10 games gone: judge the season so far

[DubblyDubblyDubbly]

I am reading it. And you're clearly saying Mata has little influence in winning games, which is painfully wrong.

Mourhinos Mata, not Chelski's Mata.. semantics to you, but I know what i meant.

[TRon]

Think we've seen enough to banish any fears people had of a relegation dogfight.  We can and do bite ourselves on the arse too frequently, but we've got the players and the spirit to bounce back from those blips and pull out a performance/result like Liverpool/Chelsea.

 

I don't think anyone is deluded enough to think we'll be having any more European flirtations under Ashley either, whoever the manager is.  Liverpool and Spurs have their shit together now and are firmly positioned with the top 4 of recent seasons.

 

The only question is where we finish in the middle group.  And looking at the upcoming fixtures I'm inclined to look up rather than down.  Whatever we can get off Spurs and Man U would be bonus points but we should take a very good haul from Norwich, West Brom, Swansea, Southampton, Palace and Stoke.

 

I think we should be above Southampton by the time we've played them.  they have Arsenal, Chelsea, Man City and Spurs in addition to us in that period.

 

The only other team above us we can conceivable catch is Everton.  Their coming fixtures are tougher than ours but not ridiculous.  Either way though, 7th or 8th come bed time on boxing day will be a good position to be looking into 2014 with optimism.

 

If we are 7th or 8th come Boxing Day I'll take that, but with a proviso. We should be comfortably in 7th or 8th, not among a whole bunch of smaller clubs miles off the top 6 and a lot closer to the bottom 6. I think we have enough quality in our squad to be well clear of the Swansea's and West Brom's in this division. We should be ranked alongside Everton and that's the team I'll be looking at as a benchmark.

[ponsaelius]

I am reading it. And you're clearly saying Mata has little influence in winning games, which is painfully wrong.

 

He's not like.  He's saying Anita is Mourhino's Mata in terms of a player he's not happy to give starts to.  He's then saying that Anita has little influence.

 

It's funnier to read it the other way, but he has clarified.

 

Surely a more appropriate wording would then be 'Anita is Pardew's Mata'. It reads terribly and does also appear like he's also saying Mata has no influence on games.

[Ikon]

This will be another waste of a season :( Should have cut loose ages ago and hired a quality manager.

God i would have loved that!

[Marko NUFC]

I don't think our situation is as bad as some people make it. We are 10 games into, with 4 wins (Fulham, Aston Villa, Cardiff City, Chelsea) with 2 draws (West Ham, Liverpool) and 4 lost games (Manchester City, Hull City, Everton, Sunderland). With 14 points in total and languishing in 9th position we are very much still in the game for big stuff but we could be in the game for bad stuff down the table. For me, November is the month which will actually show enourmous picture of our season. Traditionally around this time of the season (November-early December) we have lost so many points in the past and checking actual results I came up with these stats:

 

Last season (2012/2013)

NOVEMBER:

Liverpool (A) 1-1        DREW

West Ham (H) 0-1      LOST

Swansea (H)  1-2      LOST

Southampton (A) 0-2  LOST

Stoke City(A) 1-2        LOST

 

EARLY DECEMBER

Wigan (H) 3-0          WON

Fulham (A) 1-2        LOST

Man.City(H) 1-3      LOST

 

Total: 4/24 points

 

 

Season 2011/2012

NOVEMBER

Everton (H) 2-1    WON

Man.City(A) 3-1    LOST

Man.Utd(A) 1-1    DREW

 

EARLY DECEMBER

Chelsea (H) 0-3  LOST

Norwich (A) 2-4  LOST

Swansea (H) 0-0  DREW

WBA (H)  2-3      LOST

 

Total: 5/21 points

 

 

Season 2010/2011

NOVEMBER

Arsenal (A) 1-0      WON

Blackburn (H) 1-2  LOST

Fulham (H) 0-0      DREW

Bolton (A) 1-5      LOST

Chelsea (H) 1-1    DREW

 

EARLY DECEMBER

WBA (A)  1-3        LOST

 

Total: 5/18 points

 

Looking at these results it shows that we have collected arguably the least points in this period of season than in other periods of the respective seasons. Especially when we have 2 home games in a row (which we will have this season as well in November) we have failed to register a win - drawing 2 and losing 4 against opposition against we were the favourites to win).

 

Our fixtures for November and early December this season looks like this:

NOVEMBER

Chelsea (H) 2-0  WON

Tottenham (A) 

Norwich (H)    ***** for me

WBA (H)        ***** crucial games

 

EARLY DECEMBER

Swansea (A)

Man.Utd (A)

Southampton (H)

[Guest chicken little]

A gigantic shrug of a season, on the pitch at least. Given all the shite and idiocy that's been going on you could probably convince me that ninth isn't that bad at all, except the season has been such a non-event thus far I'm only just getting to the point where looking at the table is worthwhile.