, postive 3. WE KNOW what the weaknesses are, (not knowing what the problem is is 10 x worse) Positive 4. We know we have the finance to address the weaknesses - and we are now in a far better position (re possible promotion) to be attractive to players who may have been weary of joining a newly promoted side in the summer)

So yes those defeats are dissapointing, yes, our performances have been poor and that is a concern, BUT if we look at the positives above, I cant see why there is so much anger and bitetrness about it... I would suggest that with teh exception of WHU (or even including them) all other 22/23 clubs would gladly take our position right now, home and away form included... because being top when we KNOW we have not been great in the last 4 games, and DESPITTE having a crap away record (relative to the home form), is not a bad position to be in.

We also know we CAN improve and with graft, luck and few key additions will do - the players want it, Nige and NC want it, the fans want it - so yes disspointed, but also feel surprisingly good about teh position we are in right now - ahead of the plan and can we expect more than that at this stage?

Our momentum from last season is wearing off a bit. We have probably over-achieved a bit so far this year. We've always been poor under Adkins away from home. If we were bottom of the league and beat the team that were top we'd be buzzing, so when the opposite happens, its only natural for us to be disappointed and frustrated. It also doesn't help the snippets from the club about 3 and 5 year plans, aspirations of Champs League football etc, it doesn't help to get expectations amongst fans a lot higher than our actual performances are sometimes able to meet.

I wouldn't call it choking. I haven't been to either of the last two away games, but from seeing all the home games, and listenening to Bristol and Donny, it sounds like we have just gone wrong tactically, rather than choking in the sense of being unable to capitalise on a good performance.

If anything WHU seem prone to choking in front of their home support.

I am going to assume with this post that we are as good as any team in this division; we've pulled off some superb wins against Boro, Brighton and WHU.

 

There was always the suspicion that Saints choked the last time we go ourselves to the verge of promotion in the Championship; the manager made some very strange comments about his target being the playoffs even though he must have known the money was going to run out and the club was on its last role of the dice. He made even worse team selection and tactical decisions.

 

Is the same happening now ? Is the spectre of playing against the likes of the two sides of Manchester , Chelsea and Wigan getting too much for our boys ? A few have also commented on here about strange midifeld line-ups over the past few games. And, what, of course, now the current manager is going on about top 10 in January when in fact we have been top for the past 2 months !!!

 

Are the lads and manager starting to choke -lose their nerve ??

No but one or two fans appear to be.

Choking implies a change. We've won every home game - no change. We've remained largely unimpressive and inconsistent away - no change.

 

Alpine revelling in negativity - no change.

I also think that part of the problem is that for the first few months of the season Adkins did a great job of getting 100% out of every player, he got every single player, playing the best football of their career, reaching the maximum of their potential. The problem is you're not always going to keep those sort of levels going throughout a season.

I think we should protect our best players now and aim for the play-offs.......

No but one or two fans appear to be.

only internet warriors

We win games, we lose games

Shock horror

Our momentum from last season is wearing off a bit. We have probably over-achieved a bit so far this year. We've always been poor under Adkins away from home. If we were bottom of the league and beat the team that were top we'd be buzzing, so when the opposite happens, its only natural for us to be disappointed and frustrated. It also doesn't help the snippets from the club about 3 and 5 year plans, aspirations of Champs League football etc, it doesn't help to get expectations amongst fans a lot higher than our actual performances are sometimes able to meet.

Have we? (not counting MK dons away as he'd only been in charge 24hrs) I make it 10 wins, 4 draws and 5 loses away from home last season in the league a possible 35 out of 57 points not brilliant but hardly poor either. This season we've lost four already but this league is better than the last one

In 1948 we were 8 points clear with seven games remaining (2 pts for a win back then) - we won one, drew two and lost four missing out on promotion by one point. Now that's choking it.

I think we should protect our best players now and aim for the play-offs.......

Beat me to it!

There are some similarities to some of the rubbish away performances we had to sit through last season at lower clubs playing teams who we should beat but rolling over;

Tranmere lost 2-0

Walsall lost 1-0

Rochdale lost 2-0

 

In the 2nd half of the season last year.

Not sure. We absolutely battered Walsall - if we had done that at Donny, I would have been much more satisfied. Rochdale were flying high and had a very good home record -like Brizzle, they did us down the wings; and Tranmere's Tranmere, always a hoodoo club.

Different team, different problems - even the Brizzle and Donny performances were very different.

Cardiff are chokers year after year, so we'll be fine.

Have we? (not counting MK dons away as he'd only been in charge 24hrs) I make it 10 wins, 4 draws and 5 loses away from home last season in the league a possible 35 out of 57 points not brilliant but hardly poor either. This season we've lost four already but this league is better than the last one

Exactly the point, and it feels as though there's a lot of arrogance creeping in to even suggest that we are good enough to roll over the opposition in every fixture.

 

To my mind our fanbase was a lot more appreciative of this at the start of the season - fully aware that any team in the Championship could beat another on its day. Every team has competent players in this league, most even have some great ones dotted throughout. 20 games through 46 you can't even say that the league table has settled out yet - certain ones such as Bristol City seem completely out of place to me if we're going to use the playground logic of entitlement. So it's no use saying 'bottom of the table' if that's indicative of the attitude of banking the 3 points before a ball's even been kicked.

 

At the same time that mentality also belittles the efforts involved in Saints' achievements so far in the Championship - yes, we have some experienced players but for many that's not the case and they've dug out some great wins out against the likes of West Ham and Middlesborough, probably punching above their weight. It seems that few fans are in doubt that strengthening in January is going to be necessary to increase the chance of being in the fight for automatic promotion at the end of the season, but how many of us truly believed that we'd be top come December, still unbeaten at home? Surely we have one of the smallest squads in terms of strength in depth? It's been remarkable.

 

A game being of 'should win' status can make it more frustrating to lose, but doesn't independently suggest a crisis or 'choking' as you put it, Alpine. Any number of factors could have caused the recent blip, but at present it's just that - a couple of momentary lapses in form which need to be addressed by Nigel and his team. Way too early to decry "CRISIS, PANIC!"

neither of you read my post then, the games i referred to were away games we rolled over in, Tranmere and Rochdale last year we were rubbish, same as Donny and Bristol City this year

They are bottom of the league with one win in nine. We are top, why shouldn't we expect to roll them over? Would Man City not expect to roll over WIgan?

Haha, ridiculous comparison.

Have we? (not counting MK dons away as he'd only been in charge 24hrs) I make it 10 wins, 4 draws and 5 loses away from home last season in the league a possible 35 out of 57 points not brilliant but hardly poor either. This season we've lost four already but this league is better than the last one

Its actually W11 D4 L5 = 37 points from 19 games which is an excellent return and extended over the season was better than Brighton and Huddersfield's. Indeed, we had the best away record in the league.

This season, I think we've been very comfortable away from home. Away games are a different proposition FFS. Other than Reading, Brizzle and Donny, we've deserved something from all our games and can count ourselves unlucky in a few. For me, the worry isn't our away form in the abstract -too many people looking for patterns that don't exist or jumping to conclusions about NA- its our recent form both home and away.

Yep. Watched loads of s***te away from home last season. We've been excellent at home under NA, but pretty average away from home.

There are very few teams who are excellent home and away.

There are very few teams who are excellent home and away.

Last season we had the best away record in the league under NA. Total myth about NA being sh*t away for us.

I am going to assume with this post that we are as good as any team in this division; we've pulled off some superb wins against Boro, Brighton and WHU.

 

There was always the suspicion that Saints choked the last time we go ourselves to the verge of promotion in the Championship; the manager made some very strange comments about his target being the playoffs even though he must have known the money was going to run out and the club was on its last role of the dice. He made even worse team selection and tactical decisions.

 

Is the same happening now ? Is the spectre of playing against the likes of the two sides of Manchester , Chelsea and Wigan getting too much for our boys ? A few have also commented on here about strange midifeld line-ups over the past few games. And, what, of course, now the current manager is going on about top 10 in January when in fact we have been top for the past 2 months !!!

 

Are the lads and manager starting to choke -lose their nerve ??

If we dont go up it will be because we were not good enough and will be down to the management not bringing in top class players.

Yep. Watched loads of s***te away from home last season. We've been excellent at home under NA, but pretty average away from home.

The thing is though we still took a decent though amount of the points on the road after Nigel took over. So do you mean we just played poor football but still still won around 50% of our games and only lost around 25% becuase that's fair enough I'm not to bothered if we play sh it away from home and still bring back a win/draw 75% of the time.

Other wise you must be suggesting our away form (ie win/draw/loss ratio) is poor under Nigel which as someone pointed out wasn't the case last season as we had the best away form in league one last season.

QPR won the Championship last season. Take a look at their form around this time of year:

I am not for one minute excusing the performances against Bristol City and Doncaster which were underwhelming and disappointing in terms of what we have managed thus far this season, but if people think we are wobbling and it is the end of our promotion hopes then they should consider that we can wobble a lot more and still be in half decent shape for promotion.

The world does not end with two defeats in three - look at the indifference of form from QPR there. 8pts from 21 available.

Has anyone mentioned West Ham choking at all? We lost and are still top. How many times have we seen Championship winning teams mess up only for the teams below them slip up as well? Why is no one mentioning the fact that we can **** up and still be top?

That's a positive to look for surely?

Choking implies a change. We've won every home game - no change. We've remained largely unimpressive and inconsistent away - no change.

 

Alpine revelling in negativity - no change.

THIS!! We do have some very odd fans.

Has anyone mentioned West Ham choking at all? That's a positive to look for surely?

If we are looking at a period of form i.e the last 8 games then West Ham actually are above us.

I wouldn't say we are choking but our recent OVERALL form is worrying. To put it into context we have only got 2 more points then Bristol City over that 8 game period. The difference to us and West Ham is that they are plodding along. They lost at the weekend but they actually have a very good record right now. Won 4 of their last 5 away games, and lost 1 of their last 5 home games (the one at the weekend). Where as we are relying on our home form to keep us where we are. It looks good now but we have to go away to a lot of the teams we beat at home i.e West Ham, brighton, Middlesborough, Forest, Leeds, Hull and so on. If our away form continues into those games then we will not be top for much longer.

The thing is we are new to this league but so many other clubs come up from league one and go straight up to the PL. Look at Norwich now, joint 9th. There are many reasons why teams do well but i think the main one is momentum. The players have been there for a few years and know each other, they add a player here or there and it takes the team up a level. In my opinion this year is our best chance at going up. The last thing we want to do is become one of the teams who struggle to get out of this league ala Leeds, Cardiff, Borugh etc. So i wouldn't say we are choking, far from it. But i think even the most biased fan would agree throwing away a 9 points lead on 3rd place would be a massive **** up. I think that is why it is frustrating for some because we have chances to pull further ahead but have not been taking them.

But a long long way to go and personally i think in January we will strengthen and start to pull away again. Every team has a blip, even the good ones like Man Utd. It is how you bounce back from them that is important. That is why the spotlight is on Adkins right now because that is what he is here for. He has to come up with the game-plan. Getting it wrong can make people turn on you very quickly ala Burley.

Has anyone mentioned West Ham choking at all? We lost and are still top. How many times have we seen Championship winning teams mess up only for the teams below them slip up as well? Why is no one mentioning the fact that we can **** up and still be top?

That's a positive to look for surely?

West Ham is an interesting case, they have used 25 players so far in their League campaign,6 more than us, only Nolan has played all 20 games fro them, after that the most appearances are around 16 or so.They also only bothered with 1 round of the Carling Cup,used a reserve team I think. So Nolan apart most of our key players have all played more games than any other West Ham player...yet their results aren't any better than ours.I bet if we had,or had had 25 realistic NPC players at our disposal

we might not have lost both of our last 2 away games.

They are bottom of the league with one win in nine. We are top, why shouldn't we expect to roll them over? Would Man City not expect to roll over WIgan?

Do we have by far the best squad in the league after spending 15 times the league average in the last 12 months, having already been established in the league we're playing in for a fair few years?

Give it a rest. If you're trying to compare to the PL, QPR just got promoted after a good season in the league below, and, comparatively, spent a LOT more money than we did.

I don't think the team is "choking" but some of the "fans" appear to be.

On the good side, Hypo seems more positive these days and Lard has thankfully disappeared (touch wood). However, Alps, Dalek (mindless robot), Charlie Wayman (sacrilege for him to use that name), 'Professor' (certainly not of football) and a few others still seem to revel in negativity and an overpowering desire to be proven right. Imagine looking across the dressing room at that lot and knowing what they'll do when the going gets tough.

The Donny result was poor but we were without two "must play" players and a third is fighting his way back to fitness. Every team has bad spells. We certainly have issues to address but we're still top and we have money to spend.

Overall there's much more reason to be positive, and if people can't enjoy these times maybe they should find another interest.

If they think the ship is sinking perhaps they should go for a swim.