1 Defeat

[goatfood]

I'd buy the 'keeping other teams at bay' line, if we were stopping them from scoring hat-loads.

0-0 or 10-10 makes no difference to the goal difference or the points total.
Some people like to see lots of goals.
Some people would prefer to see a tight 0-0

at the end of the season this is neither here nor there in relation to 'keeping teams at bay'.

I agree I'd prefer to see us leaking less and therefore winning more, but at this point I want to see progress and I believe I'm seeing that.
And what's more I actually have faith that this progress will begin to see us turning some of those draws into wins. Sometimes that may be because the defense get it together and we leak less, sometimes it will be because the attack is on fire, sometimes (probably not often) we might even get a bit of luck.

 

[Biamp]

Great stuff.

 

[xirtarg]

It's a strange situation isn't it! Winning breeds confidence, and not losing breeds confidence, and yet last week we beat the best team in the country (in my opinion), and on top of that we hadn't lost for several weeks but this week we still looked short of confidence. Very odd.

I suppose some of the draws would feel like losses, but surely that should have been out of our system by now? Judging from NMT's reports the lads don't seem short of confidence. Maybe we still don't like being away from COMS.

 

[moomba]

Moomba (and others - you aren't the only one putting forward this theory)

You do have a point on that, although as I said I would prefer better than 8 draws or 3 wins and 5 losses.

Which three, I'll take wins against the Scousers, Villa and Chelsea.

We'd be 1 point better off and Villa and the scousers would be a point worse off.

When you go from 3 and 5 to 4 wins, 4 losses (not really a great stretch) it doesn't really matter who you win against and who you lose against.

 

[goatfood]

Moomba (and others - you aren't the only one putting forward this theory)

You do have a point on that, although as I said I would prefer better than 8 draws or 3 wins and 5 losses.

Which three, I'll take wins against the Scousers, Villa and Chelsea.

We'd be 1 point better off and Villa and the scousers would be a point worse off.

When you go from 3 and 5 to 4 wins, 4 losses (not really a great stretch) it doesn't really matter who you win against and who you lose against.

not quite we already had the 3 against chelsea.....

villa 28 (4th)
city 24 (7th - birmingham also on 24 with gd 0 so we could potentially be 8th with extra losses)
liverpool 23 (9th)
and a lot of folks gripes were about the draws to the 'likes' of current bottom of the table teams. And yeah I'd prefer wins against villa and scouse because they are the ones fighting for that 4th spot....but it doesn't work like that does it ;-) (my other choice would be fulham giving us 27 and being in....6th!!!!) we can fudge it and switch it any way, we need to turn some wins i agree but at the moment I see progress and no benefit to having won3 and lost5 of those 8 draws, which to be fair was a good part of the thrust of your initial arguement.

Lets see if we can keep spuds strike force at bay on weds whilst at the same time scoring a hat full ourselves - I've got a spurs fan mate coming round to watch it with us!!!! good lad though despite that.

we are in good shape with a lot to look forward to and progression on the board

 

[leewill31]

5 defeats would be great for the team wouldnt it.

I would look at the last 3 games and see that we have beaten the top team, beaten Arsenal in the 1/4 finals of the cup, and got a draw in a local derby despite having the ref against us and 10 men for a third of the game.

But you would prefer 3 wins and 5 defeats in the last 8. I would prefer 13 games unbeaten and 1 defeat all season.

I take it you have only been supporting City for 1 season and not 35 ! Cause surely you would think 2 points off 4th with a game in hand and a first semi for 28 years is ok ????

with you prophet

Moomba (and others - you aren't the only one putting forward this theory) which 3 games would you have preferred us to win and which 5 would be acceptable losses, because the two tables pasted below are adjusted for two alternatives and neither make the blindest difference to the league position. It is after all the league position that is going to get us into europe, whether that be europa or champs and as far as I can see 6th unbeaten with growing confidence has to be better than 6th with the lads heads down and the fans booing them off the pitch after repeated losses. ffs we can't even take good fighting draws when we get the worst luck without getting on the backs of Hughes and his staff, including various playing staff. Especially when you consider just how many of our regular first team are confidence players. (I've double checked but not triple checked my math so apologies for error)

Home wins Fulham, Burnley, Hull
Away losses Villa, Wigan, Birmingham, Liverpool, Bolton
Pos Name PTS
1 Chelsea 37
2 Man Utd 34
3 Arsenal 31
4 Aston Villa 31
5 Tottenham 27
6 Manchester City 27
7 Liverpool 26
8 Birmingham 26
9 Fulham 22
10 Sunderland 21
11 Stoke City 21
12 Wigan Athletic 20
13 Blackburn 19
14 Burnley 17
15 Everton 17
16 Hull City 16
17 Wolves 16
18 Bolton 15
19 West Ham Utd 14
20 Portsmouth 11


Wins against so called ‘lesser’ opp Bolton, Hull, Burnley(or Wigan makes no odds)
Losses against the rest Villa, Birmingham, Fulham, Liverpool, Wigan(or Burnley)
Pos Name PTS
1 Chelsea 37
2 Man Utd 34
3 Arsenal 31
4 Aston Villa 31
5 Tottenham 27
6 Manchester City 27
7 Liverpool 26
8 Birmingham 26
9 Fulham 25
10 Sunderland 21
11 Stoke City 21
12 Wigan Athletic 20
13 Blackburn 19
14 Burnley 17
15 Everton 17
16 Hull City 16
17 Wolves 16
18 West Ham Utd 14
19 Bolton 12
20 Portsmouth 11

Even if you add another win and take away a loss the net result is a swap with tottenham for us -Ive ignored goal diff but i suppose at a push we might have +14 instead of +8 and be ahead, unlikely with 4 or 5 losses in the mix though, and we could still beat them on weds...I'm a glass half full optimist ;-)

It isn't just about getting points, it's also about keeping others at bay, and drawing achieves that to a certain extent.
It isn't just about winning, if you are also taking points off other teams around you when previously that hasn't been achieved then it is about making progress. We seem to be making progress as far as I can see.

brilliant m8,very well put and worked out indeed!

 

[bizzbo]

I'd buy the 'keeping other teams at bay' line, if we were stopping them from scoring hat-loads.

0-0 or 10-10 makes no difference to the goal difference or the points total.
Some people like to see lots of goals.
Some people would prefer to see a tight 0-0

at the end of the season this is neither here nor there in relation to 'keeping teams at bay'.

I agree I'd prefer to see us leaking less and therefore winning more, but at this point I want to see progress and I believe I'm seeing that.
And what's more I actually have faith that this progress will begin to see us turning some of those draws into wins. Sometimes that may be because the defense get it together and we leak less, sometimes it will be because the attack is on fire, sometimes (probably not often) we might even get a bit of luck.

well, ok, it seemed to me that you were saying that 'keeping teams at bay' had a significance beyond the points accrued. it just seems a slight mis-representation of what has happened in these games.

and I'm glad you pointed out that your statement is only true when applied to the teams we are competing with, i.e. the rest of the top seven. only one third of the teams we have drawn against are from that category. the draw against them IS worth a more than one third of a win, but by the same token the win against them is not three times as valuable as a draw. (hence the chelsea result is scarcely any more valuable than a draw in that game, followed win yesterday would have been).

I agree there has been progress of sorts, but it seems to me that the forwards can't be expected to score any more frequently than they have been doing. If we are to win games the improvement will have to come from the back. This is what concerns me, as I can see no quick fixes, and plugging the gaps will probably involve changing the way the rest of the team play, which often leads to problems in these other areas.

That's why I believe in the adage 'build from the back'. If we are to do that, and go back to square one, I'm worried that we will repeat last season, where no sustained improvement came about until well into the new year.... but I can't believe that is what is on Hughes' mind, as he has identified the period leading up to christmas as a key time to pick up wins in the league. so I'm fascinated to see what happens now. This is where he earns his money. IMO, this is more or less where he will make the job his own, or leave himself looking very vulnerable in the summer.

 

[Chris in London]

Here is the starting 11 from the Bolton game:

Given (joined Jan 09)
Richards (academy product)
Sylvinho (joined Aug 09)
Lescott (joined Aug 09)
Toure (joined July 09)
Kompany (joined Aug 08)
Sweep (joined Aug 08)
Barry (joined June 09)
Bellamy (joined Jan 09)
Tevez (joined July 09)
Adebayor (joined July 09)

Add the subs who were used:

Robinho (joined Sep 08)
Ireland (academy product)
Santa Cruz (joined July 09)

Of the 14 players who represented our club, only 2 have been with the club for more than one complete season. 9 have been with the club for less than 12 months and 7 - half the team - less than 6 months.

It is hardly rocket science to say that a team needs time to gel and to bond. That is precisely what this team is doing, and it isn’t happening overnight. Admittedly, that’s not quick enough for some people but in early August when the entire media was just itching for us to fail (‘expensive flops Manchester city… etc) if anyone had offered us a deal where we only lose 1 game in all competitions in the first five months, we’d have snatched their hand off.

I look at all these away games when we are coming back from behind to get a point at places where we don’t have good records over the years, and I see the bedrock - not the finished article - of something special. The shared experiences of coming back from 2-0 down at home to Burnley, of grinding out a point when the ref and every decision is against us and we are wrongly reduced to 10, of beating the league leaders, when the crowd (like Villa or arsenal) are baying for blood of a former player, are all like money in the bank.

Put it another way. If we get to where we want to be, there will probably come a time in about 2 or 3 years when largely the same team as that which played at Bolton will be 2-0 down away to Bayern Munich after the first 20 minutes. That is when they will look back at games like Burnley, or Liverpool, or Villa, and know that they have turned round difficult situations before. That is when the bond you get by beating Chelsea and Arsenal, and (we hope) the rags becomes even more important.

Sometimes, when I think of what our objective is, and how far we have come in the last 15 months, I despair of those who can’t forgive Hughes for who he used to play for.

 

[bizzbo]

mate, we've been through countless arguments on this thread, and the one thing that has NEVER come up, is 'who he used to play for'.

it's a bit unfair to put words in everyone's mouths, when people have tried quite hard to be fair to each other.

 

[Chris in London]

mate, we've been through countless arguments on this thread, and the one thing that has NEVER come up, is 'who he used to play for'.

it's a bit unfair to put words in everyone's mouths, when people have tried quite hard to be fair to each other.

How else do you explain it?

There are people who regularly post on blue moon (and other sites) who quite happily admit that this is why they want Hughes out. Have people really decided that he can't manage based solely on the evidence of less than 18 months in charge?