Relegation Battle Ahead?

With our awful start to the season I truly believe this year we will be battling relegation. We have had a very easy start that we have not capitalized on and have a tough run of games coming soon.

Our new manager has not instilled any confidence that he has what it takes and seems to have taken us backwards.

Unless we start winning, and winning soon, it will be a very long, hard season.

Its very ironic that the players supposedly unhappy with Puel (Forster, Bertrand, Long, Cedric, Tadic at least) have all been absolute dog s**** this season and the younger players have regressed or not been given an opportunity.

A win today is shaping up as a 'must win' but will MP be brave or as defensive and shapeless as normal?

And leaving Boufal on the bench has answered that question. MP out!!!!!!

You may be right. I think the next two games will dictate what we can expect, because then we'll have played pretty much everyone bar the top teams. The table is so close at the moment because no-one outside the top 6 (bar Watford, maybe) actually looks good. On one hand it means it won't take much to emerge from that group as the 'best of the rest' but on the other, it means that we can't bank on a group of teams getting cut adrift.

This year's kit deserves better.

Yep i think so and since MP plays 3 defensive midfielders at home suggests he has no idea our best team or formation.

Unless we step it up against better teams it's entirely possible.

:lol:

You may as well change the thread title to "the thread starter is an idiot"

:lol:

 

You may as well change the thread title to "the thread starter is an idiot"

This.

You really think a win over West Brom has done anything other than paper over the cracks? We were clueless until Boufal came on - he should have been on from the start.

You really think a win over West Brom has done anything other than paper over the cracks? We were clueless until Boufal came on - he should have been on from the start.

it didn't matter when he came on. We still won. whose to say that he could have done that facing fresh legs.

Tactic worked

You really think a win over West Brom has done anything other than paper over the cracks? We were clueless until Boufal came on - he should have been on from the start.

Ah, the traditional “papering over the cracks” post. A little early this season methinks.

With our awful start to the season I truly believe this year we will be battling relegation. We have had a very easy start that we have not capitalized on and have a tough run of games coming soon.

 

Our new manager has not instilled any confidence that he has what it takes and seems to have taken us backwards.

 

Unless we start winning, and winning soon, it will be a very long, hard season.

 

Its very ironic that the players supposedly unhappy with Puel (Forster, Bertrand, Long, Cedric, Tadic at least) have all been absolute dog s**** this season and the younger players have regressed or not been given an opportunity.

 

A win today is shaping up as a 'must win' but will MP be brave or as defensive and shapeless as normal?

If you think this squad will be near a relegation battle then your ability to judge player quality is misguided.

You really think a win over West Brom has done anything other than paper over the cracks? We were clueless until Boufal came on - he should have been on from the start.

You got what you wanted when you started this thread, which was a bit of attention.

Alpine me ol' mucker.....got any of those "glad I was proven wrong in hindsight" cards going spare? I feel we may need a fresh supply come the end of the season (just for once...)

If we went down it’s down to the fact that we all knew we needed another striker and falls right on les reads doorstep. We don’t score enough goals but did manage a wonder goal tonight

Tall black male teen, white beats headphones, black sleeveless puffy jacket, grey jeans, emotionlessly doubled through the WAG. Got hit.

 

If you think this squad will be near a relegation battle then your ability to judge player quality is misguided.

On paper it shouldn't be but the performances so far suggest we could be imo. Hopefully today's win kicks us onto a run of good form before we hit the tougher fixtures.

Tall black male teen, white beats headphones, black sleeveless puffy jacket, grey jeans, emotionlessly doubled through the WAG. Got hit.

Ignore that, was using SaintsWeb as a notepad for work and pressed send. Not my cleverest moment...

I think we will be bottom half but as usual there is some tripe in the league who will probably bail us out.

We've got a mid table squad and we'll finish mid table. Anyone who thinks we'll go down is an idiot. Anyone who thinks we should sack the manager is an idiot

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Ignore that, was using SaintsWeb as a notepad for work and pressed send. Not my cleverest moment...

Embarrassing thread, supported by a bunch of ungrateful fans expecting instant success, and who are unable to see the evident potential.

Really crucial win today.

Overall, a bit of an underwhelming start to the season. Before kick-off today, I was definitely looking downwards. Started the game in 14th, one point clear of the bottom three.

We'd really have to screw up to get involved in a serious relegation battle though. I'd be surprised if we drop as low as 14th again this season.

 

If you think this squad will be near a relegation battle then your ability to judge player quality is misguided.

So much this. We've had a poor start to the season, but there are lots of teams who are way more limited than we are. I fully expect to see us finish between fifth and tenth.

we may not being playing in an exciting style but we are picking up points. so no we will not be involved in a relegation scrap, but nor will we be challenging for a Europa cup place.

I assume from the title this is the Ronald Koeman thread ?

People forget just how bad some of the teams are in this league

I think we will be bottom half but as usual there is some tripe in the league who will probably bail us out.

Really?

Man Utd, Man City, Liverpool, Spurs, Arsenal & Chelsea is 6 teams.

Hard to see 4 other teams finishing higher than us to stop us being in the top half of the table. Who do you think they'd be? We should really be aiming for a top 8 finish for the 5th year in a row!

Yesterday we played well against a team set to sit back and defend. There were several goal scoring opportunities. We have some difficult fixtures ahead, but this thread is an enormous over-reaction following a win.

Really?

 

Man Utd, Man City, Liverpool, Spurs, Arsenal & Chelsea is 6 teams.

 

Hard to see 4 other teams finishing higher than us to stop us being in the top half of the table. Who do you think they'd be? We should really be aiming for a top 8 finish for the 5th year in a row!

Watford and Newcastle look better than us so far and I can't see Everton, West Ham, Stoke and Leicester staying this bad all season. Burnley, Brighton and Huddersfield look well drilled too, there's no guarantee we will be above them either.

People forget just how bad some of the teams are in this league

I think what's happened is the teams who would be pencilled in to finish 7th-12th (West Ham, Leicester, Stoke, us) all look a bit shaky, certainly worse than last year. But then the teams who were obvious candidates for relegation at the start of the season (promoted teams, Burnley, Watford) have added something to their game and look as good as, if not better than, the former group.

People saying we're going down are overreacting, but for those who point to the quality of our players... they're probably right, but the most important person at the club in terms of on-field issues is your manager. And I'm not convinced ours is very good. Which is unfortunate because when he came in I really liked what I read and what I heard from him.

We'll have more than enough defensively to stave off any real relegation threat.

Watford and Newcastle look better than us so far and I can't see Everton, West Ham, Stoke and Leicester staying this bad all season. Burnley, Brighton and Huddersfield look well drilled too, there's no guarantee we will be above them either.

You can’t see Everton, West Ham, Stoke or Leicester staying this bad all season, but you can’t see Saints improving?

I’ll give you Watford! Who are hav8ng their moment, but Newcastle will struggle more as the season progresses, as will Brighton and Huddersfield..

In short, you are a pessimist, sir.

I don’t think we will go down but at the moment we are in a false position because of our freakishly easy set of fixtures so I don’t think there is a lot between any of the sides outside the usual big clubs. I remember the exact same complacency last time we went down.

I’m more positive after the last couple of games. Whilst they have not been great performances at least we are changing things around and should only better. If we are in a sticky position come January we could always cash in on Virgil, ditch the manager and give the new guy a big pile of cash to sort it out.

You can’t see Everton, West Ham, Stoke or Leicester staying this bad all season, but you can’t see Saints improving?

 

I’ll give you Watford! Who are hav8ng their moment, but Newcastle will struggle more as the season progresses, as will Brighton and Huddersfield..

 

In short, you are a pessimist, sir.

I never said that but we've had some very easy fixtures and are still only 10th in the League. We will need to improve just to stay where we are.

We've only played 3 teams in the top half so far, they were all at home and we managed to get 1 point from 9 available.

I think so. We look very poor. The big worry is that we've not looked convincing in any of the games that we've won and we've only just scrapped our way past West Brom, WHU and Palace. Dropping points against teams we really should be beating is always going to make it tough when we're on for a right hiding when we play the likes of Man City, Spurs and Chelsea.

Watford and Newcastle look better than us so far and I can't see Everton, West Ham, Stoke and Leicester staying this bad all season. Burnley, Brighton and Huddersfield look well drilled too, there's no guarantee we will be above them either.

Yes, normally you can count on at least 2 of the 3 promoted teams to struggle, but all three this year look organised and very well managed. It's not inconceivable for all three to survive. Burnley and Watford look better than they were last year, Leicester have too much quality, and WBA have Pulis who never gets relegated. Everton have had a bastard fixture list to start, and probably won't be in any danger (with or without RK!). And unlike the shambles when under Saggy, we're probably too good defensively to get sucked in.

So if the above do survive, the ones left are Swansea, West Ham, Stoke, Bournemouth and Palace. Not particularly good teams, but not appalling either (except maybe Palace). Only Palace look like a team who could be miles adrift by the end of the season, but even they managed to beat last year's champions. I reckon Palace and Swansea will go down, but I think it'll be a dogfight to avoid the 3rd spot.

Palace do have a decent attacking lineup in theory and haven't been able to field Zaha, RLC and Benteke together yet so I wouldn't totally discount them although its obviously a tough position.

We will likely be bottom 6 at Christmas due to our fixtures and the poor start we have had relative to the opposition played.

So far we have been lucky with injuries but would certainly suffer if either full back, or Romeu/Lemina were out for any real period.

I don't think we will go down, but during the season I certainly think the table will be grim reading in spells.

Knowing Saints, we'll mess up a lot of the "easy" games, as we have done so far this season, but then do better than expected against the bigger clubs, making up for dropped points that way. We're certainly due a few results against the top 6 in the league after the abject failure in that area under Puel.

Can’t see us being involved in relegation fight. Not sure we are going to be competing for top 8 unless we work out how to get the best out of our talented squad either though. Other than stoke result we’ve picked up points against all midtable & bottom teams even if we haven’t won them all.

We're only 4 points short of a Champions League place.

Get a grip !!!

For Everton....

Nothing so far suggests top 8 and barely top half but it’s still early days. Fixtures from now on will be extremely influential on the final outcome of the season.

Nothing so far suggests top 8 and barely top half but it’s still early days. Fixtures from now on will be extremely influential on the final outcome of the season.

I am not going to get excited over the prospect of finishing eighth again. We were mid-table last season and I don't expect any more for this.

Nothing so far suggests top 8 and barely top half but it’s still early days. Fixtures from now on will be extremely influential on the final outcome of the season.

Which club has fixtures that aren’t influential on the final outcome??

Ordinarily I would say this is a crazy thread, but the fact is we've been struggling for goals for a long time.

It's not necessarily the fact we're playing particularly badly, just that we struggle to convert our chances.

There is a fine line between success and failure. If we keep on struggling to score goals then confidence will take a hit and if the pressure increases due to poor results, we could well be in trouble this season. I'm hopeful we won't be as I don't think we are anywhere near as bad as the 04/05 team was.

 

We will likely be bottom 6 at Christmas due to our fixtures and the poor start we have had relative to the opposition played.

Yeah, that's the part making me uncomfortable. In theory our squad should be better than three other sides', but we're likely to hit the halfway point right in the mix for the relegation places, and who knows how we'll react to that.

Character isn't one of the qualities I'd particularly rate among our team.

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Pretty much 7th to 20th, anyone can beat anyone, and even bad runs can be turned around (like us under Koeman), injuries can change seasons etc. managerial changes can change seasons (for the better or worse) so it's too early to tell. We certainly shouldn't be involved, but then we've had some fairly comfortable and 'easier' fixtures and not done that well so we will have to pick up from here and improve.

I think it really depends whether the encouraging signs against West Brom (the more forward play, faster tempo etc.) were signs of the managers ideas and influence finally getting across to the players OR it was the players trying to break out of the shackles of the managers restrictive instructions.

I'm hoping it's the former, but fear it is the latter.

Nothing so far suggests top 8 and barely top half but it’s still early days. Fixtures from now on will be extremely influential on the final outcome of the season.

In other news, team with most points at the end of the season will win the league...

Interestingly, looking at Minsk's Match by Match Comparison - which he wrote PRIOR to beating WBA:

"I am using Hull for this comparison and last season we only managed a home draw against them too. So, we remain with a...

1 point deficit

Next up, very shortly, on Match Day 9 is a home match against WBA. Last season .... our home game against WBA resulted in a 2-1 defeat."

So - assuming Minsk has done his homework (and who am I to say otherwise?) - on a opponent-for-opponent basis, having taken 3 points against the Baggies we are now actually 2 points better off than last season.

Surprising maybe????