TBooksbluearmy said:
Way over-dramatic. Akin to the thread "is the title race over for us" we had pages on just 2 weeks ago -- how dumb does that thread look now?
With the exception of Arsenal (for now), every top team is dropping points left, right and centre. I said a couple of weeks ago that the title may be won with low 80s points (vs. 89pts the past 2 seasons). That's looking more and more likely with every passing week. To get to (say) 83pts, we need 58pts in 25 games. That's an average of 2.3pts/game - pretty much exactly our run rate during the championship season. But we all know that year we had several bad losses. Sunderland, Swansea, Everton to name a few.
So yes, we have to perform at a high level overall from herein out, but every game is definitely not "must win". We can overcome the occasional slip-up and certainly away draws at the other contenders would not be a disaster.
I do think however, we need at least 4pts from this week's away games simply to stop the rot away from home and avoid this becoming a major complex. If we do that and then beat Arsenal at home, then I would have us as firm favourites going into the Xmas period. Especially if Kompany comes through those and looks fighting fit.