SKD

Happy to say we are no longer in a relegation battle (unless we lose next week and we could get dragged back). Weird, both times we’ve played villa they’ve been dreadful, when I’ve seen them on the box they’ve not looked too bad, but on today’s display they won’t win another game.

1-0 up, in control, should be 2 or 3... we all know how these games end.

And correct me if I’m wrong, but the last first team game he played was when we lost 9-0 and he was absolutely appalling. As, generally speaking, he has been every time he’s played in a back 4. Too early to talk about KWP yet, but didn’t set the world alight on Saturday. And to my original point, he (Valery) was out in January, we needed a right back on top of what we had, not a downgrade replacement. Now we have 0 fit right backs for at least 1 potentially 2 of our biggest games of the season

Let’s hope JWP can do a job on Grealish as he did on Zaha. I suspect not though. 2-1 villa.

KWP out Saturday with a calf injury.... just to make this shower of sh!t window look even worse

2 links.... one from the championship, the other from league 1. That’s our level now I guess.

To be fair, if we supported a club who were even half interesting then this thread would have a lot more comments. A club with no money and a secret dodgy owner = no news... unless it’s sales and unrealistic links in the summer.

Regardless of that, you have to ask if a big toe or shoulder offers an advantage to the attacker. You have to draw the line somewhere I suppose and before VaR the rule was fine as the answer was ‘it was tight’, with such scrutiny over every goal, I think they need to look at the rule. However Of course you will still get marginal decisions regardless of the rule... I’ll be honest, I don’t know the answer.

VAR, which is essentially just a video replay, is the issue. The issue is with the incompetency of the officials watching the videos. Simple solution, make the on field official review on a monitor. He won’t get it right every time but he will at least be held accountable. As for the offside, like goal line technology, it’s working to the letter of the law. It’s the law that needs changing, not technology.

Yes. A very large proportion of our fan base are the ‘GET IT FORWARD’ type. Whilst performances on the pitch have been shocking, the lack of atmosphere, constant groaning when a player doesn’t lump it long can’t help. To play an attacking free flowing game you need to be relaxed. Austin wasn’t wrong in his assessment of our lot.

Newcastle have a pretty exciting team. With a few additions they could do alright next year.

I’m upset and concerned that we’ve slipped back to making the same mistakes we made at the start of the season and that we still can’t seem to buy a win at home. As I’ve said, many a time, I don’t think we will go down. However, it was arrogant and complacent to assume we are safe and weaken a already weak squad. Especially given the comments from the club that we will improve our defence. As for this game, villa aren’t a bad team, they are just poor at the back. Similar to us just without a very inform goal scorer and very good manager. Could go either way.

So until the points are on the board, it’s realistic to assume that we are not safe.... right? The next 2 games will shape the end of our season.

Flat wickets in T20 / ODI also help. It’s a batsman’s game these days, but for the average spectator that’s how it should be. Interesting impact it’s had on test matches as well with the large % now finishing in 4 days.

As we’re safe we may as well play the kids. See who’s cut out for the PL next season. We might be able to save ourself a few quid as well.

Is it realistic to think we could lose the next 2 games?

Or people look at it how it is. 7 points isn’t a massive buffer when you play 3rd and 4th from bottom in the next two fixtures and have a home record as bad as ours. I actually think we’ll stay up.. just. But the outright arrogance and complacency to assume we’re up and to weaken a already very limited squad is ridiculous. Especially when your whole business plan of being self sustainable relies on being in the PL.

Or it could be 3 points behind and we’d be back to right in bang in trouble. With our home record I wouldn’t be shocked if it was. Astonishing how complacent 90% of this forum is.

It’s not when you play 2 of the bottom 4 in the next 2 fixtures and have all of the teams below us still to play. It’s not inconceivable that we’d not get a result in all of those games I reckon we need 2 or 3 wins to be secure. The Reality is, we’ll most likely limp across the line as Villa & West Ham, our game aside, have some awful fixtures (and they both play each other last game of the season).

What interpretation is this? That were bang average and have 0 options to change the way we play or to try and impact a game? Or that we’re 2 losses away from the bottom 3, with them both to play in coming weeks. The weather has nothing to do with that. This squad will always make mistakes at the back and will never be clinical enough to put teams to bed on a consistent basis. If you don’t think as things stand we’re bang in a relegation battle, you’re deluded. Let’s hope for 2 wins in the next 2 games and then we can close this thread. However On today’s performance, I worry.

He explained pre match. In his opinion, Vest is better on the ball that Bednerak and he expected (correctly) that we’d have the lion share of the ball and his (supposed) ability on the ball would help us. Who knows if he was right or wrong, none of our CB’s usually tend to cover themselves in glory defensively.

You assume wrong, my friend. The reason we lost today was due to lack of creativity and inability to break down 2 banks of 4... so it counted for everything today. Performance between boxes is irrelevant if you’re sh!t at either end, which we have been for the past 3 or 4 games now (including FA cup). We made our already feeble squad weaker in January and I suspect it’ll come back to bite us on the arse.

As I’ve said before. We had a freak run of form with a lot of luck, we’ve now slipped back into our norm and results that will follow will demonstrate that.

It’s perfect for clubs like us. It gives us an excuse to not spend money.

Lose against Villa, which is a strong possibility given our home form and we are in big trouble. Are squad aren’t mentally strong enough to put in a fight when up against it.