Shadow Puppets

My most negative prediction had us finishing 4th with 69 points, on goal difference above Liverpool. That was with wins vs Southampton and Leicester, draws with Everton, Leeds, Chelsea and Brighton, and a loss against Arsenal. And Liverpool dropping points to West Ham (with a draw) but winning all the rest. I think we can definitely better than prediction.

I thought first half the atmosphere was great. Second half flat, but it’s completely understandable. When the game is effectively finished after 21 mins it’s hard for the crowd not to just sit back and relax.

3 more wins and a couple of draws (potentially even only 2 depending on how Liverpool get on). I reckon 67-68 points will be enough.

Their fixture list is incredibly favourable though to be fair. I’ve predicted them to win 7 and lose 1.

Read too much into things much? ?

I'm predicting a draw and anything else is a bonus. Depends which Spurs show up, and depends on how much momentum we can build early on. If we come out of the blocks and get an early goal, the crowd get going etc, I can see a comfortable win, but my head says Spurs are better than we give them credit for.

Just catching up with this. I agree with what most have said, I think the normal flags should be present every game, and maybe big surfers for 9 or 10 big games during the season. However, for games like Sunday, I really think it's important we get flags or scarves or pieces of paper etc on every seat... like last year's Arsenal game. That game felt the most intimidating to me.

I personally can't see us not winning at least 3 games, but could feasibly win 5 in my opinion, if we show up and perform how we have been. St James' will be rocking for Spurs, Brighton, Arsenal... I could definitely see us winning two of those. Weirdly I'm more concerned about the likes of Southampton and Leicester at home and Everton away. Games where the crowd might not be bang up for it which can sometimes seep down onto the pitch.

He's been pretty conservative with some of our results though. Drawing with Spurs, Brighton, Arsenal and Everton and losing to Chelsea. Rest wins.

It's clearly working a treat ?

Even if we don't beat Spurs it's still infinitely doable. Liverpool just aren't going to get maximum points from their last 8 games. In fact, I'll wager that they'll drop points away at West Ham and potentially at home to Spurs next week.

Just done a predictor where Liverpool win all of their remaining games. They can get a maximum of 71 points. We would still finish above them on 72 points if we manage to achieve... Spurs (h) - W Everton (a) - D Southampton (h) - W Arsenal (h) - D Brighton (h) - D Leeds (a) - W Leicester (h) - W Chelsea (a) - D I mean chances are we may lose one or two of those (or we might even win more), but the chances are Liverpool aren't going to get maximum points either considering yesterday's win was their first in their last 5 games. I do think they've got a relatively easy run in, but there's still teams in there that will at least get a couple of draws.

If we get another 12 points we'll almost definitely be finishing top 4 like.

Great! (Should we make it)

On paper, if we play as we know we can at home, we should win. But I keep having nightmares of Liverpool at home... injuries and red cards. Fingers crossed it's a great atmosphere and dominant performance.

I haven't followed the Champions League closely in years... do 4th place still have to go through a qualifying stage in order to reach the group stages?

The game reminded me of NUFC vs Man Utd, but this time we were on the receiving end. A good team that couldn't get going, getting battered by a team that was clicking in everything they did.

I wouldn’t class any of our remaining games as easy. All away games are tricky against teams battling for points. The home games are against decent teams. We just need to continue our points per game ratio and we’ll be fine.

Patchy ?

Eh? Define “recently”? Wolves at home = Good deserved win Forest away = Excellent performance and deserved win Man Utd home = played them off the park and won West Ham away = largely very good performance, barring about 20 poor minutes. Brentford away = poor first half, excellent second half Villa away = very poor

VAR check!!!

2-2 Spurs

I think (hope) we can put that one down to a very bad day at the office. Pretty much every player had a stinker, particularly in midfield. Those games thankfully are few and far between these days! Only real positive was seeing Miggy back. Villa were excellent ?