afar

All Huddersfield right now, we need to get into this game, even though we are ahead, it's really one way traffic.

We'll do well to win this, they look like a better team than Brighton have in the two games played for me.

19 points after 26 games, ffs Sunderland should be as good as down already but the fact that they are only 3 points from safety says it all about the quality of the bottom of the PL this season. They picked the best time to have their worst squad.

Sounds a little rattled, thats not good.

I'm probably more worried about the Huddersfield game than this one, we could be down to 3rd after that if results go the wrong way.

Brighton have really picked up over there last couple of games, when it was looking like the might collapse like last season again. Gonna be tougher than it was say a week or so ago, still hopeful though but need the players to play at a much higher level than they have been.

Win the next two games and we are certainties in my view, psychologically it'll be hard for anyone to knock us out of top two if that happens, and we'll have at least a ten point gap to 3rd with 11 games left. Today though was a huge wasted opportunity that could come back and bite us in the bum.

Sounds like we are really struggling, not sure if we would take a draw at this point. 2-0 FFs.

Can not afford to slip up here, and our record when we go behind is shocking, not looking good.

Only Sheff Wed have scored less goals than them in the top 10 and their +8 goal difference is pretty laughable for a team so high up in the table. They are winning the close games obviously but rarely steamroll the opposition, you can look at that as a sign of character but how sustainable is it ? Can their luck hold out for the remaining 14 games ?

Totally agree Benwell, he's taking an almighty gamble with his own personal career in taking us on. If he fails to get us up, his reputation will be possible permanently tarnished. We owe him a great deal of gratitude and hopefully the season will end the way we all (with a black and white allegiance of course) want it to.

He was ideal for the caretaker role but anyone with half a brain could see he was never going to be a good long term appointment. Unfortunately our chairman at the time had less than half a brain.

Roeder getting the full time gig was almost as stupid a decision as giving Carver half a season. Damn we've had some awful management decisions over the years, considering the role pays a considerable amount and there would be no lack of other more sensible options, we've picked badly so many times it's ridiculous.

Shackleton of course was with us first, and his record at Sunderland was pretty impressive. Cloughie too as a player was a goal scoring machine, thank god he never felt the desire to manage his old club. I don't know a lot about Carter but have heard his name mentioned.

I watched from around 10 mins before the end of the first half to most of the 2nd half of Villa again yesterday and I noticed what a good job Mitro did in the game of working, holding the ball up and general getting after things, he may not have scored but it was a pretty darn good performance from the lad, better than I at first thought. He's very willing, that's something that's evident when you look closely, obviously sometimes he goes a little too far with that drive. If he works that hard in the upcoming stretch of games and stays on the pitch, I'm sure we'll be fine.

Adam Johnson, Paolo DiCanio, Gary Rowell, Lee Catermole, Wearside Jack Fat Sam would be up there having been the manager on the greatest night in their history when Everton rolled over for them and they "relegated the Mags" I hope at some point in the future we can repay Everton the "favour", I doubt we will get that opportunity but their performance that night was shocking.

Our current points total coupled with our GD, would have been good enough for 7th last season !! Sheff Wed finished in the last play off spot with a total of 74 points. So if that holds for this year we are only 2 wins away from securing a playoff birth. Sad that, Sheff Wed also then knocked out a team that finished with 15 points more than them in the playoffs.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/36962717 I thought Bristol City were one of the pre-season favourites for at least a play off birth, our early season win there at the time was viewed as a very good three points but they only finished 18th, and this season struggling to stay out of the bottom three, how has this guy not been sacked yet ?

How the hell did he last this long is my only take on this.

Sounds like confidence is extremely low at Bristol, simply can't afford to slip up at the weekend: http://www.bbc.com/sport/live/football/39057106

Not a bad appointment for them in their position, I would be a little worried if I were the teams around them. Think Rotherham are all but down, Blackburn have looked doomed too but a change in manager could give them a temp lift. Have to think Wigan won't get out of it, not much quality there, but think anyone from Villa down are in trouble although with Zola running the show at Brum they too can't breathe too easily just yet.

It's a myth that the 3rd place team hardly ever goes up, 3rd place team usually goes up. I don't really care above the stats here, I've not paid a lot of attention to the playoffs but the two instances I have are the time we were in them and of course I've looked back at last year on both occasions the team finishing 3rd didn't even get to Wembley, namely ourselves and Brighton. It's a horrible system, that only benefits the team who hit form at the end of the season. Psychologically it would be very difficult to overcome the disappointment for either Brighton or ourselves to have to contend with them after being in the automatic spot for how many months now ? There's a possibility that we could face a team who finished with 20 points less than us and they will prevail especially if it's someone like Sheff Wed who seem to be a recent bogey team for us. It is what it is though and we all knew the rules before the season started, I just hope we don't have to worry about the play offs because I'm not confident at all in our ability to get though them.

Worst possible result for us but hardly unexpected, they are on fire right now and awesome at home. It does mean though that barring a miracle Reading are out of the picture, it's firmly between Brighton, Huddersfield and ourselves. It's a shame we still have this stupid playoff system because those three have consistently shown that they are the best teams in the division and with the history of the playoff system highly likely that one won't be promoted. Honestly Brighton getting 89 points last season on not going up just isn't right, could be an even higher number for the 3rd place team this year.

Although he'll be sorely missed during this difficult stretch coming up, having him fit for the run in could perhaps be more important. If Mitro and Murphy step up now, and start popping in the goals during his absence, we'll be champions of this division for sure.

Still 4 teams in with a shout of automatic, Sheff Wed would need a miracle to overcome the deficit. Reading and Huddersfield playing tonight means we could be down to a three for two situation at the end of the night. 7 more wins gets us to the 90 point mark, that's only half of our remaining games, and it would be a record points total for 3rd place should we hit that and not get automatic. I think we are more than capable of getting 10 wins out of the 14 games left which would put us at 99 pts, surely that's enough ? Beat Bristol and come away undefeated in the 3 away games and we are there IMO, baring a complete Villa like run of form.